April 21, 2005    Whether or not you are a fan of any of these teams/individuals, this has been one hell of a year in sports.  How many times have we heard that someone is the greatest (fill in the blank) to never win a championship?  This past 13 months has had sports announcers repeatedly declaring that the “monkey is off the back”.  And like I mentioned before, even if you don’t like this team/individual, it adds to the drama and the emotion of the sport and makes it more interesting.   So where did the trend start?  Well, I'll tell you.  It was last year at Wrestlemania when Chris Benoit won the World Championship for the first time in his 14 year career.     Oh, you wanted non-scripted sports.  Sorry.   It really started at the 2004 Masters.  Phil Mickelson had been given the moniker of “the greatest golfer to never win a major”.  On Sunday, he was in the final pairing with Chris DiMarco.  He didn’t get off to a very good start, and he was 2 over after 6 holes.  Everyone was thinking the same thing.   All throughout the 2004 NBA playoffs, the story was Kobe and Shaq.  When it came to the Finals, it was the Lakers and the Pistons, coached by Larry Brown.  Brown had been labeled “best coach to never win a championship” for years.  He had a chance in 2001 with the Philadelphia 76ers, but the Lakers were too much to handle that year.  Not much attention had been given to the Pistons last season.  They were criticized for taking on Rasheed Wallace who ranks #1 every year in picking up technical fouls.  That was just about the only media attention they received.  It was all about the Lakers, Phil Jackson, and of course, Kobe and Shaq.  Most people predicted that the Lakers would sweep the series for an easy title.  Every sportswriter What story do we get reminded of every single year in the baseball playoffs?  The Curse of the Bambino.  If you’ve been living underground for the past 87 years and haven’t resurfaced to hear this, Babe Ruth was traded by the Red Sox to the Yankees many, many years ago.  He put a “curse” on the Sox saying they’d never win another World Series.  The Sox got close several times, but some sort of fate always made it not to be.  My former roommate, Bro, was from Boston.  When he was watching Sox games, all I had to say was “Buckner”, and he’d lose it and start throwing stuff at me.  So last year the ALCS pitted the Yankees against the Red Sox.   The Yankees jumped up on the Sox three games to none.  A little history lesson here:  No team in baseball had ever won a series after being down 3-0!  Red Sox fans were already planning for next year.  But somehow, someway the Sox rallied and won the 4th game.  That gave them a little momentum.  They scratched out a win in game 5.  Then Joe Torre, the Yankees manager, started throwing everything he could at the Sox.  It proved to be a bad call because the Yankees bullpen was exhausted.  The Sox then made the most miraculous comeback in baseball history to win the ALCS and move on to the World Series.  They beat their biggest rival and most hated team in baseball (or most loved, depending on who you are).   What does that leave?  How about Roy Williams?  I was told not to pick UNC in my office pool because everyone kept saying that no team coached by Roy Williams would ever win.  I picked them anyway, because I thought, "Look at the year the 'best to never win' guys are having.  Why WOULDN’T this be the year for Roy, too?"  Williams had been the coach of Kansas when the Jayhawks had very good teams.  Williams took them to the Final Four twice in 2 years, but leaving empty-handed and earning himself the title   Who will be next?  If you are a Cubs fan, you’re thinking you are due to break the Curse of the Billy Goat.  If you are a White Sox fan, you are thinking the baseball gods have surely forgiven them for throwing the Series for gambling purposes, right?  If you are an Atlanta Hawks, New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, or a Cleveland Browns fan, you’ll be waiting a while.  But surely someone out there is the best to never win something, and I think sports is more fun when those guys finally come out on top. Until next time, keep throwing up those T’s for….T-BONE!                                                                             Josh 'T-Bone' Pigott                                                                                   Contact Me

The Bone Pile

The Monkeys Have Left the Building

Here he goes, choking again.  Only this time it wasn’t
because of Tiger Woods, but another big threat that
was tearing up the course:  Ernie Els.  But then a
new side of Sunday Phil showed up.  He shot a 5
under par 31 on the back nine and looked like he
was having fun the entire time.  He drained a birdie
putt on 18 to put himself over Els as the Champion.  I’
ve never seen a guy so relieved.  The crowd was
ready for it.  TV viewers were ready for it.  Phil was
ready for it.  I honestly think Phil wears his green
jacket around the house and to social events still.

said Larry Brown couldn’t win the big one.  The
Pistons shocked the world and won the first game
in Los Angeles.  Ok, so the Lakers would win it in
5, right?  The Lakers did manage to win game 2,
but when they went to Motown, they got
massacred.  The Pistons stayed dominant and won
the Championship in 5 games.  “The monkey is off
his back!” proclaimed announcers Marv Albert and
Bill Walton in reference to Larry Brown.  I don’t
think anyone was expecting this one... except for
Larry and his team.

But it didn’t mean anything until they
won the big one.  No drama here
against the St Louis Cardinals.  
They had just been in a war with the
Houston Astros and had nothing left
in the tank.  The Sox rode that wave
of momentum and swept the Series
to “Reverse the Curse.”  I remember
hearing announcer Joe Buck say,
“The monkey is off their backs”.

(yeah, you guessed it) “the best college basketball
coach to never win a championship.”  I won’t go into
much detail over the tournament, but it was clear
throughout that UNC was the best team in the nation.  
That doesn’t always lead to a championship, though.  
Villanova gave them a scare, but that just
strengthened them to finish strong and win the title.  
And can you guess what I heard the announcers say
about Roy Williams?  Yeah, the monkey thing again.

The Curse of the Billy Goat
The Cubs haven't been in the World
Series since 1945, and haven't won
one since 1908. This is particularly
unfortunate considering such recent
playoff runs as 1984, 1989, 1998, and
2003. While similar to the "Curse of
the Bambino" endured by the Boston
Red Sox because of selling Babe
Ruth to the Yankees, the Cubs suffer
from an even stronger "Curse of the
Billy Goat." The curse was placed on
the Cubs in 1945 by William "Billy
Goat" Sianis, then owner of the
Lincoln Tavern, as part of a publicity
stunt. Billy Goat was a Greek
immigrant and went on to open the
world famous Billy Goat Tavern.
Sianis also happened to be a rabid
Cubs fan and attempted to bring his
goat, "Murphy," into game four of the
1945 World Series against the Detroit
Tigers. Murphy even had his own
ticket and had successfully gotten into
the Stadium earlier in the year to
watch a Blackhawks game. As Sianis
walked into Wrigley Field, the ushers
prevented his entry, telling him no
goats were allowed. When Billy Goat
asked for an appeal directly to owner
P.K. Wrigley, P.K. told them to allow
Billy Goat in but not Murphy. When
Billy Goat asked why, they said,
"Because the goat smells." In
retaliation, Sianis cast a "goat curse"
over the Cubs by saying, "Cubs, they
not gonna win anymore."
Subsequently, the Tigers won the
series and the Cubs have never been
back. The Cubs' loss prompted Billy
Goat to send a telegram to P.K.
Wrigley asking, "Who smells now?"
Billy Goat supposedly lifted the curse
in 1969, a year before he passed
away, but the Cubs blew a nine game
lead that year to the lowly Mets
causing some to believe that the
curse remains in place.

The Chicago Black Sox
The conspiracy was the brainchild of
White Sox first baseman Chick Gandil
and Joseph "Sport" Sullivan, a
professional gambler of his
acquaintance. During the 1919
baseball season the Chicago White
Sox had shown themselves to be the
best team in the leagues and, having
clinched the American League
pennant, were installed as the
bookmaker's favorites to defeat the
Cincinnati Reds in the Series. At the
time, gambling on baseball was rife
and there were many stories about
fixed games during the regular
season, which were typically ignored
by team owners and administrators.

Gandil enlisted seven of his
teammates, motivated by a mixture of
greed and a dislike of penurious club
owner Charles Comiskey, to
implement the fix. The seven were
the starting pitchers Eddie Cicotte
and Claude "Lefty" Williams,
outfielders Shoeless Joe Jackson and
Oscar "Happy" Felsch, and infielders
Swede Risberg, Buck Weaver and
Fred McMullin. Sullivan and his two
associates Bill Burns and Billy
Maharg, somewhat out of their depth,
approached the wealthy New York
gambler Arnold Rothstein to provide
the money for the players, who were
promised a total of $100,000. Even
before the Series started on October 1
there were murmurs amongst the
gambling community that things were
not square, and the influx of money
saw the odds on Cincinnati fall
rapidly. The rumors also reached the
press box where a number of
correspondents, including Hugh
Fullerton of the Chicago Herald and
Examiner and the ex-player and
manager Christy Mathewson, resolved
to compare notes on any plays and
players that they felt were
questionable.

Chris Benoit
March 14, 2004, proved to be the
biggest night of Chris Benoit's career.
That was the night that all his
dreaming as a teenager, training in
Stu Hart's Dungeon, competing in
Japan and putting up with the politics
of WCW finally paid off. It was on this
night that Chris Benoit became
immortalized, forcing Triple H to tap
out to the Crippler Crossface, en route
to capturing the World Heavyweight
Championship at WrestleMania.