Imrem: Yes, Chicago Cubs take big step in beating, yes, the curse

The Chicago Cubs will continue to be cursed, jinxed and hexed until they aren't.

Personally, I don't believe in that stuff … that supernatural stuff … except when it comes to the Cubs.

It's a fact.

The Cubs are cursed, jinxed and hexed.

You can look it up.

(Don't ask me where, just go ahead and look it up.)

There's no other explanation for a pro sports team going since 1908 without winning a championship.

But you know what? The Cubs sure looked like curse-busters Tuesday night when they won 6-5 at San Francisco to win the best-of-five NLDS in four games.

The Cubs were losing by 3 runs in the top of the ninth inning. The world of baseball was making plans for a winner-take-all fifth game Thursday night in Wrigley Field. A Giants fan in the stands wore a dreaded billy goat head.

Remember, the Giants had won their previous 10 elimination games, including one Monday night. This was a team that wouldn't exit easily.

But the Cubs took advantage of the Giants' shaky bullpen for a single, a walk, a series of more hits, rat-a-tat-tat … and before anyone knew it the Cubs were leading and then celebrating a victory in the middle of the infield.

Much more needs to be done … winning the NLCS … actually winning the World Series … slaying the ghosts once and for all.

But right now the Cubs are as alive as the curses that haunt their fans.

Of course, nothing is definitive when it comes to this slippery subject.

First let's acknowledge that the ancient, wrinkled, yellowed elephant around every corner is the Cubs' droughts: They haven't won a World Series in 108 years or played in one in 71 years.

Ignore those facts? Not amid headlines that blared like this one last Friday in The New York Times, “The Cubs Confront the Curse: Is This the Year?”

Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts was quoted as saying, “But there is no curse.”

Hah!

Good teams … bad luck … championship drought … sure does sound like a curse.

Cubs pitcher Jon Lester mentioned “a goat or a black cat” in The New York Times.

Tuesday, though, Lester sort of backtracked on the concept of curses but didn't hide from the Cubs' droughts.

“We've talked about wanting to be the team that wins the World Series — a Cubs World Series,” Lester said.

It's amusing that some believe that the droughts and curses won't apply pressure on Cubs players.

So many players have been eager to come to the Cubs because helping to end the drought would be so rewarding.

Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein might have found it appealing when Ricketts recruited him in 2011.

Epstein already had been the Red Sox general manager when they broke their Curse of the Bambino in 2004. Busting curses again with the Cubs would be priceless.

Now, with accomplishing the mission in clear view, you think Cubs players won't feel the pressure to take those final steps to glory?

They'll hear questions like, “What will it be like to never have to pay for a drink in Chicago again after winning the first Cubs championship in more than a century?”

Tuesday night the Cubs took another step toward finding out.

But, sorry, the Cubs still will be cursed until they win a World Series.

You can look it up somewhere.

mimrem@dailyherald.com