Cubs fans hope to exorcise 58-year-old curse by destroying 'The Ball'

By P.J. Huffstutter
Los Angeles Times

	MORRY GASH / AP Fan Steve Bartman knocks the ball away from Chicago's Moises Alou during last year's playoff game against Florida.
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All this to protect, at least until tonight, what superstitious Chicago Cubs fans see as the ultimate symbol of bad luck. After all, this is the baseball that Steve Bartman, a hapless yet loyal fan, inadvertently knocked away from Cubs left fielder Moises Alou last year during Game 6 of the National League Championship Series.

Alou didn't catch the foul ball, this ball, for the second out of the eighth inning, and the Florida Marlins went on to score eight runs to win the game, 8-3. The Cubs then lost Game 7, as well as their chance to reach the World Series, where they haven't been since 1945.

"If we destroy that ball, it'll finally be all right," said Jeremy Dougherty, 38, a construction worker who dropped by the downtown restaurant for a last peek before the ball is obliterated. "The curse on the Cubs will be lifted."

Dougherty is among nearly 30,000 Cubs fans who have sent e-mails, made pleading phone calls and scrawled desperate notes on the bar's cocktail napkins to Grant DePorter, managing partner of the Harry Caray's Restaurant Group, founded by and named after the beloved longtime voice of the Cubs.

DePorter bought the ball in December for $113,824.

The Cubbies faithful all want one thing: to destroy The Ball.

'The Ball' on death row The baseball was transported yesterday from Harry Caray's about a block away to a $300-a-day suite at the Amalfi Hotel, where a public viewing was held from 4-6 p.m. The baseball was given a massage before being served a final meal of lobster, prime rib and a Budweiser. Flanked by four bodyguards, the baseball was to be escorted this morning to the NBC Tower on Michigan Avenue, where "Today" show host Katie Couric planned to reveal the manner of execution. At 7:32 p.m. (5:32 p.m. PST), Dutchie Caray, Harry's widow, is expected to propose an annual toast to her late husband. Then, accompanied by music from Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins and Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, the execution is scheduled to be broadcast live during MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." — South Florida Sun-Sentinel

They have suggested DePorter roast it, incinerate it, crush it, drown it, drop it into a bucket of acid, split it with an ax, put it in front of a firing squad, launch it into outer space, shove it into a shredder, scatter its remains at sea, even freeze it in liquid nitrogen and shatter it into a million pieces.

Their pleas will come true tonight at a street party outside Harry Caray's. Only the method remained a mystery last night.

The soiree will be shown live nationwide by MSNBC, as well as at bars in 50 countries. "We also expect crews from CNN and ESPN to be here," said Beth Goldberg Heller, director of special events for Harry Caray's Restaurant Group.

"This ball is baseball's anti-trophy," DePorter said. "I had a pit in my stomach, for sure, because it was so expensive. But what would happen if we didn't destroy it and some Marlins fan got ahold of it? What if someone used it to psych out the Cubs next year? No, it's got to go."

After 58 consecutive seasons without an appearance in the World Series, Cubs fans are accustomed to a string of bad luck that would depress even the condemned.

Many trace the start of the slide to a local shop owner who bought two tickets to a game in 1945. One seat was for him, the other for his goat.

When Wrigley Field officials refused to let the goat in, the shop owner reportedly cursed the Cubs: Until they allowed his goat to enter, the Cubs always would lose.

"And they lost," team historian Ed Hartig said. "This is a very superstitious sports town."

For DePorter, though, The Ball's bad vibes have been great for business. Since buying the ball off an Internet auction Web site, DePorter and the restaurant's management have been wooing suggestions from Cubs fans on ways to whack it.

Among those clamoring to blow it up was Michael Lantieri, a Hollywood mechanical-effects supervisor. Lantieri, who won an Oscar for his work on "Jurassic Park," was reared in the Chicago area and is a longtime Cubs fan.

	M. SPENCER GREEN / AP Dutchie Caray, left, wife of the late Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray, and Nick Kladis, part owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, look at a display case holding the infamous Bartman baseball, deflected by a fan during the Cubs 2003 playoff loss to Florida, and other Cubs memorabilia.

"When I heard that Grant was going to destroy the ball, I e-mailed him a couple ideas," Lantieri said. "I'm used to blowing stuff up for the movies."

DePorter, who declined to disclose Lantieri's ideas, contacted the Hollywood expert, who agreed to donate his time and figure out the perfect way to vaporize the ball.

Rawlings, a St. Louis-based sporting-goods company that makes equipment for Major League Baseball, shipped Lantieri boxes of balls — as well as information on their history and material makeup.

He would try to destroy as many as a dozen balls each day. And the results just weren't destructive enough.

Fire? "The baseball burned on the outside, but not at the core," Lantieri said.

Crushing it from pressure? "There were still large chunks that could be used as a ball," he said.

Shredding? "Don't ask," he replied.

"I even went to my black Labrador and told her to destroy it," Lantieri said. "She couldn't hurt it."

Word of Lantieri's work began to spread among Cubs fans, who began calling him: at home, on his cellphone. They even went after him at work, on the set of the upcoming Jim Carrey film, "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events."

"My own phone has probably rang 100 times today alone, and the production office gets a dozen calls on this a day," Lantieri said.

Lantieri last week said he figured out the perfect ball-destroying solution. But he's not talking — and neither is DePorter.

The event, supported by Major League Baseball and the Cubs organization, has been called "Destroy the Ball — Find the Cure," and some revenues will be donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Officials with Harry Caray's said they hope to raise as much as $2 million from merchandise sales and event sponsors, as well as donations from partygoers.

One key player is not expected to be at the cleansing of the Cubs' bad mojo: Bartman. Harry Caray officials said they had invited him, but Bartman — who reportedly was crushed by his role in history and has received death threats over the foulest of mishaps — prefers to avoid the attention.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company