What’s in a Name?

                This Baseball postseason has been a story of underdogs, with teams like the Houston Astros, New York Mets and Chicago Cubs getting the chance to bring long awaited fame back to their franchise. Although the Astros got eliminated after a tough battle with the Kansas City Royals, the Cubs and Mets joined together in the National League Championship Series to battle for the NL Pennant. Ultimately, the Mets handed the Cubs the loss in a four game sweep. One player in particular though made the Cubs shrink back into their den for winter hibernation. In fact, ever since the Cubs organization was founded back in 1870, the name Murphy has given them trouble time and time again.

                The Murphy curse started in 1908, the last time the Cubs had won it all. They were owned by Charles Murphy, who supposedly started the curse when he got banned from the celebration party by the players. The team had gotten mad at him for selling World Series tickets at ridiculously high prices which made it hard for a lot of the fans to buy them, so they kicked him out. Later, in 1945, a fan and his billy goat were denied entry to one of the last World Series games the Cubs would ever play in. The goat’s name turned out to be Murphy and the Cubs ended up losing that game and thus the Series. They haven’t been it since then. They failed to make it into the postseason in 1969 when the Mets, owned by Johnny Murphy, suddenly overtook them in the standings and went on to win the World Series. Later, up 2 games to none in the NLCS again against the San Diego Padres, they lost 3 straight at Jack Murphy stadium and were denied World Series access again.  Flash forward to current day and Cubs and Mets are facing each other once again. After having a horrible season, Daniel Murphy stepped out into the cold October air and unleashed a torrent of hits and all-star defensive plays. He hit seven home runs in the first two rounds of the postseason, including  four against the Cubs. He also hit for .529 with 6 RBI and 6 runs scored, while gaining NLCS MVP honors.

                The Cubs have made a historic playoff run this season, and will definitely continue their excellence on field for the next couple of years, but this year they just had the unfortunate luck to run into the one player with the one name that has cursed them for years and years. As the famous Murphy’s Law states, “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” In the Cub’s case, as long as that anything’s name is Murphy, then it’ll go wrong and some.