On This Day in Cubs History: 'The Curse of the Billy Goat' is Sealed

The Chicago Cubs went 108 years without winning a World Series, but in that stretch that also went 71 years without winning a pennant.

'The Curse of the Billy Goat' is dead and gone in 2022. The Chicago Cubs broke the Curse in 2016 and laid that goat to rest. Though we've already covered the inception of the Curse, the Cubs still managed to cling onto a desperate hope for that 1945 World Series in which it began.

The held onto that hope until Oct. 10, 1945. That day nearly 42,000 fans packed Wrigley Field to witness a winner-take-all game seven against the Detroit Tigers. It did not go as planned.

The Cubs went into a deep hole in the top of the first inning. Starting pitcher Hank Borowy was unable to record an out before leaving the ballgame. He gave up three first inning earned runs and the Cubs themselves surrendered five total. It was a deficit from which they could not muster a comeback.

Tigers' Hall of Famer Hal Newhouser pitched a complete game and yielded only three runs over nine inning. The Tigers won the series game 9-3 and the series 4-3.

It would be the last fall classic in which the Cubs would participate until 2016.

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