Chicago Cubs fans Pam Noie, left, and Janet Wham react during a watch party, after Game 7 of the baseball World Series between the Cleveland Indians and the Cubs, outside Progressive Field, early Thursday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 CHICAGO (AP) — Next year is here. 
 
 At exactly 11:47 p.m. local time, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series title that had eluded them for 108 years. Fans who packed bars to watch the games on television near Wrigley Field — neither of which existed back in 1908 — erupted in cheers before swarming onto the streets just before midnight Wednesday to celebrate in the shadows of the statues of Cubs greats Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo and legendary announcer Harry Caray. 
 
 As the game ended, the roar from inside the bars and the throng of fans on the streets was deafening. The crowds inside and out sang "go Cubs go" at the top of their lungs. 
 
 As the celebration progressed, thousands of fans poured into the streets leading away from Wrigley, many of them singing "We Are The Champions." 
 
 Fans hugged each other, many of them crying. They took each other's picture and pictures of themselves, and took turns writing their names and words of congratulations in chalk on Wrigley's brick walls. Some got on friends' shoulders to find spots high up on the walls that were not yet covered with names. 
 
 An hour after the game ended there were still thousands of people in the ballpark neighborhood, known as Wrigleyville, and there were still fireworks exploding every few minutes. 
 
 "This was torture," said Mike Delmanowski, a lifelong Cubs fan who flew to Chicago from California just to be surrounded by other Cubs fans. "I would not have missed it for anything." 
 
 "I am so proud to be a part of it," said his wife, Sue, who was crying off and on from the fifth inning. 
 
 Mike Dillon said all he could think about was his father, who died without ever seeing what Dillon witnessed. 
 
 "I came here by myself, but I'm not alone at all," said Mike Dillon, 57. 
 
 Craig and April Likhite drove to Chicago with their 10-year-old son, Cade, because they wanted to see history made with other fans as close to Wrigley as possible. 
 
 "To finally see this in my lifetime with my son here with us, it means everything," Craig Likhite said. "This game with all the ups and downs showed him exactly what it is to be a Cubs fan." 
 
 "My dad passed away this year. He would have loved this," said Likhite, 50. 
 
 Judy Pareti flew in from New York City to watch the game at Murphy's Bleachers, a neighborhood sports bar in a building where her grandfather lived and where his hot dog stand was located. "My dad and grandfather owned it, and I was born here," she said. "I would never want to be anywhere but here for this." 
 
 Liz Wolfe, a 36-year-old physical therapist, said, "People always said if the Cubs win the World Series it would be like hell freezing over. I'm still in shock. This is the most exciting thing in my life." 
 
 Long-time Cubs fan Bob Newhart, who grew up in the Chicago area, tweeted "The billy goat is dead!! As I've said, from the beginning, I'm getting too old for this!" The 87-year-old comedian was alluding to the curse allegedly placed on the team during the 1945 World Series by the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern after he was told his pet goat wasn't welcome at Wrigley. 
 
 The 8-7 extra-inning victory over the Indians in Cleveland came after the emptiness and bitterness of years past when the Cubs found spectacular and sometimes downright strange ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The setbacks prompted the annual refrain of "Wait until next year." 
 
 Every Cubs fan knows those stories, starting with the 1969 team loaded with Hall of Famers that amassed a 9 1/2-game lead in mid-August before they started losing game after game in such numbers that the Miracle Mets not only caught them but ended up winning the National League East by 8 games. 
 
 Then came 1984. After taking the first two games of the National League Divisional Series against the Padres at Wrigley, the Cubs needed just one win in San Diego to advance to the NLCS. They were swept in three games on the West Coast. 
 
 There were other playoff losses but none as painful as in 2003 when in a where-were-you-when-it-happened moment that Cubs fans still have trouble comprehending, Steve Bartman deflected a ball that seemed destined for Moises Alou's glove with the Cubs just five outs from reaching the World Series. 
 
 Fans watched in horror as the Cubs fell apart, and few who left the park that night believed the team would win game seven the next night. They didn't. 
 
 But that was all in the past as Cubs fans throughout Chicago celebrated into the early hours of Thursday. ||||| The Curse of the Billy Goat was a sports-related curse that was supposedly placed on the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise in 1945, by Billy Goat Tavern owner William Sianis. The curse lasted 71 years, from 1945 to 2016. Because the odor of his pet goat, named Murphy, was bothering other fans, Sianis was asked to leave Wrigley Field, the Cubs' home ballpark, during game 4 of the 1945 World Series.[1][2] Outraged, Sianis allegedly declared, "Them Cubs, they ain't gonna win no more," which had been interpreted to mean that the Cubs would never win another National League (NL) pennant (at least for the remainder of Sianis's life). 
 
 The Cubs lost the 1945 World Series to the Detroit Tigers, and did not win a World Series championship again until 2016. The Cubs had last won the World Series in 1908. After the incident with Sianis and Murphy, the Cubs did not play in the World Series for the next 71 years until, on the 46th anniversary of Billy Sianis's death,[3] the "curse" was broken when they defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 5–0 in game 6 of the 2016 National League Championship Series to win the NL pennant.[4] The Cubs then defeated the American League (AL) champion Cleveland Indians 8–7 in 10 innings in game 7 to win the 2016 World Series, 108 years after their last win.[5] 
 
 Origins of the curse [ edit ] 
 
 The exact nature of Sianis's curse differs in various accounts of the incident. Some state that he declared that no World Series games would ever again be played at Wrigley Field, while others believe that his ban was on the Cubs appearing in the World Series, making no mention of a specific venue. Sianis’s family claims that he dispatched a telegram to team owner Philip K. Wrigley which read, “You are going to lose this World Series and you are never going to win another World Series again. You are never going to win a World Series again because you insulted my goat.”[6][7] 
 
 Whatever the truth, the Cubs were up two games to one in the 1945 Series, but ended up losing Game 4, as well as the best-of-seven series, four games to three. The curse was immortalized in newspaper columns over the years, particularly by syndicated columnist Mike Royko. The curse gained widespread attention during the 2003 postseason, when Fox television commentators played it up during the Cubs-Marlins matchup in the National League Championship Series (NLCS).[8] According to an account in the Chicago Sun of October 7, 1945, the goat was turned away at the gate, and Sianis left the goat tied to a stake in a parking lot and went into the game alone. There was mention of a lawsuit that day, but no mention of a curse. 
 
 Between that 1908 triumph, which was the Cubs' second world championship (they'd also won the Series in 1907 to become baseball's first back-to-back winners as well as the first franchise to appear in three consecutive World Series), and 1945, the first year of the alleged Billy Goat curse, the Cubs won the National League pennant six times but failed to win the Series: in 1910, in 1918 (won by the Boston Red Sox who themselves would soon become victims of an alleged baseball curse and not win another Series for 86 years), in 1929, in 1932 (known for Babe Ruth's called shot at Wrigley Field), in 1935 (a re-match of the 1908 series against the Detroit Tigers, with the Tigers winning this time, their first Series triumph in five appearances dating back to the early 1900s), and in 1938. 
 
 Alleged curse incidents [ edit ] 
 
 On September 9, 1969, at Shea Stadium, the Cubs played the New York Mets in a critical pennant race game. A stray black cat walked between Cubs captain Ron Santo, who was on deck, and the Cubs dugout. The Mets would pull ahead of the Cubs in that series and eventually win both the newly formed NL East and the 1969 World Series.[9] 
 
 In 1984, the Cubs’ postseason appearance was dashed by the San Diego Padres. The Cubs were victorious in the first two games of the best-of-five series. However, in game five, first baseman Leon Durham let a ground ball get past his allegedly wet glove in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Padres went on to score four runs to win the game and the series.[10] 
 
 In 1989, the Cubs won 93 games and faced the San Francisco Giants in the National League Championship Series, now a best-of-seven series. After splitting the first two games at home, the Cubs headed to the Bay Area, where despite holding a lead at some point in each of the next three games, bullpen meltdowns and managerial blunders ultimately led to three straight losses. 
 
 In 1998, behind NL MVP Sammy Sosa, the Cubs won the Wild Card after winning a tiebreaker game vs the Giants. However, they were swept in the National League Division Series by the Atlanta Braves. 
 
 On October 14, 2003, in the eighth inning of Game 6 of the NLCS, with Chicago ahead 3–0 and holding a three games to two lead in the best of seven series, several spectators attempted to catch a foul ball off the bat of Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo. One of the fans, Steve Bartman, reached for the ball, deflecting it and disrupting a potential catch by Cubs outfielder Moisés Alou. If Alou had caught the ball, it would have been the second out in the inning and the Cubs would have been just four outs away from winning their first National League pennant since 1945. Instead, the Cubs ended up surrendering eight runs in the inning and losing the game, 8–3. When they were eliminated in the seventh game the next day, the incident was seen as the "first domino" in the turning point of the series.[11] 
 
 The Cubs won their division in both 2007 and 2008, but were swept in the NLDS both years by the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers respectively. 
 
 In 2015, the Cubs finished second in the National League Wild Card race and defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Wild Card Game and the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS to advance to the NLCS against the New York Mets. However, the Cubs batted an NLCS record low of .164 and lost the series in a 4-game sweep. (The Cubs thus became the first team ever to get swept in a playoff series by a team they swept in their regular season series.) 
 
 Sianis's goat was named Murphy. In the 2015 National League Championship Series, this was referenced by fans of the New York Mets, who joked that Daniel Murphy, the Mets second baseman and series MVP, was "not the first GOAT (Greatest of All Time, in reference to Murphy's postseason heroics to that point) named Murphy to keep the Cubs out of the World Series".[12] 
 
 Attempts to break the curse [ edit ] 
 
 Prior to his death on October 22, 1970, Billy Sianis himself attempted to lift the curse. Sam Sianis, his nephew, has gone to Wrigley Field with a goat multiple times in attempts to break the curse, including on Opening Day in 1984 and again in 1989, both years in which the Cubs went on to win their division. In 1994, Sam Sianis went again, with a goat, to stop a home losing streak, and in 1998 for the Wild Card tie-breaker game, which the Cubs won.[13] 
 
 In 2003 (the Chinese zodiac's Year of the Goat), a group of Cubs fans headed to Houston with a billy goat named "Virgil Homer" and attempted to gain entrance to Minute Maid Park, home of the Astros, division rivals of the Cubs at the time.[14] After they were denied entrance, they unfurled a scroll, read a verse and proclaimed they were "reversing the curse". The Cubs won the division that year and then came within five outs of playing in the World Series, but were undone by the Florida Marlins' eight-run rally immediately following the Steve Bartman incident. The Cubs then lost the following game and with it the series. (The Marlins went on to win the World Series against the New York Yankees.) Further salting the wound, the Astros earned their first World Series berth two years later and their crosstown rival the Chicago White Sox won the series. 
 
 On February 26, 2004, at the Harry Caray Restaurant in downtown Chicago, the Bartman baseball was electrocuted in an attempt to break the curse, leaving nothing but a heap of string behind. 
 
 In another bizarre twist, it was reported that a butchered goat was hung from the Harry Caray statue on October 3, 2007, to which The Chicago Sun-Times noted: "If the prankster intended to reverse the supposed billy goat curse with the stunt, it doesn't appear to have worked."[15] While the Cubs did win the NL Central division title in 2007 and 2008, they were swept in the first round of the postseason in both years: by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2007 and the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2008. The elimination by Arizona came on October 6, the same date that the goat appeared at Wrigley Field in 1945.[16] The act was repeated before the home opener in 2009, this time a goat's butchered head being hung from the statue. The act was futile as the Cubs were eliminated from postseason contention on September 26, 2009.[17] 
 
 In 2008, a Greek Orthodox priest sought to end the curse during the 2008 playoffs with a spraying of holy water in and around the Cubs dugout to no avail.[18] 
 
 On April 1, 2011, a social enterprise called Reverse The Curse, dedicated to bringing innovations to poverty by giving goats to families in developing countries, was initiated.[19] The goats provide the family with milk, cheese, and alternative income to help lift them out of poverty. Reverse The Curse has expanded into reversing the "curses" that afflict the world's children in education and obesity. 
 
 On February 25, 2012, a group of five Chicago Cubs fans calling themselves Crack the Curse set out on foot from Mesa, Arizona (home to the Cubs' spring training facilities) to Wrigley Field. They brought along a goat named Wrigley whom they believed would be able to break the Curse of the Billy Goat upon arrival at Wrigley Field. Additionally, they attempted to raise $100,000 for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.[20] 
 
 On April 10, 2013, a severed goat's head was delivered to the Cubs in a possible effort to lift the curse on the team. It was addressed to the club's owner Thomas S. Ricketts.[21] 
 
 On September 22, 2015, Patrick Bertoletti, Tim Brown, Takeru Kobayashi, Kevin Strahle and Bob Shoudt consumed a 40-pound goat in 13 minutes and 22 seconds at Taco in a Bag restaurant in Chicago.[22] 
 
 On October 7, 2016, the owners of The Chicago Diner, a local vegetarian eatery near Wrigley Field, teamed up with Farm Sanctuary to try to reverse the Curse of the Billy Goat by displaying posters in the windows at their locations. The posters feature a goat named Peanut who urges Chicagoans to “reverse the curse” by going meat-free.[23] 
 
 Former Cubs who won a World Series title elsewhere [ edit ] 
 
 Another factor that may play a role in the curse is the number of players (42 of them are listed below) who won World Series titles after leaving the Cubs (known as the Ex-Cubs Factor). These players include Andy Pafko (who, coincidentally, played in the 1945 World Series as a member of the Cubs), Gene Baker, Smoky Burgess, Don Hoak, Dale Long, Lou Brock (whose first title was in 1964 after a mid-season trade to the St. Louis Cardinals), Lou Johnson, Jim Brewer, Moe Drabowsky, Don Cardwell, Ken Holtzman, Paul Noce, Billy North, Fred Norman, Bill Madlock, Manny Trillo, Greg Gross, Rick Monday, Burt Hooton, Bruce Sutter, Willie Hernández, Milt Wilcox, Joe Niekro, Dennis Eckersley, Joe Carter, Greg Maddux, Joe Girardi (as both a player and a manager), José Vizcaíno, Glenallen Hill (after his second stint with the Cubs; his title came in 2000 after a mid-season trade), Luis Gonzalez, Mike Morgan, Mark Grace, Mark Bellhorn, Bill Mueller, Scott Eyre (whose title came in 2008 after he had been traded from the Cubs during the season), Tom Gordon, Matt Stairs, Jamie Moyer, Mark DeRosa, Mike Fontenot, Ryan Theriot, Ángel Pagán, and, in 2013, Ryan Dempster. Dontrelle Willis and Jon Garland were traded as minor leaguers (coincidentally, the former won a World Series ring with the Marlins team that defeated the Cubs in the 2003 NLCS). Tim Lincecum, who went on to win three World Series titles, was originally drafted by the Cubs, but he did not sign with them.[24] 
 
 End of the curse [ edit ] 
 
 The Cubs ended the 2016 season with a 103–58 (.640) record. It was their first 100-win season since 1935 ( 100–54 , .649), their best since 1910 ( 104–50 , .675), and the sixth 100-win season in franchise history. 
 
 The Cubs won the National League Championship Series (NLCS), their first pennant in 71 years, with a 5–0 shutout in Game 6 against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Wrigley Field on October 22, 2016, the "curse" was broken on the 46th anniversary of Billy Sianis's death.[3][4] 
 
 The Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians play Game 7 of the 2016 World Series in Cleveland on November 2, 2016. The Cubs won, ending their 108-year losing streak. 
 
 In 2016, the Cubs won the World Series for the first time since 1908, ending the historic 108-year drought. 
 
 The Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series in seven games after trailing in the series 3 games to 1. They won game 7 by a score of 8–7 in 10 innings at Progressive Field in Cleveland, Ohio.[5] 
 
 See also [ edit ] 
 
 Cookies for sale in Chicago during the 2016 season
– In Chicago, next year is here. At exactly 11:47pm local time Wednesday night, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series title that had eluded them for 108 years. Fans who packed bars to watch the games on television near Wrigley Field—neither of which existed back in 1908—erupted in cheers before swarming onto the streets just before midnight to celebrate in the shadows of the statues of Cubs greats Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, and legendary announcer Harry Caray, the AP reports. As the game ended, the roar from inside the bars and the throngs of fans on the streets was deafening. The crowds inside and out sang "go, Cubs, go" at the top of their lungs. As the celebration of the 8-7 win over the Cleveland Indians in Game 7 progressed, thousands of fans poured into the streets leading away from Wrigley, many of them singing "We Are the Champions." Fans hugged each other, many of them crying, and took turns writing their names and words of congratulations in chalk on Wrigley's brick walls. Longtime Cubs fan Bob Newhart, who grew up in the Chicago area, tweeted: "The billy goat is dead!! As I've said, from the beginning, I'm getting too old for this!" The 87-year-old comedian was alluding to the curse allegedly placed on the team during the 1945 World Series by the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern after he was told his pet goat wasn't welcome at Wrigley.