Cursed Ball About to Get Whacked

At Harry Caray’s sports bar, surrounded by mementos of baseball legends, The Ball sits safely inside a display case -- watched over by 13 surveillance cameras, two anti-theft alarms and 24-hour security guards.

All this to protect, at least until Thursday night, what superstitious Cub fans see as the ultimate symbol of bad luck. For this is the baseball that Steve Bartman, the hapless yet loyal Cub fan, inadvertently knocked away from outfielder Moises Alou in last year’s National League championship series.

Alou didn’t catch the foul ball, this ball, and the Florida Marlins rallied to win the game. The Cubs then lost the next game, as well as their chance to get to 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 bar and restaurant for a last peek before the ball is obliterated. “The curse on the Cubs will be lifted.”

Dougherty is among the nearly 30,000 Cubs fans who have sent eager 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, which was founded by and named after the beloved longtime announcer for the Cubs, DePorter bought the ball in December for $113,824.16.

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

They have suggested DePorter roast it, incinerate it, crush it, drown it, drop it into a bucket of acid, split it into two 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.

Some way, any way, get rid of it.

On Thursday night, their pleas will be heeded. Only the method remains a mystery.

“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 nearly six decades without making the World Series, Cub fans have grown used to a string of bad luck that would depress even the condemned.

Many trace the start of the downhill slide to a local saloon owner who, in 1945, bought two tickets to a game. One seat was for him, and one was 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 would always lose.

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

But for DePorter, all of The Ball’s bad vibes have been great for business. Since buying the ball off an Internet auction website, DePorter and the restaurant’s management have been seeking suggestions from Cub 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 raised in the Chicago area and is a longtime Cub fan.

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

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

Rawlings, the 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.

Each day, he would try to destroy as many as a dozen balls. And each day, 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.”

While the experiments rolled on, word of Lantieri’s work began to spread among Cub fans. Eager to lend their advice, fans tracked Lantieri down.

They began calling him at home and on his cellphone. They even went after him at work, on the set of an upcoming Jim Carrey comedy, “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.”

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

The film’s executive team, however, understands and supports the flood of concern: Executive producer James Van Wyck “played baseball and told me to do what I had to do,” Lantieri said.

Last week, Lantieri figured out the perfect ball-destroying solution. But he’s not talking -- and neither is DePorter.

The Ball will meet its surprise ending at a street party outside the bar and restaurant Thursday night. The soiree will be shown live nationwide on MSNBC, as well as at bars in 50 countries.

The “Today Show” will be on hand, and “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.

The event, which Major League Baseball and the Cubs organization support, has been called “Destroy the Ball -- Find the Cure,” as some of the revenue from the street party will be donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Officials with Harry Caray’s said they hoped 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: Steve Bartman.

Harry Caray officials said they invited him, but Bartman -- who’s received death threats over the most-foul mishap -- prefers to avoid attention.