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The Last Word / Repenting for the curse By Steve Klein In "Back to the Future II," Marty McFly travels to the year 2015. He discovers a world filled with flying cars, hoverboards, robots and hologram news boards. Now, I could suspend disbelief for all that. The one part that was absolutely unrealistic, however, was the scene when he looks at the hologram billboard and sees that the Cubs have won the World Series. Time travel? Maybe. The Cubs winning the World Series? Ludicrous. Advertisement Think I'm exaggerating? Look at the sweeps by Arizona last season and the Dodgers this past weekend. One-hundred years, zero world championships. I rest my case. The thing is, deep down inside we all want to believe they can win, that if there is a curse they can beat it and if there isn't one they can prove its nonexistence. Hey, it's not like they were worshiping idols, a sin that only deserves 70 years of divine punishment. How long can this go on? Let us consider the curse. You can deny its existence, but it's a little like global warming. Can we afford to believe it isn't there? How should we act if it is? With Yom Kippur around the corner, it's time to do a little soul-searching, and I propose that the Cubs try to learn from others who broke long-standing losing streaks. Some teams need just a cosmetic change. The Minnesota Twins franchise (63-year drought) vastly improved its prospects by leaving Washington and soon made it to the 1965 World Series. But the Twins were trumped by Sandy Koufax sitting out on Yom Kippur and lost to him in Game 7 on two days' rest. The trick turned out to be simple. Before the '87 season they donned new caps, replacing the "TC" with a more dignified "M" and bam! They win twice in five years. With the Cubs, however, such a switch is not an option. They're in Chicago, after all. Next. A similar change may also be working its magic on the Tampa Bay Rays, who were never more than one place out of the cellar in their first decade of existence as the Devil Rays. If the Rays do win the World Series this year, the Cubs may want to consider shortering their name, but how much shorter can it get? The Ubs? Next. Other teams have suffered famously lengthy curses. The Chicago White Sox (88-year drought) were cursed by the Black Sox scandal. It was a shadow they could not shake until they made a very simple move, or two moves to be precise. First, they left Old Comiskey in 1990, and when that didn't work they erased the name Comiskey forever and changed it to U.S. Cellular Field in 2003. Two years later, they're World Champs. The solution was almost as elegant as that of American author Nathaniel Hathorne, who escaped the curse of going to an early grave placed on his paternal ancestors by adding a "w" to his last name. And, after all, the curse of Billy Sianis was that there would never be another World Series game in Wrigley Field. But how could they leave the most beloved and homey stadium in baseball? Next. The Boston Red Sox (86-year drought) had to fight a mightier curse for having sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. They had to wait until divisional play made it possible for them to beat this demon by defeating the Yankees in a manner never done before, rallying from a 3-0 series deficit. Once they got past the Yankees, it felt like that moment when you get through the hardest part of the fast. Playing the Cardinals in 2004 was like cruising through the closing Neilah service at Yom Kippur. But the Cubs are not the Red Sox. They didn't trade the greatest ballplayer ever. There's no other franchise they can use to exorcise their demons. And when it comes to the Red Sox Nation, my understanding is they all believed it was just a matter of time, with close calls and bad luck in 1967, 1975 and 1986. For Cubs fans, it has not even been close. They are practically resigned to their fate. The Cubs' sin was simply that their owner expelled a guy from a World Series game for bringing his pet goat. And since that fateful day in 1945 they haven't even played in a World Series, let alone win one. No one wants to see the Cubs move or change their name or anything. They just want to see the Cubs fans' suffering end - though not at the expense of their own favorite team. So what's left if the Cubs want to make it to another World Series? Perhaps they need to embrace this curse. Open the stadium to pet goats, maybe even devote a section in the stands to them. Making a concession in memory of that original goat is a small sacrifice for Yom Kippur. If they can get past that, maybe by 2015 they'll stop being the goats of basebal. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Forgotten peace French FM: I fear distracted world may forget Mideast peace process. Settlers vs. Shin Bet Daniela Weiss: Shin Bet behind attack on left-wing advocate prof. Sternhell.

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