The Marlins Got Lou Piniella's Goat

At this point we're all more than familiar with the "curse" of the Chicago Cubs. More specifically, the Billy Goat curse. It's one of those stories that are never going to die until the Cubs finally win a World Series, and one that people will always pull out to have a bit of fun at the Cubs expense.

The Marlins did this recently, having their mascot Billy the Marlin -- because why wouldn't a marlin be named Billy -- parade a goat in front of the Cubs dugout while they were in Miami last weekend. While it was all in good fun, not everybody seemed to find it very humorous. First and foremost, Cubs skipper Lou Piniella.

"Tasteless," Piniella told the Chicago Tribune that night. "Every time we come here, they do some kind of gimmick. I don't know who thinks them up. I mean, when they come to Chicago, we don't fry marlin."

"I don't believe [in the curse], but you know three years of it, you get a little tired of it. You would think that wouldn't happen in a Major League Baseball park," Piniella continued. "Their owner didn't like it, either. So look, I know one thing, they came back in grand fashion and took two out of three from us, but that had nothing to do with the Billy-goat, believe me."

A spokesman for the Marlins said that it was purely for entertainment and that "from the looks of things, there were plenty of laughs at the park." Just none coming from the Cubs dugout.

While I think it's stupid I find it hard to blame the Marlins for doing something like this. I mean, you have to keep the 500 people in the stands at Land Shark Stadium entertained somehow, right? Still, I think they erred in going the goat route. After all, the Marlins were the team who came back to beat the Cubs in the 2003 NLCS after the infamous Steve Bartman incident, so having some guy dressed like Bartman standing in front of the Cubs dugout would have been much more apropos.