Baseball curses, howler monkeys and evening the score with Mayan gods

Glen Arbor Sun

UTILA (Islas de la Bahia), Honduras – How he found me down here I have no idea. But I have no doubt it was he who renewed the hex.

The two Chicagoans and I were as far from Wrigleyville as possible (a sleazy sports bar in the Guatemalan highlands, in fact) to watch Game 6 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday, October 14 – an affair that we expected would vault our beloved Cubs into the World Series for the first time since the Second World War. Everything was going according to plan: Mark Prior still on the mound with a 3-0 lead in the eighth. One out, thus five outs away from the dance.

Then disaster struck.



He didn’t look imposing, nor hell-bent on breaking our hearts. Just a short Mayan Indian with dirty jeans and an old San Diego Padres cap pulled over his greasy hair. But he walked into the bar with one out in the eighth, ordered some drink that shamans use to curse rival villages, looked me straight in the eye and tipped the cap – the logo of the team that beat us in ’84, the last time the Cubbies were on the verge of the Series with a two-game lead, and lost three straight. Then it all fell apart. Déjà vu all over again.

The foul ball that the blundering idiot in the leftfield seats prevented Moises Alou from catching; the easy groundball that ate up Alex Gonzalez; and, of course, the waters flooded the earth once again.

We knew it was over. We knew the Cubs couldn’t rebound from that demoralizing loss and take Game 7 the following night. But like widows at a funeral, witnessing the burial is an obligation.

I read Nietzsche after Game 6 and showed up the following night in an existential mood, denying curses or the presence of any supernatural forces. (BLEEP) FATALISM! GO CUBS read the napkin at our table.

But by the sixth inning the Marlins had chased Kerry Wood and we were resorting to paganism ourselves. David, Greg and I began calling friends located in all four geographical directions of Chicago, asking them each to take a shot of liquor and throw it over their right shoulder: Minneapolis, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Guatemala. We even placed shots of whiskey on the alter in front of the Mayan drinking god, Tekún.

Nothing worked. It turned out later the whiskey shots were merely water. The waitress at bar Salon Tekún was clearly in cahoots with baseball’s powers that be.

We were forced to stomach a miserable loss and an early winter. Sammy Sosa had told me, himself, in Mesa, Arizona last March that he would play in the World Series this October. But it was not meant to be. We were clearly dealing with supernatural forces here.

So I promised David and Greg, and Cubs faithful everywhere that I would travel through the Mayan world, hunt down the cause of our curse and slay the dragon before its fiery breath could speak again next summer.

The ruins at Tikal

My roommate Jessica, a Guatemalan-American, told me that Mayan gods like high places, so I should take an overnight bus north from Guatemala City into the Yucatan Peninsula and climb the pyramids at Tikal, which were built long before the white men arrived in the western hemisphere with their bats and balls and leather mitts.

But my quest nearly ended before it had begun. A near mugging in the capital’s dark, deserted streets; forced at gunpoint to eat wretched, fried Pollo Campero chicken (the pride of Guatemala, though it is an exact replica of KFC). What match was I for this dog-eat-dog mentality in a country where chaos prevails? The elections this Sunday will almost certainly result in a coup de’ etat and corpses lining the streets.

Nevertheless, I pressed onward.

A 10-hour bus ride to Flores, on beautiful Lago de Petén Itzá, another 45 minutes in a rickety pickup to the Tikal National Park, where Jessica convinced the ticket salesman that we were all native Guatemalans to avoid paying the exorbitant $6.50 “gringo” cover charge. We hired a guide who spoke moderately good English and asked him to take us to the highest pyramids in addition to giving us the regular tour. He obeyed.

But I was distracted and couldn’t concentrate enough to follow his description of Mayan astronomy. I just wanted to find Temple IV, the highest of the ruins according to the map, climb to its lofty perch and consult Hasaw Chan K’awali, the great ruler who reversed a century of subjugation in 695 AD by defeating Calakmul, the other “superpower” state to the north.

Sports writers in K’awali’s time used to refer to a curse placed on him, that is, until he won the big one and silenced the critics. I figured he could offer me a word of advice regarding the Cubs’ woes, or maybe even open his official copy of the Popul Vuh (the Mayan bible) and cross out the line that says “the baseball team from Chicago, to the north in the kingdom of the rich white man, will bestow no wine, only tears on its supporters.”

Edgar, a Red Sox fan from Rhode Island, begged to accompany me to the top of Temple IV, claiming his team was cursed as well. I figured “why not”, Mr. K’awali would be more prone to take pity on two crying, middle-class white boys than one.

At the top of the great tower of Babel we heard a great roar that shook the very foundation of the pyramid. Edgar was about to scamper back to the ground, claiming he had no love for bloodthirsty lions, but I convinced him to stay and face the challenge. We’d have to confront our nemesis with conviction to end the curses that have plagued our peoples for years.

All of a sudden half a dozen “howler” monkeys revealed themselves in the treetops below. The mother’s roar seemed to say “stay away from my babies or I’ll throw you off of this mount”, but I knew better. She was issuing a direct challenge to my quest.

Salvation

Sensing the moment of truth was near, I held my ground, thought of former Cubs great Ron Santo, who still shows up to the ballpark every day even though the gods have taken his two legs, and dropped into the third baseman’s crouch. I was ready to charge the monkey if she dropped a bunt down the line and prepared to back up and snare a fierce line drive if she swung away.

And then, just when the staredown was approaching a climax, the howler monkey took a called third strike (a Joe Borowski fastball right down the middle of the plate), quit its bellyaching and retreated, taking its miserly act back to the dugout, or a new part of the Petén jungle. Victory was mine.

I waited around for another half hour to see if Mr. K’awali would show up and confirm what I already knew to be true – the curse was now over and the Cubs were sure to reach the World Series in the near future -- but I never saw him. He must have been in Cuba, watching winter ball with a fat stogy between his lips and a little salsa princess by his side. Who could blame him.

Nevertheless, Edgar and I both agreed that our fortunes had changed. We had traveled to the Mayan Olympus, confronted the gods and their terrible beasts, and won the battle. It was time to descend back to earth and await the outcome.

My two companions and I spent a night in Livingstone, the Rastafarian outpost on Guatemala’s Caribbean coast, before I headed to Honduras, alone, to enjoy the sweet spoils of victory: six days of scubadiving off the Bay Islands (Islas de la Bahia), looking for whale sharks and exploring shipwrecks at 30 meters. In the evenings I feasted on lobster and drank Cuba Libres with other backpackers while sharing my recent tails of woe.