In it, Al Tiller, the manager of the Chicago Cubs, is haunted by a prophetic dream that the world will end if the Cubs defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant. [...] if the Cubs defeat the Cleveland Indians to win their first World Series since 1908, it will end the longest period of futility in American sports – and forever put to rest the Curse of the Billy Goat. Failure, melancholy and heartache – not joy and triumph – inspire drama and comedy, and no team in sports has inspired better literature than the hapless Cubs. In Will’s essay, he admits that his gloomy conservative politics come from his decision to be a Cubs fans at age seven in 1948. [...] the first joke I ever heard came from my father, a lifelong Cubs fan who is now 92: “Will the mother who left her nine kids at Wrigley Field please come and get them,” the stadium’s public address announcer says one afternoon. In one of the manager’s dreams, God says, “I think you should know that when the Cubs next win the National League Championship, it will be the last pennant before Armageddon.” The Cubs were five outs away from winning the pennant in 2003 when things fell spectacularly apart – not because of spectator Steve Bartman reaching for a foul ball, as too many Cubs fans want to believe – but because of poor fielding, poor pitching and poor managing.