A dead goat was found hanging on a statue of Harry Caray outside Wrigley Field early Monday on the North Side. A similar incident occurred in 2007, police said.

For those of you not familiar with the Billy Goat curse:

On Oct. 6, 1945, the Billy Goat Curse was cast upon the Cubs when tavern owner Billy Sianis bought a box seat for his goat, Murphy, for Game 4 of the World Series at Wrigley Field to help promote his establishment. When he was ordered to remove the goat, he claimed to place a curse on the team that would prevent it from ever hosting another World Series at Wrigley Field.

Whoever put the dead goat on the statue presumably believes the following:

1. Some guy who brought a goat to the stadium cursed the Cubs when he was ordered to remove it.
2. The Cubs have not won a World Series since.
3. Therefore, the curse worked.

Setting aside that the Curse of the Goat and the Cubs not winning could be a coincidence, let's assume Mr. Sianis, who died in 1970, is in fact controlling the fate of the team's current roster from beyond the grave.

Even so, whoever put the dead goat on the statue also believes:

4. One way to remove the curse is to get another goat, kill it and hang it on a statue at the park.
5. That while doing so in 2007 didn't work, it was worth another try.

I'm on board with most of this, but I wonder whether the hanging goat needed to be the exact same breed as the one spawning the curse. Moreover, and I hesitate to suggest this, it could be the goat is just a red herring, and the Cubs won't win the Series until someone strings up a tavern owner.

We'll see what happens this year. If the Cubs win the series, I expect the perpetrator to claim credit. If the Cubs don't win the Series, or worse, come very close, but lose due to some seemingly improbable heartbreak, I expect the curse breakers to get creative. And in that case, I'm skipping town if I own a tavern, a restaurant/bar, a goat, a sheep, or even a horse.