Rick Kogan

This slim volume offers a number of fun anecdotes about Chicago's Billy Goat Tavern. This is the tavern made famous by the Saturday Night Live skit--Cheezbourga, Cheezbourga, no Fries, Chips--back in the 1970s. Of most interest to me were the stories about owner Bill Sianis's "Billy Goat Curse" on the Cubs when they refused to let him bring his goat to Wrigley Field during the 1945 World Series. I've read a lot of Chicago history but never knew that Sianis was ejected by Bill Veeck of the White Sox during the 1959 World Series, too. I also enjoyed the stories about legendary Chicago newspaper columnist, Mike Royko, a regular at "the Goat."

Despite the book's entertainment value, Kogan's use of the present tense is very off-putting, as is his total disregard of a chronological time line. This book was only so-so for me.… (mais)