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In an attempt to break any form of bad karma, Harry Caray's Restaurant in Chicago paid $113,842 for the rights to smash the dreaded "Bartman Ball" in a televised event.

The Curse of the Bambino: Boston Red Sox fans might say the curse of the goat is nothing compared to the curse of the Babe. The team has been hexed since 1918, and some say it's the result of trading Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.

Before then, the Red Sox had won five World Series, the most by any team up to that time. The Yankees had never won a single one. Since then, the Yanks have won 26 times, and Boston hasn't won once.

Last year, just like the Cubs, the Red Sox came heartbreakingly close. In the final game of the American League Championship Series, Boston had a lead over the New York Yankees and their ace pitcher, Pedro Martinez, on the mound.

But Martinez, who had scoffed at the curse of the Bambino, let his team down, and the Yanks won in extra innings.

Ruth, of all people, never wanted to curse the Sox, at least when he was first traded. As the story goes, he flew into a tirade and dumped a piano in Willis Pond, near Boston's Fenway Park, where he lived.

Now, Sox fans, so eager to break the curse, have actually tried twice to dredge up the piano. A team led by salvage expert John Fish announced plans to troll the mile-long pond. Until then, Boston fans might be singing the same old sad song.