Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster believes his team will finally break the Billy Goat Curse. He predicts the 100-year title slump will end.

“I think we’re going to win the World Series, I really do,” Dempster told reporters after reporting to camp. “I wouldn’t show up here and have worked as hard as I did, and everyone worked as hard as they did, to not believe that. I think it’s funny when people make predictions or they say things and people are like, ‘Oh, how can you say that?’

“You believe it. You really do. Enough of all the . . . curse this, the curse that, the goat, the black cat, or the 100 years . . . Whatever it is, we’re a better team than we were last year. And last year we made it to the playoffs, and it was a battle to make it, to have a rough April and be 10 down and kind of grind our way to first place. I just feel like our chances are better.”

Wrote Chris Foster of the Los Angeles Times: “It was spring training a year ago when Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano predicted a World Series victory. And lest we forget, in 2004, Sports Illustrated picked the Cubs to win the World Series, proclaiming: ‘Hell Freezes Over: The Cubs Will Win the World Series.’ Someday, someone is going to look like Nostradamus. After 99 years, the law of averages has to be on the Cubs’ side. Just ask Red Sox fans.”

Dempster isn’t concerned about his words coming back to bite him.

“Maybe we need some more guys saying that,” he said. “I think honestly, it’s like anything—if you believe it you can achieve it. I know it’s a corny saying, but it’s true. You see these teams come together and battle together. They endure through everything and they start thinking they’re that good.”

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while wondering who will become the next basketball coach at  Indiana University:

• Maybe Anthony Reyes’ LASIK surgery will help, but will he also bend the bill of his cap, bring down his socks and fix his pitch location?
• Will the muddled Maple Leafs management team really have the guts to trade Mats Sundin?
• Will Sen. Arlen Specter force the NFL to hire George Mitchell to conduct a $20 million Spygate probe? And if so, would Rusty Hardin sign on to defend Bill Belichick?

MAKING FUN OF ZEBRAS

Earlier this week on “The Tonight Show,” retired Texas Tech coach Bob Knight showed up wearing a referee shirt. Host Jay Leno and guest Larry the Cable Guy had some fun with that.

“When did you start working at Foot Locker?” Larry asked.

“I was trying to decide what would I like to do, something easy,” Knight said. “There are fat guys that referee, there are slow guys that referee, some of them don’t see well, and a lot of them don’t even know what the hell the rules are, so what better job could you have than being a referee?”

Leno interjected with a good point. “It’s dangerous,” he said. “You could get hit with a chair.”

QUIPS ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

Jay Mariotti, Chicago Sun-Times: “All we do is move from one cheat to another in sports, from landmine to exploding landmine, from Rocket Fuel Roger to Spygate to a coach with no conscience. When Kelvin Sampson was hired at Indiana, the bosses knew he was a crook at Oklahoma, a phoneaholic who presided over 577 illegal recruiting calls between 2000 and 2004. They took a chance on him anyway. Which means they deserve exactly what they hired, a con man whose ethical foundation is so corrupt that he and his staff continued to participate in more than 100 more impermissable calls while ON PROBATION at Indiana. This is down there in the muck with some of the most nakedly sleazy stuff I’ve seen in college athletics, a coach who disregarded the very sanctions that governed his NCAA punishment and picked up the cell phone right where he left off.”

Bill Simmons, ESPN.com, on the Clemens hearing: “My favorite part of the day was the way Jose Canseco’s 1998 pool party was hashed and rehashed to the point it felt like it was becoming a significant historical event along the lines of Abe Lincoln’s last play and the Cuban missile crisis. The list of unforgettable pool parties really begins and ends with Canseco’s bash and Jack Horner’s pool party where the Colonel met Dirk Diggler. If you ever wanted to attend two pool parties, those would have been the ones. I was actually hoping they’d call more rebuttal witnesses from the ‘98 Blue Jays to discuss the party. Let’s bring in Ed Sprague and Felipe Crespo. Guys, you were there.”

Dan Daly, Washington Times: “So I’m watching the Tournament Formerly Known As The Bing Crosby Pro-Am on the Golf Channel, and I’m thinking: Maybe that’s what the NFL should do to spruce up the Pro Bowl — let celebrities play. Who, after all, wouldn’t tune in to see Shawne Merriman blindside Kenny G?”

Jerry Greene, Orlando Sentinel: “So I catch a few minutes of Pebble Beach and the winner, Steve Lowery, looked like he had made bail that morning.”

MEGAPHONE

“Back in the day, when someone beat you up on the street, you didn’t go fight his friend. You wanted to beat up the guy who beat you. I got nothing else in my mind but revenge. As soon as I got home, I said, ‘No tune-up fight.’ That’s the cowardly way. Taking this fight is what I believe boxing is about.”

Jermain Taylor, on scheduling a quick rematch against Kelly Pavlik.