The Billy Goat Curse continues, or so it seems. The Cubs lost the first two games of their best-of-five series to Dodgers.

Now they off to Los Angeles for the next two games, with the booing of anguished Cubs still ringing in their ears.

Here is what some of our favorite pundits have to say about all this:

Mike Downey, Chicago Tribune: “By my calculations, the tragic number is 36,514. That’s how many days have gone by without the Cubs winning a World Series. That’s how long they have been on baseball’s bridge to nowhere. But the way they played Thursday night, they couldn’t have won a Little League World Series. I haven’t seen a team kick this many balls since World Cup soccer. It was like watching a ‘Bad News Bears’ movie. The entire Cubs infield just qualified for baseball’s new Bill Buckner Award. It was a travesty—a Cubbie comedy of errors.”

Gene Wojciechowski, ESPN.com: “Well, I’ll give Carlos Zambrano credit. His head didn’t explode. He didn’t break Mark DeRosa over his knee like a maple bat. Didn’t try to stuff Derrek Lee down the dugout drainage pipe like a piece of used chaw. As his Chicago Cubs fell into a 2-0 National League Division Series sinkhole, as his team melted into a little Cubbie-blue puddle of Game 2 errors, Zambrano at least tried to do his part. But it didn’t matter. Almost nothing matters now, as this series is all but over except for the champagne spray.”

Rick Telander, Chicago Sun-Times: “Teams don’t come back after losing the first two at home in a five-game series. And you know what? They don’t deserve to come back. When Wrigley Field ace Ryan Dempster stunk up the joint in Game 1, you could feel the juice being sucked out of the Cubs and their attendant Cub Nation the way a fire sucks the oxygen out of an apartment building. It’s almost pitiful when a star athlete ignites and crumbles so completely. And here was four-time Opening Day starter Zambrano, looking like a journeyman.”

T.J. Simers, Los Angeles Times: “The Cubs were so tight, their catcher couldn’t get the ball back to the pitcher without bouncing it at his feet. And their first, second, and third baseman took turns making errors. The bad news Cubbie bears. Later, the shortstop made an error, the Cubs going inept around the horn.”
AND SPEAKING OF STEVE BARTMAN

Here is a mocumentary honoring him:

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder if the Brewers should blow up that team and start over:

• Who could have possibly guessed that Ben Sheets would suffer a season-ending arm injury?
• CC Sabathia, Prince Fielder, Eric Gagne . . . do the Brewers do their pre-game stretching at the buffet table?
• No offense to Albert Pujols, but isn’t Manny Ramirez the real MVP of the National League?

AT BAT OF THE PLAYOFFS

Perhaps the most heroic moment of the playoffs came when Phillies pitcher Brett Myers managed to work Brewers ace CC Sabathia for a walk. Somehow, some way, he fouled off pitches to stay alive.

Then Sabathia walked Jimmy Rollins and allowed Shane Victorino’s grand slam.

What got into Myers?

“I know I’m a terrible hitter. . . . I really can’t explain it,” Myers told reporters. “Baseball’s weird like that, to where you have a guy who pretty much can’t hit a lick [can] go up there and battle a guy that’s as good as CC.”

QUIPS ‘R US

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

Greg Cote, Miami Herald: “Suspected underage Chinese gymnast Yang Yun now says her telling an interviewer she was 14 instead of 16 was a ‘slip of the tongue.’ Uh huh. When was the last time you heard of a teenager being confused about their age? And being off by two years?”

Rick Chandler, Deadspin: “You’ve got to give props to Chad Formerly-Johnson, whose talents as a receiver are almost equal to his marketing acumen. Managing once again to somehow keep an 0-4 team in the spotlight, he vowed on Wednesday to score a touchdown and kiss the Dallas star when the Bengals play in Irving on Sunday. But he wasn’t through. Ocho Cinco also revealed that he had tried to orchestrate a trade to the Cowboys during the off season.”

MEGAPHONE

“Al Davis knows football — it’s just ’60s and ’70s football. That’s what it is. He’s thinking that Cliff Branch is outside and [Jim] Plunkett is dropping back and you can throw it 80 yards down the field — deep ball, deep ball, deep ball.”

Warren Sapp, discussing state of the Raiders on Showtime’s “Inside the NFL.”