Wrigley
Field (1916-present) West
Side Park (II) 1893-1915 South
Side Park 1891-1893
West Side Park (I) 1885-1891
Lakefront Park (II) 1883-1884
Lakefront Park (I) 1878-1882
23rd Street Grounds 1874-1877
A new club - also known as the White Stockings - debuted in 1874. This
team still exists today as the Chicago Cubs and this makes them the second
oldest Major League team behind the Atlanta Braves, who were the Boston
Red Stockings in 1871. Since the Braves have moved twice, the Cubs are
the oldest team to remain in the same city.
After the 1875 season, Chicago acquired several key players, including
pitcher Al Spalding of the Boston Red Stockings, and first baseman Cap
Anson of the Philadelphia
Athletics. While this was going on, behind the scenes the club
President, William Hulbert, was leading the formation of a new and
stronger organization, the National
League.
With a beefed-up squad, the White Stockings cruised through the N.L.'s
inaugural season of 1876. The Chicagoans went on to have some great
seasons in the 1880s, starting with 1880 when they won 67 and lost 17, for
an all-time record .798 winning percentage. Extrapolating an 84-game
season onto a 162-game season is a dubious proposition, but it does
provide some perspective to note that a similar winning percentage
nowadays would yield 129 wins.
By then, Spalding had retired to start his sporting goods company. The
length of the season was such that a team could get by with two main
starters, and the Cubs had a couple of powerhouse pitchers in Larry
Corcoran and Fred Goldsmith. Those two were fading by mid-decade, and were
replaced by other strong pitchers, notably John Clarkson. Much has been
written about Old Hoss Radbourn's 60 victories for the Providence Grays of
1884, but Clarkson also had a fair year in 1885, winning 53 games as the
Chicagos won the pennant.
The Chicagos won 6 of the first 11 National League pennants, which
makes their post World War II record of futility (zero NL pennants) all
the more remarkable.
A second major league called the American Association came along in
1882, and the Chicagos met the AA's champions three times in that era's
version of the World
Series. Twice they faced the St.
Louis Browns in lively and controversial Series action. That St. Louis
franchise, which went on to join the National League in 1892 after the A.A.
folded, continues to be a perennial rival of the Cubs.
Throughout all of this, and for the better part of twenty seasons, the
team was captained and managed by first baseman Adrian "Cap"
Anson. Cap Anson was one of the most famous and arguably the best player
in baseball in his day. He was the first ballplayer to reach 3,000 hits.
However, the Hall
of Famer is chiefly remembered today for his extreme racist views
(which he stated in print, in his autobiography, lest there be any doubt)
and thus his prominent role in establishing baseball's color line, rather
than for his great playing and managing skills.
After the Chicagoans' great run during the 1880s, the on-field fortunes
of Anson's Colts dwindled during the 1890s, awaiting revival under new
leadership.
The Cubs are the only team to play continuously in the same city since
the formation of the National
League in 1876.
"Tinker to Evers to Chance"
Joe Tinker (SS), Johnny Evers (2B) and Frank Chance (1B) were three
legendary Cubs infielders, who played together from 1903-1910, and
sporadically over the following two years. They, along with third baseman
Harry Steinfeldt, formed the nucleus of one of the most dominant baseball
teams of all time. After Chance took over as manager for the ailing Frank
Selee in 1905,
the Cubs won four pennants and two World Series titles over a five-year
span. Their record of 116 victories in 1906
(in a 154-game season) has not been broken, though it was tied by the Seattle
Mariners in 2001,
in a 162-game season. As with 1880, extrapolating is statistically
questionable, but the Cubs' 116-36 season of 1906 projects to 123 wins in
a full 162-game season. Curiously, both of those teams were so far in
front that they seemingly lost their edge, and fell in the post-season.
The Cubs again relied on dominant pitching during this period,
featuring hurlers such as Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, Jack
Taylor, Ed Reulbach, Jack Pfiester and Orval Overall, who posted a record
for lowest staff earned run average that still stands today. Reulbach
threw a one-hitter in the 1906 World Series, one of a small handful of
twirlers to pitch low-hit games in the post-season (another was Claude
Passeau of the Cubs' 1945 squad). Brown acquired his unique and indelicate
nickname from having lost most of his index finger in farm machinery when
he was a youngster. This gave him the ability to put a natural extra spin
on his pitches, which often frustrated opposing batters.
However, the infield also attained fame, after turning a critical
double play against the New
York Giants in a July 1910 game. The trio was immortalized in Franklin
P. Adams' poem Baseball's Sad Lexicon, which first appeared in the
July 18, 1910 edition of the New York Evening Mail:
These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double--
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
The fourth line is sometimes misquoted as also reading "Tinker to
Evers to Chance". Also, in the still-in-modern-usage expression
"Tinker to Evers to Chance", meaning a well-oiled routine or a
"sure thing", people tend to pronounce it "EH-verz",
when the proper pronunciation was "EE-verz".
Tinker and Evers reportedly could not stand each other, and rarely
spoke off the field. Evers, a high-strung, argumentative man, suffered a
nervous breakdown in 1911
and rarely played that year. Chance suffered a near-fatal beaning the same
year. The trio played together little after that. In 1913,
Chance went to manage the New
York Yankees and Tinker went to Cincinnati to manage the Reds, and
that was the end of one of the most notable infields in baseball. They
were inducted into the Baseball
Hall of Fame together in 1946.
Tinker and Evers reportedly became amicable in their old age, with the
baseball wars far behind them.
Every Three Years
The Cubs fell into a lengthy doldrum after their early 1900s Glory
Years, broken only by their pennant in the war-shortened season of 1918.
Around that time, chewing-gum tycoon William Wrigley obtained majority
ownership of the Cubs, and things started to turn around, especially after
they acquired the services of astute baseball man William Veeck (as
in wreck).
With Wrigley's money and Veeck's savvy, the Cubs were soon back in
business in the National League, the front office having built a team that
would be strong contenders for the next decade. During that stretch, they
achieved the unusual accomplishment of winning a pennant every three years
- 1929, 1932, 1935 and 1938 - sometimes in thrilling fashion, such as 1935
when they won a record 21 games in a row in September, and 1938 when they
won a crucial late-season game with a walk-off "Homer inthe Gloamin'"
by Gabby Hartnett.
Unfortunately, their success did not extend to the post-season, as they
fell to their American
League rivals each time, often in humiliating fashion. By the late
1930s, the double-Bills (Wrigley and Veeck), were both dead. As the decade
wound down, the front office under P.K. Wrigley was unable to rekindle the
kind of success that P.K.'s father had created, and the Cubs slipped into
mediocrity. They enjoyed one more pennant, at the close of another wartime
year, 1945, lost the World Series, and have not been back since then, at
least through the 2005 season.
The Cubs' home ballpark, Wrigley
Field, played host to only day games until 1988 because the stadium
owner donated the lights to the war effort in the 1940s, and it then
became tradition. The first night game was scheduled to be played August
8, 1988, versus Philadelphia, but it was rained out after 3 1/2 innings.
The high point of that contest, beyond the cry of "Let there be
lights", was when famous top-heavy entertainer Morganna Roberts,
"The Kissing Bandit", ran onto the field and attempted to plant
one on Ryne Sandberg. She was thwarted by Chicago's Finest, but Sandberg
hit the next pitch out of the park to thunderous approval. Unfortunately,
the rainout nullified his home run. The first official night game thus
occurred the following evening, August 9, 1988;
the Cubs defeated the New
York Mets, 6-4. While night games are now possible at Wrigley, the
Cubs still play more day games at home than any other Major League team.
Cubs
1970 Chicago Cubs
program.
"Lovable Losers"
The Cubs have the longest dry spell between championships in all of the
four major U.S. sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA), having failed to win
a World
Series since 1908.
To make matters worse, the Cubs haven't even been in a World Series since 1945,
and finished in the second division, or bottom half, of the National
League for 20 consecutive years beginning in 1947.
They didn't win any playoff series between 1908
and 2003,
when they beat the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS.
In 1969, the Cubs had a 8-game lead in August led by Hall Of Famers
Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins and Billy Williams, but they wilted under
pressure, lost key games against the surprising New York Mets, and
floundered a shot at the postseason by 8 games (92-70). Many superstitious
fans attribute this collapse to an incident at Shea Stadium when a fan
released a black cat onto the field, thereby cursing the club. In 1984,
the Cubs won the first two games of the then-best of 5 National League
Championship Series at Wrigley Field against the San
Diego Padres (It must be noted that at the time, the team with
homefield advantage played the first two games on the road), only to lose
the final three games in San Diego. The Cubs' 2003 playoff run ended in an
emotional game 7 of the NLCS
against the Florida
Marlins. While at one point ahead in the 7-game series 3 games to 1,
the Marlins came back to win the final three games. Marlins pitcher Josh
Beckett shut out the Cubs in game 5. An implosion of the Cubs defense late
in game 6, following the now-infamous incident in which a fan attempted to
catch a ball in foul territory, allowed the Marlins to score 8 runs in the
eighth inning (see The Inning) and tie the series. The Cubs were unable to
win the final game at home, and were without a pennant again.
To historians of the game, this incident echoed another Cubs disaster,
Game 4 of the 1929World
Series, in which the Cubs yielded 10 runs to the Philadelphia
Athletics in the seventh inning. A key play in that inning was
centerfielder Hack Wilson losing a fly ball in the sun, resulting in a
3-run inside-the-park home run.
In 2004, misfortune struck the Cubs again. Having the Wild Card lead by
a game and a half on September 24, the Cubs proceeded to drop 7 of their
last 9 games, and relinquished the Wild Card to the then-red hot Houston
Astros. This time, the fallout was decidedly unlovable, as the Cubs traded
superstar Sammy Sosa in the off-season, after he had left the final game
early and then attempted to lie about it publicly. Sosa was a
controversial figure, and his place in Chicago Cubs lore was possibly
tarnished.
Inconsistency struck the Cubs for their 2005 season, as the team
finished under .500 for the first time since 2002 with a 79-83 record and
fourth place in the NL Central. Again, the Cubs were hit by injury to
pitchers Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, and shortstop Nomar Garciaparra
suffered a groin injury in late April, which kept him out for three
months. Despite the bleak ending for the injury-plagued Cubs, the team
witnessed a career year from first baseman Derrek Lee (.335 batting
average, 46 home runs, 107 RBIs) and the rise of closer Ryan Dempster (33
saves in 35 save opportunities).
The long history of the Cubs is a dichotomy. For their first 80 years,
prior to and including 1945, the Cubs were generally assumed to be
contenders, playing well and winning the occasional pennant. For much of
the 60 year span since then, it was as if the baseball gods had forsaken
the Cubs, granting them just an occasional glimmer of hope. It did not
take astute observers long to realize that something bad had happened to
this once-proud franchise...
In his 1950
book The World Series and Highlights of Baseball, LaMont Buchanan
wrote the following prose next to photos of Wrigley during the 1945World
Series and of their newly-hired manager: "From the sublime to
last place! Wrigley Field, the ivy of its walls still whispering of past
greatness, watches its Cubs grow less ferocious in '47, '48, '49. New
doctor of the cure is smiling Frank Frisch, veteran of previous baseball
transfusions who thinks, 'It's nice to have the fans with you.' Chicago
has a great baseball tradition. The fans remember glorious yesterdays as
they wait for brighter tomorrows. And eventually their Cubs will bite
again." Little did anyone realize how long "eventually"
might turn out to be.
What may be the least known, but possibly the most telling, statistic
of futility for the Cubs, though, is that their first back-to-back winning
seasons since 1973 came in 2003 and 2004. Nonetheless, they remain one of
the best-loved and best-attended teams in the league, with attendance
figures consistently in the top 10, despite the 3rd smallest stadium in
Major League Baseball.
As with the Boston
Red Sox (prior to their astonishing 2004 post-season triumph), the
Cubs of recent generations have seemed to be a team that "bad things
happen to". Although there is a tendency to compare the Cubs and the
Red Sox, there is a stark difference. Since World War II, the Red Sox have
been frequent contenders and frequent visitors to the post-season,
including five trips to the World
Series. They have had more of a reputation as "chokers" than
as "losers", the tag that the Cubs bear.
Cubs
1987 Chicago Cubs
Media Guide featuring the bronze of Billy
Williams at the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Despite their image as "Lovable Losers" during the post-World
War II era the club's longevity combined with their earlier successes add
up to a major league record 9,756 victories (for a franchise in a single
city) through the 2004 season. In other years the Cubs have shown they can
win, or at least contend, when their pitching is superior. Outstanding
pitching has been a major difference in every one of their winning seasons
since World War II. But although there is no substitute for front-office
savvy and on-the-field excellence, the venerable ballpark itself has to be
considered a factor in the teams' failures to go farther than they have.
When the bleachers were extended into left field in 1937, it shortened the
true power alley from a posted distance of 372 feet to about 350 feet,
which is too short for major league standards, especially for a left
field. Most batters are right-handed, so their natural power alley is
left-center. Thus most asymmetric ballparks have their short field in
right. Not so with Wrigley. This allows more left-center field home runs
than the average ballpark would. Ferguson Jenkins, upon being traded to
the Texas Rangers after a successful though home-run prone career with the
Cubs, bitterly complained that "Wrigley Field is a bad
ballpark!"
After posting a below-.500 record for the first time since 2002, the
Cubs are looking to retool for the 2006 campaign. Since the Cubs' last
pennant in 1945, every other Major League franchise that was playing at
that time has won the World Series (as the Red Sox and the White Sox both
won the title in 2004 and 2005, respectively). It remains to be seen what,
if any, effect this will have on the club's management.
Quick Facts
Founded: 1874 in the National Association. Became a charter National
League member in 1876.
Formerly known as:White Stockings, in the 1870s. Colts,
in the late 1890s. Orphans, 1898, after the firing of longtime
manager Cap Anson. Remnants, in 1901, after a number of players
deserted the team for the American
League. The nickname Cubs was coined in 1902 when manager
Frank Selee arrived and rebuilt the club with young, inexperienced
players. The Chicago Tribune tried to call the team the Spuds
around this time, but that name did not appeal.
Home ballparks:
Wrigley
Field (1916-present) West
Side Park II (1893-1915)
South Side Park (1891-93)
West Side Park I (1885-1891)
Lakefront Park (1878-1884)
23rd Street Grounds (1874-1877) (first as part of the National
Association, later as National League)
Uniform colors: Blue, Red, and White
Logo design: A red "C" circumscribed by a blue
circle. Sometimes a smaller "ubs" will follow the large
"C", or the team will make use of a cartoon bear cub.
Songs
Many songs have been written about the Cubs. Here are a few:
"The Cubs Song (Hey Hey, Holy Mackerel)" - produced in
1969 by a Chicago studio group (the Len Dresslar Singers), and
later covered by several members of the team. Its title refers to
the home run calls of the team's TV and radio play-by-play men,
Jack Brickhouse and Vince Lloyd respectively. It became kind of
infamous among fans, as a reminder of a year that ended badly for
the team.
"A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" - a lengthy and funny
(and prophetic) song recorded "live" by die-hard Cubs
fan and folk musician Steve Goodman in the early 1980s.
"The Land of Wrigley" - by a local group called Stormy
Weather, inspired by "Let the Good Times Roll".
"Go Cubs Go" - a rah-rah tune by Steve Goodman that
became the theme for the WGN radio coverage of the team during its
division-winning season of 1984. Goodman died of leukemia just
days before the Cubs clinched their first title in 39 years.
"Here's to You, Men in Blue" - a bluegrass or country
number recorded by a group of team members in 1984.
"Here Come the Cubs" - a rah-rah tune done specially
for the Cubs by The Beach Boys, to the tune of "Barbara
Ann", used extensively on WGN radio during the team's
division-winning season of 1989
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