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Chicago Cubs
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For current sports news on this topic, see 2008 Chicago Cubs season |
| Chicago Cubs Established 1876 |
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| Retired Numbers | 10, 14, 23, 26, 42 | ||
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(a.k.a. Remnants 1898-1901) |
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| Major league titles | |||
| World Series titles (2) | 1908 • 1907 | ||
| NL Pennants (16) | 1945 • 1938 • 1935 • 1932 1929 • 1918 • 1910 • 1908 1907 • 1906 • 1886 • 1885 1882 • 1881 • 1880 • 1876 |
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| Central Division titles (2) | 2007 • 2003 | ||
| East Division titles (2) | 1989 • 1984 | ||
| Wild card berths (1) | 1998 | ||
| Owner(s): Tribune Company | |||
| Manager: Lou Piniella | |||
| General Manager: Jim Hendry | |||
The Chicago Cubs are a professional baseball team based in Chicago, Illinois. The Cubs are members and currently champions of the Central Division of Major League Baseball’s National League. The team plays their home games at historic Wrigley Field, located in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. The team has been playing baseball at this site since 1916. The Cubs are one of two Major League clubs in Chicago, the other being the Chicago White Sox of the American League.
The Cubs are often referred to by the media and fans as The Cubbies and also The Northsiders, in contrast to the White Sox, who play on the city's South Side. The Cubs are one of the only two remaining charter members left in the National League (the other being the Atlanta Braves), and the only charter team in its original city.
The Cubs are managed by Lou Piniella and their general manager is Jim Hendry. The team's president position became vacant when John McDonough resigned on November 20, 2007. Businessman Sam Zell completed his purchase of the Cubs' parent company, Tribune Company, on December 20, 2007, and intends to sell the team.[1]
The Cubs are the only team to play continuously in the same city since the formation of the National League in 1876. The other surviving charter member of the National League, the Braves, has played in three cities: Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta.
The success and fame of the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869, baseball's first openly all-professional team, led to a minor explosion of openly professional teams in 1870, each with the singular goal of defeating the Red Stockings. A number of them adopted variants on that name and color, and it happens that the Chicagos adopted white as their primary color. After a summer of individually arranged contests among the various teams, the time was right for the organization of the first professional league, the National Association, in 1871.
The Chicago White Stockings were close contenders all summer, but disaster struck in October 1871 with the Great Chicago Fire, which destroyed the club's ballpark, uniforms, and other possessions. The club completed its schedule with borrowed uniforms, finishing second in the National Association, just 2 games behind, but it was compelled to drop out of the league during the city's recovery period until being revived in 1874.
After the 1875 season, Chicago acquired several key players, including pitcher Albert Spalding of the Boston Red Stockings, and first baseman Adrian "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 National League'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 team 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 Chicago won the pennant.
A second major league called the American Association came along in 1882, and Chicago met the American Association'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 American Association folded, would later be renamed the St. Louis Cardinals and 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 Cap Anson. 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 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 Chicago's great run during the 1880s, the on-field fortunes of Anson's team (by then often called "Anson's Colts" or just "Colts") dwindled during the 1890s, awaiting revival under new leadership. Into the early 1900s, the team had acquired some additional nicknames, such as "Orphans", "Remnants" and also "Murphy's Spuds" or just "Spuds" for a brief time (Chicago Cubs: Tinker to Evers to Chance, Art Ahrens, Arcadia, 2007, pp.9,56). The nickname "Cubs" first emerged about 1902, and by 1905 it was becoming the nickname of choice.
Joe Tinker (shortstop), Johnny Evers (second baseman), and Frank Chance (first baseman) were three legendary Cubs infielders who played together from 1903 to 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. The 1906 Cubs still hold the record for best winning percentage of the modern era, with a .763 mark. However, they lost the 1906 World Series to their crosstown rivals, the Chicago White Sox. 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. The Cubs' pitchers 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.
Some experts believe the Cubs could have been in the Series for five straight seasons, had their great catcher Johnny Kling not sat out the entire 1909 season. He had temporarily retired to play professional pocket billiards, but his primary reason for not playing was a contract dispute. His absence hurt the stability of the pitching staff. When he returned in 1910, the Cubs won the pennant again, but the veteran club was unable to defeat the powerful young Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series.
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."
At that time, the Giants and the Cubs were two of the league's strongest teams. "Gonfalon" is a poetic way of referring to the league championship pennant that both clubs were symbolically fighting for. The expression "Tinker to Evers to Chance" is still used today, and means a well-oiled routine or a "sure thing".
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.
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, Sr..
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 game ending home run by Gabby Hartnett, known in baseball lore as the "Homer in the Gloamin'."
Unfortunately, their success did not extend to the post-season, as they fell to their American League rivals each time, often in humiliating fashion. One example was in game 4 of the 1929 World Series when the Cubs, leading by 3 at the time, yielded 10 runs to the Philadelphia Athletics in the seventh inning. A key play in that inning was center fielder Hack Wilson losing a fly ball in the sun, resulting in a 3-run inside-the-park home run. Since their last World Series win in 1908, the Cubs have now appeared in seven World Series, and have lost all of them. 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. The Cubs enjoyed one more pennant, at the close of another World War. Due to the wartime travel restrictions, the first three games were played in Detroit, where the Cubs won two of them, and the last four were to be played at Wrigley. In game 4 of 1945 World Series, the Curse of the Billy Goat was laid upon the Cubs when Mr. Wrigley ejected Billy Sianis, who had come to game 4 with two tickets, one for him and one for his goat. Upon his ejection, Mr. Sianis uttered, "the Cubs, they ain't gonna win no more." The Cubs lost game 4, lost the 1945 World Series, and have not been back since then, at least through the 2007 season.
The Cubs have the longest dry spell between championships of any team in the four major North American sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA), having failed to win a World Series since 1908. The Cubs have not even won a National League pennant since 1945, and they finished in the second division for 20 consecutive years beginning in 1947.
The long history of the Cubs is a trichotomy. 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 the next 38 years, the Cubs were the driest team in baseball, never making the playoffs once. Since 1984, the "baseball gods" have granted the Cubs just an occasional glimmer of hope.
Even a few years into the post-World War II era, astute observers of the game began to suspect that something had gone wrong with the Cubs franchise, and that it might take them a long time to recover. In his 1950 book The World Series and Highlights of Baseball, LaMont Buchanan wrote the following prose next to photos of Wrigley (apparently taken during the 1945 World 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.
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 factor 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 team's 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 (113 m) to about 350 feet (110 m), 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. Pitcher 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!"
While the Cubs haven't won a World Series championship since 1908, the past 40 years have seen some good seasons come to agonizing conclusions.
In 1969, the Cubs had a substantial lead in August, led by Hall Of Famers Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins and Billy Williams. At mid-month they led by 8½ games over the Cardinals and 9½ games over the Mets, but they wilted under pressure, lost key games against those 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. Others have stated that all the day games that the Cubs had to play contributed them to their collapse. (Lights for night games were not installed in Wrigley Field until 1988.) Chicago's summers are quite humid (85-90 degrees Fahrenheit on average), and playing in this heat day after day might have taken its toll (although the average temperature that summer was 71.8 degrees, about the mean[2]). From August 14 through the end of the season, the Mets went 39-11 (23-7 in September alone)[3], while the Cubs went 18-27 (8-17 in September)[4].
In the 1984 NLCS, the Cubs, the champions of the NL East Division (their first postseason appearance since 1945). won the first two games at Wrigley Field against the San Diego Padres. The Western Division champion held home field advantage in 1984, however. Games 3, 4, and 5 would be played in San Diego. The Cubs needed to win only one game of the next three in San Diego to make it into the World Series. After being soundly beaten in game 3, the Cubs lost a heartbreaker when closer Lee Smith allowed a game-winning home run to Steve Garvey in the bottom of the 9th inning of Game 4. Game 5 was just as bad - the Cubs took a 3-0 lead to the 6th inning, and a 3-2 lead into the 7th with 1984 Cy Young Award winner Rick Sutcliffe on the mound. But Sutcliffe tired, and a critical error by Leon Durham helped the San Diego Padres win the game and head to the World Series.
In 1989, the Cubs were in the NLCS with the San Francisco Giants. After splitting the first two games at Wrigley Field, the Cubs headed to the Bay Area. Despite holding the lead at some point in each of the next three games, bullpen and managerial blunders ultimately led to three straight losses and the team's exit from the postseason.
The Cubs won their first division title in 14 years in 2003, and their NLDS victory over the Atlanta Braves was the team's first postseason series win since 1908. The Cubs then took a 3 games to 1 lead over the Florida Marlins, and it appeared they would reach the World Series for the first time in 58 seasons.
However, Marlins pitcher Josh Beckett shut out the Cubs in Game 5. Game 6 saw the Cubs take a 3-0 lead to the 8th inning, when the now-infamous incident in which a fan, Steve Bartman, attempted to catch a foul ball off the bat of Luis Castillo interfering with a potential catch for the second out by left fielder Moises Alou. This rattled the team immensely, and two batters later, Cubs shortstop Alex Gonzalez misplayed a potential inning ending double play, loading the bases, leading to a game-tying double by Derrek Lee. This floodgates stayed open for 5 more Florida runs, leading to a 8-3 Marlin victory. The Cubs were unable to win Game 7, despite sending Kerry Wood to the mound, and once again were left on the outside of the World Series looking in.
(To historians of the game, the incident in game 6 of the 2003 NLCS echoed another Cubs disaster, Game 4 of the 1929 World Series, in which the Cubs yielded 10 runs to the Philadelphia Athletics in the seventh inning. A key play in that inning was center fielder 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, mostly to teams with sub .500 records, 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, already a controversial figure in the clubhouse, alienated much of his fan base (and the few team members who still were on good terms with him) with this incident, leaving his place in Cubs' lore possibly tarnished for years to come. The disappointing season also led to the departure of popular commentator Steve Stone, who became increasingly critical of management toward season's end.
Inconsistency struck the Cubs for their 2005 season, as the team finished in fourth place in the NL Central and, at 79-83, under .500 for the first time since 2002. Injuries to pitchers Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, as well as to starting shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, robbed the team of players expected before the season started to make major contributions. Despite the mediocre overall team performance, 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).
After posting a below-.500 record for the first time since 2002, the Cubs retooled for the 2006 campaign. During the 2005 offseason, the Cubs revamped their outfield, acquiring speedy center fielder Juan Pierre from the Florida Marlins for three young pitchers (including Sergio Mitre and Ricky Nolasco). The Cubs also signed free agent outfielder Jacque Jones to a 3-year deal to fill a hole in right field. Veterans Bob Howry and Scott Eyre were both brought in to shore up the bullpen - each received a 3-year contract. Former blue-chip prospect Corey Patterson, who despite short flashes of brilliance never showed the ability to play well consistently at the big league level, was traded to the Baltimore Orioles for two minor leaguers. The Cubs also saw shortstop Nomar Garciaparra depart via free agency to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Starting pitcher Wade Miller, formerly of the Red Sox and Astros, was also signed, getting a 1 year, $1 million contract, and he made his Cubs debut in September.
The Cubs came out of the gate hot in 2006, but an injury to All-Star first baseman Derrek Lee sent the team into a tailspin of historic proportions. In early May, the team set a franchise record for offensive futility by scoring only 13 runs in 11 games. On two separate occasions within a month, the Cubs tied a team record by allowing 8 home runs in a single game. On July 16, the Cubs had a 5-2 lead over the National League record leading New York Mets before giving up an 11 run rally to them in the sixth inning, 8 of which were scored on grand slams by Cliff Floyd and Carlos Beltran, the first time the Cubs have ever given up two grand slams in a single inning. The 11 runs were the largest amount of runs ever scored in a single inning by a Mets team. The Cubs finished the season 66-96; they have now decreased their win total each year by at least 10 each year beginning in 2004.
After a rough start in the first part of the 2007 season, the Cubs were able to overcome the Milwaukee Brewers (who had led the division for most of the season) through an inspired stretch of baseball in June and July. After a less-than-impressive August, the Cubs got over the hump in September, clinching the Central Division on September 28 in Cincinnati, insuring their first post-season campaign since the disastrous 2003 playoffs. The Cubs will go on to the Playoffs only to be swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first round. The Chicago Cubs end the 2007 Season much like the previous 99 years, with disappointment and hope that next year will be the year.
See also: Curse of the Billy Goat, Steve Bartman, Grant DePorter, Major League Baseball franchise post-season droughts, Lee Elia tirade
This is a partial list of the last five seasons completed by the Cubs. For the full season-by-season history, see Chicago Cubs seasons
| Season | Team | League | Division | Regular season | Post-Season | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finish | Wins | Losses | Win% | GB | |||||
| 2003 | 2003 | NL | Central | 1st | 88 | 74 | .543 | - | Won NLDS vs Atlanta Braves, 3–2 Lost NLCS to Florida Marlins, 3–4 |
| 2004 | 2004 | NL | Central | 3rd | 89 | 73 | .549 | 16 | |
| 2005 | 2005 | NL | Central | 4th | 79 | 83 | .488 | 21 | |
| 2006 | 2006 | NL | Central | 6th | 66 | 96 | .407 | 17.5 | |
| 2007 | 2007 | NL | Central | 1st | 85 | 77 | .525 | - | Lost NLDS to Arizona Diamondbacks, 0–3 |
| This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007) |
After the 1992 season, then-commissioner Fay Vincent thought the addition of the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies was the perfect time to realign the National League to make the Western and Eastern divisions more geographically accurate. The Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds were to move to the Eastern Division while the Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals were to go to the West. Many thought this plan would be beneficial to the league as a whole, especially by building a regional rivalry between the new franchise in Miami and the Atlanta Braves. The Cubs, however, opposed the move, suggesting that fans in the Central Time Zone would be forced to watch more games originating on the West Coast with later broadcast times (had the realignment included the use of a balanced schedule, the Cubs would have actually played more games against teams outside their division). Partially due to the complications of a two-division system, a three-division structure was born in 1994, which placed the Cubs in the newly formed National League Central, along with Houston, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh; Milwaukee would later move from the American League Central into the NL Central. The NL Central is the biggest division in the MLB, with 6 teams. All other divisions have 5 teams, except the AL West, which has only 4. This was done to keep an even number of teams in both leagues, though many believe it hurts the NL Central teams, having more teams to compete with annually.
Over the years, the Cubs have made more than their fair share of poor transactions. Though Jim Hendry is widely thought to have made some very good deals in the recent past (most notably, acquiring Aramis Ramirez from the Pirates for prospects that never panned out, temporarily getting Kenny Lofton in the same deal), some of the trades and signings made by the club have blown up in the Cubs faces on a significant scale. Perhaps the most lopsided trade ever was sending eventual Hall of Famer Lou Brock to rival St. Louis for Ernie Broglio. More recent examples are trading Rafael Palmeiro to Texas after a "dispute" with Ryne Sandberg, letting Greg Maddux walk, and trading away outfielder Joe Carter to Cleveland, who went on to have a great career and won a World Series. (The Cubs did acquire Rick Sutcliffe in this deal, but failed to win a title). The Cubs also have traded same valuable arms, sending lefty Dontrelle Willis to Florida for closer Antonio Alfonseca and starter Matt Clement, and sending righty Jon Garland to the south side for middle-reliever Matt Karchner. Willis and Garland are both two time All Stars and both helped their teams to a World Series title.
Though no club bats 1.000 in the free agent market, the vast majority of Cub free agent signings during the '70s through the '90s have not panned out as hoped, and some were outright disastrous, most notably Danny Jackson, Jeff Blauser, Goose Gossage, and Mel Rojas, among others. All these players came to the North Side and failed to live up to what the club and their fans expected of them. The team has shown a trend of signing older veterans in the twilight of their careers, such as George Bell, to lucrative contracts, instead of focusing on acquiring prime young talent to bolster the big league team and the farm system. In addition to this, most of the high draft choices the club has made recently have failed to blossom as hoped. Prior and Patterson stumbled after initial success, and players the franchise banked on such as Kevin Orie, Gary Scott, and first round busts Earl Cunningham, Ty Griffen, Drew Hall, Mike Harkey and Ben Christiansen lead a revolving door of players who made little if any splash at the big league level.
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; the other three major sports leagues were not even in existence when the Cubs last won the World Series. (The NBA, in fact, was founded in 1947, two years after the Cubs last visited the World Series.) The Cubs have not been to the World Series since 1945, and they finished in the second division, or bottom half, of the National League for 20 consecutive years beginning in 1947.
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, especially since both teams were five outs from the World Series in 2003 and both had "curses" to overcome (Boston had the "Curse of the Bambino") 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. The BoSox were more known as "chokers" rather than losers, and until the team won in '04 and again in '07, had drawn more local comparisons to the NFL's Buffalo Bills (and the pre-Terrell Davis Denver Broncos) than they did to the Chicago Cubs. As far as comparisons go, only the futility of the Boston Bruins and perhaps that of the Los Angeles Clippers is closest, though in reality vastly different to the title-drought at Chicago's Wrigley Field. Many Cub fans, however, are supporters of the Red Sox, seeing them as a sort of kindred spirit. For years this favor has been returned by a good majority of Bostonians who obviously know how Cub fans feel, if nothing else, and the Cubs remain on of the few teams that Red Sox fans have refrained from becoming arrogant toward.[2] The feelings are not sympathetic from most south side fans, however, despite their own 88-year span without a championship, fans of the White Sox are generally calloused when it comes to their neighbors to the north.
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. 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 factor in every one of their winning seasons since World War II. In addition, it should be noted that the recent history on the North Side is far better than what was seen by fans during the "Invisible years" from 1945 through 1983, which saw the team rarely finish with a winning record and produced exactly zero playoff appearances, paired with a bounty of late season collapses. Since 1984, however, the club has reached post-season play five times and has finished with a winning record five times since 1998. While a modest number, the team has played in the same division very successful franchises in St. Louis and New York, and more recently Houston, and still managed to win about every six years. With a six team division, this makes mathematical sense. The improvement has also given the team's extremely loyal fan base a taste of success, and the insatiable desire for more has led to the fans and the Chicago media becoming more and more critical of both team play and the club's managerial decisions, which is never a bad thing. This "through the microscope" analysis has produced years of winning in New York, as well as recent success in Boston, and it can be said that Cub fans are at least if not more critical than Yankee or Red Sox fans.
William Wrigley Jr., a true baseball fan, owned the Chicago Cubs from 1925 until his death in 1932. At that point, his son, Philip K. Wrigley, inherited the team. However, P.K. was not particularly interested in baseball and did not invest in it the way he could have. For example, Wrigley failed to sign black players soon after integration in 1947 and he also failed to install lights at Wrigley Field. However, he refused to sell the team out of loyalty to his father. In addition, he attempted to run the team like a business, often trying new, innovative practices which often failed. Some of these include the College of Coaches and the hiring of a drill sergeant to condition players during spring training. When P.K. Wrigley died in 1977, he passed the team to his son, William Wrigley III, who sold the team to the Chicago Tribune for just over $20,000,000 to pay estate taxes. Under the Tribune, the Cubs made their first post-season appearance since 1945. In 1988 they added lights, but changes in upper team and also company management kept the Cubs from continued success. Critics may also argue that the team payroll was too low for a large-market team. Only in recent years has ownership begun signing players to large contracts while developing minor league talent. In 2007, the Chicago Tribune was sold to billionaire Sam Zell, who had no interest in owning the Cubs, already being a minor-partner with the White Sox. Zell has requested the newspaper giant to sell the ball club in the fourth quarter of 2007. Among those interested is Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban., who filled out an application in July, and confirmed his interest after being eliminated from ABC's Dancing with the Stars on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. Also in the running is Phoenix Suns CEO and native Chicagoian Jerry Colangelo. There are reports that former color commentator Steve Stone and Chicago Wolves owner Don Levin are also interested in joining one of the prospective ownership groups.
The venerable ballpark itself has to be considered a factor in the team's 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 (113 m) to about 350 feet (110 m), which is too short for major league standards, especially for a left field. The Chicago Tribune predicted in 1937 that this short power alley would cause trouble for the home team. 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. Pitcher 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!"
George Will remarked in his 1990 book, Men at Work, p.117, that both Wrigley Field and Fenway Park were (at that time) the most hitter-friendly (and pitcher-unfriendly) ballparks. "Question: When you hear the phrase 'hitters' park', which parks come to mind? Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. Which two teams have not won a World Series since 1908 and 1918, respectively? The Cubs and the Red Sox. Moral: It is bad to play in a park that is beastly to your pitchers."
The larger-than-average number of day games has also been pointed to for some years as wearing down the Cubs, since the summers in Chicago are very warm and humid, traditionally. The collapse of the 1969 team was attributed, in part, to having to play all 81 home games during the day in that era before Wrigley Field had lights. Even with the installation of lights in 1988, and with more night games in recent years, the Cubs still play more day games than any other team in Major League Baseball.
As of 2007, the Cubs' flagship radio station was WGN, 720AM. With the recent end of the Pittsburgh Pirates' run on KDKA, this may now be the longest team-to-station relationship in MLB. Pat Hughes is the play-by-play announcer, along with color commentator Ron Santo and pre- and post-game host Cory Provus. Santo is by far the most popular, and his in game "meltdowns" when something goes wrong (Brant Brown's drop in 1998 being the most famous) and his jubilant celebrations when something goes right are quickly becoming a Cub legend.
Cubs telecasts are split three ways: WGN (both the local station and the superstation), WCIU (a local independent station), and Comcast SportsNet. Len Kasper is the play-by-play announcer, and Bob Brenly, a former major league catcher and Arizona Diamondbacks manager, is the color commentator for the games. WGN also produces the games shown on WCIU; for those games, the score bug changes to "CubsNet." WGN and Comcast Sports Net each show an even number of Cubs and Sox games, while WCIU averages about 8 games per season per team. Occasionally, the Cubs are shown on the cable channel Comcast Sports Net+, when the usual CSN channel has a scheduling conflict. CSN+ is just the CSN game broadcast on a different cable channel from regular CSN, with the channel depending on the region.
Two broadcasters have made their mark on the team. Jack Brickhouse manned the Cubs radio and tv booth for parts of four decades, and his trademark call "Hey Hey!" usually followed a home run or other spectacular play.
Harry Caray's stamp on the team is even deeper than that of Brickhouse, though his tenure was half as long. Caray had the benefit of being in the booth during the NL East title run in 1984, when being a Cub fan became more popular to Chicagoans. His trademark call of "Holy Cow!" and his enthusiastic singing of "Take me out to the ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch made Caray a fan favorite both locally and, thanks to WGN's superstation status, on a national level as well. Even more entertaining was Caray's gawking at women in the stands, his mispronouncing of players names, (especially Hector Villanueva) spelling names backward, (Harry once informed fans that Sosa spelled backward is "Asos") his lively discussions with popular commentator Steve Stone, and producer Arnie Harris. Caray often playfully quarreled with Stone over Stone's cigar and why Stone was single, while Stone would counter with poking fun at Harry being "under the influence." Harry once did a commercial for Budweiser singing "I'm a Cub fan, I'm a Bud man," while dancing with models dressed as ballgirls.
The Cubs still have a live singer, usually a celebrity, during the 7th inning stretch to honor Caray's memory to this day. The most popular of these guest conductors is former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka, who returns annually and is popular for singing terribly. Caray is also honored with a statue located at the corner of Sheffield and Addison streets, and during the 1998 season, a patch with Caray's caricature and Brickhouse's trademark "Hey Hey" were worn on the players sleeves to honor the passing of both commentators within a span of a few months. Harry's popularity also led to his grandson Chip Caray joining the broadcast team in winter of 1997, shortly before Harry's death. Chip Caray worked the Cubs games alongside Stone until events that unfolded in 2004, when Stone became increasingly critical of management and players toward season's end. At one point, reliever Kent Mercker phoned the booth during a game and told Stone to "keep out of team business." Stone left the team, taking a position with Chicago-based WSCR. Chip Caray also left, joining his father Skip Caray on TBS, providing play-by-play for the Braves.
- AAA: Iowa Cubs, Pacific Coast League
- AA: Tennessee Smokies, Southern League
- Advanced A: Daytona Cubs, Florida State League
- A: Peoria Chiefs, Midwest League
- Short A: Boise Hawks, Northwest League
- Rookie: AZL Cubs, Arizona League
- Rookie: VSL Cubs, Venezuelan Summer League
| Preceded by Chicago White Sox 1906 |
World Series Champions Chicago Cubs 1907 and 1908 |
Succeeded by Pittsburgh Pirates 1909 |
| Preceded by New York Giants 1905 |
National League Champions Chicago Cubs 1906 and 1907 and 1908 |
Succeeded by Pittsburgh Pirates 1909 |
| Preceded by Pittsburgh Pirates 1909 |
National League Champions Chicago Cubs 1910 |
Succeeded by New York Giants 1911 and 1912 |
| Preceded by New York Giants 1917 |
National League Champions Chicago Cubs 1918 |
Succeeded by Cincinnati Reds 1918 |
| Preceded by St. Louis Cardinals 1928 |
National League Champions Chicago Cubs 1929 |
Succeeded by St. Louis Cardinals 1930 and 1931 |
| Preceded by St. Louis Cardinals 1930 and 1931 |
National League Champions Chicago Cubs 1932 |
Succeeded by New York Giants 1933 |
| Preceded by St. Louis Cardinals 1934 |
National League Champions Chicago Cubs 1935 |
Succeeded by New York Giants 1936 and 1937 |
| Preceded by New York Giants 1936 and 1937 |
National League Champions Chicago Cubs 1938 |
Succeeded by Cincinnati Reds 1939 and 1940 |
| Preceded by St. Louis Cardinals 1942 and 1943 and 1944 |
National League Champions Chicago Cubs 1945 |
Succeeded by St. Louis Cardinals 1946 |
- 10 Ron Santo, 3B, 1960-73
- 14 Ernie Banks, SS-1B, 1953-71; Coach 1967-73
- 23 Ryne Sandberg, 2B, 1982-94, 1996-97
- 26 Billy Williams, OF, 1959-74; Coach 1980-82, 1986-87, 1992-2001
- 42 Jackie Robinson (retired throughout the major leagues)
- 31 - Upon signing with the Cubs prior to the 2007 season, Ted Lilly was told that he would wear uniform number 30 rather than his usual 31 due to its imminent retirement. It is currently unannounced if 31 would be retired in the name of Ferguson Jenkins, Greg Maddux, or both.[3]
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Elected at least in part based on performance with Cubs |
Other Hall-of-Famers associated with Cubs
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- Frank Schulte - 1911
- Rogers Hornsby - 1929
- Gabby Hartnett - 1935
- Phil Cavarretta - 1945
- Hank Sauer - 1952
- Ernie Banks - 1958
- Ernie Banks - 1959
- Ryne Sandberg - 1984
- Andre Dawson - 1987
- Sammy Sosa - 1998
- Fergie Jenkins - 1971
- Bruce Sutter - 1979
- Rick Sutcliffe - 1984
- Greg Maddux - 1992
- Billy Williams - 1961
- Ken Hubbs - 1962
- Jerome Walton - 1989
- Kerry Wood - 1998
- Jim Frey - 1984
- Don Zimmer - 1989
- Sammy Sosa - 1999
- Rick Sutcliffe - 1987
- Sammy Sosa - 1998
- Larry Corcoran - 8/19/1880
- Larry Corcoran - 9/20/1882
- Larry Corcoran - 6/27/1884
- John Clarkson - 7/27/1885
- George Van Haltren - 6/21/1888
- Walter Thornton - 8/21/1898
- Bob Wicker - 6/11/1904
- King Cole - 7/31/1910
- Jimmy Lavender - 8/31/1915
- Hippo Vaughn - 5/2/1917 - Lost on 2 hits in the 10th. Fred Toney no-hit the Cubs.
- Sam Jones - 5/12/1955 - Walked the bases full in the 9th, then struck out the side.
- Don Cardwell - 5/15/1960 - In his Cubs debut after arriving via a trade.
- Ken Holtzman - 8/19/1969 - Northerly wind kept Hank Aaron's 7th inning drive in the park for an out.
- Ken Holtzman - 6/3/1971
- Burt Hooton - 4/16/1972 - Cubs' second game of the season.
- Milt Pappas - 9/2/1972 - Only baserunner allowed was a 2-out, 2-strike walk in the 9th.
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Chicago Cubs
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Wrigleyville is part of the Lakeview neighborhood, on Chicago's north side. Wrigley itself is located in between Sheffield Avenue, Waveland Avenue, Addison Street, and Clark Streets. Many residents rent out their yards and driveways during games to people looking for a parking spot. Though many Wrigleyville homeowners have seen their property values skyrocket since the 1984 season, most still oppose the teams quest to play more night games and stadium expansion[4]. The large amount of day games is a popular reason given for the Cubs tendency to break down late in the season.
The term "White flag time at Wrigley!" basically means the Cubs have won. In the days before the internet, and before most homes had televisions, fans had little access to finding out if the Cubs had won or lost, since the games were played during the day and most people were either at work or school at this time. PK Wrigley had a white flag with a blue "W" on it, which represented the word 'Win' flown over the park to let fans know that there was a positive outcome to that day's game, instead of having to wait until the next morning to read the newspapers. That tradition continues to this day, and has evolved to fans carrying the flags to both home and away games, and displaying them after a Cub win. The flags have become more and more popular each season since 1998.
The official Cub mascot is a young bear cub, which has gone through various transformations thru the years. The Cubs have no official physical mascot, though a man in a 'polar bear' looking outfit, which had no name, and was not very popular with the fans, was employed by the club briefly in the early 1990s. Currently, however, the Cubs' un-official mascot is a formerly homeless man named Ronnie Wickers, who goes by the nickname of "Ronnie Woo Woo."[5] Wickers is not employed by the team, but is seen daily at games and outside the park, dressed in full uniform, usually with a hula hoop or jump rope. Wickers is the second fan to reach this status, the first being "Gary The Drunk" in the 1980s through mid 90s, and was featured in Steve Stone's book "Where's Harry?" Wickers, however, is much more popular. He is known for his trademark yelling, for example "Mark.... Wooo! Grace.... Wooo!," and has been adopted by fans as a part of the culture at Wrigley Field.
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Many songs have been written about the Cubs or are otherwise associated with the team. Here are a few:
- In the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", it is customary to replace "root, root, root for the home team" with "root, root, root, for the Cub-bies" at Cubs games, the last word of which is always screamed much louder than the rest of the song.
- "It's a Beautiful Day for a Ball Game" - a 1950s tune by the Harry Simeone Songsters, it was the WGN radio intro music during the Quinlan-Lloyd-Boudreau years. The song was included on one of the "Baseball's Greatest Hits" CD collections.
- "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. However, it was played over the public address with no sense of irony, during the ceremony retiring Ron Santo's number 10 on the last day of the 2003 regular season.
- "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.
- "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. The song is played over the stadium PA system following a Cubs victory.
- "Here's to You, Men in Blue" - a bluegrass/country number recorded by a group of team members in 1984.
- "The Land of Wrigley" - by a local group called Stormy Weather, inspired by the old standard "Let the Good Times Roll."
- "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.
- "Cubs, Cubs, Cubs" - a song done by The Beach Boys, to the tune of "Fun, Fun, Fun"
- "When the Cubs Win the World Series" by the Cleaning Ladys[5] - assumes that it will not happen in the near future.
- "Jump" by Van Halen - This 1984 song (from the group's album titled 1984) was played immediately before every Cubs home game from 1984 through 2006 when the Cubs defense would take the field for the top of the 1st inning. It was also used as an opening-credits theme for WGN-TV broadcasts during the 1984 season. The energetic number has also been among various rock songs played over the public address in recent years.
- "Cubs in Five" by The Mountain Goats, off their 1995 EP Nine Black Poppies. Mountain Goats' main songwriter John Darnielle is a long-time Cubs fan.
- "Get Down Tonight" by KC and the Sunshine Band - played in the past after Cubs wins at Wrigley Field.
- "Keep It Coming Love", also by KC and the Sunshine Band, is played on the organ after a Cubs player gets a hit.
- "Keeping the Dream Alive", by Münchener Freiheit, has reportedly been used by WGN to cover season-summary video montages in some of the Cubs' more successful recent years. As of October 2007, this song can be seen on YouTube here[6].
Since the 2006 season, the Cubs have instituted a rotation of songs, going with "Clocks" by Coldplay, "Have a Nice Day" by Bon Jovi, "Jump" by Van Halen, "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter, "Beautiful Day" and "Elevation" by U2, and when they win they continue to play "Go Cubs Go" by Steve Goodman.
- Evil Eye: For one year during the United States Great Depression, P.K. Wrigley hired a man for $5,000 to sit behind home plate of Wrigley Field and hex the opposing baseball teams' pitchers with an "evil eye" procedure.[6] It failed.
- College of Coaches: During the 1961 and 1962 seasons, P.K. Wrigley instituted a never-before-tried team management system of rotating of coaches between the team and its minor leagues and farm system. It also failed with a combined 123-193 won-loss record[6]
- Around that same time, the Cubs hired an "Athletic Director", a retired military officer named Robert Whitlow. His purpose was to instill some discipline, but his primary achievement was extending Wrigley Field's center field fence upward by adding a screen to the top of the wall and letting the ivy twine its way up. "Whitlow's Wall" was supposed to improve the batters' background, but it was also in play, and cost some Cubs hitters some home runs. Once Whitlow was fired, the fence was removed.
- During a dispute between the Cubs and their manager, Leo Durocher, ca. 1971, Wrigley took a full-page newspaper ad chastising the "rebellious" players and stating "if only we had more team players like Ernie Banks." However well-intentioned, the ad served only to cause further divisiveness and the Durocher era soon came to an end.
- Eye tests, rubber tires and balance beams: Cubs' Player Development Chief, Al Goldis once instituted a player development program during spring training which required the players to undergo eye tests and practice their coordination, batting stance and bat swing atop a series of 25 old rubber tires and a pile of two-by-fours[6]
- Cap Anson once hung between 275 and 500+ bats on the ceiling of the basement of his house.[6]
- Femme Fatale Miss Violet Valli, on July 6, 1932, psychotic and suicidal, entered Cubs' shortstop Billy Jurges's apartment and shot him during a confrontation.[6] This became an inspiration for the Bernard Malamud novel The Natural.
- In 1976, Rick Monday stopped a flag burning in Dodger Stadium.[7]
- In 1995, a fan charged the mound and assaulted closer Randy Myers. That same fan is now a driving force behind the "It's Gonna Happen" slogan, which has caught on in 2007 as the Cubs fought for first place.[8]
- Wrigley's bleacher crowd since the late 1960s has included a group calling itself the "Bleacher Bums." The occasional rowdiness of some bleacher fans led to the construction of the "basket" fence, which was installed to keep fans from climbing or falling onto the field of play.[9] In 1977 a play conceived by actor Joe Mantegna[10] played nationally for eight years. Dennis Franz and Dennis Farina both played parts during the run.[11]
- Current "Score" (WSCR 670 AM) host Mike Murphy is credited as being one of the original leaders of the group. The current Bleacher Bums, in an effort to show management its disgust with losing, had informed Murphy and team president Dennis Fitzsimmons on air in mid-2005 they were implementing a boycott of Cub home games until the club had reached a minimum record of 10 games over .500, or until the team was sold. The Cubs finally reached the mark late in 2007 and the club will likely be sold in early 2008.
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- In an early episode of Crime Story, Detective Mike Torello (played by real-life Cubs fan Dennis Farina) meets a friend at Wrigley Field, and in another, a character mentions a Cubs victory, and Ron Santo by name.
- In a 1993 episode of the science fiction TV series Time Trax, Dale Midkiff played Darien Lambert, a 22nd century police officer who wore a vintage Cubs' baseball cap of the year 2145, that being the next year they won a pennant (200 years later). [12]
- The team is featured as an opponent of Gary Coleman's team (The Padres) in The Kid from Left Field in 1979.
- In the 1989 movie Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) in the year 2015 witnesses a newsflash on a public video message board saying the Cubs swept the fictional Miami Gators in the World Series, a "100-to-1 shot," according to a passer by.[12] Theoretically, the only Florida-based team the Cubs could play in a World Series would be the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (the Florida Marlins, based in Miami, are in the same league and hence could not play the Cubs in the World Series, though they did meet in the 2003 National League Championship Series, won by Florida in seven games.
- W.P. Kinsella's 1984 short story "The Last Pennant Before Armageddon" depicts a Cubs manager who dreams of Cubs fans appealing to God to let the Cubs win the pennant, which God does, but only just prior to the day of Armageddon.[12] This is briefly mentioned in the form of a crank letter received at the team offices in his full-length story The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, which features the World Champion 1908 team.
- On the TV series 24, Tony Almeida, played by Carlos Bernard who is a Cubs fan in real life, had a Cubs coffee mug, christened "Cubby" by fans of the show, that appeared on his desk at CTU during seasons 1-3, and again at his home in seasons 4 and 5. Curiously, according to Operation Hell Gate, Tony is from the South side of Chicago, where the White Sox play. However, since the Declassified novels have not been established as series canon, Tony may actually be from the Northside.
- In the movie A Sound Of Thunder Cubs world series pennants from the years 2018 and 2021 hang on the wall in the main character's apartment.
- A pair of films, Elmer, the Great and Alibi Ike, have the Cubs in their central plotline.
- The film Rookie of the Year deals with a young teenager who, after breaking his arm, acquires a fastball that tops 100 mph (160 km/h) and is signed to pitch for the Cubs.
- In the 1991 movie Taking Care of Business, James Belushi's character breaks out of jail so that he can watch the Cubs play the California Angels in the World Series.
- In the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers, both the Illinois State Police and a neo-Nazi leader played by Henry Gibson are led to believe that Jake and Elwood reside at 1060 West Addison Street. It is the actual address of Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs.
- In the 2007 movie License to Wed, John Krasinski wears a Cubs hat, Mandy Moore uses a Cubs mug, and Robin Williams pretends he is listening to baseball, while Krasinski catches him and says; "Nice try, the Cubs are off today".
- In the 2007 ABC series "Traveler," main characters Jay Burchell, Tyler Fog, and Will Traveler are Cubs fans and mention Cubs references throughout the show.
- Current TBS series "My Boys" features actress Jordana Spiro (character PJ Franklin) as a Cubs beat writer for the Chicago Sun-Times and Kyle Howard (character Bobby Newman) as beat writer for the Chicago Tribune.
- Curse of the Billy Goat
- Steve Bartman
- Grant DePorter
- Major League Baseball franchise post-season droughts
- Chicago Cubs team records
- Lee Elia tirade
- ^ ESPN.com, Prominent names mentioned as possible Cubs' buyers Retrieved on April 2, 2007
- ^ http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=dw-alcsgameseven102107&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
- ^ Muskat, Carrie (2006-12-15). Cubs welcome Lilly to Chicago (HTML). MLB.com. MLB.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-30.
- ^ [1]
- ^ "Woo Who", Dave Hoekstra, Chicago Sun-Times, April 1, 2005.
- ^ a b c d e Gentile, Derek. The Complete Chicago Cubs. The Total Encyclopedia of the Team. 2002. Black Dog and Leventhal. New York, N.Y. ISBN:1-57912-241-8
- ^ Ben Platt. "Monday's act heroic after 30 years", mlb.com, April 25, 2006.
- ^ Carol Slezak. "Fan who charged Myers now leading Cubs' charge", Chicago Sun-Times, July 27,2007.
- ^ Chicago Cubs--Stadium. Baseball-statistics.com.
- ^ Mantegna, Bleacher Bums, ISBN 978-0573605765.
- ^ See Bleacher Bums for further discussion of the play.
- ^ a b c Castle, George. The Million-To-One Team. Why the Cubs Haven't Won a Pennant Since 1945. 2000. Diamond Communications, Inc., South Bend, Indiana. ISBN 1-888698-31-4
- Murphy, Cait (2007). "Crazy '08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History." New York, NY: Smithsonian Books. ISBN 978-0-06-088937-1
- Wright, Marshall (2000). The National Association of Base Ball Players, 1857-1870. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-0779-4
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Chicago White Stockings (1870-1889) Chicago Colts (1890-1897) Chicago Orphans (1898-1901) Chicago Cubs (1902-present) |
Categories: Current sports events | Articles needing additional references from September 2007 | Cleanup from July 2006 | All pages needing cleanup | Articles needing additional references from July 2006 | Articles with trivia sections from September 2007 | Sports in Chicago | Chicago Cubs | Major League Baseball teams | Tribune Company subsidiaries | Sports clubs established in 1876 | Cactus League