The Chicago Cubs Baseball History

The Chicago Cubs used to be known as the Chicago White Stockings and are one of the first 8 National League MLB teams. With a history going back to the centennial year of the country (1876), the Cubs have entertained (and broken the hearts) of the people of Chicago for one hundred and thirty yearsThe history of the Cubs goes back to 1876 and have made the Chicago baseball fans rejoice in excitement and cry in pain as they’ve followed the Cubbies for all those years.

Chi-town has had a love hate relationship with its MLB teams from the start. The Cubs are like the Red Sox, in that they are often lovable losers, and at other times, lovable winners who appear to be unstoppable.It’s fun being a part of Cubdom, and when the Cubs finally do win the World Series again, it will be all that much sweeter.

After the wonder years of their founding (3 National League pennants in four years), the Cubs changed names from the White Stockings to the Colts in 1894, in an attempt to change their luck after 4 consecutive losing seasons. After a complete roster makeover, the local newspapers started calling them the Cubs in 1902, in response to the youth of their players, and the name stuck.

With a stronger team, the White Stockings sailed through the National League's first season of 1876. The Chicagoans went on to have some fantastic seasons in the 1880s, starting with 1880 when they won 67 and lost 17, for an all-time record .798 winning percentage.

Even though the players were young, the Cubs had a distinct advantage because of their youth, and they became the dominant team in the National League, making it to the World Series in 1906 (lost to the White Sox, in the cross-town classic), 1907 (Sweeping the Detroit Tigers) and 1908 (where they won the classic 1908 series against the New York Giants).

Sadly, that 1908 series win was the last one the Cubs had in the 20th and 21st centuries. If that sounds like a long time, ask the Chicago Cubs fans, they think it is an eternity. They made it to the Series in 1909 and 1910, and by 1911, the franchise had slid into the center of the pack.

The famous and historic home of the Cubs is Wrigley Field, which was originally a parcel of land donated to the franchise by owner Charles Weeghman. Eventually, it was named after E.R Wrigley, the man who bought the Cubs a decade later, in 1926. Wrigley eventually planted the ivy which has grown over the field, and, though he bought lights for the park in 1941, he donated them to the war effort. As a result, Wrigley Field was the last park in the Major Leagues to get lighting (and night games) in 1988, a change that caused a lot of people to decry the loss of a tradition. Wrigley Field has slowly changed over time, but still retains a lot of its early 20th century charm and, next to Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium, remains one of the most iconic ball parks in the majors.

From the 1940s to the 1990s, the Cubs cemented their reputation of being the lovable losers of baseball, with the curse of the goat, the Black Car Curse, and over twenty seasons where they'd start out strong, fade in the middle, get a resurrection towards the end of the season, and then either just miss the post season, or fizzle; there were notable exceptions where they made it to the Series, but in every series, they were seriously overmatched

It wasn't until 1998 that the Cubs started getting good again. Behind the pitching of rookie Kerry Woods, the Cubs built a decent record. However, the spotlight was stolen by the Home Run Race between Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals. The final tally? Sosa had 66 home runs, McGuire had 70, and both had beaten a record that hadn't been beaten in forty years.

Regrettably, as the seasons went on, Kerry Woods proved to be injury prone. While Sosa could hit, it's pitching that gets a team deep into the postseason, not hitting.

The Cubs finally became regular contenders for getting to the post-season, something generations of long-suffering Chicago fans were grateful for, but it wasn't until the 2003 campaign that hopes really came back. Starting out on a milestone watch, with Kerry Woods healthy, and with Mark Prior at least as good, the Cubs made it all the way to the National League Championship Series, where, in a tightly contested series, a Cubs fan by the name of Steve Bartmann deflected what would've been a ground ball into the glove of a Marlins player – the floodgates opened, the Marlins won the game, and the Cubs were defeated in game 7.

Could it have been a the curse once again? Before 2004, the Chicago Cubs had a friend to commiserate with, the Boston Red Sox, who also suffered from a curse and couldn’t bring home a World Series title to Boston. But then in ’04, the Red Sox beat the curse and finally won the World Series, leaving the poor Cubs alone in their seemingly futile effort to win it all.

Article Source: http://www.rightarticle.com

Mark Anderson writes sports articles for GetCubsTickets.com where you can buy tickets to all baseball games.

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