Their record in the first decade of the twentieth century was a hard act to follow for the Cubs. They had been to the World Series of baseball three times, winning twice. They had won 426 games and lost only 184 in 1906-7-8-9. They had even changed their name from the Orphans to the Cubs in 1904.

As the second decade of the century began, the Cubs once again rose to the occasion, winning 104 and losing only 50 to claim another pennant in 1910. The famous double play combination so irritated New York sports writer Franklin Adams (and the Giants team he covered) that he wrote a poem immortalizing them:

Baseball’s Sad Lexicon

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.”

(Note: “Gonfalon” is another word for pennant, which the Giants would not win; and “double” is used here as short hand for double play, which Tinker, Evers, and Chance excelled at.)

Those three had been the famous core of the winning teams from ’06 to ’10, but they were not alone. Also leading the Cubs’ charge were pitchers such as Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown and Orval Overall. Filling out the infield were third baseman Harry Steinfeldt and catcher Johnny Kling. Outfielders Frank “Wildfire” Schulte, Jimmy Schekard, and Jimmy Slagle also contributed to the team’s continuing success.

In the “dead-ball” era the home run was not king. (It must have looked as if Ned Nagle Williamson’s 1894 total of 27 would never be approached again.) As a team, the Cubs only hit 106 homers during those five glory years, 24 by Schulte. Instead of the long ball, the Cubs played good defense, hit for average, and pitched effectively.

They lost the 1910 World Series to the Philadelphia A’s, and a gradual decline began, perhaps brought about by the injury and aging of the star nucleus. Evers played only 46 games in 1911 and Frank Chance had been beaned so often that he required brain surgery (he still holds the all-time Cubs record for Hit by Pitch with 137 to Ernie Banks’ 70–the modern day record.)

Still, in 1911 the Cubs came in second, winning 92 games. That year also saw Wildfire Schulte win the first MVP award, edging out Christy Matthewson in the voting. Christy had won 27 games for the Giants, but Schulte had established a hitting record that stood for more than forty years: he swatted 21 home runs, 21 triples, and 30 doubles. (Willie Mays achieved the 20-20-20 mark in 1957.)

The Cubs won 91 games in 1912, 88 in ’13, and 78 in ’14. By then only Schulte and Heine Zimmerman were holding the Cubs offense together. The pitching bright spot was Jim “Hippo” Vaughn, who developed into a perennial 20 game winner.

The founding of a new league—the Federal League—took some players away. Yet that became a blessing in disguise for the Cubs. Charles Weeghman—a wealthy owner of a chain of Chicago lunch counters—wanted to own a team, so he formed the Chicago Feds and in 1914 built a new park for them on Chicago’s north side, at Clark and Addison. Weeghman Park was home to the ChiFeds and their successors the Whales until the league folded in 1916, leaving the location available for the Cubs, who had been playing at the West Side Grounds since 1894. (When I was growing up the newspapers still often referred to the Cubs as the West Siders, a label I could not understand since I lived on the West Side and the Cubs were clearly not there.)

So the Cubs had a new place to play but a mediocre record until the war-shortened season of 1918. They lacked big name hitters, unless one counts the infamous Fred Merkle, now a Cub; but they enjoyed outstanding starting pitchers: Hippo Vaughn was joined in the 20 win circle by Claude Hendrix, and Lefty Tyler added 19. These three accounted for 70 complete games and the Cubs finished with 84 wins and 45 losses. Vaughn won the pitchers’ triple crown with 22 wins, a 1.74 ERA, and 148 strike outs.

Due to wartime travel restrictions, they played their World Series games at the Sox Comiskey Park, and they lost to the Red Sox, 4 games to 2. (The Red Sox featured a young pitcher who had won 13 games, but also played in the outfield so he could get more at bats. “Babe” Ruth, as he was called, hit 11 home runs that year and 29 in 1919 to signal the beginning of a new era in baseball.)

In the six series games Boston scored only nine runs, the lowest number for a winning team. Ruth beat Hippo Vaughn 1-0 in Game One, and notched another win later in the series. Vaughn pitched three complete games, yielding only three runs, but suffered two losses to go with his one shutout victory.

The 1919 Cubs went 75-65, good enough for third place. Vaughn was again the MVCub

With 21 wins (2nd in the NL), a 1.79 ERA (also 2nd), and a league-leading 141 strike outs. Grover Cleveland Alexander added 16 wins in his first full year with the Cubs.

As 1920 dawned the Cubs had a new ball park and five World Series appearances out of the sixteen that had been played. What could possibly go wrong in the future?

Sources: Baseball Reference, SABR, Cubs Media Guide







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