Chicago Club
National League | Standings | Chicago Club
The Chicago Base-Ball Club was originally formed in 1870, following the success of the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings, baseball’s first all-professional team. 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.
The team changed its nickname to the Colts in 1890. The Chicago Colts hold the major league record for most runs scored in a game on 29 June 1897 when they beat the Louisville Colonels 36-7. Cap Anson left the team in 1898 and his departure was so impactful that the Colts looked like Orphans by the Chicago newspapers and the name stuck till 1902. This season, the team was so full of young players that the Chicago Daily News penned in the name “Cubs”. This makes the Chicago Cubs as 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.
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. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the club President, William Hulbert, was leading the formation of a new and stronger organization, the National League.
The Club played their first season at Union Base-ball Grounds which was visibly located at Michigan and Randolph streets. The Chicago Fire destroyed the park and until 1877, the games were played near the corner of State and Twenty-third streets. On 6 November 1877, the Club was granted, by the City Council (vote ayes 26, nays 3) a lease of a portion of the Lake Front lying between Washington and Randolph streets, the which was occupied by a base-ball park until the close of the season of 1884. In 1885, new grounds were procured near the corner of Congress and Loomis streets. This park, known as West Side Park, held 10,000 fans, also had a bicycle track which encircled the playing field. In 1893 a second West Side Park was built on the larger block of Taylor and Wood streets. This park became known as the West Side “Grounds”. West Side Grounds Park was the home of the Cubs till they occupied Weegham Park (now Wrigley Field) in 1916.
The Chicago Cubs’ first ten years included the famous double play combination of Tinker to Evers to Chance. 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”.
