| Illuminations Home |
|
| St.
Louis Cardinals |
|
| Von der Ahe Years |
|
| Gashouse Baseball |
|
| St. Louis Swifties |
|
| Beginning
of the Busch Era |
|
| Gibby
& El Birdos |
|
| Whiteyball |
|
| Enter
the "Genius" |
|
| Baseball Heaven |
|
| Visiting Busch Stadium |
|
| Do the Cubs Really Suck? |
|
Illuminations, Epiphanies, & Reflections
Do the Cubs Really
Suck?
 Just because the Cubs have one World Series in the past 108 years doesn't mean that they no longer suck.Of course, the Cubs suck. Norman Rockwell knew they sucked. Everyone outside of Chicago knows they suck. Actually, everyone outside of the Chicago northside knows that they suck. Come to think of it, even Cubs fans know they suck; just look at their faces in the Rockwell painting. The Cubs especially suck when compared to the Cardinals. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| World Championships Did you know that the Cubs and Cardinals have played each other three times for the baseball world championship? They have, back in 1876, 1885 and 1886. The Cubs were then known as the--believe it or not--Chicago White Stockings, and the Cardinals were called the St. Louis Brown Stockings. In 1876, the top two teams in the National Leauge, the Brown Stockings/Cardinals and the White Stockings/Cubs, played five additional games to determine the "Championship of the West." St. Louis won four games to one. In the 1880s, baseball had two major leagues, the National League, of which the White Stockings/Cubs were a part, and the American Association, in which the Brown Stockings/Cardinals played. The championship series between those leagues was then known as the "World's Championship Series." The Cardinals, as you'd probably expect, defeated the Cubs both times. But that's ancient history; then again, so is 1908. However, if you want to compare both teams' World Championships, you have to consider baseball's earliest years, because the Chicago Cubs have not won one since then. Here's how it breaks out: Cubs' World Championships: Four total - 1882, 1907, 1908, 2016
The Cubs, though, do hold an impressive World
Series record:Cardinals' World Championships: Fourteen total - 1876, 1885, 1886, 1926, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1964, 1967, 1982, 2006, 2011 Longest World
Series Championship Drought Ever - 108 years
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| League Championships The Cubs have fared just a little better in winning league championship pennants, having a few good runs well over 60 years ago, but nothing since. Of course, they still come up short of the Cardinals again. Cubs' League Championships:
16 total - 1876, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1885, 1886, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1910,
1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938, 1945, 2016
Cardinals' League Championships: 21 total - 1885, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1926, 1928, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1946, 1964, 1967, 1968, 1982, 1985, 1987, 2004, 2006, 2011, 2013 Guess which major league team holds the current League Championship drought records. Yep, the Cubs: Longest League
Championship Drought Ever - 70 years
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Memorable Moments in Cubs History
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wrigley Field and Its Fans "Wrigley Field is a bad ballpark!" -
Ferguson "Fergie" Jenkins, Chigaco Cubs
Hall of Fame pitcher
"You wish that Chicago'd build a new stadium. . . ." - Carlos Zambrano, Chicago Cubs "Ace" "Cubs fans go there to party and drink and sing 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame.' Then they don't give a crap about what happens the rest of the game. They just want to look up and see who is singing during the seventh inning stretch. As soon as the song is over, they get up and leave. . . . Most Cubs fans just want to be on camera and take their shirts off and drink some beer. - Ozzie Guillen, the man who brought the Chicago White Sox a Worlds Series Championship "If they blew up Wrigley tomorrow, it wouldn't bother me at all. That ivy is nasty, . . . and they definitely have the most vulgar fans." - Lance Berkman,
Houston Astros future Hall of
Fame outfielder
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
For more information: |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The 
Chicago fans begin their long-standing,
love-hate relationship with the the future Cubs, bestowing three
nicknames upon the team that reflect both the White Stockings' poor
play and their
illicit activities, "The Bragging Professionals," "Malone's
Muffers,"
and "Gassette's Gang." Newspaper articles report, "the public treat the
nine so that no man of any self-respect can hold a position on it. . .
. for if they win they are good fellows, but if they lose thay are
muffers and rascals. They are abused without stint unless they
conquer every foe. . . ."
Led by their
manager and star
first baseman, Cap Anson, the White Stockings
refuse to take the field against Toledo because the Blue Stockings have
a mixed-race player, Moses Fleetwood Walker, in the line-up. Cap
Anson, by the way, holds the major league record for most total errors
ever committed by a first baseman. Also, Anson never did get over
3,000 hits; 60 of his "hits" in the 1887 season were actually "bases on
balls."
The White Stockings once more refuse to
take the field against an integrated team, this time, the Newark Little
Giants. Unbeknownst to the White Stockings when they initially
signed the contract to play the game, the Little Giants starting
pitcher, George Stovey, was a black man. Cap
Anson minces no
words and screams in a rage, "Get that nigger off the field!"
Stovey does not play, the major league color-line is drawn, and Cap
Anson becomes forever known as "The Father of Segregated Baseball."
During the
the White Stocking's World Tour of 1888-1889, the team takes along a
"mascot," Clarance Duval, a black youngster who wore funny hats,
twirled a baton, and sang "coon songs" to entertain both the players
and the spectators. While cruising through the Indian Ocean, the ship's
crew spotted a 15-foot man-eating shark just off the ship's bow.
Deciding to catch the fish, the crew began to prepare a stout
rope with a large hook on the end. Much to Duval's terror, Cap
Anson immediately attempted to convince both team and crew to use the
young man as shark bait, and Anson had to be restrained from
tossing the little fellow overboard. 
After first being promised and
then swindled out of part-ownership of the franchise by A. J.
Spalding, Cap Anson figuratively stabs Spalding in the back by
assisting Charlie Comiskey, the team's ex-Cardinal nemisis from the
1885 and 1886 World Championships,
in
establishing an American League team in Chicago and stealing the name,
White Stockings or White Sox. Recognizing Anson's abandonment of
his old team, the newpapers quickly nicknamed the northsiders the
Orphans, which was soon changed to the Spuds. In 1902, a newpaper
man was consistently unable to fit Spuds into his allotted headline
space and arbitrarily renamed the the team as the Cubs.
Sportswriter
Hugh Fullerton, the newspaper man who was later to unravel the Black
Sox scandal of 1919, discovers and reports that the heavily favored
Cubs intentionally threw the 1918 World Series to the Red Sox, but his
evidence was
ignored, and the developing scandal was overwhelmed by war news from
Europe. However, two Cubs stars,
Shufflin' Phil Douglas and Claude Hendrix, were eventually forced out
of
baseball for cheating.
Cubs give up
on starting pitcher, Grover Cleveland Alexander, and trade him to the
Cardinals. In his first game with the Cardinals, Alexander
pitches a four-hit victory over the Cubs. Later that year,
Alexander becomes the Cardinals' World Series hero when after beating
the Yankees in Game 6, he returns in Game 7 to strike out Lazzeri with
the bases full and win the series for St. Louis. The following
year Alexander wins 21 games for the Cardinals.
After leading
by seven runs, the Cubs give up ten runs in one inning and lose Game 4
of the World Series to the Philadelphia Athletics when outfielder,
Hack Wilson, loses sight of Mule Haas's routine fly ball and lets it
roll all the way to the fence, turning into an inside-the-park three
run homer.
After suffering through
incessant abuse from Cubs fans (and the Cubs' dugout too) during Game 3
of the World Series, Babe Ruth has finally had enough of Chicago and
points to centerfield. As he does, the Cubs fans begin to boo and
continue to boo until the Bambino
hits the next pitch over the fence for a home run. Ruth's "called
shot" silences the ballpark.
After
watching Cardinal's star pitcher, Dizzy Dean, dominate the league
throughout the 1930s, owner P.K. Wrigley insists he be purchased from
St.
Louis "at any cost" to bolster the Cubs World Series chances.
After the Cubs pay St. Louis the then unheard of price of $185,000,
Dizzy loses Game 2 of the series against the Yankees. The
following year Dean's record was 6-4; in 1940 it was 3-3; and he was
out of baseball by 1941. 
The heavily favored Cubs welcome a flamboyant
local tavern owner, Sam Siannis, to parade around the field before Game
4 of the World Series with his pet goat, which is wearing a blanket
sign reading, "We've got Detroit's goat." Following the
spectacle, P. K. Wrigley then refuses to allow Siannis and his goat to
occupy the two box seats for which he has already purchased
tickets. "The goat stinks," Wrigley allegedly says as he has
Siannis and his pet ejected from the ballpark. As Siannis leaves,
he curses the Cubs from ever playing in another World Series as long as
Wrigley Field is their home. Later after the Cubs lose the
series, Siannis sends Wrigley a short note, "Who stinks now?"
Emphazing
that "Managers are expendable," owner P.K. Wrigley
employs a revolutionary strategy in which the Cubs are directed by a
committee of four men--known as the College of Coaches--who
collectively make on-field decisions for the team. The College compiled
a 64-90 record in 1961. In 1962, it was even worse. Led by Ernie
Banks, Billie Williams, and Ron Santo, the Cubs finished dead last with
a record of 59-103, 42.5 games out of first place.
The Cubs give up on their young outfielder,
Lou Brock, and trade him to the Cardinals for pitcher, Ernie
Broglio. Brock bats .348 for the Cardinals during the remainder
of the year, steals 38 bases, and plays a significant role in the
Cardinals World Series victory over the Yankees. Brock goes on to
star for the Cardinals until his retirement in 1979. Broglio
compiles a 7-19 record for the Cubs over the next four years and is out
of baseball by 1967.
After leading New York by 9.5 games in
mid-August, the Cubs are facing the Mets in Shea Stadium when a black
cat enters the field, saunters in front of the Cubs dugout, and calmly
circles third baseman, Ron Santo, who is standing in the on deck
circle. The Cubs lose the game and begin a late season collapse,
eventually finishing 8 games out of first.
Cubs fans
establish a Wrigley tradition when they litter the field with trash and
garbage and throw bottles at Colorado
players after a controversial call in a 6-1 loss to the Rockies.
A Jack Daniels bottle narrowly misses centerfielder, Darryl Hamilton. While throwing trash, garbage,
and bottles had occassionally happened at Wrigley before, it now
becomes a regular occurance following many, if not all, arguable calls.
On 16 May,
Cubs fans assault Dodgers' catcher, Chad Kreuter,
striking him in the back and stealing his baseball cap. Krueter and
teammates chased the fans into the stands and recovered the hat.
Several Cubs fans ended up bruised and in jail.
Wrigley Field comes in second place in a local
poll to determine the
"Best Place to Be Seen" in all of Chicago. Of course, actually
watching a ballgame or--God forbid, understanding what was going
on--didn't enter into the award consideration, since those things
aren't important to about half the folks at Wrigley on any given
day. Bring on the Old Styles; we can have a "Right Field Sucks -
Left Field
Sucks" contest in the bleachers; no, let's just check out the babes; or
we can take off
our
clothes and run onto the field. Party on, Garth.
On 15 April,
a Cubs fan who had spent the afternoon getting drunk in the Wrigley
bleachers attends a White Sox game later that evening where he jumps
onto the field and assaults first base umpire, Laz Diaz. The
man's girlfriend later told the press that she couldn't understand why
her boyfriend was at a Sox game since he was a true-blue Cubbie fan.
Leading three games to two at Wrigley Field in
the National League Championship Series, the Cubs enter the eighth
inning against the Marlins
leading
3-0. The Marlin's lead off with a double, and then the second
batter pops a lazy fly off third base. The ball drifts just
into the first row of the stands but left fielder Moises Alou still
has a play. He jumps, reaching for the ball, but Steve
Bartman gets to it first, and all Alou can do is throw a minor
tantrum. That play so rattled the Cubs pitcher, Mark Prior, that
he gave up three quick runs. By the time the inning was over, the
Marlins led 8-3, and Bartman had to be escorted through a hail of
garbage, bottles, trash, and obscenities by security guards who feared
for his
life. Cubs fans posted Bartman's name and personal information on
their fan message boards within minutes of the incident,
prompting Governor Rod Blagojevich to recommend that Bartman
voluntarily join the
Illinois Witness Protection Program for his safety. Oh, the Cubs
then dropped the next two games and the series,
four games to three.
Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa
is ejected from a game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays when his corked
bat explodes as he hits a ground ball to second base. Sosa later
explains that he didn't know how he happened to pick a corked bat from
the rack. Later in the year, Sosa ends up on the Disabled List
after injuring himself by sneezing in the dugout.
Losing his cool over his poor performance in
the first inning, Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano intentionally hits
Cardinal outfielder Jim Edmonds to load the bases. In his
very next at bat, Edmonds launches a Zambrano fastball deep into the
the
Wrigley outfield seats. As Carlos goes bonkers on the mound
screaming at Edmonds, Jimmy slowly trots around the bases enjoying
Zambrano's agitation. Later, after Scott Rolen has slammed
another blast into the bleacher seats, Zambrano completely flips out
and is finally ejected from the game by the umpires after intentionally
hitting Jim Edmonds on the very next pitch.
Two Cubs fans murder a White Sox fan after a
day game just outside of Wrigley Field near the Cubby Bear Bar in the
heart of Wrigleyville. After nearly running over the man in their
SUV, the Cubs fans got out of their car and began to assault him.
When the man struck back with a small minature souvenir bat he had
bought the game, one of the Cubs fans fatally shot him.
Wrigley
Field helps the White Sox celebrate bringing a World
Series Championship to the city of Chicago as the Cubs drought
stretches to 97 years and counting.
On 16 May, a
drunken Wrigley bleacher bum attempts to smash the face of outfielder,
Jacques Jones, who had been struggling at the plate and on the
basepaths. The fan waited until Jones had turned his head and
then fired a baseball directly at Jacques' face, barely missing him and
avoiding severe injury. What was the bleacher fan doing with a
baseball. In Wrigley, bleacher fans bring cheap baseballs from
home into the
park. Then when someone from an opposing team hits a home run,
the fan who catches it pretends to throw it back on the field.
Actually, the bleacher fans usually keep the homerun balls, and throw
the cheap
baseballs that they brought into the park onto the filed instead.
Cubs "ace" pitcher, Carlos Zambrano, having a
rough beginning to his year with a 5-5 record and 5.62 ERA, again goes
wacko in the
dugout during a game after giving up five runs in a loss
to Atlanta. After Cubs catcher Michael Barrett allows a run to
score on a passed ball and throwing error into left field, Zambrano
sucker punches Barrett in the Cubs dugout in full view of the fans and
tv
cameras. 
After the Cubs capture first place in the
Central Division with a paltry 85 wins, Chicago fans go wild and kill a
goat,
hanging it from the Harry Caray statue at Wrigley Field in preparation
for Game 1 against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Police arrive too
late to save the goat, and no one is charged with any crime. When
the goat sacrifice doesn't work, and the Diamondbacks take a 1-0 lead
in the series, Cub fans come prepared the next night for Game 2,
bringing a flashing neon sign with which they attempt to distract the
Diamondback pitcher from behind homeplate. Cubs again
loose. For Game 3 at Wrigley, nearly 100% of the Cubs fans wear
their baseball caps turned inside-out and upside-down in some odd
belief that this will inspire their team to victory. It
doesn't. Cubs lose again as the Diamondbacks sweep the series and
celebrate on the Wrigley infield.
During an early season game against the
Cincinnati Reds, drunken Cubs fans litter the playing field with
nearly twenty baseballs (that they had brought from home) following an
Adam Dunn home run. Hall of Fame broadcaster, Marty Brennamin,
was calling the game on WLW and could no longer contain his disgust for
Cubs fans, "This
is the kind of thing, quite honestly, right now, that makes you want to
see the Chicago Cubs team lose. Among all baseball fans . . . far and
away the most obnoxious fans in baseball, in this league, are those who
follow this team right here." The next day, during a
confrontational
interview on a Chicago sports radio station, Brennamin further endears
himself to Cubs fans when he compares them to fans of the Cardinals,
"Cardinals fans are hands down the best in baseball.
They respect the game. They don't go to the game to do stupid stuff."
Cubs fans welcome the team's first Japanese
player, Kosuke Fukudome, by making a "racist" t-shirt the number one
best selling souvenir at Wrigley field. As noted in the 
In late July,
three Cubs fans attack a White Sox fan who is attending his niece's
birthday party. They beat the poor fellow senseless because they
claimed, he had a full set of teeth and White Sox fans are supposed to
be toothless. While the White Sox fan was down, at least one of
the Cubs fans kicked and stomped his face with steel-toed boots [no
doubt a clothing choice of many sophisticated Cub fans] until his cheek
bones were shattered and he had lost an eye. The Cubs fans were
arrested and charged with mob action and aggravated battery.
Sandberg's
principal coach and assistant manager physically attacks the
unwary Dragon's manager. In the melee that ensues, Julio Castillo
demonstrates that he is better suited to be a Cubs fan than a Cubs
ballplayer when he fires a baseball point blank into
the head of a
seated fan who required hospitalization. Castillo was
subsequently arrested and charged with felonious assault. The
following week, the Cubs honor Sanderg and the Peoria franchise by
allowing them
to play at Wrigley Field. No comment was forthcoming from Ryne
Sandberg while at Wrigley other than to bemoan the fact that he had
missed the game against the Dragons and to claim the fight would not
have
occured had he been present to manage his team.
Following
a game against the Brewers at Miller Park on 30 Jul 08, Cubs fans begin
throwing beer bottles at Brewers fans from the window of a chartered
tour bus
in a stadium parking lot. When one Brewer fan responds by
tossing a Red Bull can at the side of the bus, the driver stops to
let a group of Cubs fans off to chase down and assault the Brewer
fan. Two Cubs fans are subsequently arrested and charged with
substanial battery. The severely injured
Brewer fan required facial
surgery. One of the Cub fans was also charged with disorderly
conduct, assault and battery, resisting arrest, and possession of drug
paraphernalia in connection with his attack on a women at the
scene. 
The day after Carlos Zambrano, the Cubs ace
pitcher, brags to the press about his bizarre good-luck pre-game ritual
of pounding infielder Mike Fontenot's head with his fist and then
carrying him piggy-back through the dugout, Cardinal batters, in turn,
pound Zambrano at the plate. Zambrano, gives up 9
earned runs (including 4 home runs) in four innings before being pulled
in an August game at Wrigley Field. The Big
Z's ERA jumps from 2.76 to 3.32, and the Cardinals win the game
12-3. It is unreported what, if any, damage Zambrano did to
gatorade
containers, equipment, walls, Mike Fontenot, or other teammates in
route to the showers. Zambrano ends the regular season by
refusing to pitch in his last scheduled game after giving up 13 earned
runs over 6 innings in his previous two starts.
Inspired by the insanely optimistic boosterism
of Cubs announcer Ron Santo, fans again obnoxiously proclaim with
unrealistic certainty that their team will win a World Series
championship as they begin post season play. Manager Lou Piniella
is in an arrogant mood too, enjoying his team's "swagger." "It
[makes] me feel good. . . . That's what you want," he tells the
press. Cubs Chairman, Crane Kennedy, however is not so certain,
so he hires the Reverend Father James L. Greanias, a Greek Orthodox
priest, to visit Wrigley Field before game one and sprinkle the
place with holy water to break the remnants of any possible
curses. Unfortunately for the Cubs, neither prayers nor swagger
win ballgames, and once
more, Cubs fans' hopes are destroyed as the Dodgers crush the Cubbies
in the first two games of the series at Wrigley. After Piniella
tagged Ryan Dempster--who had predicted a Worlds Series championship
for the Cubs the first day of Spring Training--to be the first game
starting pitcher, the Dodger whacked him for 7 runs. The
following
night, Carlos Zambrano held true to his late season form and gave up
6 runs early. His loss, however, was in part due to horrendous fielding
by the error-prone Cubs infield. By the middle of the second
game, the Cubs fans had turned on their team, and boos began to thunder
from the stands. Two days later at Dodger Stadium, the Cubs
meekly went down to defeat in the third and final game of the series by
the score of 3-1 (as Alfonso Soriano struck out swinging at pitch in
the dirt), having lost their 9th consecutive playoff game. "Noooooooooo," wailed Ron. So much for Dempster's
prediction,
Piniella's swagger, and Kennedy's holy water. Immediately following
their third loss, the Cubs players destroyed the visiting dugout, and
in keeping with Cubs culture, General Manager Jim Hendry offered no
apologies. "To me, that is not even an issue," Hendry said. The next
day, 
Busch's
Ramps
