Chicago Cubs
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For current news on this topic, see 2007 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 the North Side of 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 the historic Wrigley Field, located in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. 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 affectionately 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. The team's president is John McDonough, and their general manager is Jim Hendry. Businessman Samuel Zell recently acquired the Tribune Company, the current owners of the Cubs. The company will sell the team after the 2007 Major League Baseball season.[1]
Franchise history
White Stockings
The success and fame of the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869, or 1870, 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 Chicago adopted white as their primary color. On April 29, 1870, the team played their first road game against the St. Louis Unions, defeating the Unions 47-1.[2]
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. Meanwhile, 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.
During this period the team was captained and managed by first baseman Cap Anson, 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. (Anson's actual number of hits varies depending on the source. He played in some de-facto leagues which some historians count as actually being minor league play, and at the time walks counted as hits in some leagues.... MLB itself does in fact recognize Anson as having over 3,000 hits)
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.
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, have played in three cities: Boston, Milwaukee and Atlanta. The White Stockings were called the Chicago Colts and the Chicago Orphans for brief periods before becoming the Chicago Cubs, and the name White Stockings was adopted by another Chicago team, which still uses a variation of the name to date.
Golden years
"Tinker to Evers to Chance"
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.
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.
1918: A curse begins
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. The Cubs played a part in another team's curse, The Curse of the Bambino. In the 1918 World Series, the North Siders faced the Boston Red Sox. Then considered a star pitcher who happened to hit 29 home runs, Babe Ruth won two games, including a 1-0 complete-game shutout in the opener to start off what would be a six-game World Series victory. The Cubs, who had posted the majors' best record at 84-45 in the war-shortened season, settled into a groove of near-missing and underachieving that became their trademark for years to come. Boston sold Ruth to the Yankees a few weeks after the series, starting their own tale of futility, which lasted for 86 years.
Every three years
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 homer. In the 1932 World Series, Ruth again torched the North Siders, when he led New York in a series win in which he hit his famous "Called Shot" home run in Chicago.
Since their last World Series win in 1908, the Cubs have appeared in and lost seven World Series. By the late 1930s, the double-Bills (Wrigley and Veeck), were both dead, and the front office under P.K. Wrigley was unable to rekindle the kind of success that P.K.'s father had created, so 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 box seat tickets, one for him and one for his goat. They paraded around for a few innings, but Wrigley demanded the goat leave the park due to it's unpleasant odor. 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. It has also been said that Sianis put a "curse" on the Cubs preventing the team from making it back to (not actually winning) the World Series.
Dark ages (1946-1983)
The invisible years
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. The Cubs were one of the National Leagues worst teams for an astonishing 20 seasons, from 1947 until 1966, with only two clubs finishing at breakeven or better. Most of those teams lost over 90 games, and in 1960 and 1962 they lost over 100. Finally, some talent came back to the northside, and in 1967 and 1968 the Cubs put together their first back to back winning seasons since 1945 and 1946.
Fall of '69
In 1969, the Cubs had a substantial lead in the newly created National League East in August, led by All Star Ron Santo and Hall Of Famers Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins, and Billy Williams. Ken Holtzman pitched a no-hitter on August 19. At mid-month they led by 8½ games over the Cardinals and 9½ games over the New York Mets, but they wilted under pressure, lost key games against the Mets (who had lost a record 120 games 7 years earlier), and finished up 8 games out of first at 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 the sheer number of day games that the Cubs had to play contributed to the disaster. (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, which was relatively low [3]). From August 14 through the end of the season, the Mets had an amazing 39-11 record[4], while the Cubs slumped in September, going only 8-17.[5]
Back to invisibility
After 1969, and until 1984, the Cubs rarely tasted any substantial success. Following the disastrous fall to the Mets in '69,
the Cubs finished slightly over .500 in 1970, 1971 and 1972, while most of the core players from the 1969 team were still in
uniform, including Santo, Williams, Banks, Jenkins, Don Kessinger, and Milt Pappas. Pappas tossed the most recent Cubs no-hitter in 1972. After 1973, however, many of those
players either retired or were traded, and the Cubs fell into mediocrity at best, as between '73 and 1983 they were a combined
165 games under .500.[3] It was during this era that the term "Loveable Losers" became a catch phrase. The team's high point
in this stretch was an 81-81 season in 1977, but even this was a testament to the team's futility during the "Dark Ages" of the
70's, as the club was in first place at 47-22 on June 28th before spiraling out of contention, earmarked by a streak to end the
season in which they lost 17 of 22 games, then had similar (though not as exaggerated) falls the next two seasons as well. The
Cubs were 11 over .500 in '78 and 13 over in '79, but finished with losing records both seasons. This trait was dubbed "The
June Swoon." Cub rosters in the late 70's and early 80's featured such players as Dave
Kingman, Rick Reuschel, Bill Madlock,
Recent era (1984-present)
In the middle of the 1984 campaign, the Cubs, managed by Jim Frey, acquired star pitcher Rick Sutcliffe from the Cleveland Indians to complement an already good team which boasted players such as third baseman Ron Cey and catcher Jody Davis. In a game versus St. Louis, Ryne Sandberg captured the attention of the nation with two game-tying home runs off former Cub Bruce Sutter, and eventually was named NL MVP. The end result was a league-best 96 victories and the NL East Championship, as the team clinched the division in Pittsburgh. In what was the team's first post-season appearance since the '45 pennant, Chicago won the first two games of the NLCS at home against the San Diego Padres by scores of 13-0 and 4-2. The series headed West for the final three games, where the Cubs needed only one win to make it to the World Series. After being soundly beaten in Game 3, they lost a heartbreaker when All-Star closer Lee Smith allowed a walk-off home run to Steve Garvey in Game 4. Many fans remember Garvey rounding first after his game-winning shot, pumping his fist into the air, as one of the lowest moments in Cubdom. Game 5 was just as bad; the Cubs took a 3-0 lead to the sixth inning with Sutcliffe, the 1984 NL Cy Young Award winner, on the mound, but a critical error by first baseman Leon Durham helped the Padres win the clinching game.
The 1989 team, anchored by Sandberg, Sutcliffe and outfielder Andre Dawson won the NL East again, finishing up a 93 win season with a six game lead over the Mets. Some young faces contributed to the '89 success, as Jerome Walton and Dwight Smith finished 1st and 2nd in the race for NL Rookie of the Year, respectively. First baseman Mark Grace led the team in hitting in only his second season, and rookie catcher Joe Girardi provided stability behind the plate for young pitchers such as Greg Maddux. This time, Chicago met San Francisco in the NLCS. After splitting the first two games at home, the series headed to the Bay Area. Despite an MVP caliber series from Grace, and although the team held a lead in each of the three games, they were unable to overcome bullpen letdowns and managerial blunders by Don Zimmer, which ultimately led to another early exit from the post season. The Giants went on to lose to the Oakland A's in the famous "Earthquake Series."
Between 1990 and 1997, the Cubs fell back into the doldrums of mediocrity, but in 1998 made some major changes. Shawon Dunston was traded and Sandberg retired, but Rod Beck and Kevin Tapani were signed to bolster the pitching staff. The team also acquired Jeff Blauser to replace Dunston and signed left fielder Henry Rodriguez, fresh off a 40-HR season with the Expos, to complement Grace and slugger Sammy Sosa in the lineup. The Cubs found themselves involved in an intense Wild Card race with the Giants and Mets, and were paced by Sosa's amazing 66 HR, MVP season and Kerry Wood's dominating Rookie of the Year pitching, which included an MLB record-tying 20 strikeout game versus the Houston Astros. On the last day of the season, the Cubs fell 4-3 to Houston, but the team's playoff hopes were saved when Colorado's Neifi Perez hit a walk-off home run to beat San Francisco later that night, and the Giants and Cubs finished tied for the Wild Card. The teams met in a one-game playoff in Chicago, in which Gary Gaetti, claimed off waivers near the end of the season, hit a game-winning home run. Next up was Atlanta, but the North Siders played poorly, scoring only four runs as they were swept in 3 games. Many credit the Sosa-McGwire home run chase with "saving baseball," by both bringing in new, younger fans and bringing back old fans soured by the 1994 Major League Baseball strike. After the season, GM Ed Lynch and manager Jim Riggleman opted to keep many of the same players who had career years in '98 for the '99 season. That team was 9 games over .500 in June when they were swept by the crosstown rival White Sox in Comiskey Park, which was the genesis of an epic tailspin, resulting in the club finishing in last place, 30 games out of first. Riggleman was fired after the '99 campaign, his fifth in Chicago, and a few months later Team President Andy MacPhail cut ties with Lynch as well, taking the reins as general manager and making Jim Hendry assistant GM.
McPhail sent Hendry to work quickly, and his first move was trading reliever Terry Adams to Los Angeles for Eric Young and Ismael Valdez, and hiring Don Baylor to succeed Riggleman as the Chicago skipper. During a forgettable 2000 season, Hendry also sent pitcher Scott Downs to Montreal and acquired Rondell White. This laid the groundwork for the 2001 season, which saw the North Siders make another drive for the playoffs. They made a deadline trade to acquire All-Star 1B Fred McGriff, though McGriff took over a month debating whether or not to approve the deal and leave his hometown Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Jon Lieber had a 20 win season, and along with Tapani and Wood made up a solid rotation. Sosa had perhaps his best season, hitting 64 homers with career highs in batting average (.328) and RBI (160) for Don Baylor's club. The team's spirits took a hit in early September, however, as the Cubs led the eventual Wild Card winning Cardinals by 2.5 games, but Preston Wilson's game winning home run off of closer Tom "Flash" Gordon killed the team's momentum, and they failed to make another serious charge. The Cubs did manage to finish 88-74, finishing only 5 games behind both St. Louis and Houston, who tied for first, but followed this up with a disastrous 2002 campaign, after which Baylor was fired and replaced by yet another new manager, Dusty Baker.
The Dusty Baker years
The Cubs won the NL Central in 2003, after trading Bobby Hill to the Pirates for Aramis Ramirez and riding Sosa, Wood, and Mark Prior to an 88 win season. Finishing up August at 69-66, The Cubs went on a tear in September, starting the month by taking four of five games in a crucial series against St. Louis, and winning 19 out of 27 by months end. Prior and Wood both had good seasons, but were especially dominant late in the year, and were dubbed "Chicago Heat" by Sports Illustrated, a name that stuck on with the media. The two fireballers and their teammates managed to beat out the charging Astros, clinching the division on September 27th against Pittsburgh, just as they had in 1984. The team charged into the playoffs, knocking off Atlanta in 5 games in the NLDS, the club's first post-season series win since 1908, and moved on to face the eventual champion Florida Marlins in the NLCS. After dropping game one, the Cubs proceeded to take a 3 games to 1 lead and it appeared the North Siders would reach the World Series at last.
Marlins pitcher Josh Beckett shut out the Cubs in Game 5, but most fans thought this a blessing, as with pocket aces Prior and Wood slated to start the next two games, victory seemed all but assured, and the team could "break the curse" at home. Game 6, held on October 14th, was a scene unlike anything since, as some estimated 200,000 screaming fans battled the chilly weather and packed the streets outside Wrigley Field, and thousands more packed into local bars around the park, in anticipation of witnessing a Cubs World Series berth. The Cubs gave Prior a 3-0 lead that night. The crowd pumped up with even more adrenalin when the 7th inning stretch was sung by comedian Bernie Mac, who instead of replacing "home team" with "Cubbies,", sang "Root, root, root for The Champs". It was the eighth inning when the now-infamous incident took place in which a fan, Steve Bartman, attempted to catch a foul ball hit by Florida's Luis Castillo that Cub left fielder Moises Alou was also attempting to catch to record the second out. Alou was enraged at the interference, and Castillo eventually drew a walk. The play was followed up with a booted ground ball by SS Alex S. Gonzalez, which potentially could have ended the inning via a double play. This apparently rattled the team and opened the door to 8 Florida runs and a Marlin victory. Ironically, Gonzalez lead the National League in fielding percentage among all shortstops for the regular season. The next night, the Cubs rebounded to gain a lead twice in Game 7, with Kerry Wood (who homered in the game) on the mound, but lost a close, back and forth game, sealed by a game winning shot by Marlin slugger Derrek Lee, and the North Siders were once again left on the outside of the World Series looking in.
In 2004, misfortune struck the North Side again. The team welcomed back prodigal son Greg
Maddux to fill the fourth spot in the rotation behind Wood, Prior, and Carlos
Zambrano, giving the Cubs what on paper was considered to be the strongest rotation in the league. In late July, GM
Jim Hendry pulled a blockbuster trade with eventual champion
Though Dusty Baker had led the team to 89 wins in 2004, a one game improvement over 2003's near World Series season, the expectations were loftier and the season was deemed a failure. This time, the fallout was decidedly unlovable. Questions were raised as to Baker's ability to handle the pitching staff, his constant juggling of the Cub lineup, and the vast number of costly injuries. Prior to the 2005 campaign, the Cubs finally managed to trade Sosa in the to the Baltimore Orioles for Jerry Hairston Jr and Mike Fontenot. Months later, Sammy was one of a group of players, (including Mark McGwire) subpoenaed to testify to the grand jury about steroid use in baseball.
Inconsistency struck the Cubs in 2005, as the team finished in fourth place in the NL Central, at 79-83, under .500 for the first time since 2002. Many key players expected to contribute to the teams success missed extended time due to injury, including Ramirez, Prior, Wood, and Garciaparra. Though many felt Baker had done a great job leading the team to what was nearly a .500 season, most of the media and fan base started to call for Baker's head. Not all was negative however, as despite the injuries and the team's mediocre overall performance, the team witnessed a career year from first baseman and 2003 villain Derrek Lee (.335 batting average, 46 home runs, 107 RBIs) and the rise of a closer, Ryan Dempster (33 saves in 35 save opportunities).
The Tribune gave Baker one last chance to turn things around, and Jim Hendry retooled the lineup for the 2006 campaign. During the off-season, the Cubs revamped the outfield, acquiring speedy center fielder Juan Pierre from the Marlins and inked free agent Jacque Jones to fill the hole in right. Former blue-chip prospect Corey Patterson, who had shown flashes of brilliance but never the ability to play consistently at a high level, was traded. Additionally, veterans Bob Howry and Scott Eyre were brought in to shore up the bullpen. The North Siders came out of the gate hot in 2006, sweeping St. Louis en route to a 14-9 start, but an injury to Lee sent the team into another tailspin. In early May, the team set a franchise record for offensive futility by scoring only 13 runs in 11 games and finished the season 66-96. MacPhail resigned his position as team President following the season, as rumors of the club's sale dominated the horizon, and Baker, the former "messiah," was let go.
2007 playoff run
After letting Baker's contract expire, Chicago hired veteran skipper Lou Piniella, after a managerial search that included hometown favorite Joe Girardi. Soon afterward, the club's parent company, the Chicago Tribune was sold, but still allowed several important pre-season moves. Instead of waiting for Mark Prior to heal, Hendry signed Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis to join Zambrano and Rich Hill in the rotation. He also inked free agent infielder Mark DeRosa and gave Alfonso Soriano the richest contract in team history to complement Lee and the newly re-signed Ramirez in the lineup. The team started slowly however, and trailed the division leading Milwaukee Brewers by eight games in May. Zambrano and Michael Barrett were involved in a dug-out brawl on June 1, and the following day Piniella was ejected and later suspended, seemingly putting the season in jeopardy.
On June 20th, Hendry traded away the troubled Barrett to the San Diego Padres (later replaced by veteran backstop Jason Kendall) Then things started to change. On June 25th, the Cubs blew an 8-3 lead to Colorado in the top of the 9th inning, but they stormed back, winning on Alfonso Soriano's game winning rbi in the bottom of the ninth. Days later, the Cubs again won in walk-off fashion on a two-run homer from Aramis Ramirez against the Brewers. With a dominant Carlos Zambrano the team survived injuries and suspensions to key players, winning 19 games in July, and moved into first place. Erratic play followed, and Chicago and Milwaukee handed the division lead back and forth through early September. Ultimately, the North Siders won critical series against Houston and St. Louis, kicking off a 10-2 streak that featured a pair of dramatic, late-inning wins against the Reds. In what some called the most exciting Major League Baseball season ever, the Cubs clinched the Central in Cincinnati on September 28, and finished 85-77.
In the NLDS, the Cubs met the Arizona Diamondbacks. Carlos Zambrano was dominant in Game 1, but was matched by D-Backs ace Brandon Webb as the game was tied at one after six. In a move that has since come under scrutiny, Pinella called in ace reliever Carlos Marmol to start the seventh, who uncharacteristicly gave up two runs. Pinella explained he pulled Zambrano because he was planning on bringing him back on short rest for Game 4. Additionally, the Cubs squandered numerous opportunities with runners in scoring position and lost 3-1. In Game 2, the Cubs jumped out 2-0, but lefty Ted Lilly, who was 9-1 in the regular season following a Cub loss, was touched for six runs, losing 8-4. Chicago was unable to fare any better in the finale. Starter Rich Hill gave up 3 runs. The offense squandered numerous favorable situations, stranding 12 runners and falling victim to 4 double plays en route to a 5-1 loss and yet another abrupt end to a once promising season.
Season-by-season results
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 |
Current roster
Futility theories
Refusal to realign
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.
Bad deals and signings
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, 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 and sending righty Jon Garland to the south side for 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 franschise 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.
Dry spell
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 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.
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.
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.
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 thru 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.
Ownership
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 to pay estate taxes for just over $20,000,000. 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