The Chicago Cubs are a Major League Baseball team based in Chicago. They are in the Central Division of the National League.

Founded: 1870, as an independent professional club. Joined the National Association in 1871. Became a charter National League member in 1876.
Formerly known as: White Stockings, in the 1870s. Colts, in the late 1890s. Orphans, 1898, after the firing of longtime manager Cap Anson. Remnants, in 1901, after a number of players deserted the team for the American League. The nickname Cubs was coined in 1902 when manager Frank Selee arrived and rebuilt the club with young, inexperienced players. The Chicago Tribune tried to call the team the Spuds around this time, but that name didn't stick.
Home ballpark: Wrigley Field, 1060 W. Addison Street, Chicago, IL 60613-4397.
Uniform colors: Blue and red
Logo design: A red "C" circumscribed by a blue circle. Sometimes a smaller "ubs" will follow the large "C", or the team will make use of a cartoon bear cub.
Wild Card titles won (1): 1998
Division titles won (3): 1984, 1989, 2003
League pennants won (16): 1876, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1885, 1886, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938, 1945
World Series championships won (2): 1907, 1908
Current Manager: Dusty Baker

Franchise history

White Stockings

The success and fame of the Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869, baseball's first openly 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 the name and colors, and it happens that the Chicagos adopted white as their primary color. 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 on October 8 when a fire began in Mrs. O'Leary's barn on DeKoven Street on the near south side of the city. The Great Chicago Fire destroyed the club's ballpark, uniforms and other possessions. The club completed its schedule with borrowed uniforms, finishing second in the N.A. just 2 games behind, but was compelled to drop out of the league during the city's recovery period, finally being revived in 1874.

After the 1875 season, Chicago acquired several key players, including pitcher Al Spalding of the Boston Red Stockings, and first baseman Cap Anson of the Philadelphia Athletics. While this was going on, 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 N.L.'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 Cubs 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 the Chicagos won the pennant.

A second major league called the American Association came along in 1882, and the Chicagos met the AA'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 A.A. folded, continues to be a perennial rival of the Cubs.

Throughout all of this, and for the better part of twenty seasons, the team was captained and managed by first baseman Adrian Anson. Cap Anson was 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. However, the Hall of Famer is chiefly remembered today for his extreme racist views (which he stated in print, in his autobiography, lest there be any doubt) and thus his prominent role in establishing baseball's color line, rather than for his great playing and managing skills.

After the Chicagoans' great run during the 1880s, the on-field fortunes of Anson's Colts dwindled during the 1890s, awaiting revival under new leadership.

"Tinker to Evers to Chance"

Joe Tinker (SS), Johnny Evers (2B) and Frank Chance (1B) were three legendary Cubs infielders, who played together from 1903-1910, 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. As with 1880, extrapolating is statistically questionable, but the Cubs' 116-36 season of 1906 projects to 123 wins in a full 162-game season. Curiously, both of those teams were so far in front that they seemingly lost their edge, and fell in the post-season.

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, who 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.

However, 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."

The fourth line is sometimes misquoted as also reading "Tinker to Evers to Chance". Also, in the still-in-modern-usage expression "Tinker to Evers to Chance", meaning a well-oiled routine or a "sure thing", people tend to pronounce it "EH-verz", when the proper pronounciation was "EE-verz".

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.

Every Three Years

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.

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 walk-off "home run in the gloamin'" by Gabby Hartnett.

Unfortunately, their success did not extend to the post-season, as they fell to their American League rivals each time, often in humilating fashion. By the late 1930s, the double-Bills (Wrigley and Veeck), had been in Baseball Heaven for several years. As the decade wound down, the front office under P.K. Wrigley was unable to rekindle the kind of success that P.K.'s father had created, and the Cubs slipped into mediocrity. They enjoyed one more pennant, at the close of another wartime year, 1945, lost the World Series, and have not been back since then, at least through the 2004 season.