The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago, Illinois.
They are members of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's National League. They are one of two Major League clubs based in Chicago (the other being the Chicago White Sox), the Cubs are also one of the two remaining charter members of the National League (the other being the Atlanta Braves). The franchise has not won a championship in 101 years, which is longer than that of any other major North American professional sports team.
The Cubs are often referred as "The North Siders" because Wrigley Field, where they have played their home games since 1916, is located in Chicago's north side Lakeview community. They are also often called "The Boys in Blue" noting the team's primary uniform color, (which itself is often referred to as "Cubbie Blue") or simply as "The Cubbies."
Chicago's manager is Lou Piniella, and their general manager is Jim Hendry. The Cubs have rivalries with the St. Louis Cardinals, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the cross-town Chicago White Sox.
The Cubs are currently owned by a family trust of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, with his son Tom Ricketts operating the team on a daily basis. The Ricketts family purchased the team from the Tribune Company in 2009, with the sale closing shortly after the end of the regular season.
Early franchise history
Main article: Chicago Cubs franchise history1870-1875: Chicago White Stockings
The success and fame of the Cincinnati Red Stockings (c. 1869), baseball's first openly all-professional team, led to a minor explosion of other openly professional teams, each with the singular goal of defeating the Red Stockings. On April 29, 1870, the Chicago Base Ball Club played their first game, an exhibition, against the St. Louis Unions, defeating them 47-1. The White Stockings, who played home games on Chicago's west side at the Union Base-Ball Grounds , joined the nation's principal amateur league National Association of Base Ball Players , when the league began to allow professional teams. The NABBP was previously dominated by the Brooklyn Atlantics, who had won three straight titles and were the sport's first "dynasty", but Chicago won the N.A. championship in the league's final year of operation.
The now all professional Chicago White Stockings , financed by businessman William Hulbert, became a charter member of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players, the nation's first all professional league, in 1871. The White Stockings were close contenders all season, despite the fact that the Great Chicago Fire had destroyed the team's home field and most of their equipment. The White Stockings finished the season in second place, but ultimately were forced to drop out of the league during the city's recovery period, finally returning to National Association play in 1874. Over the next couple seasons, The Boston Red Stockings dominated the league and hoarded many of the game's best players, even those who were under contract with other teams. After Davy Force signed with Chicago, and then breached his contract to play in Boston, Hulbert became discouraged by the "contract jumping" as well as the overall disorganization of the N.A., and thus spearheaded the movement to form a stronger organization. The end result of his efforts was the formation of a much more "ethical" league, which became known as the National Base Ball League , and thus the Chicago National League Ball Club was born.
1876–1902: A National League Dynasty
Hulbert, retaining his position as Chicago's club president, signed multiple star players, such as pitcher Albert Spalding, and infielders Ross Barnes, Deacon White and Adrian Anson to join the team prior to the N.L.'s inaugural season of 1876. The Chicago franchise, playing its home games at West Side Grounds , quickly established themselves as one of the new league's top teams. Spalding won 47 games and Barnes led the league in hitting at .429 as Chicago won the first ever National League pennant, which at the time was the game's top prize.
After back to back pennants in 1880 and '81, Hulbert died, and Al Spalding, who had retired to start Spalding sporting goods, assumed ownership of the club. The White Stockings, with Anson acting as player/manager, captured their third consecutive pennant in 1882, and "Cap" Anson established himself as the game's first true superstar. In 1885 and '86, after winning N.L. pennants, The White Stockings met the short-lived American Association champion in that era's version of a World Series. Both seasons resulted in matchups with the St. Louis Brown Stockings, with the clubs tying in '85 and with St. Louis winning in '86. This was the genesis of what would eventually become one of the greatest rivalries in sports. In all, the Anson-led Chicago Base Ball Club won six National League pennants between 1876 and 1886. As a result, Chicago's club nickname transitioned, and by 1890 they had become known as the Chicago Colts , or sometimes "Anson's Colts," referring to Cap's influence within the club. Anson was the first player in history to collect 3,000 hits, and when he left the team in 1898, the loss of his leadership resulted in the team becoming known as the Chicago Orphans (or Remnants) and a few forgettable seasons. After the 1900 season, the American Base-Ball League formed as a rival professional league, and incidentally the club's old White Stockings nickname would be adopted by a new American League neighbor to the south.
1902–1920: A Cub dynasty
In 1902, Spalding, who by this time had revamped the roster to boast what would soon be one of the best teams of the early century, sold the club to Jim Hart, and the franchise ultimately became known as the Chicago Cubs. During this period, which has become known as baseball's dead-ball era, three Cub infielders; Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance were made famous as a double-play combination by Franklin P. Adams' poem Baseball's Sad Lexicon . The poem first appeared in the July 18, 1910 edition of the New York Evening Mail . Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, Jack Taylor, Ed Reulbach, Jack Pfiester and Orval Overall were several key pitchers for the Cubs during this time period. With Chance acting as player-manager from 1903 to 1912 the Cubs won four pennants and two World Series titles over a five-year span. Although they fell to the White Sox in the 1906 World Series, The Cubs recorded a record 116 victories and the best winning percentage (.763) of the modern era. With mostly the same roster, Chicago won back to back World Series championships in 1907 and 1908. Their appearance in 3 consecutive World Series made the Cubs the first Major League Club to play 3 times in the Fall Classic. Likewise, their back-to-back World Series victories in 1907 and 1908 made them the first modern club to win 2 World Series.
The next season, veteran catcher Johnny Kling left the team to become a professional pocket billiards player. Some historians think Kling's absence was significant enough to prevent the Cubs from also winning a third straight title in 1909, as they finished 6 games out of first place. When Kling returned the next year, the Cubs won the pennant again, but lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1910 World Series.
In 1914, advertising executive Albert Lasker obtained a large block of shares and before the 1916 season had assumed majority ownership of the franchise. Lasker quickly acquired the services of astute baseball man William Veeck, Sr. to run his new team, and brought in a wealthy partner, Charles Weeghman. Weeghman was the proprietor of a popular chain of lunch counters who had previously owned the Chicago Whales of the short-lived Federal League. As principal owners, the pair moved the club from the West Side Grounds to the much newer Weeghman Park, which had been constructed for the Whales two years earlier. The club responded by winning a pennant in the war-shortened season of 1918, where they played a part in another team's curse. The Boston Red Sox defeated Grover Cleveland Alexander's Cubs four games to two in the 1918 World Series. Afterward, Boston sold its star pitcher, Babe Ruth, to the New York Yankees, starting a tale of futility which would last 86 years, known as Curse of the Bambino .
The Wrigley years (1921–1981)
Double-Bills take over
During what is often called baseball's "golden age," one of Cubs's minority owners, William Wrigley Jr., who also happened to be the owner of Wrigley Company, a Chicago-based maker of chewing gum, would begin to increase his share of ownership. In 1921 Wrigley bought Weeghman's shares and in 1925 had acquired most of Lakser's s
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