HISTORY
 

It wasn't exactly a playoff moment, but the Chicago Cubs wouldn't have won the National League pennant in 1908 were it not for a key moment late in the season. With percentage points separating the Cubs and Giants in the standings, the two clubs found themselves locked in a 1-1 tie heading to the bottom of the ninth. With two outs and a runner on first, nineteen-year-old Fred Merkle (playing only because the Giants' regular first baseman Fred Tenney was ill) lined a single to right, putting runners on the corners for New York. Al Bridwell followed with a base hit, apparently scoring the game-winner. But Cubs' second baseman Johnny Evers, who realized that Merkle had left the field without touching second base, picked up the ball and -- dodging a tackle by the Giants' first base coach -- stepped on the bag. Merkle was called out, the run was erased, and because Giant fans had stormed the field the end of the game was postponed. After the season, with the two clubs tied for first, Mordecai 'Three Finger' Brown beat Christy Mathewson in a make-up game, clinching the NL title for the Chicago Cubs.

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The Chicago Cubs have represented the same city in the major leagues longer than any other club. Organized in 1870 to provide a professional challenge to Cincinnati's Red Stockings, the White Stockings (as they were originally know) were one of the founding members of the game's first professional league- the National Association- the next year.

Despite the great Chicago fire, which destroyed their ballpark, uniforms, and club business records late in the 1871 season, the White Stockings completed their schedule, finishing a second to the Athletics of Philadelphia. But they dropped out of the NA for the next two years because of the fire's devastation. In 1875, in the midst of a second losing season following their return, the club arranged for four of champion Boston's best players to jump to Chicago for the 1876 season. That winter, White Stocking president William A. Hulbert and pitcher/manager Al Spalding (one of the jumpers) led into forming a new league to replace the NA.

Sparked by it's Boston players and infielder Adrian "Cap" Anson (lured from the Athletics), the White Stockings in 1876 outscored their opponents by more than five runs per game and hadily won the first championship of the new National League. The next year, though, when Spalding (whose pitching had brought Chicago 47 of its 52 victories in 1876) switched over to first base, the club fell off to fifth.

Spalding retired from the field in 1878 to attend to his young sporting goods firm (though he returned as club president from 1882 through 1891). In 1879 Anson was named to manage the team. Leading the league in batting, he restored the White Stockings to their winning ways, and in 1880 led them back to the top.

For twelve years the White Stockings ranked among baseball's best, garnering five pennants (1880-1882, 1885-1886) and four second place finishes. Anson's stern moralty and strict discipline did not make him popular with his often rowdy teammates, but his consistency as a player set an example, and his innovative managment made most of his players' drive and aggressiveness. Anson's forcefulness, however, contributed to baseball's most grievous setback: his adamant refusal in the mid-1880s to take the field against black players prevented the racial integration of the major leagues that had up to then seemed imminent.

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