Monday, October 19, 2015

A Look At The Last Cubs World Series Winner

You would have to use a good bit of plutonium in the DeLorean to travel back far enough to find the most recent World Series winner for the Chicago Cubs.  You would have to travel back to a time when radios were not yet in homes and cars were not on streets.  Theodore Roosevelt was the President of the United States.  Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx was just one year old.  The Cubs were coming off of a championship in 1907 and became the first team to win back to back.

The 1908 Cubs finished the regular season with a 99-55 record, they moved on to the World Series by winning a makeup game that was necessitated by the infamous "Merkle's Boner" game.  The Cubs took on Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in a rematch from the previous year's World Series.  The Cubs won the series 4-1.

That 1908 Cubs offense was led by Joe Tinker who hit .266 with 6 homers, 14 triples and 68 RBI.  Their pitching was paced by Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown who went 29-9 with 1.47 ERA.  Brown was accompanied by Ed Reulbach who went 24-7 with a 2.03 ERA and Orval Overall who went 15-11 and 1.92.

The 1908 Cubs also featured infielders Tinker, Evers and Chance, immortalized by the famous poem.

Hall of Famers from that team are Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Frank Chance and Three Finger Brown.
Obviously, there are no living players from the 1908 Cubs team.

The Cubs would go one to seven more World Series (1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938 and 1945), and lose them all.  Their most recent World Series loss was to the 1945 Tigers, a team that I have discussed in detail, since it had the one and only Virgil Trucks.

The Cubs World Series record is 2-7.  They have faced the Tigers in more of the Cubs' World Series than any other team with 4.  They faced the A's and Yankees in 2 and the Red Sox in one  Will they ever win another one?

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