Chicago Cubs

Chicago Cubs, American professional baseball team that plays its home games at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Despite limited success, the Cubs have one of the most loyal fan bases and are among the most popular franchises in baseball. The Cubs play in the National League (NL) and have won three World Series titles (1907, 1908, and 2016).

The team, originally known as the Chicago White Stockings, was a charter member of the NL in 1876 and had quick success. Led by Cap Anson, the team won 6 of the NL’s first 11 championships. Before adopting the name Cubs in the 1903 (the Cubs name was first associated with the team the previous year), the team was known by a variety of names, including the Colts and the Orphans. The Cubs’ best season came in 1906, when they won 116 games and posted a .763 winning percentage, although they lost to the crosstown rival Chicago White Sox in the World Series. However, the 1907 and 1908 World Series titles were captured by the Cubs—the first team to win consecutive World Series.

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In 1916 the Cubs moved into Weeghman Park (opened 1914), which in 1926 was renamed Wrigley Field and is today the second oldest baseball stadium still in use (Boston’s Fenway Park opened in 1912). During the 1910s and ’20s the team enjoyed limited success, winning NL titles in 1910 and 1918. From 1929 to 1938 the Cubs dominated the NL, winning four pennants (1929, 1932, 1935, and 1938) behind the strong play of centre fielder Hack Wilson, catcher Gabby Hartnett, and second baseman Rogers Hornsby. The 1932 World Series produced one of baseball’s legendary moments—Babe Ruth’s “called shot,” when the New York Yankees slugger allegedly pointed to centre field and promptly hit a home run to that very spot.

After the 1938 season the Cubs had only one winning year until 1945, when they won the NL pennant. That year’s World Series launched what has become known as the “Curse of the Billy Goat” (versions of the story vary). In the fourth game of the World Series, tavern owner Billy Sianis was forced to leave Wrigley Field after showing up with his goat, and upon his ejection Sianis cursed the franchise. The Cubs would not return to the World Series for more than 70 years.

Post-1945 Cubs history is distinguished primarily by disappointment on an epic scale. In 1969 the Cubs were first in their division (then the NL Eastern Division) throughout most of the season, leading it by as many as eight and a half games in mid-August before collapsing at the end of the season and falling to eight games behind the New York Mets, who went on to win the World Series. In 1984 the Cubs looked set to break their World Series drought, but, with the Cubs leading in the fifth and decisive game of the National League Championship Series (NLCS) against the San Diego Padres, a ground ball went through first baseman Leon Durham’s legs, helping the Padres defeat the Cubs. In 2003 the Cubs again appeared to be headed for a World Series, leading three games to two over the Florida Marlins in the NLCS. Five outs away from making it to the World Series, the Cubs missed the chance at another out when fan interference blocked an attempted catch by outfielder Moises Alou of a pop foul near the stands (the so-called Bartman incident). The Cubs ended up losing the game—and the series.

Despite these disappointments, in 2008 the Cubs became only the second team in Major League Baseball history to record 10,000 wins. Led by manager Lou Piniella, first baseman Derrek Lee, third baseman Aramis Ramírez, outfielder Alfonso Soriano, catcher Geovany Soto (who won Rookie of the Year honours in 2008), and pitchers Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano, and Ted Lilly, in 2007 and 2008 the Cubs won consecutive NL Central Division titles—the first time in 100 years that the team qualified for the playoffs in consecutive seasons. In 2009 the Cubs had a winning season but missed out on the playoffs, and, beginning with the following season, they entered into a prolonged losing period.

In 2011 the team brought in general manager Theo Epstein, who had put together the Boston Red Sox team that ended that franchise’s 86-year title drought in 2004. Epstein filled the Cubs roster with young talent, notably third baseman Kris Bryant and first baseman Anthony Rizzo, and in 2015 the team made an unexpected run to the postseason, where the Cubs lost the NLCS to the Mets. The following year the team won 103 games—the club’s highest win total in over a century—and handily won a division title. In the postseason the Cubs rallied to win the NLCS and clinch the club’s first berth in the World Series since 1945. There the Cubs rallied from a 3–1 series deficit to the Cleveland Indians, winning three straight games to capture the franchise’s first world championship in 108 years. In 2017 the Cubs advanced to a third straight NLCS for the first time in franchise history, where the team was eliminated by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Chicago advanced to a franchise-record fourth straight playoff appearance in 2018, but the team’s time in the postseason lasted just one day, ending in a loss in the Wild Card Game. The Cubs further regressed in 2019, winning just 84 games and missing the playoffs after a late-season collapse that saw the team lose five consecutive one-run games in the final weeks of the season. In the 2020 season, which was shortened because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cubs returned to the playoffs but lost in the Wild Card round. During the off-season Epstein left the organization. Although Chicago got off to a strong start in 2021, a lengthy losing streak effectively ended the team’s hopes of qualifying for the postseason, and the Cubs traded a number of prominent players, including Rizzo and Bryant.

The Cubs franchise has produced numerous Hall of Famers, including the double-play combination of shortstop Joe Tinker (1902–12, 1916), second baseman Johnny Evers (1902–13), and first baseman Frank Chance (1898–1912). Other notable Hall of Famers are infielder Ernie Banks (“Mr. Cub”), who spent his entire career (1953–71) with the team, hitting 512 home runs; outfielder Billy Williams (1959–74); second baseman Ryne Sandberg (1982–94, 1996–97); pitcher Ferguson (“Fergie”) Jenkins (1966–73, 1982–83); and third baseman Ron Santo (1960–73).

One of the most-hallowed traditions at Wrigley Field home games is the seventh-inning stretch. Famed sports broadcaster Harry Caray led the singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” from 1982 until 1997 (he died in February 1998); guest “conductors” now lead the crowd.