On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Bleed Cubbie Blue is pleased to present a light-hearted, Cubs-centric look at baseball’s colorful past, with plenty of the lore and various narratives to follow as they unfold over the course of time. Here’s a handy Cubs timeline, to help you follow along.

“Maybe I called it wrong, but it’s official.” — Tom Connolly.

Today in baseball history:

1900 – By defeating Chicago, 11 – 4, Beaneaters hurler Kid Nichols takes only nine seasons to win 300 games. The 30-year-old righty will amass 361 victories during his 15-year career and will remain the youngest player ever to accomplish the feat. (1,2)

1912 – To fend off possible future challenges to the legality of the standard contract and its reserve clause, new wording provides for compensation to the player for the right to renew. A player’s salary is specified as 75 percent for his services and 25 percent for the privilege of reserving them for the following season. (2)

1925 – The seventh-place Cubs install Rabbit Maranville as manager, replacing Bill Killefer. (2)

1927 – Cubs righthander Charlie Root’s one-hitter drops the Pirates into second place, with the Cubs on top. In the second of his 16 years with the Cubs, Root will lead the National League with 26 wins and 309 innings pitched. (2)

1948 – The Indians stun the baseball world by signing Satchel Paige, veteran Negro League pitcher. The move is ridiculed by some as a Bill Veeck publicity stunt, and J.G. Taylor Spink in The Sporting News editorializes, “Veeck has gone too far in his quest for publicity […] To sign a hurler at Paige’s age is to demean the standards of baseball in the big circuits.” The 42-year-old Paige will answer the critics in his first game tomorrow, getting a relief decision in a 8-6 win over New York in a doubleheader sweep. He will finish at 6-1. Paige is the oldest player to debut in the majors, but not the first 40-year-old: Chuck Hostetler in 1944 was 40. (1,2)

1957 – “Robbing a Pirate: Willie Mays of the Giants, with his back to the diamond, takes Dick Rand’s long drive on cinder path between bleachers in centerfield.” So reads the caption accompanying John Orris’s New York Times photo capturing Mays’ spectacular grab. “Willie was going toward the Eddie Grant monument between the clubhouse stairways,” writes Roscoe McGowen, “when he gloved Rand’s long drive – nearly 470 feet from the plate.” The actual distance is probably closer to 430 feet, but it is still a prodigious poke and a tremendous run, especially given Mays’ shallow positioning against the light-hitting Rand. Frank Thomas hits three home runs on the day for the Pirates, who sweep the doubleheader, 10-6 and 8-1. (2)

1977 – Chicago’s Rick Reuschel shuts out the Cardinals to run his record to 12-2. Reuschel has not given up an earned run, except a homer, since June 1st. (2)

1993 – Tom Browning decides that he has seen the view from the dugout often enough, so he leaves Wrigley Field and watches the Reds beat the Cubs 4-3 from the roof of a three-story building across Sheffield Avenue. He is fined $500 for leaving the dugout – not to mention the ballpark – during a game. (1,2)

2011 – The Cubs fall into an 8-0 hole against the Nationals before rallying for a 10-9 win. Darwin Barney drives in Tony Campana with a ninth-inning double off Henry Rodriguez, his third hit and RBI of the day, to seal the win. The comeback starts when manager Davey Johnson leaves a tiring Livan Hernandez on the mound in the 6th inning, trying to save his bullpen; by the time he removes his ace from the game, the Cubs have scored six runs off the Cuban hurler. It is the largest blown lead in Nats franchise history, including its years in Montreal before moving to the nation’s capital. (2)

2015 – The Cubs sweep a doubleheader at home for the first time since 2003 as they dispose of the Cardinals, 7-4 and 5-3. They score thrice in the seventh inning of the nitecap to ensure the double win, a frame which features Cards P Seth Maness being ejected for arguing that Addison Russell’s single down the first base line is foul, and his successor Kevin Siegrist throwing a potential double play grounder by Dexter Fowler into the outfield. (2)

2023 – For the first time in their history, the Chicago Cubs win a game at New Yankee Stadium. They had been 0-12 all time, including both interleague games and an 0-4 record in World Series games, and also counting games at the ballpark’s previous incarnation, Yankee Stadium. Jameson Taillon leads the way with just one hit allowed against his former team in eight innings as the Cubs shut out the Yankees, 3-0. For New York, starting pitcher, Carlos Rodon, finally makes his debut in pinstripes after being signed to a large contract as a free agent the previous off-season. (2)

Cubs birthdays: Willard Mains, George Moriarty, Billy Herman* HOF, Richard Lovelady, Franmil Reyes. Also notable: Satchel Paige HOF.

Today in history:

1456 – A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.

1550 – Traditional date chocolate thought to have been introduced to Europe.

1891 – Marcellus F. Berry, an American Express employee is granted four copyrights for what he called “the travelers cheque.”

1912 – American athlete Jim Thorpe wins four of five events to win the Pentathlon gold medal at the Stockholm Olympics. The medals were stripped in 1913 because Thorpe played pro baseball, but were reinstated in 1982.

1928 – Sliced bread sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company, Missouri, using a machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder; described as the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.

1936 – RCA broadcasts the first real TV program, a variety show with dancing, a film on locomotives, a Bonwit Teller fashion show, and a monologue from Tobacco Road.

1971 – MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn announces that Negro League players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame are to be given full membership in the Museum.

Common sources:

*pictured.

Some of these items spread from site to site without being verified. That is exactly why we ask for reputable sources if you have differences with a posted factoid. We are trying to set the record as straight as possible, but it isn’t brain surgery. We take it seriously, but there are limits