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.
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Today in baseball history:
1908 – With electric bulletin boards also showing the action in Chicago, the Cubs arrive back home for a three-game sweep to move within one-half game of the lead. (2)
1910 – Inventor George Cahill brings his patented lighting system to South Side Park. Using twenty 137,000 candlepower arc lights, two amateur teams play a night game before 20,000. However, the first American League night game won’t be played there until 1939. (1,2)
1912 – In response to demands for an alternative way to rate pitchers besides wins and losses, the National League will officially keep ERA‘s for the first time; the Giants’ Jeff Tesreau will lead the league at 1.96. Despite an increase in .300 hitters from 22 to 32 this year, there will be 19 pitchers with ERA’s under 3.00. The American League will not make ERA part of its official statistics until 1913. (2)
1937 – Brooklyn’s Fred Frankhouse pitched a rain-shortened no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds. The game was stopped with two out in the eighth inning and the Dodgers leading, 5-0. (1,2)
1948 – Johnny Schmitz leads the Cubs to a 1-0 win over the first-place Braves at Wrigley Field. Schmitz allows just six hits, including two triples, but doubles and scores the game’s only run in the bottom of the ninth. Johnny Sain takes the loss. (2)
2014 – Another top Cubs prospect homers in his major league debut, three weeks after Javier Baez. Cuban OF Jorge Soler goes deep in his first career at-bat, against Mat Latos of the Reds in the second inning, immediately after, Luis Valbuena also homered. Soler adds an RBI single later in the game, but Chicago still falls, 7-5. For the Reds, rookie OF Billy Hamilton steals his 50th base of the year, the ninth player in team history to reach the mark. (2)
2021 – In one of the wildest games of the year, the White Sox defeat the Cubs, 17-13. Yasmani Grandal, in his first game back after going on the injured list in early July with a knee injury, ties a team record with eight RBIs and also hits two homers to lead the ChiSox attack. Patrick Wisdom also hits a pair of homers for the Cubs to celebrate his 30th birthday. (2)
Cubs Birthdays: Dave Wright, Eddie Mulligan, Phil Collins, Emil Verban, Peanuts Lowrey, Jim King, Ernie Broglio, John Hairston, Brian McRae, Andy Pratt, Mike Olt, Josh Vitters, Patrick Wisdom*. Also notable: Jim Thome HOF.
Today in History:
663 – Battle of Baekgang: Tang Chinese and Silla Korean forces defeat Baekje Korean forces and their Yamato Japanese allies on the Geum River in Korea, the last Japanese invasion of Korea for 900 years.
1665 – “Ye Bare & Ye Cubb” is the first play performed in North America in Accomac, Virginia.
1883 – Krakatoa volcano, located west of Java in Indonesia, erupts with a force of 200 megatons of TNT, killing approximately 36,000 people. The 1968 disaster film Krakatoa: East of Java used an inaccurate title, creating widespread confusion.
1896 – Britain defeats Zanzibar in a 38-minute war (9:02 am – 9:40 am), the shortest recorded war in history.
Common sources:
*pictured.
Things are as near to the truth as we can get them. Some of these items spread from site to site without being fact-checked, and that is why we ask for verifiable sources, so that we can correct the record, if need be, and have some record of why we did so.