Chicago White Stockings 1870

The Best Championship Game You’ve Never Heard Of

Though the 1870 championship game involved a team called the Mutuals, the conclusion was anything but. In many ways, the game was about as improbable as one could be. The reigning champions entered the season expecting to easily trounce their way to another championship, while the newly formed Chicago White Stockings should have been happy […]

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Game 42 Recap: Reds 5, Cubs 4

The first game of a doubleheader going to extras after your starter lasting only five innings is, uh, generally Not Great, and it certainly led to a frustrating loss this afternoon. What You Need To Know: Much of the game was a back-and-forth affair with the Reds taking the lead in the first and fourth […]

1897-Louisville-Colonels

A Game With The 1890s Cubs

On January 31st, 1898, writing about Cap Anson’s retirement from baseball, the Chicago Tribune declared, “an epoc of baseball is finished,” and, like the great prophets, Anson was “left without honor in his own land.” Though the decade obviously continued for another two years, the 1890s Chicago baseball team was, in the eyes of the […]

Rapid City Journal, January 9, 1940

Crafting a Mystery: The 1940 Cubs

More than conveyors of facts, baseball writers act as storytellers, uncovering fantastic tales where they exist and inventing them where they do not. But as anyone who has created a story knows, sometimes the characters don’t cooperate, instead wandering along paths no longer suited to the narrative and hiding away where the writer cannot reach […]