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1906 CUBS TINKER TO EVERS TO NO CHANCE The 1906 Cubs won 116 games, tied for most ever in a season with the 2001 Seattle Mariners, and had the highest ever regular season winning percentage. With a solid pitching staff fronted by Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown, the '06 Cubs had an impressive 1.76 staff ERA. Only 1 pitcher in the rest of the league had a lower ERA than the Cubs' entire staff. The Cubs ran away with the pennant, and were clearly the favorites to win the world series. They led Their World Series opponents would end up being the team that they had tried to stop from coming to Chicago six years earlier, the Chicago White Sox. The crosstown Sox had an anemic team batting average of only .230, 32 points below the Cubs. Surely the "Hitless Wonders" wouldn't match up favorably against the dominant Cubs' pitching staff! And the White Sox sure did live up to the "hitless wonder" moniker. They would hit only .198 in the series. The White Sox had found ways to win without hitting all year long, and the '06 series was no exception. The Cubs gave up 20 earned runs, as the Sox gave up only 10. The Sox pitching staff that year wasn't much worse than the Cubs, and Sox pitchers managed to hold the slugging Cubs to a .196 batting average in the series. In the series the Sox would boast an ERA less than half than that of the Cubs. Pitching really does win games.
The Cubs took game 2 by a score of 7-1 on a lousy pitching performance by Ed Reulbach. The southsiders took game 3, as Ed Walsh two-hit the Cubs, striking out 12. The Cubs' Jack Pfiester also had a shutout going, but his only lasted for 8 innings after George Rohe hit a triple with the bases loaded. In game 4, Three Finger pitched again shutting out the Sox evening it at 2 games apiece. The rest of the series was all White Sox. In game 5 the Sox had 12 hits and 8 runs. And in game six the Sox gave old Three Fingers the beating he deserved with 14 hits and 8 runs capturing the first world seies title for Chicago's real baseball franchise! After the final out was recorded, the White Sox fans charged onto the field. The Southside celebration was on! Cubs fans were mocked and harassed. The celebration lasted all night, as bonfires lit up the night on the Southside. Two Cubs fans were seen hitched to a buggy pulling two laughing Sox fans down Milwaukee Avenue. Two other Cubs fans settled their bet by jumping into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan in December. Nearly 100 years later, the White Sox fans still hold bragging rights.
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Game 1 Sox 2, Cubs 1
Game 2 Cubs 7, Sox 1 Game 3 Sox 3, Cubs 0 Game 4 Cubs 1, Sox 0 Game 5 Sox 8, Cubs 6 Game 6 Cubs 3, Sox 8 |
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Reasons the Sox own Bragging Rights
The Cubs and Sox used to play a "city series" after the regular season. It lasted from 1903 until 1942. They met a total of 25 series in that 39-year span. They did not play the series after a season if one of the teams made the world series that year. Several times the Cubs chickened out. Could you blame them? The White Sox dominated them. The final score was 18 city series to 6, 1 tie. The Sox continued to dominate when the Cubs and Sox would meet for 1 exhibition game a year known as the "Crosstwon Classic" The Sox also have the edge on the Cubs since interleague play began. |
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the league in batting (Scoring 80 more runs than any other team), fielding, and pitching. They finished 20 games ahead of the second place New York Giants in the National League. 
Game one featured the Cubs' Three Finger Brown vs. Sox Nick Altrock. Each gave up only 1 earned run and 4 hits, but the Sox won on Brown's error in the 7th inning.
"One swallow does not make a summer," remarked Cubs owner
Charles Murphy.