The Chicago Cubs are a professional baseball team from Chicago, members of the the Central Division of the National League. They are one of the original members of the National League along with the Atlanta Braves. The cubs are the first professional sports club in North America, and since the formation of the National league in 1976 they have played continuously. Currently, Joe Ricketts’s family trust owns the team. The Chicago Cubs have also been known as the White Stockings, Zephyrs, Rainmakers, Colts, Trojans, North Siders, Orphans and Lovable Losers.
The Cubs are called the “Lovable Losers” because they have not won the World Series in 105 years, since 1908. It is the longest championship drought of any major professional sports team in North America. Initially known as the Chicago White Stockings, the club played for the first time in 1870. They won the National Association of Base Ball Players championship and played for five seasons. In 1876, the White Stockings team won the N.L. Championship and became one of the top teams in the new league. In 1882 the club captured their third consecutive pennant. Between 1876 and 1886 they won six more, under the guidance of Anson, the player/manager. The Stockings were often refereed to as the Chicago Colts or “Anson’s Colts.
After winning the NL pennant 1929 the Cubs established a tradition of winning every three years. In 1930, Hack Wilson has an incredible season, hitting 56 home runs and setting a record. The baseball team thrived in 1935 when they won a record of 21 games in a row. Gabby Hartnett had a historic walk-off home run in the 1938 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Because of World War II travel restrictions, the 1945 World Series were played in Detroit, where the Cubs won two games. In Game 4, Billy Sianis laid a curse upon the Cubs, known as the Curse of the Billy Goat. He had two tickets, one for him and one for his goat, but P.K. Wrigley forced him to leave. Wrigley. Sianis shouted, “The Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more” and the team lost. The following two decades after the curse, the Chicago Cubs finished among the worst teams in the league.
After losing 103 games in 1966, the club won in ’67 and ’68, but it was never the same. In 1982 the Cubs only managed to finish fifth, with a 73-89 record and until 1995 they placed only on the third and fourth positions. The Curse of the Billy Goat followed the afflicted baseball team throughout history. In 2012, they placed 20th in batting average, 26th in on base percentage and 27th in the league in runs. The Cubs are currently in last place of the National League Central Division.
