Chicago Cubs: Remembering the 1907 Chicago Cubs

The1907 season was a great time as the Chicago Cubs achieved the ultimate goal of winning their first World Series in their history.

The 1907 season marked the 36th season of the Chicago Cubs organization.  This 1907 Cubs led by Hall of Fame, player/manager Frank Chance, was a team for the record books, with a 107-45 record the Cubs defeated another Hall of Famer Ty Cobb led Detroit Tigers four games to none in the team’s first-ever World Series title.

Chicago Cubs: The 1906 regular season & playoffs

The Cubs finished the 1906 season, winning an MLB record of 116 wins, which the Seattle Mariners later tied in 2001, but it still stands as the most wins in a season. Their dominated season by their starting rotation, Mordecai Brown, Jack Pfiester, Ed Reulbach, Jack Taylor, and Orval Overall, all finished the season with an ERA under 2.00. Their offense wasn’t too bad either. Out of the Cubs’ 1,316 hits, they drove in 704 while only hitting 20 home runs as a team.

However, the 1906 playoffs were another story. The Cubs faced their crosstown rival, the White Sox, who was one of the worst teams batting as they batted a .230 average. Somehow the White Sox, despite their hitting, managed to win the pennant. Once it came to the World Series, their bats came alive as they shocked the favorite heavy Cubs, winning the series four games to two. This disappointing finish put a ton of pressure on the Cubs for the 1907 season.

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Chicago Cubs: The 1907 regular season

While the Cubs didn’t end up outdoing the previous season, they did, however, capitalize on winning another National League Pennant. The Cubs rocketed through the regular season with a record of 107-45, The 29-year-old Pfiester led the National League with his 1.15 ERA.

Although he had some fierce competition on the team, as Carl Lundgren ended the 1907 season with a .02 higher ERA than Pfiester, thanks to their elite pitching rotation, the Cubs pitchers gave up 390 runs in 152 games.

On the offensive side of things, Hall of Famers  Chance, Johnny Evers, and Joe Tinker didn’t have a big season. Tinker, Evers had less than .250 batting averages while Chance was slightly under .300. The reduction of offensive power made it hard for the Cubs to score runs. The whole team had a total of 571 runs, which is 134 runs less than the previous season.

Chicago Cubs: The 1907 World Series

When the playoffs came around, it didn’t matter as they didn’t want to repeat what happened in 1906. The Cubs led the NL by 17 games but still had to face Cobb and the Tigers in the 1907 World Series. Play one of the series ended in a tie due to darkness. Pfiester pitched a dominant performance as the Cubs won game two by the score of 3-1.

Reulbach pitched the third game in the series and only gave up one run on six hits, giving the Cubs a 5-1 victory.  Overall not only pitched an outstanding game, but he also got his bats going as he went 1/2 with two RBIs in a Game 4 victory for the Cubs. That win puts them one away from setting history.

Game five of the World Series came down to a pitching duel between Brown of the Cubs and George Mullin of the Tigers. Third baseman Harry Steinfeldt had a great night going 3/4 and driving one out of the two runs the Cubs scored.

On the mound, Brown was getting it done, as he threw a complete-game shutout. The Cubs held the highest-scoring team to only four runs in the final four games to make history and win their first World Series title.