Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 105

In 1909, the Cubs improved their victory total to 104. It so happened, however, that Pittsburgh won 110.

Chicago again won 104 games in 1910, which this time was good for a fourth pennant as they ended 13 games ahead of second place New York. The Cubs went into first for good on May 24 and led the Pirates by 10 games and the Giants by 12 games by the end of August. The 1910 Cubs were also the inspiration for that great American poem; Franklin Pierce Adams' ode to that "trio of bear cubs," Tinker, Evers, and Chance, suitably entitled "Baseball's Sad Lexicon." The poem was printed in the New York Evening Mail on July 12, when the Giants were in Chicago. John McGraw's men trailed the Cubs by only 1½ games, but the writing was perhaps apparent on the wall. The Giants' loss to the Cubs on July 11 was the first of five straight defeats and nine losses in 12 games, effectively finishing them for the season and allowing Chicago to cruise to pennant number four in five years.

The extent to which the Cubs dominated the league from 1906 through 1910 leads one to wonder whether they are the best National League team since the advent of what is called the "modern era" or prior thereto.