Steals by Cubs first basemen and pitchers By JohnW53 on May 6, 2021, 7:20am CDT +
A previous post documented the 10 steals of home by Cubs catchers since 1920.
That post also noted that the Cubs have had exactly 500 steals of any base by their catchers during the entire Modern Era, which began in 1901.
That got me thinking about 2 other positions not usually associated with stolen bases: first base and pitcher.
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MISSING SPLITS
Finding the number of steals at a specific fielding position for players during the Dead Ball Era proved challenging
Baseball-reference.com does not have career splits by position for many of those, and incomplete splits for others.
Cubs inside-the-park home runs, 1901-15 By JohnW53 on Apr 23, 2021, 7:29am CDT +
Last year, I published a 4-part series of posts about the Cubs inside-the-park home runs.
The numbers cited in those posts were obtained using baseball-reference.com s Team Batting Event Finder. But the database that it searches goes back only to 1916.
Now, by examining the individual home run logs of every player who homered at least once for the Cubs from 1901-15, I have documented all of the team s inside-the-park homers the Cubs hit in the first decade and a half of the Modern Era.
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During those years, the Cubs hit
The Schulte Poems: March 9, 1910 By JohnW53 on Mar 9, 2021, 6:46am CST 2
During the 1910 season, the Chicago Tribune regularly published funny, sometimes hilarious, poems that it said were written by Frank Schulte, the Cubs colorful, hard-hitting, lefty-swinging right fielder.
The poems actually were written by Ring Lardner, destined to become one of the great humorists of the early 20th Century, who was assigned by the paper to cover the Cubs that season.
This entry appeared 111 years ago today, as Schulte, sidelined with a split finger, watched the young outfielders who dreamed of taking his place:
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I ve watched them carefully.
O, yes, I ve watched Doc Miller, Smith,
How many players won titles as a Cub? By JohnW53 on Feb 1, 2021, 7:04am CST 1
10 National League championships.
8 times.
4 in 5 seasons (1906-07-08-10)
5 in 17 seasons (1929-32-35-38-45)
2 in 6 seasons (1984-89)
3 in 6 seasons (2003-07-08)
3 in 5 seasons (2016-17-20)
The only 1 that was not part of clump was 1918.
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630 total players, an average of exactly
35 per team.
.
Mordecai Three Finger Brown
Joe Tinker
The only other 4-time champions as Cubs were Gabby Hartnett and Charlie Root, both on the teams from 1929 through 1938, and Stan Hack, who was on the teams in 1932 through 1945.
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Twenty-four players contributed to
3 championships, including 4 on teams in 1906 through 1910: Carl Lundgren, Pat Moran and Jimmy Slagle, all in 1906-07-08, and Heinie Zimmerman, in 1907-08-10.
Half-lives of Cubs championship teams By JohnW53 on Jan 31, 2021, 7:04am CST 4
45 players: 20 position players and 25 pitchers.
If the 2021 season began today, only
6 of those 45 still would be a Cub: Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Willson Contreras, Jason Heyward, Anthony Rizzo and Kyle Hendricks, the lone remaining pitcher.
Remarkably, 2016 was the final season with the Cubs for
21 of those 45 players: 7 position players and 14 pitchers.
The position players who did not return in 2017 included 2 who had appeared in at least half of the team s games in 2016: outfielders Dexter Fowler (125) and Jorge Soler (86).
Among the departed pitchers were starter and 15-game winner Jason Hammel (30 games) and frequent relievers Travis Wood (77) and Trevor Cahill (50).