Skip to content

Looking back at the Cubs' World Series history

Sporting News Archive / Sporting News / Getty

The Chicago Cubs are in the World Series again, and if it feels like it's been forever - well, it's because it has been forever. The Cubs have never played in a televised World Series game, so most fans won't remember the pain of the past 11 World Series appearances, all but two of which ended in misery. Here's a look back at the Cubs' past Fall Classic failures - and the two triumphs - from oh so long ago.

1906: White Sox 4, Cubs 2

The Cubs' mini-dynasty in the 1900s boasted several Hall of Famers, including pitcher Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, and the poetic infield trio of Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and player/manager Frank Chance. In 1906, this group blitzed through the National League, winning a record 116 games and appearing to be unstoppable. But a pesky team that played a few miles down the road stood in its way in the "Hitless Wonders" White Sox. Despite hitting .230 as a team in the regular season and .198 during the series, the South Siders stunned their civic rivals in six games to win the only all-Chicago World Series in history. Brown pitched well but was rocked in the deciding Game 6 on one days' rest.

1907-08: Back-to-back titles

The Cubs avenged their crushing 1906 loss by winning 107 games in 1907, then dispatching the Detroit Tigers in four games (and one tie) to win their first World Series. The return trip in 1908 did not come as easily, as Chicago battled the Giants down the stretch in one of the most famous pennant races ever. On Sept. 23 at the Polo Grounds the Giants walked off the Cubs in a critical victory - but rookie first baseman Fred Merkle didn't touch second base, and the Cubs noticed. While victorious Giants fans invaded the field, the Cubs somehow forced Merkle at second and then protested the outcome. The league declared Merkle out and the game was called a tie, necessitating a replay at season's end. With new life thanks to "Merkle's Boner," the Cubs won that replay to take the pennant, then handled Detroit with ease once again for their second and most recent title. When the Cubs won the 1908 World Series at Detroit's Bennett Park, just 6,210 people were there to see it.

1910, 1918: Two uneventful losses

The 1910 World Series was the Cubs dynasty's last stand, and Frank Chance's aging squad fell to Connie Mack's powerful Athletics 4-1. They wouldn't make it back until 1918, when World War I forced the Cubs and Red Sox to play the series in September. That 1918 series was the last to not feature a single home run and the Red Sox won in six largely forgettable games.

1929: Athletics 4, Cubs 1

This is where the pain really began. In Game 1, the 98-win Cubs - who boasted four Hall of Famers in their starting lineup - couldn't solve Athletics veteran Howard Ehmke, who made just eight starts in the regular season but was surprisingly given the nod over Lefty Grove. It only got worse from there. Down 2-1 in the series, Chicago opened up an 8-0 lead in Game 4 and went into cruise control - until the historic seventh inning. Al Simmons led off the seventh with a homer; four straight singles then cut the Cubs' lead to 8-4. Mule Haas was the eighth A's hitter of the inning, and he lofted a fly ball to center field that Hack Wilson famously lost in the sun. The result was a three-run inside-the-park homer that turned the game on its head, and gave Wilson the most infamous fielding World Series gaffe this side of Bill Buckner. When the inning was over 15 Athletics had batted, four Cubs pitchers had blown the lead, and the Athletics were up 10-8; that eight-run deficit remains the largest deficit overcome in series history. The A's would win the World Series the next day.

1932: Yankees 4, Cubs 0

The Cubs were five games out on Aug. 2 when Hall of Fame player-manager Rogers Hornsby was fired and released in favor of first baseman Charlie Grimm. That sparked the North Siders, who roared back to grab the pennant in September under the watch of "Jolly Cholly." Once they got to the World Series, though, Babe Ruth and his Yankees awaited, and the fun would end there for the star-studded Cubs, who were quickly swept aside by New York. This World Series did have some hostile moments as the dugouts traded barbs during the games, but it's most famous for Ruth's "called shot" in Game 3 off Charlie Root, one of four homers he allowed that day.

1935: Tigers 4, Cubs 2

Chicago's star-studded roster reached its third World Series in seven years thanks to a 100-54 record, the team's last 100-win season until 2016. But once again, the Cubs were left searching for answers when it mattered, as their bats - who scored a league-high 847 runs - dried up against the Tigers. After losing Game 4 in extra innings they faced a 3-1 deficit, and pushed the series back to Detroit with a Game 5 victory that remains one of only two Cubs World Series wins at Wrigley Field. Game 6 at Navin Field is still painful for Cubs fans: Tied at 3-3 in the ninth, Stan Hack led off with a triple, only to be left stranded at third. In the bottom half Detroit made the Cubs pay, as Goose Goslin's walk-off single scored Mickey Cochrane and won the Tigers their first World Series. Little did Cubs fans know it would only get worse.

1938: Yankees 4, Cubs 0

If you're looking for the Cubs' Carlton Fisk moment - a dramatic season-saving play that lives on in baseball lore despite ultimately losing the World Series yet again - this is probably it. The Cubs were seven back of Pittsburgh to begin September but surged back in the final month as the Pirates faltered, setting up a classic series for the pennant in the season's last week at Wrigley. In the second game darkness set upon Chicago, and with no lights umpires announced the game would be declared a tie after the ninth inning if no runs were scored. That's where it was headed until the Cubs' catcher/manager, Hall of Famer Gabby Hartnett, stepped to the plate with two out and belted what became known as the "Homer in the Gloamin'" into the darkness, essentially wrapping up the pennant. The World Series itself was anti-climactic - Chicago would be swept by the Yankees again - but Hartnett's blast remains one of the most famous Cubs homers ever.

1945: Tigers 4, Cubs 3

Charlie Grimm was back as manager, and the Cubs battled the three-time defending NL champion Cardinals before clinching on the season's second-to-last day. Facing the Tigers in the World Series once again, the Cubs jumped out to a 2-1 lead through the first three games in Detroit (the Series was played in a 3-4 format due to war-time travel restrictions still in effect), but dropped the first two games back at home. In a wild Game 6, the Cubs were up 7-3 in the eighth when the bullpen allowed four runs to tie the game at 7-7 and force extras. For this one day, though, the Cubs didn't create heartache, as ace Hank Borowy pitched four innings of relief and Hack's 12th-inning RBI double to force Game 7. Wrigley was in a frenzy.

We all know how this one ended, though. Borowy started Game 7 on one days' rest and lasted just three batters; when the top of the first was complete the Tigers had a 5-0 lead and would cruise to a 9-3 win and another World Series title. It took the Cubs another 71 years to make it back.

For the next 39 years the Cubs wandered in baseball's desert, mostly thanks to incredibly poor management who didn't know how to fix things. Holding out on integrating the team hurt them - they remained without an African-American player until Ernie Banks 1953 - and they resorted to trying gimmicks such as the "College of Coaches," which saw the team rotate managers through the big club and their farm teams for three-week periods from 1961-63. Not surprisingly, that failed miserably.

The teams of Banks, Ron Santo, Fergie Jenkins, and Billy Williams were great but were ultimately wasted; the closest the Cubs got to the playoffs was 1969, when they collapsed in September. Some attribute that one to a black cat walking in front of the Cubs' dugout at Shea Stadium.

They finally made it back to October in 1984, and thanks to TV everybody knows the history from here. The ground ball through Leon Durham's legs; getting out-slugged by the Giants; that Steve Bartman thing; even the good-but-not-great teams swept out of the division series in 2007-08.

But thanks to a team of incredible talent young and old in 2016, all of that has been tossed aside. Now that they're in the series they just have to get rid of those other, less-remembered ghosts: the powerful Yankees, stranding Stan Hack runner at third, the blinding sun in Philadelphia, and even old Fred Merkle. For the first time in 108 years, though, there's no reason to think they can't vanquish them for good.

Daily Newsletter

Get the latest trending sports news daily in your inbox