Constable: Cubs' infield deserves poetic justice
With our Chicago Cubs piling up wins at a pace not seen on the North Side since those glorious championship seasons of 1907 and 1908, comparisons come naturally. In 1908, the Cubs were led by four future Hall of Famers as they whipped Detroit four games to one in the World Series, with ace pitcher Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown winning two games while not surrendering a run. During the regular season, Brown compiled a record of 29-9 with a 1.47 earned run average.
Current Cubs ace Jake Arrieta is on pace to finish the regular season with a record of 32-0 and an ERA of 1.29. We can only assume that he'll win a couple of World Series games, probably against the White Sox — if the series goes long enough for Arrieta to pitch twice.
The 1908 Cubs infield of Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance batted a combined .279 while compiling a total of eight home runs and 160 runs batted in. Considering current Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo, shortstop Addison Russell and second baseman Ben Zobrist are on pace to hit a combined .277 while smashing 85 home runs and driving in 383 runs, today's Cubs' infield seems to have a leg up on those 20th-century heroes.
But, in addition to a pair of championships, those old Cubs have one thing the new Cubs do not — a poem.
“These are the saddest of possible words — Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Trio of Bear Cubs and fleeter than birds — Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double,
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble,
Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
New York writer and poet Franklin P. Adams wrote that poem in July of 1910 to fill space when his newspaper column came up a bit short. He was referring to a double play that squelched a Giants rally during a loss to the Cubs. While today's sports writers aren't going to use #GonfalonBubble in their tweets, the phrase means that the double play dashed the Giants' hopes of winning the pennant. A bit of a stretch, but Adams, a member of the famed Algonquin Roundtable, certainly earned the right to flaunt his poetic license.
The game has changed since then. Gloves are better. Fields are better. Players are stronger, faster, bigger and in better shape. And Russell, Zobrist and Rizzo are on pace to prick more gonfalon bubbles than Tinker, Evers and Chance did. The 20th-century trio, playing together for nine consecutive seasons, recorded 458 double plays, or about 50 each season. Russell, Zobrist and Rizzo are on pace to turn about 85 this season.
The old Cubs can boast a sensational record from 1906 through 1910, when the team won 530 games, four National League pennants and two World Series. But there is nothing to say today's Cubs can't match those numbers before Russell turns 27. Today's Cubs' double play combo also are better friends.
Quick to brawl, the 6-foot, 190-pound Chance was a rugged leader. Evers was a 125-pound, 5-foot-9 bundle of nervous energy who earned the nickname “Crab.” He got into a fight with Evers, after which the pair didn't speak to each other off the field for decades until they ended up together in a radio booth at the 1938 World Series.
Tinker, 5-9 and 175 pounds, reportedly got mad after Evers hailed a cab and never offered any teammates a lift.
Chance, who suffered from a variety of ailments, died at age 48. Tinker, who lost a leg to diabetes and his first wife to suicide, died on his 68th birthday. Evers was left partially paralyzed by a stroke at age 60 and died five years later.
Russell, Zobrist and Rizzo might not all go into the Hall of Fame together. But it would be poetic justice if somebody could immortalize them in rhyme. If Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance merits a poem, Russell-to-Zobrist-to-Rizzo deserves a verse of its own. And it has to be better than:
Cubs' double play trio — Russell to Zobrist to Rizzo,
our best local combo since Bozo, Cookie and Wizzo.