Chicago National League Ball Club - Sports Check - Baseball

Check No. 8789, IL. Under Printing of 3 bear cubs, one pitching, one batting, and one catching. Ball and Bats are the border. Rare!

Chicago National League Ball Club, Inc., better known to Major League Baseball fans as the Chicago Cubs, is a subsidiary of the publicly traded media giant Tribune Company. The Cubs have played longer in one city than any other sports franchise. After winning a number of championships in its early history, the Cubs have evolved into sports' most lovable losers, failing to win the World Series since 1908 and not even reaching the Series since 1945. Win or lose, the Cubs have been a perennial favorite on Chicago's WGN television superstation, and draw well at the gate.

Often the team's ballpark, Wrigley Field, the second oldest in Major League baseball, is a greater attraction than the team itself. It was the last major league stadium to install lights, and any changes to the facility are met with community opposition, leading to efforts to have Wrigley designated a landmark, which would give the city the power to veto any major renovations.

In 1902, Spalding, who by this time had revamped the roster to boast what would soon be one of the best teams of the early century, sold the club to Jim Hart. The franchise was nicknamed the Cubs by the Chicago Daily News in 1902; it officially took the name five years later. During this period, which has become known as baseball's dead-ball era, Cub infielders Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance were made famous as a double-play combination by Franklin P. Adams' poem "Baseball's Sad Lexicon". The poem first appeared in the July 18, 1910 edition of the New York Evening Mail. Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, Jack Taylor, Ed Reulbach, Jack Pfiester, and Orval Overall were several key pitchers for the Cubs during this time period. With Chance acting as player-manager from 1905 to 1912, the Cubs won four pennants and two World Series titles over a five-year span. Although they fell to the "Hitless Wonders" White Sox in the 1906 World Series, the Cubs recorded a record 116 victories and the best winning percentage (.763) in Major League history. With mostly the same roster, Chicago won back-to-back World Series championships in 1907 and 1908, becoming the first Major League club to play three times in the Fall Classic and the first to win it twice. However, the Cubs would not win another World Series until 2016; this remains the longest championship drought in North American professional sports. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Cubs

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