On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Bleed Cubbie Blue is pleased to present a Cubs-centric look at baseball’s colorful past. Here’s a handy Cubs timeline, to help you follow the various narrative paths.
“Maybe I called it wrong, but it’s official.” — Tom Connolly, HoF Umpire.
Happy birthday to Jon Lester* and many other Cubs stalwarts, Landis cuts pay, and other stories.
Today in baseball history:
- 1882 – The National League will continue the practice of using different color patterns on uniforms for the different positions. Third basemen will wear gray and white uniforms, as the blue and white uniforms originally sought were “impossible to obtain.” (2)
- 1933 – Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis announces that he is cutting his salary by 40 percent. Landis’s action is a sign of the times during the Great Depression; most players will have their salaries reduced for the coming season. (2)
- 1981 – The Cincinnati Reds are the last major league club to enter the free agency market, signing their first free agent, back-up outfielder Larry Biittner. Biittner will prove a bust and be released after the 1982 season. (2)
- 1985 – Lou Brock and Hoyt Wilhelm are elected to the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association of America. During his career, Brock established the record for the most stolen bases in major league history (which will later be broken by Rickey Henderson), while the knuckleballing Wilhelm pitched in more games than any other major league pitcher (Jesse Orosco will eventually break that mark). (1,2)
- 2011 – The Cubs and Rays engineer a big trade, with P Matt Garza, author of a no-hitter last season, OF Fernando Perez and a minor league player to be named are headed to Chicago in return for a slew of prospects. Those include P Chris Archer, OF Brandon Guyer, SS Hak-Ju Lee, C Robinson Chirinos and OF Sam Fuld, the only one in the group with major league experience. Archer and Guyer were the Cubs’ 2010 minor league player and pitcher of the year, respectively. (2)
- 2021 – Hall of Fame Manager Tommy Lasorda passes away at home at the age of 93. (2)
Cubs Birthdays: Dad Clarke, Kitty Bransfield, Al Todd, Alvin Dark, Dick Calmus, Doug Capilla, Alfonso Soriano,
Jon Lester*, Tucker Barnhart. Also notable: Johnny Mize HOF.
Today in History:
- 49 BC – Roman Senate declares Julius Caesar an enemy of the Roman Republic.
- 1610 – Galileo Galilei discovers the first three moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa and Ganymede.
- 1611 – Trial of Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory for killing and torturing hundreds of young women, later sentenced to house arrest for the rest of her life.
- 1790 – French Revolution: A major riot breaks out in Versailles as people demand lower bread prices.
- 2018 – Snow falls in the Sahara Desert, with 15 inches reported in Aïn Séfra, northwestern Algeria.
Common sources:
- (1) — Today in Baseball History.
- (2) — Baseball Reference.
- (3) — Society for American Baseball Research.
- (4) — Baseball Hall of Fame.
- (5) — This Day in Chicago Cubs history.
- (6) — Wikipedia.
- (7) — The British Museum
- (8) — For world history.
*pictured.
Some of these items spread from site to site without being fact-checked, and that is why we ask for verifiable sources, in order to help correct the record.
