Cub's title drought turns 100 today

JOHN LOWE'S BLOG
Tigers’ old home is grounds for noting Cubs’ title drought, which turns 100 today
BY JOHN LOWE • FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER • October 14, 2008

It was 100 years ago today that a crowd of only 6,210 showed up at Bennett Park, the forerunner of Tiger Stadium, and witnessed something that is yet to occur again:

The Cubs won the World Series.

On that Oct. 14, the Cubs beat the Tigers, 2-0, in Game 5. The Cubs won the 1908 World Series, four games to one.

It was the second straight year the Cubs had steamrollered the Tigers in the World Series and had won the clinching game in Detroit by the score of 2-0. Those remain the only two world titles in Cubs history.

So the only place the Cubs have ever won the World Series is the corner of Michigan and Trumbull.

But wait. There is more.

In 1935, the Tigers and Cubs met for the third time in the World Series. By then a big and recently expanded ballpark, Briggs Stadium, stood at Michigan and Trumbull. That’s where the Tigers won the world title - their first - when they took Game 6 in 1935 on Goose Goslin’s single in the ninth.

Bruce Jenkins, an eminent and delightful writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, once noted that the Tigers have been around so long that they have played the Cubs in four World Series. The fourth was in 1945.

In Game 3 of that one, the Cubs won at Briggs Stadium, 3-0. Their pitcher, right-hander Claude Passeau, threw a one-hitter. That’s the same Claude Passeau who, in the same park four years before, had served up Ted Williams’ game-winning homer in the All-Star Game with the A.L. trailing and two out in the bottom of the ninth.

That win by Passeau in 1945 remains the most recent World Series road game the Cubs have played.

The remainder of the ’45 World Series occurred in Chicago. The Tigers won in seven games. The Cubs haven’t been back to the World Series since.

But at least their fans can see something besides the shell of a ballpark when they gaze at the scene at Michigan and Trumbull. They can see the one spot where their team has won the World Series.

I hope the Cubs can win another title, they deserve it.....150 years from today - 250 years is plenty of wait.

Hahahaha cubs

That damn goat got em again