How Cub DNA got in my blood

Here are some thought and memories that Grand Dad Cub Fan wrote down for us. This was written by the man who is responsible for the Cub fandom in our family. This was written prior to the start of the 2008 season. - CubTattoo

I think I started being a Cub fan about 1938-40. As far as I know my dad never listened to any Cub games. My neighbor (Johnny Kenon) would go to a Cub game and when he came home he would tell me all about the game. He had an aunt who lived in Blue Island, Illinois, a suburb south of Chicago. He would drive up to her place, then get on the commuter train and go north thru Chicago to the ballpark. He would come back the same way after the game. I went with him this way to my first Cub game. It was also my first time in Chicago. His aunt got us the tickets. I think they cost $4.00 and we rode the train thru downtown Chicago to Wrigley Field. The train would stop along the way and by the time we got to the game, the train was always full.

At the game I remember sitting in the upper deck behind home plate. There 8 teams in each league. All teams were east of the Mississippi except St Louis. There were 2 teams in New York and Chicago. The National League teams were the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinal and the Cubs. When the regular season was over, the team with the best record played in the World Series until one team won 4 games.

Teams played 154 games a year. Each team played every other team in the league 22 times, 11 at home and 11 on the road. There were lots of double headers back then. They played double headers on most every Sunday and most holidays. The following day, teams were off for traveling. Teams traveled by train and bus.

P.K. Wrigley owned the Cubs. He also owned Catalina Island off the coast of California which is where the Cubs held spring training. I don’t know when they moved to Arizona. [It was 1952.]

The pitchers in those days worked hard and long. A lot of pitchers worked 450+ innings a season. Some had as high as 42 complete games as season. In fact, in 1926 a pitcher from Cleveland pitched a double header one day, went all the way in both games and won both games. I got my facts & figures out of a baseball book I have to compare pitchers back then with present day pitchers. Now it is not unusual for a manager to use 3 or 4 pitchers in one inning.

When the Cub team was on the road the Sox played in Chicago and the other way around. When the Cubs played at Wrigley Field the game was broadcast on the radio like it is now. When the Cubs were on the road the radio announcer stayed in Chicago and got a feed of the game thru Western Union. The announcer then put on the air. Later the announcer started traveling with the team.

I remember the Cubs playing in the 1945 World Series, but they lost to Detroit in 7 games. The goat was alive and well at that time.

Players did not have agents at that time. Each player represented himself in contract talks with the club. I think they always had 1 year deals. The average salary in 1942 was $6,400. I wonder how long A-Rod would have to play to earn that much [A-Rod makes $172,839.50 / game].

The Cubs improved a lot in 2007 over 2006 and hopefully 2008 will improve a little more, stay out of key injuries and have a little luck, maybe, just maybe they can get rid of the curse of the goat and this time next year the World Series flag will be flying high above the Wrigley Field scoreboard. 100 years is a nice round number for Cub fans and future Cub fans to remember.

-GrandDadCubFan