|
In 1906, the baseball world saw something
that had never been done. Two teams from the same city squared
off against each other in an intracity World Series, pitting
the heavily favored Cubs of the National League against the
hardscrabble American League champion White Sox. Now, for
its centennial anniversary, noted historian Bernard A. Weisberger
tells the tale of a unique time in baseball, a unique time
in America, and a time when Chicago was at the center of it
all.
At the turn of the century, American baseball
and America itself were, to a modern observer, both completely
alien and yet timelessly similar to what we know today. In
1906 the sport of baseball was still mired in the “dead
ball” era, when defense won championships, and players
didn’t need bodybuilder physiques in order to be competitive.
The league was racially segregated. A six-day workweek was
threatened by early game times, as the first night game wouldn’t
be played for another three decades. There was no radio to
broadcast the contest. Only one ball was used throughout the
game. And yet it was still ninety feet between bases. The
home team still batted in the bottom of the ninth inning.
And the final score could still capture the attention of a
nation.
It was a time when the accomplishments
on the field mirrored those beyond the diamond. America was
the land of the self-made man, the land where hard work and
determination could make a person’s fortune. A. G. Spalding
proved instrumental in making baseball what it is today—a
thriving business and a national pastime. Charles Comiskey
worked his way from scoring runs as a player to becoming one
of the most influential owners in baseball history. Mordecai
“Three-Finger” Brown overcame a horribly disfiguring
injury to become a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Cubs. And
Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance proved that you could use teamwork
to stand out as stars.
A city that had rebuilt itself from the
ashes of the Great Fire thirty-five years earlier was now
the focal point of an entire baseball-loving country. The
contest that could be called the Great Streetcar Series would
electrify the city of Chicago, and prove to be one of the
most unique and exciting World Series ever to be played.
Bernard A. Weisberger is a distinguished
teacher and author of American history. He has been on the
faculties of the University of Chicago and the University
of Rochester, is a contributing editor of American Heritage
for which he wrote a regular column for ten years, has worked
on television documentaries with Bill Moyers and Ken Burns,
and has published some dozen and a half books as well as numerous
articles and reviews. He lives in Evanston, Illinois, with
his wife.
|
