Before officially becoming the
"Cubs" in 1902, Chicago's
National League baseball team
was known by several other
names. From 1871 to 1890, the
team was known -- believe it
or not -- as the White
Stockings. It wasn't until
1900 that Charles Comisky took
the then-abandoned White
Stockings team name and gave
it to his team that played on
Chicago's south side.
The captain and manager of the
1871 to 1890 White Stockings
was 'Cap' Anson, baseball's
first superstar and the first
player ever to tally over
3,000 hits. Anson was voted
into the Hall of Fame in 1939.
With the exception of the
veteran Anson, the team began
trading away its stars for
younger players at the end of
the 1880s, and newspapers
started calling Anson "Pop".
From 1890 till 1897, the team
was known as Anson's Colts, or
just "Colts". A rookie back
then was often called a "Colt"
-- and Anson himself had
starred in a 1895 Broadway
play titled "A Runaway Colt".
Anson played his last
professional game in 1897, and
then briefly managed the NY
Giants. When he departed for
New York, newspapers then
began referring to the team he
left behind as the "Orphans"
-- a reference to the fact
that it had lost its "Pop".
Although the Colts'
predecessor, the White
Stockings, had won five
National League pennants
during the 1880s, the Colts of
the 1890s, having sold off
their best talent, were not as
successful. Cap Anson had been
the White Stockings' manager
for their five championships
during the 1880s, but as
manager of the Colts, his
teams never did win a pennant
and played above .500 in only
four of its eight years in
existence. Anson had been
teammates, over the course of
his career, with five others
who would eventually, like
him, be enshrined in the Hall
of Fame. Only one of these
five, Clark Griffith, had
played for the Colts.
At the gate, the Colts
consistently bested the
National League attendance
averages. In its best year
(1895), it drew 5,749 through
West Side Field turnstiles --
a figure not dramatically less
than what the Cubs averaged in
the early 1960s, probably its
most hapless years.
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