The last Chicago Cubs manager to win the World Series was a guy named Frank Chance. Chance, also played first base for the 1908 team that were standard bearers for all of baseball. Yes, there was a time when the southsiders ruled baseball. If you believe in curses, the 1908 Cubs seem to be the origin of the Chicago Cubs curse, more so than billy goats, Bartman or Babes (Ruth). All because Fred Merkle didn't touch second base.
The 1908 season would be the Cubs third consecutive National league pennant and second consecutive World Series appearance. This is pre-Wild Card, pre-divisions era. There was the National League and the American League. That's it. Even though the Cubs were an impressive dynamo, compiling a 322- 136 record from 1906-1908, they would still need a bit of help to repeat as champions in 1908.
Baseball-Reference sets the scene, "A few days prior to the game in which the play occurred, Cubs captain and eventual Hall of Famer Johnny Evers warned an umpire that he was going to insist on the umpires calling a runner out if he failed to touch the succeeding base at the end of a game. It was common, at the time, if a batter batted home a runner who was on third base to win a game, for a runner on first base to just leave the field instead of bothering to touch second base. The player whom Evers had seen supposedly failing to touch second base was Warren Gill in a game played on September 4th between the Cubs and the Pittsburgh Pirates."
This would come to pass in the game that would give the Cubs against the second place NY Giants. Tied a-top the National League with 98-55 records, the winner of the game would win the National League pennant. This was before the Wild Card and poor Fred Merkle would forever live in infamy. With the game tied in the ninth, B-R again lays it out, "Cubs' pitcher Jack Pfiester's offering was hit into the outfield by batter Al Bridwell, McCormick ran home, scoring what he thought was the winning run, and ran into the clubhouse. Fred Merkle was on first base, and he ran toward second base. Whether he actually reached second base has been disputed over the decades. At some point, he veered off as if to run off the field.
Evers yelled at the umpire Hank O'Day, who was the same man that he had warned a few days earlier. Christy Mathewson, the famous Giants pitcher and eventual Hall of Famer, very quickly saw what was happening, and ran onto the field to stop Merkle from leaving.
Meanwhile, the ball had been hit into the outfield, and was picked up by outfielder Solly Hofman. Hofman at first didn't think there was any rush to return the ball to the infield, but Evers screamed at him to throw it to second base to get a force out on Merkle."
Bedlam ensued. The New York fans were on the field and the umpires feared for their safety so they fled the field to confer. Ultimately, the league would have to decide. Miscbaseball tells us that, "While [the rule requiring a baserunner to touch the next base to avoid a putout] may not have been complied with in many other games; while other clubs may not have taken advantage of the provisions in the past under other circumstances; yet it did not deprive the Chicago club of the right to do so if they so desired, notwithstanding that it might be termed as taking advantage of winning or losing a game upon a technicality."
Another game was ordered and the Cubs would win 4-2 and would brush aside the Detroit Tigers 4 games to 1 to repeat as world champions.
From there, it was all downhill. The Cubs would fall short in the World Series 7 more times, the last being 1945, which they pushed to game 7, the closest to glory they've been since 1908.
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