The day is October 14, 1908. The Chicago Cubs have just defeated the Tigers to repeat as World Series Champions. The win caps a five-game match-up featuring a hall of fame infield of Tinkers, Evers and Chance, a 21-year old Ty Cobb, and great pitching from Cubs' hurlers Orval Overall and Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown. Yet there is no joy in Chicago. Cubs fans are angry and the players feel betrayed. Sports writers are fed up with their working conditions and team owners will soon meet to debate, among other topics, whether to do away with the World Series all together. Just one week earlier, the city was riding high with anticipation. To find out what went wrong, let's rewind the clock.
The day is October 8. Four days earlier, a tie-breaking win over the Pirates forces a one-game play-off between the Cubs and the New York Giants. Mordecai Brown leads the Cubs to a 4-2 victory in front of 40,000 New York fans. Back in Chicago, sports-loving residents anxiously await an announcement on how to purchase world series tickets.
October 9: Long lines begin to form early outside of Spalding's Sporting Goods Store; the announced location of ticket sales for games two and three in Chicago. The hours pass. At 1:30 pm, the crowd is told that no tickets will be sold today. Fans will have to purchase their seats at the ball park tomorrow morning. Earlier in the day, unbeknownst to the general public, a group of scalpers from Cincinnati allegedly gathers in the Cubs front office to procure large blocks of tickets.
October 10: Thousands of fans wake before dawn to gather outside the box office, but to no avail. The scalpers have seen the demand and they want more. Hours go by while shady dealings take place behind closed doors. Cubs fans are eventually told that only those who have previously reserved seats via mail will receive tickets. Yet due to severe under-staffing, the Cubs box office has only processed a fraction of the advance purchase orders - adding to the confusion. Even the city's mayor is turned away... until he threatens to shut down the stadium for multiple building code violations. Scalpers troll the crowd, hoping to take advantage of fan desperation, but most people are too disgusted at their mistreatment. The local press calls for a boycott. A dramatic game one takes place in Detroit.
October 11: Unable to sell for profit, nervous scalpers unload their product at face value, aggressively hitting the streets and subway platforms looking for customers. Attendance at the ball park is 7,000 less than at the first home game one year earlier (which was played in the same stadium).
October 14: Prior to game five, twenty-five sports journalists from around the country meet at a Detroit hotel to vote on whether or not to form a professional organization. Among their grievances is crowded press rooms in the league championships and world series, which have been over-run by people with no business being there. The result of the vote is to create the Baseball Writers' Association of America, an organization that will grow to over 700 members in the following century. Cubs' pitcher Orval Overall is virtually untouchable as the Cubs clinch the series in Detroit, four games to one. The final game draws 6,210 spectators; less than half the stadium's capacity. In Chicago, winning the World Series does little to appease angry fans.
October 15: Cubs fans file a petition with the National Baseball Commission (the predecessor to the Commissioner's Office). The opening paragraph reads: "We, the undersigned lovers of baseball, respectfully petition in the best interest of the game that the sale of tickets for the games of the world's series played at the West Side Ball Park, Oct. 11 and 12, 1908, be investigated and a report made public by the committee." According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, the petition is "liberally signed". The commission agrees to consider it.
November, 1908: Led by player/manager Frank Chance, the Cubs players claim that the mismanagement of tickets cost them $8,000 in lost wages, as their post-season salary is partially based on percentage of sales. They demand compensation for the loss. Chance and team owner Charles Murphy are no longer on speaking terms.
December, 1908 - December, 1909: The National Commission investigates the incident. While it is clear that ticket sales were grossly mishandled, baseball's governing body concludes that "there was no direct charge, nor any proof submitted that the Chicago club, nor any of its employees, were in collusion with the so-called ticket scalpers." The report chastises Murphy for allowing so many tickets to end up in scalper hands, including 630 tickets sold to one customer, but no punitive measures are doled out. Murphy continues to own the team for three more years.
Thus the Cubs escape the wrath of the Commission, but the baseball gods are not so kind. In the 107 years that follow, the Cubs fail to win another World Series. A goat named Murphy becomes the focus of an infamous curse placed on the franchise in 1945, but many believe it was a different Murphy, four decades earlier, that deserves to be the goat.
Sources:
-The Irish and the Making of American Sport, Patrick R. Redmond, McFarland Press, 2014
-"The 1908 World Series", Scott Ferkovich, The National Pastime Museum (website)
-"Cubs Ticket Scam of 2003 Looks Very Familiar", Greg Couch, Chicago Sun-Times, September 11, 2003
-"Ticket Scalpers Given Hard Blow", Chicago Tribune, October 12, 1908
-"Ball Players in Trouble", Chicago Tribune, October 16, 1908
-"Row May Split Team", Chicago Tribune, November 29, 1908
