When Chicago Ruled Baseball: The Cubs-White Sox World Series of 1906

by Bernard A. Weisberger

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.

Genres: Baseball, Sports, History, Nonfiction, American History, 20th Century, American

224 pages, Hardcover

First published April 10, 2006

About the author

Bernard Allen Weisberger is an American historian. Weisberger taught American history at several universities including the University of Chicago and University of Rochester, where he was chair of the department. He has written more than a dozen books and worked on documentaries with Bill Moyers and Ken Burns. His Charles Ramsdell Prize winning article "The Dark and Bloody Ground of Reconstruction Historiography," is considered a standard in the study of the Reconstruction period.

He is a contributing editor of American Heritage, for which he wrote a regular column for ten years. Weisberger was also a member of the National Hillel Commission and a dedicated participant in the civil rights movement.

Reviews

[Max Luc · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Chicago Ruled Baseball: The Cubs-White Sox World Series of 1906 Book Review
When Chicago Ruled Baseball: The Cubs-White Sox World Series of 1906 by Bernard A. Weisberger is a nonfiction book about the 1906 World Series. This book really goes into deep of what happened in Chicago at the time. Each game of the World Series is talked about in great deep. The book also talks about the famous and memorable people at the time like Three Finger Brown and Charles Comiskey. The difference in early 20th century and early 21st century baseball are expressed. In the end, the White Sox would go on to win the 1906 world series 3-2. I overall loved this book. I loved the theme of “Chicago baseball.” This book really excelled at painting the picture of the 1906 World Series and what the ballpark and Chicago were like back then. One thing that this book struggles at was focusing too much on the lead up to the World Series and not the actual games that were being played. I really enjoyed this book personally because I love baseball and I love the White Sox. I am not a fan of the Cubs, so to read about how the White Sox beat the Cubs in the only world series they versed each other was good time. I recommend this book for any Chicagoans who loves baseball. I don’t think a typical baseball fan unless they just love baseball history, would enjoy this book as much because the typical baseball fan wouldn’t get anything out of reading about the 1906 World Series, which happened over 100 years ago. This is a great book about an important event in Chicago baseball history.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm of two minds about Bernard Weisberger's book about the 1906 World Series and the intracity rivalry that was its storyline. Like his other writings (especially his articles for American Heritage), this book shines as a history of a city and a developing sport. Chicago's explosive growth in the 1800s offers a historian a fascinating location to look at the United States, its westward movement and growing economic might. That alone is a fascinating subject.

The development of baseball in the late 19th century from pastime to big business also interests me as a fan of the sport. I particularly enjoyed the account of the National League's struggle toward financial success and the account of the American League's creation. In spite of that, I found the accounts of the games themselves to be less than riveting. Weisberger provides the flavor of the way the Series was covered by the press, which is great. Not so much is the accounts of each game. There is little drama to be had in the retelling of century-old games no matter the stakes. The book gets four stars for the history and two for the sports.

[Josh Hitch · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty solid book about the 1906 world series between the Chicago teams, the Cubs and the White Sox. It had a good narrative for the games themselves and did a good job describing how each team got to that point. Also told what happened to the players afterwards and that's always interesting.

Recommended if you are at all interested in this time period of MLB

[Frank · Rating 1 out of 5]

Classic case of a writer in another genre mailing it in because it's sports. Quickly becomes clear the topic isn't interesting enough to sustain a book, so it's short even with all the padding (2 ¶ bio of every player? Jesus). Full of high school level "finding all the connections between two people." Very poor use of stats (please, continue regaling me with how many putouts some dude had in 1905).

[Amanda Holiday · Rating 5 out of 5]

For an emigrant from Chicago, it was a pleasant surprise to read about the 1906 intracity world series with a side trip into the baseball world of those early days. Mr. Weisberger spun an intriguing tale on top of it all. It may not be the book for those without an interest in baseball, but it will satisfy anyone with even a passing interest in the game to the rabid fan hungry for the history of the game.

[Collin Williamson · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the 1900’s the Cubs and the White Sox's were the face of not only Chicago, but the face of baseball as well.This book is a good book for people that like sports.The book talks about the Cubs and the White Sox’s and how they battle it out to see who wins the world series. Don't get too jumpy you will find out who wins in the first part the book. The Cubs and the White Sox were the MLB best teams and it showed with their great players and fans. This book will take you back to the good ol days in the 1900’s and show today's world what they were all about back then.

They’re are a couple different features in the book that I would like to discuss with you. The first feature I would like to tell you about is Equipment. This book recognizes the change in equipment from back in the 1900’s to present day. This book is very nice because it takes into consideration what players had to wear and deal with back in the 1900’s. Players wore thick uniforms with heavy hats and socks that had absolutely no breathing room at all whatsoever. No matter what players wore those thick uniforms weather it was 100 degrees or 75 degrees they were always out there playing the game they love. That is why I think baseball was better back then. Players cared about the game more than they did money.

The second feature I would like to discuss with you is the change in price and the atmosphere. The change in player pay and cost for admission is crazy to think about. In the 1900’s the cost to get into a game was about 50 cents. You can't get into a baseball game today for under about $90. The change in player pay is the craziest thing I can think of in this book. This book explains how players were getting a maximum of about $19,000 a year and that's on the high end. Players today are getting an average of $4.4 million a year. How can anyone pay these players that much money it's crazy to think how these sports have changed over the years. Like I said in the first paragraph players worry about money rather than playing the game the right way.

This book overall is an ok book it talks about too many averages. One page it will be talking about the world series the next page it will be talking about averages and different equipment and then jump back into the game. For a person like me that feature makes it very hard to understand and follow along. If you are a person who like to see the difference between baseball now and back in the day it wouldn't be a bad book for you. The things I like best about the book is it really makes you feel like you’re in the book. The atmosphere they engage in really brings you in from the smell of the hotdogs and burgers to the drummers on the street. The things baseball brings to the world is phenomenal. If you haven't ever been to a MLB game i highly recommend it. I also would recommend this book if you are a baseball geek and like different statistics if not you might not want to get into this book it might be hard for you to follow along.

[Tom Gase · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad with the game descriptions and the crowd situation with it, but I feel there wasn't enough in this book. I didn't get to know the players at all. So it felt like just reading a random box score. The last chapter on the White Sox winning the 2005 World Series was also unnecessary. Not bad, but left a lot to be desired. I wanted to know more about Frank Chance, Ed Walsh, Three Finger Brown, Joe Tinker, Johny Evers, etc.

[MICHAEL · Rating 5 out of 5]

greatly enjoyed this book for the baseball but more for the city history. I am a fan, of the South Side, but, more importantly for my choosing this book, was the look into life in the city in the first decade of the last century. This book delivered on both. The final chapter tracing the lives of the players was also interesting to show what became of the heroes of that era.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the two chapters on the early history of the Cubs and White Sox franchises to be fascinating, compelling reading. The chapters focused on a recounting of the World Series games, however, seemed to drag and were a chore to get through.

[Naima Holloway · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about the two baseball teams of my hometown.
The history!
There were several typos which was slightly disheartening...

[Eric Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun book covering the 1906 World Series between the Cubs and the White Sox. Narrative gets a little jumbled at times, but overall a very entertaining read.

[John Gurney · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1906, Chicago faced Chicago in baseball's World Series. The Chicago Cubs arrived with a dominant record of 116-36, which remains the best regular season mark even today. The Northsiders' infield included the famous double-play combo of three future Hall of Famers, "Tinker to Evers to Chance". Behind Hall of Famer "Three Fingers" Mordecai Brown (26-6), the Cubs pitching staff entered with a combined average ERA of 1.76, extraordinary even for the 'deadball' era. Other strong starters were Jack Pfiester (20-8), Ed Reulbach (19-4), and Carl Lundgren (17-6). The Cubs were in the first year of a streak of four World Series appearances in a five-year span.

The 93-58 Chicago White Sox, "hitless wonders" who scrapped their way into the fall classic, were longshots. Yet, in six games, the newer franchise, the White Sox, won the Series.

This book is fairly short at 184 pages of text, granting rapid pacing and sufficient to provide a brief history of baseball to 1906, show cultural context for the Series, and cover the actual series in an exciting way, right to the level of play-by-play calls. Unique characters like Cap Anson, Charles Comiskey, and Al Spalding appear in the concise writing. Spalding himself is fascinating, a former superstar pitcher, founder of the National League, partial Cubs owner, and eventual sporting goods magnate whose name still adorns Spalding sports equipment. An Afterword summarizes the White Sox World Series championship of 2005.

The dominant Cubs, with many of these same players, would win back-to-back World Series in 1907 and 1908. Wrigley Field had not yet been built. Incredibly, though the Cubs would appear in future World Series, they would not, as of 2013, have ever won another. The tragic ending of the 1906 season was a disappointment of the type future generations of Cubs fans would suffer.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

While "When Chicago Ruled Baseball" is a little scholarly for a baseball book, it is an excellent recounting of the 1906 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox. Perhaps the greatest strengths of Weisberger's book are the way it captures Chicago society in 1906 and the detailed historical examinations of both teams (then) recent pasts.

Weisberger also mixes in detailed descriptions of the six games of the series, and adequately conveys the surprising win of the White Sox during the third World Series. This is where the book is the least scholarly, although since the book was written in 2005 and thus Weisberger has had to fall back on many varied sources to provide the colorful descriptions of the series. Current newspaper accounts were especially used to good effect, and since Chicago had eleven newspapers at the time, there is no shortage of material to draw from.

All in all, the book is well worth reading for fans of Baseball, the Cubs or the White Sox, Chicago itself, or turn of the century urban America. It is a well-blended, well-done book.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first baseball book. Bernard Weisberger tells the fascinating story of the only time the Chicago White Sox (the greatest baseball franchise ever) and the Chicago Cubs met in the World Series. It was 1906. The Cubs played on the West Side rather than the North Side at that time, and once were actually called the White Stockings! Weisberger includes such complementary narratives as life in Chicago at the turn of the century, the competition between the National League and the upstart American League, and the life-stories of the players and owners, and how the two Chicago teams came about. Even though baseball then relied much less on slugging, it is remarkable how much continuity exists between the baseball in 1906 and baseball in 2008. This continuity is reinforced by how Weisberger in an afterword tells the story of the 2005 White Sox World Series champions in the same style and with the same enthusiasm as he tells the story of the 1906 Series. A great read. White Sox '09!

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good account of not only the games and results of the 1906 World Series (the only one in which Chicago's two teams have faced each other) but also of the times in which those games were played. The reader will feel the differences between the small bandbox parks in which the games were played compared to today's stadiums. The games themselves were different as well with better pitching to offset weaker hitting and fielding than what we have today. Finally the reader will read about the players attempting to form unions, the owners trying to hold salaries down and some general labor unrest. Now THAT is similar to many of the off field issues we hear about today. An enjoyable read for any baseball fan.

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great story written in dry prose. Weisberger is obviously interested in the topic and makes it interesting enough to follow, particularly if you're a Chicago baseball fan (I'm a Cubs fan), but his style is kind of wooden for my liking.

[Jennifer Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read about baseball in Chicago a 100 years ago - even if the White Sox did win then!

[Sadie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the baseball history contained within the story of the 1906 world series. The evolution of leagues, uniforms, teams etc. A great read.

[Matt Black · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book that takes you back to the "dead ball era" when the city of Chicago had two teams that were among the best in baseball. A good read if you are a baseball nut.

[Joseph Hageman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned a lot about Chicago.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun short read but very informative especially for Chicago baseball fans.

[Mike McCormick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great because it not only covers the 1906 series, it discusses the history of professional baseball and the formation of the American and National leagues

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

An okay book, if you like baseball play-by-play and the nuances of the game. But, you'll have to get past the typos.

[Joseph Hilden · Rating 1 out of 5]

did not work for me and I love baseball stories