OCTOBER 8, 1871 | CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – The Chicago White Stockings (today’s Chicago Cubs) were in a great position to win the National Association pennant on this day in baseball history. Then the Great Chicago Fire erupted. It destroyed much of the city including, according to historian Leonard Koppett, the White Stockings’ ball park.
As Koppett writes in Koppett’s Concise History of Major League Baseball, the White Stockings had to play the rest of their games on the road and lost them. They dropped out of the league for two years.
The National Association is what passed for the major leagues in 1871. The National League was still five years from its inception. The White Stockings ended up joining the National League in 1876.
The White Stockings eventually shed the name, gave a few other names a try, such as Colts and Orphans, before settling on Cubs, which is what the team is known as today.
The Chicago franchise of the new American League took the name White Stockings in 1901, later shortening it to White Sox, which they still go by.
Contributing Sources:
Koppett’s Concise History of Major League Baseball
Cubs team history
National Association
