Chicago Cubs

The **Chicago Cubs** are a professional baseball team based in Chicago, Illinois. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB). The Cubs became World Series Champions in 2016, ending a 108-year drought.

## History

The Cubs were started in 1870. They originally wore all-white uniforms and were called the Chicago White Stockings. (The current Chicago White Sox got their nickname from the Cubs' original nickname.) By the 1890s the team was called the "Colts". In the early 1900s, the nicknames "Colts" and "Cubs" were both used. The name "Cubs" became official in 1906.

The team was very successful in its early years. They won the first National League championship in 1876. They won several pennants in the 1880s and then again in the early 1900s.  After they won their second World Series in 1908, they went into the longest championship drought in the history of North American sports.  They won the World Series in 1907, 1908, and 2016.  They won the pennant, but lost the World Series in 1906, 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938, and 1945.

The Wrigley family, founders of the Wrigley Gum Company, owned the team from about 1920 to about 1980. The Chicago Tribune bought the team and operated them for close to 30 years. They were sold to the Ricketts family in 2009.

## Stadium

When playing home games in Chicago, the Cubs play at Wrigley Field. The stadium was built in 1914 and has been the home playing field of the Cubs since 1916.

During games, the stadium is filled with Cubs fans, who are known for always cheering for their team, even if they are not winning. Even when the Cubs held the record for the longest championship dry spell in all of American professional sports (until they won the World Series in 2016), their fans remain loyal to them.

## The Billy Goat Curse

The name "Billy Goat " comes from a bar known as the Billy Goat Tavern, located on lower Wacker drive in downtown Chicago. By the time the story of this "curse" started to get out, all the main characters were conveniently dead.
The story is:
During the 1945 World Series, a man by the name of Vasili "Billy Goat" Sianis attended Game 4 of the series with his pet goat. During the 7th inning of the game, the Stadium's security guards asked Sianis to leave the stadium because his goat was bothering other fans. Sianis became angry and cursed the Cubs, saying that they would never win or even play in a World Series as long as they played at Wrigley Field. Although the curse is often seen as a joke for most Cubs fans, some fans thought it could be the reason for the Cubs' championship drought between 1908 and 2016.  The drought ended and the "curse" was reversed in 2016 when the team won their third World Series title.

In the 2016 World Series, the Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians.  They fell 3 games to 1 to the Indians, but then, on the brink of elimination, won the next three games, and thereby won the series.  Game 7 went down as a classic.  It was an exciting back-and-forth game, in which the Cubs won in 10 innings to win their first World Series since 1908.  The Cubs became the sixth team to win a World Series after trailing 3 games to 1.

## Other websites

- Sun Times Cubs News
- Chicago Tribune Cubs News