Chicago Cubs history unpacked, January 21

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Bleed Cubbie Blue is pleased to present a Cubs-centric look at baseball’s colorful past. Here’s a handy Cubs timeline, to help you follow the various narrative paths.

“Maybe I called it wrong, but it’s official.” — Tom Connolly, HoF Umpire.

Happy Birthday to Mike Krukow*, farewell Hollywood Stars,and other stories for the discerning reader. 

Today in baseball history:

• 1921 – 1921 – Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis officially is signed as baseball commissioner, to a seven-year, $350,000 contract. (1,2)
• 1936 – The Hollywood Stars, last-place finishers in the Pacific Coast League in 1935, move to San Diego, where they will become the Padres. The Stars were unable to pay the annual rent of $8,000 for Wrigley Field. They will return in 1938 when the San Francisco Missions move south to L.A. (2)
• 1947 – A rule change that allows voting only for players who were active after 1921 produces four new Hall of Fame members, breaking a logjam after years of the BBWAA electing hardly anyone: catcher Mickey Cochrane, second baseman Frankie Frisch, and pitchers Lefty Grove and Carl Hubbell, all former Most Valuable Players and World Series winners. Pie Traynor misses selection by two votes. Hubbell was forbidden by Ty Cobb to throw his screwball in Detroit’s farm system, but used it to win 253 games for the New York Giants; Frisch went to the World Series eight times and batted .316 over 19 seasons; Grove won 300 games, and his battery-mate Cochrane retired with a .320 lifetime batting average, the highest of any catcher. (1,2)
• 1953 – The Baseball Writers Association of America passes over Joe DiMaggio in his first year of eligibility and elects pitcher Dizzy Dean and outfielder Al Simmons to the Hall of Fame. Dean gathers 209 votes while Simmons’ total of 199 is one more than needed. The colorful Dean had a .644 career winning percentage and won 120 games from 1932 through 1936, including 30 wins in 1934. Simmons, who drove in 100 runs in each of his first eleven major league seasons, was one of the most feared hitters of his time. Also joining DiMaggio, who finishes eighth in the voting, are in order Bill Terry, Bill Dickey, Rabbit Maranville, Dazzy Vance, Ted Lyons, Charles Bender (ninth) and Gabby Hartnett (tenth). All will eventually make it. DiMaggio’s low total can be explained by the fact that there is no actual ballot, only write-in votes, and it is not clear whether DiMaggio is eligible since he played his last game only two years earlier. (1,2)
• 1993 – Hall of Fame second baseman Charlie Gehringer dies at the age of 89, one month after suffering a stroke. During a 19-year career with the Detroit Tigers, Gehringer posted a .320 batting average with 184 home runs and 1427 RBI. In 1937, he enjoyed arguably his finest season, leading the American League with a .371 average. (2)
  

Cubs Birthdays:Mike Krukow*, Dave Smith, Alan Benes.

Today in History:

• 1522 – Head Inquisitor Adrian Florisz Boeyens is elected pope.
• 1793 – Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine in Paris, following his conviction for “high treason” by the newly created French Parliament (Convention nationale), during the French Revolution.

Common sources:

• (1) — Today in Baseball History.
• (2) — Baseball Reference.
• (3) — Society for American Baseball Research.
• (4) — Baseball Hall of Fame.
• (5) — This Day in Chicago Cubs history.
• (6) — Wikipedia.
• (7) — The British Museum
• (8) — For world history.

*pictured.

Some of these items spread from site to site without being fact-checked, and that is why we ask for verifiable sources, in order to help correct the record.