Christy Mathewson threw the second no-hitter of his career on June 13, 1905 to defeat the Chicago Orphans, 1-0. The Giants pitcher threw the no-no at West Side Ground in Chicago, where he and Mordecai Brown actually both had no-hitters going up until the ninth inning. In the top of the ninth, New York finally tapped Brown for two hits, thus stopping his bid for the feat.
The nickname “Cubs” in reference to the
Chicago team first appeared in print on March 27, 1902. The Chicago Daily News printed a headline that day reading, “Manager of the Cubs is in Doubt Only on Two Positions.” While the name had existed for the team since 1890, the team was more commonly known as the Orphans, and had also been called the Colts and the White Stockings. The name Cubs would become the team’s official name in 1907.
The Chicago White Stockings, in their fifth season as a franchise, made their National League debut on April 25, 1876, winning 4-0 over the Grays at the Louisville Baseball Park in Kentucky. The White Stockings won the NL’s first championship during this season with a record of 52–14. The franchise would be also known as the Colts and the Orphans before becoming the Cubs in 1903.
Jack Taylor of the Chicago Orphans (Cubs) began an extraordinary streak of 187 consecutive complete game starts on June 20, 1901, when he took the loss against the Boston Beaneaters. The streak did experience a brief interruption after the first 39 games, when Taylor appeared as a relief pitcher for 15 games, before resuming his role as a starter. If one factors in his relief appearances, Taylor thus had 202 consecutive appearances in which he was not relieved by another pitcher. The total streak ran from June 1901 to August 1906, during which Taylor accrued 1,727 innings of work.
Eighteen-year-old Roger Bresnahan made his debut as a right-handed pitcher on August 27, 1897 with the Washington Senators. In his debut, Bresnahan defeated the St. Louis Browns, 3-0, en route to a 4-0 season record with a 3.95 ERA. This would be his only season with the Senators, however, and by 1900, Bresnahan was making his first appearances as a catcher with the Chicago Orphans (Cubs). Nicknamed the “Duke of Tralee,” Bresnahan would be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame as a catcher in 1945.
