Three Finger Brown and the 1905-1910 Chicago Cubs

Stephen turns back the clock to visit the glory days of the Cubbies.

Whenever discussions revolve around what was the greatest moment in baseball history, or who was the greatest pitcher, second baseman, team, etc., baseball fans seem paralyzed with a myopic view of contemporary players and teams. Last October, with much publicity, Major League Baseball announced the "30 Greatest Moments" in baseball history. Thirty percent (9 out of 30) of these "greatest moments" occurred since 1991! More than half (17) of the greatest moments announced occurred since 1970 (over a 32-year period, 1970-2001). Only 2 moments from 1900 to 1929 (a 30-year period) made the list. Evidently, there were no great moments occurring in baseball’s first 24 years, prior to 1900, worthy of making the list.

Yesterday’s players and teams that graced grassy diamonds long ago richly deserve to be recognized for their accomplishments and contributions to the history of the game. One such player deserving greater illumination upon his Hall of Fame plaque is Mordecai Peter Centennial "Three Finger" Brown, and his team, the Chicago Cubs, which own an important chapter in baseball history.

Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown was given an extra middle name by his parents because he was born in 1876. Brown is best known, however, for his colorful nickname, "Three Finger." Brown earned his distinctive nickname in the most painful way imaginable. At the tender age of 7, little Mordecai was playing on his uncle’s farm when he got his right hand caught in a corn shredder. His index finger was amputated just above the knuckle, and another finger was rendered useless. This horrible accident was but two weeks fresh when active little Mordecai was scooting around the farm chasing a hog. Reaching for the squealing bacon, the kid fell hard to the ground, braking his third and fourth fingers on the same damaged hand. These two fingers eventually healed, but they did so in an unnatural shape.

As a young man Brown worked hard in the coal mines during the day, and after work and on weekends he played baseball. Despite his handicap, Brown was good enough to become a semi-professional infielder. In 1898, in an emergency situation, Brown was asked to pitch for his team when the regular pitcher broke his arm. Brown came in and smoked the opposition, facing 15 batters, and whiffing 14 of them. Everyone was amazed at how well Three Finger Brown could curve the ball with that strangely-shaped right hand of his. Looking back on his baseball career, Brown once said, "That old paw served me pretty well in its time. It gave me a firmer grip on the ball, so I could spin it over the hump. It gave me a greater dip." Ty Cobb said of Brown’s breaking ball, "Christy Mathewson’s fadeaway was good, but it was nothing like that curve Three Finger Brown threw at you."

Brown pitched at the professional level from 1903 through 1916. After leaving the Cubs, he pitched four more seasons in the minor leagues. (Do we see even a hint of this passion for the game in contemporary players? ) During his pro career, Three Finger put together some very impressive numbers, winning 239 games (with six consecutive 20-plus win seasons), posting an impressive .648 W-L percentage, and tossing 272 complete games with 57 career shutouts, while still finishing with a microscopic 2.06 career ERA. Also, he won 5 World Series games, three of which were shutouts.

Three Finger was considered one of baseball’s first "swing-men," a pitcher who could start and relieve when called upon. Although he was primarily a starter, he lead the league in saves four times.

The Cubs may not have accumulated many championships over the years, and its been a thousand blue moons since their last one (1908), but the Cubs can claim that they possessed the most dominating pitching staff in the history of the game. Oh, I know some readers are thinking, "but that was during the deadball era," and some readers will want to compare the Cubs’ statistics against league averages, among making other comparisons to discount their sparkling statistics. (A contemporary analogy is what the homerun means today, versus what it meant, say, in the 1920s or even in the 1970s or 1980s. In future years, will Barry Bonds’ homeruns be considered less meaningful because they occurred during the "longball era"? I don’t think so.)

But, in any event, no matter how numbers are compared, the truth is that the Cubs’ staff of the Three Finger Brown-era (1905-1910) shut down opposing teams like no other staff in the history of the game.

Since 1900, the three best team ERAs ever posted in a season are owned by this one amazing Cubs’ pitching staff. In 1907, the team ERA was 1.73, in 1909 it was 1.75, and in 1906 the club registered in at 1.76. Oh, and this same staff is also placed at 9th (2.04 ERA in 1905) and 18th (2.14 ERA in 1908) on the best since-1900 list. They dominated, pure and simple. No other staff comes close to this level of dominance. This staff, along with other talented players, went to the World Series four times during the stretch from 1905-1910, winning back-to-back championships in 1907 and 1908. The 1906 Cubs still hold the record for the best winning percentage by any club in history, winning 116 games and losing only 36 (.763 W-L percentage).

Three Finger Brown was the ace of the Cubs staff during this dynamic era. His numbers from 1905-1910 are as follows:

Year   W-L    ERA

1905  18-12  2.17

1906  26-6   1.04

1907  20-6   1.39

1908  29-9   1.47

1909  27-9   1.31

1910  25-14  1.86

Look at those ERAs! Brown’s 1.04 ERA in 1906 is the best in NL history since 1900, and the second best in the majors (Dutch Leonard notched a pretty 0.96 ERA for the Red Sox in 1914). Many of Brown’s teammates also show up on the list of the best ERAs in a season. Here is a list of the early-1900s Cubs that appear on the list of the best thirty-one ERAs since 1900:

Rank  Player                 ERA    Year

2     Mordecai Brown        1.06    1906

6     Jack Pfiester         1.15    1907

8     Carl Lundgren         1.17    1907

15    Mordecai Brown        1.31    1909

19    Mordecai Brown        1.39    1907

23    Ed Ruelbach           1.41    1905

24    Orval Overall         1.42    1909

27    Mordecai Brown        1.47    1908

31    Jack Pfiester         1.51    1906

No other pitching staff comes even close to having 9 posts within the top thirty-one.

Similarly, the early-1900s Cubs dominate the list of the best ERAs of all-time (with pitchers throwing a minimum of 1000 innings and having 100 decisions since 1900):

Rank     Player               Career ERA    Cubs 1905-10 Years
3        Jack Pfiester         2.02              06-10

5        Mordecai Brown        2.06              05-10

10       Orvall Overall        2.23              06-10

12       Ed Ruelbach           2.28              05-10

22       Carl Lundgren         2.42              05-09

54       Jack Taylor           2.66              06-07

Three Brown-era Cubs within the all-time top ten career ERAs? Six pitchers on the same staff all placing within the all-time top fifty-four? Again, no other pitching staff comes close to such dominance.

The 1908 Cubs figured prominently in one of the most controversial plays, and one of the most exciting pennant races, in baseball history. That year, the Cubs fought for the National League pennant right down to the last day of the season with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Giants. The entire country was caught up in the frenzy with even the presidential campaigns being over-shadowed by the excitement brought by the day-to-day events of the pennant race.

It was Brown who was called upon by the Cubs in the crucial head-to-head games with the Giants and the Pirates. On September 22, the Cubs played a crucial double-header against the first place Giants. The Cubs swept the Giants, with Brown saving the first game and winning the second game. The New York World explained why their beloved Giants lost both games: "It was not their fault the Giants lost. The team was overcome by ‘Three Fingered’ Brown, who finished the first game for Overall and pitched the whole second game. The only thing for [Giants’ coach] McGraw to do to beat Chicago is to dig up a pitcher with only two fingers."

The following day, the "Merkle Boner" play occurred. With the score tied 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth, and runners on first (Fred Merkle) and third with two outs, batter Al Bridwell singled sharply to center. The winning run crossed the plate for the Giants, but Merkle failed to touch second base. He started for second, but stopped and darted towards the Giants’ dugout as the hysterical Polo Grounds fans poured onto the field in celebration. The alert Cubs scrambled for the loose ball, fighting off the fans. Second baseman Johnny Evers eventually jumped on second base with the ball in hand. The umpire, in a daze, quickly scurried off the diamond, and eventually ruled that Merkle was out and that the game was a tie, 1-1.

On October 2nd, with Pittsburgh and Chicago separated by only a half game, the two clubs put forth their aces in a do-or-die match-up. In Chicago, before the largest crowd ever at the Cubs’ West Side Park (30,427), Brown shut down Honus Wagner and the Pirates, winning 5-2.

On October 7th the Giants beat Boston 7-2, to tie the Cubs for first place, with no remaining games on the schedule, except for a League-ordered rematch of the "Merkle game" that ended in a tie. The great Christy Mathewson was to pitch against the Cubs’ talented Jack "The Giant Killer" Pfiester.

The City of New York and the Polo Grounds were blanketed with excitement and littered with pockets of chaos. The largest crowd ever gathered in the world for a sporting event-a quarter million-surged in and around the Polo Grounds. People were on rooftops, subway cars, pillars, and perched on top of fences. Every possible vantage point, however precarious, came to have a human cluster. Several people were injured, and one man died, from falling from such lofty precipices. The excited fans overtook the pressbox. The police used fire hoses to control the crowd. Before the game even started an argument broke out between the Giants’ Joe McGinnity and the Cubs’ player/Manager Frank Chance. McGinnity struck Chance on the chin, and luckily, things were broken up before a riot ensued.

Things started well for the Giants when they touched Pfiester for a run in the first inning. Swiftly, the "Peerless Leader" (Frank Chance), called Three Finger Brown into the game after only two outs. Brown immediately quieted the Giants’ bats. The Cubs managed one big inning which proved to be enough for Brown, who allowed but one run the rest of the way. Cubs win 4-2. After the final out is made, shocked and angry Giants fans ran onto the field. One fan struck Chance on the back of the neck causing serious injury. It damaged cartilage in his throat and brought him considerable pain. At the same time Cubs’ thirdbaseman Harry Steinfeldt was struck in the face by a hostile fan and outfielder Solly Hofman was drilled on the nose by a pop bottle thrown at him.

The Cubs squared off against Ty Cobb’s Detroit Tigers in the World Series. Unfortunately, it was an anticlimax. The Cubs won the Series four games to one. Brown won Game One in relief, and came back to throw a 4-hit shutout in Game Four. In all, Brown pitched 11 innings in the Series, giving up only six hits, one walk, and no earned runs.

Undeniably, the Brown-era Cubs were the best unit the Cubs ever assembled. Those Cubs also have a reasonable claim of being the best team in the history of the game. Their claim is especially strong if we accept the oft-repeated maxim, that pitching is 90% of the game. For, the Cubs of 1905-10 can confidently boast that they had the most dominating pitching staff in the history of baseball. In any event, this was a colorful and exciting team that played a significant role in helping establish baseball as the country’s national pastime.

Stephen Jordan is a lawyer, writer, and artist and has published many articles for various publications and websites, including the Sporting News. In addition, Jordan has created artwork for many periodicals, newspapers, websites, and for sports organizations, including the Boston Red Sox. Signed prints of his artwork are currently offered on eBay. To view Jordan’s art, search "Fenway Art Print" at www.eBay.com, then click on "seller’s other auctions" for all auctions offered by "Catfish326". For any information concerning Jordan’s art feel free to e-mail him at scj@verdan.com or cascobay@lawyer.com.