Chicago Cubs Charlie Grimm Great Shot Shouting 1935 Original Photo Vintage

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (807) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 176277815956 CHICAGO CUBS CHARLIE GRIMM GREAT SHOT SHOUTING 1935 ORIGINAL PHOTO VINTAGE. May 30, Shedd Aquarium opens. Immigration and migration in the 20th century. 19th century. 5 External links. More than three-fourths of cases were not closed. Even when the police made arrests in cases where killers' identities were known, jurors typically exonerated or acquitted them. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL APPROXIMATELY 7X9 INCH PHOTO FROM 1935 FEATURING CHICAGO CUBS MANAGER CHARLIE GRIMM IN CUBS UNIFORM. Charles John Grimm, nicknamed "Jolly Cholly", was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman, most notably for the Chicago Cubs; he was also a sometime radio sports commentator, and a popular goodwill ambassador for baseball
Charles John Grimm (August 28, 1898 – November 15, 1983), nicknamed "Jolly Cholly", was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman, most notably for the Chicago Cubs; he was also a sometime radio sports commentator, and a popular goodwill ambassador for baseball. He played for the Pittsburgh Pirates early in his career, but was traded to the Cubs in 1925 and worked mostly for the Cubs for the rest of his career. Born in St. Louis, Missouri to parents of German extraction, Grimm was known for being outgoing and chatty, even singing old-fashioned songs while accompanying himself on a left-handed banjo.[1][2] Contents 1 Manager 1.1 Managerial career 1.2 Managerial record 1.3 Career Major League Statistics 2 Post-retirement 3 See also 4 References 5 External links Manager Managerial career While still playing as first baseman, Grimm was enlisted to replace Rogers Hornsby as manager after his dismissal on August 2, 1932.[3] The team was 53-46 at the time, five games back in the standings in second place. In the 55 games that Grimm managed for the Cubs, he rallied them to a 37-18 record for an overall record of 90-64, winning the National League pennant for the first time since 1929. The Cubs were subsequently swept by the New York Yankees in the World Series. The team regressed in the following two seasons, winning 86 games each and finishing in third place. However, Grimm's team made a dramatic improvement in 1935, going 100-54. It was the first time the Cubs had won 100 games since 1910 and it was the last until 2016 (along with Grimm's only 100-win season as manager). They were bolstered by a 21-game winning streak in September that carried them to a second league pennant in four seasons. In the World Series that year against the Detroit Tigers, they won the first game in Detroit before losing the next three. They rallied to win Game 5 at Wrigley Field, but the Tigers won a walk-off hit from Goose Goslin to win 4-3 and seal the Series. The Cubs went 87-67 for a third place finish the following year (which was Grimm's last as a player-manager), but they improved to 93-61 and second place the year after. 1938 was his last season of his first tenure as manager of the Cubs. The team was 45-36 when he was replaced by catcher Gabby Hartnett. As Grimm had done six years earlier, the newly installed player-manager led the Cubs to a dramatic comeback to win the league pennant that season. After a sluggish start by the Cubs in 1944 in which the team lost ten in a row after winning the Opening Day game, Grimm was hired to manage the club again. The team finished fourth in the standings with a 75-79 record (the fifth straight losing season for the team). However, Grimm led them to a dramatic improvement the following year, going 98-56 to win the league pennant for the first time since 1938. In the World Series that year, Grimm's team faced off against the Tigers once again. It was a hard-fought series, going down to the decisive seventh game at Wrigley Field. The Cubs were trounced 9-3, with six of the Tiger runs coming in the first two innings. It was the last pennant for the Cubs for 71 years. The Cubs went 82-71 the following year, finishing 3rd in the standings. It was the last time the team had a record of .500 until 1963. Grimm finished his last three seasons with losing record (69-85, 64-90, 19-31) before resigning in 1949. After his resignation from being manager, he served as the Cubs' Director of Player Personnel, then the club's title for general manager, doing so until February 1950 due to not feeling comfortable in his front-office post. He subsequently was hired to manage a Double A team, the Dallas Eagles of the Texas League.[4] A 1933 Goudey baseball card of Charlie Grimm as a member of the Chicago Cubs. Grimm was also a major baseball figure in Milwaukee. He was hired by Bill Veeck to manage his Milwaukee Brewers, then the Cubs' top farm team, during World War II. He returned to the Brewers in 1951 when they were a farm team of the Boston Braves. He was highly successful as a manager during each term, winning the regular season American Association title in 1943 and 1951, and the playoff championship in 1951. On May 30, 1952, Grimm was promoted from Milwaukee to manager of the big league Braves; he would prove to be the last skipper in the history of the Boston NL club. He went 51-67 (with two ties) as the Braves finished seventh place. He then managed the Milwaukee Braves for their first three years after their move to Wisconsin in March 1953. Being of German extraction, he was popular in the Beer City. The following year, the Braves went 92-62 (with three ties), finishing 13 games behind in second place to the Brooklyn Dodgers. It was the first time the Braves had won over 90 games since 1948. The next year, they regressed a bit as a team with an 89-65 record for a third place finish (eight games back), but it was the first time that they had consecutive winning seasons since 1947-48. The next year, they went 85-69, finishing 13.5 games back of the Dodgers. The 1956 season proved to be a nail-biter for the team, but Grimm was not to be a big part of said season. He was dismissed after a 24–22 start to the season, replaced by Fred Haney. Haney led them to a 68–40 record while losing the league pennant to the Dodgers by one game. Haney led the team to a World Series championship the following year. He was brought out of retirement to direct the Cubs again in early 1960, but the team got off to a slow start, and owner P.K. Wrigley made the novel move of swapping Grimm with another former manager, Lou Boudreau, who was doing Cubs radiocasts at that time. Grimm had done play-by-play in the past, so he gave it one more go in 1960, before stepping back to the ranks of coaching and then front office duties. It was in 1961 that Wrigley began his "College of Coaches", of which Grimm was a part but was never designated "Head Coach". One of the Cubs' coaches during that 5-year experiment was baseball's first black coach, Buck O'Neil. Grimm finished with a record of 1,287 wins and 1,067 losses in the regular season and five wins and 12 losses in the post-season. His 946 wins as Cubs manager rank second behind Cap Anson.[5] Managerial record Team From To Regular season record Post–season record G W L Win % G W L Win % Chicago Cubs 1932 1938 903 534 369 .591 10 2 8 .200 Chicago Cubs 1944 1949 808 406 402 .502 7 3 4 .429 Boston/Milwaukee Braves 1952 1956 626 341 285 .545 — Chicago Cubs 1960 1960 17 6 11 .353 Total 2354 1287 1067 .547 17 5 12 .294 Ref.:[5] Career Major League Statistics In 2166 games over 20 seasons, spanning from 1916-1936, Grimm posted a .290 batting average (2299-for-7917) with 908 runs, 394 doubles, 108 triples, 79 home runs, 1077 RBI, 57 stolen bases, 578 bases on balls, .341 on-base percentage and .397 slugging percentage. He finished his career with a .993 fielding percentage as a first baseman. In the 1929 and 1932 World Series, he hit .364 (12-for-33) with 4 runs, 2 doubles, 1 home run, 5 RBI and 3 walks. Post-retirement After his retirement from baseball, he lived adjacent to Lake Koshkonong, near Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. Grimm died in Scottsdale, Arizona at age 85, from cancer. His widow was granted permission to spread his ashes on Wrigley Field. See also List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders List of Major League Baseball career triples leaders List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders List of Major League Baseball managers by wins List of Major League Baseball player-managers Charlie Grimm was a man of many talents. Called “perhaps the best ever” defensive first baseman by Bill James,[fn]Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, 471.[/fn] he led the National League in fielding percentage at the position seven times and finished in second place three times between 1920 and 1933 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs. He was a .290 hitter over his 20-year career, with nearly 2,300 hits and more than 1,000 RBIs. He managed the Cubs to three pennants, and as of 2014 no one except Cap Anson had won more games as the team’s skipper. Grimm’s career winning percentage of .547 was as of 2014 the 17th highest among managers with at least 1,000 wins. Grimm was one of baseball’s premier entertainers, and not just for his acrobatic play. He would serenade fans before games with his singing and banjo playing. “In the on-deck circle he might brandish two bats in imitation of a butcher sharpening his knives. He and [Cubs catcher Gabby] Hartnett liked to play ‘burnout’ in front of the fans, advancing up the line and firing the ball toward each other at closer and closer quarters. To the roars of the crowd, he might mimic an umpire’s walk behind his back — an act that at least once earned him an ejection as a manager.”[fn]Roberts Ehrgott, Mr. Wrigley’s Ball Club: Chicago and the Cubs during the Jazz Age, 83.[/fn] “I had fun playing baseball,” wrote Grimm in his 1968 autobiography. “I tried to make it fun for my players after I became manager. I was ‘Jolly Cholly’ and I always thought a pat on the back, an encouraging word, or a wisecrack paid off a lot more than a brilliantly executed work of strategy.”[fn]Charlie Grimm with Ed Prell, Jolly Cholly’s Story: Baseball, I Love You!, 4.[/fn] Charles John Grimm was born on August 28, 1898, in St. Louis. Of his childhood, Grimm said, “We were a happy family. Pop played the bass fiddle, Mom the harmonica. My older brother, Bill, could do a job on almost any instrument. My other brother, Albert, played the old honkytonk style of piano. My sister, Margaret — we called her Mutz — was the only one of us who ever took a music lesson. She played piano. I was a banjo man from the start.”[fn]Grimm, 8.[/fn] Grimm dropped out of school after the sixth grade. That “wasn’t unusual in those days,” he said. “That’s how far my father had gone too.”[fn]Grimm, 9.[/fn] Grimm’s German-born father wanted him to join the family painting business, but young Charlie had other ideas. “On the weekends I worked as a peanut vendor in old Robison (Field), the Cardinals’ park on Natural Bridge Road,” he said. “That’s where I really got started, shagging flies for the ballplayers before the games. I came to know the great stars — Ed Konetchy, Hal Chase, Bobby Wallace, Roger Bresnahan, Slim Sallee, Bill Doak, and all the others. Chase took a liking to me and tried to teach me the footwork of a first baseman, but I never did learn to shift properly. It was easier for me to catch a wide throw, in the air or in the dirt, with my bare left hand than backhanding it with the glove.”[fn]Grimm, 9-10.[/fn] The 17-year-old Grimm signed with the Philadelphia Athletics on July 28, 1916. He appeared in his first major-league game on July 30, starting in left field; one teammate taking the field that day was second baseman and future Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie, who retired less than a month later. On September 1 Grimm had a memorable encounter: “Connie Mack sent me up to hit against Walter Johnson in Washington, but I wasn’t at the plate long. I didn’t even swing on one of the three strikes, and I still have the bat I carried to the plate that day. It’s just like new. All I can tell you about Johnson is that I saw him raise his arm.”[fn]Grimm, 11.[/fn] Grimm batted .091 with two hits in 22 at-bats during 12 games with the 1916 Athletics, whose record of 36-117 (.235) was one of the worst ever. Grimm was sold by the Athletics to the Durham Bulls of the Class D North Carolina State League. He played in 29 games with the Bulls in 1917. He returned to his hometown in 1918 and appeared in 50 games with the Cardinals; he had a .220 batting average. Among his teammates were 22-year-old shortstop Rogers Hornsby and 44-year-old infielder Bobby Wallace. Grimm also played in 56 games that year with the Little Rock Travelers of the Class A Southern Association. In 1919 Grimm appeared in 131 games with Little Rock, batting .285 and compiling a .993 fielding average at first base. He was acquired by the Pittsburgh Pirates and played in 14 September games, with a .318 batting average. On September 11 against the Philadelphia Phillies, Grimm went 4-for-4 (all singles), scored two runs, drove in two runs, and stole a base. During spring training in 1920, “George Whitted, a third baseman-outfielder, asked me if I could sing bass,” Grimm said. “I accepted his invitation for an audition and easily made the Pirates’ quartet, which included Cotton Tierney and some other substitutes until Rabbit Maranville came along a year later.”[fn]Grimm, 15.[/fn] According to Grimm, “Before each game we’d gather behind the batting cage at home plate and serenade the fans. We weren’t inflicting our harmony on them, they demanded it. Deep in my memory of those days are the fans who arrived from the coal mines with lamps still attached to their caps. Then, after the ballgame, we’d get together almost every evening to knock off a few tunes after dinner.”[fn]Grimm, 17.[/fn] Grimm played five full seasons with Pittsburgh. In 1920 he led National League first basemen in fielding percentage (.995) while batting .227. In 1921 he raised his batting average to .274 and had a 20-game hitting streak. He tied for third in the NL in triples, with 17, and led the Pirates in RBIs, with 71. His fielding percentage of .994 at first base was second highest in the NL. In 1922 he batted .292 and drove in 76 runs despite hitting no home runs. His rate of 39.5 at-bats per strikeout was fifth best in the NL. For the second year in a row, his fielding percentage of .994 was second best among NL first basemen. Grimm had his best year offensively in 1923, with a .345 batting average and 99 RBIs. After a five-game hitting streak to end the 1922 season, Grimm had a base hit in the first 25 games of 1923. He led the NL in fielding percentage as a first baseman (.995). In 1924 Grimm had a standout year defensively. He led the majors in putouts (1,596) and led all first basemen in double plays turned (139) and fielding percentage (.995) while batting .288. Pittsburgh was only 1½ games behind the first-place New York Giants on September 21, then lost three straight to the Giants at the Polo Grounds before finishing in third place. Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss believed the fun-loving ways of Grimm and second baseman Maranville (a heavy drinker) were a distraction to the team, and on October 27 he traded the pair, along with pitcher Wilbur Cooper, to the Chicago Cubs for pitcher Vic Aldridge, infielder George Grantham, and first-base prospect Al Niehaus. At spring training in 1925 on Catalina Island in California, it didn’t take long for Grimm for find kindred spirits: “Even before I had unloaded my stuff in the locker I had become a member of the Cubs’ string band. Hack Miller, the muscular outfielder, played a guitar that was held together with bicycle tape. Barney Friberg, the third baseman, played the mandolin. Cliff Heathcote’s instrument was the ukulele. I quickly brought my left-handed banjo out of hiding. We had a group.”[fn]Grimm, 25.[/fn] That year he batted .306 and had a four-hit game in five consecutive months (April through August). He led the  Cubs in RBIs (76) and on-base percentage (.354) and tied for 13th in the NL MVP voting (the only member of the last-place Cubs to receive votes). He was also named team captain by Rabbit Maranville, who served as a player-manager for less than two months. (Grimm remained the captain, or “Der Kaptink,” until 1932.) In 1926 Grimm batted .277 and had 82 RBIs. In 1927, he had a .311 batting average. And in 1928, he led the league in fielding percentage as a first baseman (.993) and turned 147 double plays in 147 games. He batted .294, with a five-hit game on June 18 and four-hit games on July 26 (14 innings) and August 4. In 1929, when the Cubs won the pennant, Grimm had a .298 batting average and drove in 91 runs even though he missed 35 games in August and September with a broken hand. In Game Four of the World Series against the Philadelphia Athletics, Grimm hit a two-run homer off 46-year-old Jack Quinn. During the Series, which the Cubs lost to the Athletics in five games, Grimm batted .389 and drove in four runs. In his autobiography, Grimm wrote, “The best team I ever played on was [ Joe] McCarthy’s twenty-niners. It was strictly power all the way. No tricky baseball. Kiki Cuyler was the only one who could take an extra base, but who needs finesse with sluggers such as [Hack] Wilson, Hornsby, [Riggs] Stephenson, and Cuyler? And to think that Hartnett was on the bench [with an arm injury] most of the season!”[fn]Grimm, 236.[/fn] In 1930 Grimm led NL first basemen in fielding percentage for a fifth time (.995) while batting .289. He had one of his better years offensively in 1931, with a batting average of .331 and an on-base percentage of .393. On June 21 against the Brooklyn Robins, he went 5-for-5. He again topped in the league in fielding percentage as a first baseman (.993). Grimm was eighth in the NL MVP voting. On August 2, 1932, with the Cubs trailing the Pirates by five games, Hornsby was let go as manager, and Grimm accepted the position. The next morning he called the team together: “[H]e told the men that he had served under good managers who had taught him what he had to do to help the club. His success, and theirs, he said, would come down to one thing: ‘Hustle. We’re facing a fight and we have a fine chance to win this pennant. I’m depending on every fellow on the club to give his best. And I know he will.’ He also announced that English would replace him as captain.”[fn]Ehrgott, 305.[/fn] August 16 was Charlie Grimm Day at Wrigley Field, and the player-manager was presented with five-foot-high baskets of roses, bouquets, and a platinum watch. The Cubs, who had chafed under the dictatorial style of Hornsby, responded well to the affable Grimm. The team went 37-18 (.673) under his leadership in 1932, with 14 consecutive wins from August 20 to September 3, and took the pennant by four games over the Pirates. Grimm batted .307 for the season and had 80 RBIs. He tied for fifth in the NL in doubles (42). He led NL first basemen in double plays turned, with 127. The Cubs were swept in the World Series by the New York Yankees; Grimm batted .333. His former manager on the Cubs, Joe McCarthy, won the first of seven World Series titles with the Yankees. In 1933 Grimm’s first full season as a manager, he played in 107 games and batted .247. He also led the majors in fielding percentage as a first baseman (.996). The Cubs had an 86-68 record and finished third. The following year, Grimm batted .296 in 75 games as the Cubs went 86-65 and again finished in third place. Grimm won his second pennant as a manager in 1935. (He played in only the first two games of the season.) The Cubs had 100 wins — the most by the team since 1910 — and 54 losses. Chicago won 21 straight games from September 4 to 27, allowing more than three runs in a game only once during the streak. The Cubs had the lowest ERA in the majors (3.26) and led the NL in batting average (.288) and runs scored (847). Standouts included NL MVP Gabby Hartnett (.344, 91 RBIs), Billy Herman (.341, 227 hits, 57 doubles), Augie Galan (203 hits, 133 runs), and pitchers Bill Lee (20-6), Lon Warneke (20-13), and Larry French (17-10). In his autobiography, Grimm wrote, “The best team I managed was the 1935 group. It had balance with slick pitching, fielding, batting, and some speed. A team has to be great to win twenty-one in a row. It also has to be a trifle lucky. And I don’t believe any club ever won a pennant unless five or six of its key players had a top season.”[fn]Grimm, 236.[/fn] But the team’s luck faltered in the World Series, as the Cubs lost to the Detroit Tigers in six games. In 1936 Grimm’s last season as a player-manager, he played in 39 games, batted .250, and played his final major-league game on September 23; he was 38 years old. Over his career, he played in 2,166 games, got 2,299 hits, hit 79 home runs, and drove in 1,077 runs. His fielding percentage at first base was.993. When he retired as a player, only Jake Beckley and Cap Anson had played more games at the position. As of 2014, Grimm was among the top ten first basemen in games, putouts, and double plays turned. Grimm guided the Cubs to an 87-67 record in 1936 (tied for second place) and a 93-61 record in 1937 (second place). On July 20, 1938, with the Cubs at 45-36 and trailing the first-place Pirates by 5½ games, Grimm was replaced by Gabby Hartnett. He moved to the broadcast booth, and the Cubs won the pennant that year. Grimm rejoined the Cubs as a coach in 1941, then left after he and Bill Veeck, Jr. (son of the former president of the Cubs) bought the Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association. Grimm went on to manage the team, which had a working agreement with the Cubs. According to Grimm, “One of Veeck’s first projects was organizing a little musical group that played concerts before each game. Bill’s instrument was a big whistle with holes in it and a plunger to control the air. Rudie [Schaffer] played a home-made bass fiddle, consisting of a five-gallon paint can and a broomstick with a cord on it, which produced a thumping noise. George Blaeholder, a veteran pitcher who has been credited with introducing the now popular slider, played the accordion, and I chimed in with my banjo.”[fn]Grimm, 149-150.[/fn] Grimm managed the Brewers through 1943, winning a pennant and the Little World Series that year. The Cubs got off to a miserable start in 1944 and wanted Grimm back at the helm. He called on an old friend to replace him as manager in Milwaukee: Casey Stengel, who at the time had an undistinguished record of 581-742 piloting the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves. With the Cubs having lost ten straight after an Opening Day win, Grimm took over as manager on May 5. The Cubs lost the next three games. Then on May 11, before Chicago starter Ed Hanyzewski took the mound against Philadelphia, Grimm gave him a four-leaf clover, which the pitcher wore under his cap; the Cubs won 5-3. The team went 74-69 under Grimm in 1944, winning 11 consecutive games from July 25 through August 5. He wrote in his autobiography, “I like to think that the sharp turnabout of these 1944 Cubs might have been due, at least in part, to my philosophy that a manager should keep his players relaxed and save the whip for a lion tamer.”[fn]Grimm, 160.[/fn] Grimm won his third pennant as a manager in 1945, with a record of 98-56. The Cubs topped the NL in batting average (.277), ERA (2.98), and fielding percentage (.980). First baseman Phil Cavarretta led the league in batting (.355) and on-base percentage (.449), drove in 97 runs, and won the NL MVP Award. Pitcher Hank Borowy, purchased from the Yankees on July 27, went 11-2 with the Cubs and had the lowest ERA (2.13) in the senior circuit; he won the Sporting News NL Pitcher of the Year Award. Grimm relied heavily on his new ace during the World Series against the Tigers, a strategy that proved costly. Borowy threw a shutout in Game One and pitched into the sixth inning in Game Five (giving up five runs). The next day he threw four scoreless innings in relief as the Cubs won, 8-7 in 12 innings. Two days after that, Grimm sent Borowy to the mound again to start Game Seven. The hurler did not retire a batter, giving up singles to the first three batters (all of whom would score). Leading 5-0 before the Cubs came to bat, the Tigers won, 9-3. The Cubs slumped under Grimm over the next three seasons, going 82-71 in 1946 (third place), 69-85 in 1947 (sixth place), and 64-90 in 1948 (eighth and last place). In mid-June of 1949, with the Cubs at 19-31, Grimm was fired and replaced by Frankie Frisch. He became vice president in charge of player operations. He resigned in early 1950 to manage the Dallas Eagles of the Double-A Texas League. In 1951 Grimm returned to Milwaukee to manage the Brewers in the Triple-A American Association. He led the team, a Boston Braves affiliate, to another pennant and Little World Series title. Grimm won The Sporting News Minor League Manager of the Year Award.  On May 30, 1952, Grimm was named manager of the Boston Braves, replacing Tommy Holmes. The Braves, who had a 13-22 record when Grimm took over, went 51-67 the rest of the season. He remained the manager when the team moved to Milwaukee the next year. Under his leadership, the Milwaukee Braves were 92-62 in 1953 (second place), 89-65 in 1954 (third place), and 85-69 in 1955 (second place). With a 24-22 record in 1956 Grimm was fired and replaced by Fred Haney. Grimm later wrote of his disappointment at being let go before being able to bring a pennant to Milwaukee. (The Braves won the 1957 pennant and the World Series over the New York Yankees.) Grimm returned to the Cubs, serving as vice president from 1957 through 1959 and managing the first 17 games of the 1960 season, with a 6-11 record. In an unusual swap, Grimm replaced Lou Boudreau in the WGN radio broadcast booth, and Boudreau became manager of the Cubs. In Grimm’s three stints as manager in Chicago, he had a record of 946-782. His career record during 19 seasons as manager was 1,287-1,067. He is one of the few men in the major leagues to both play in 2,000 games and manage 2,000 games. Grimm served on the Cubs’ coaching staff from 1961 to 1963, then rejoined the front office, where he remained until 1981. He was inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in 1978. Just north of Madison, Wisconsin, is the town of Windsor, where one can drive on Charlie Grimm Road. Grimm died of cancer on November 15, 1983, in Scottsdale, Arizona; he was 85 years old. Adhering to his wishes, Grimm’s wife, Marion, scattered his ashes over Wrigley Field. In 2009 he was one of ten finalists for the Veterans Committee managers/umpires ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame.   Decades before Ernie Banks captivated Chicago baseball fans as “Mr. Cub,” there was Charlie “Jolly Cholly” Grimm–longtime player, manager, consultant, and even team broadcaster.  He started out with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but the staid Pirates manager did not appreciate the not-so-grim Charlie’s singing and left-handed banjo playing, so he was traded to the Cubs in late 1924.  At spring training in 1925, as he was playing in a string quartet with other musically inclined players, owner William Wrigley walked over, saw one ballplayer’s beat-up guitar, and told them, “You boys need new instruments.”  Charlie knew right away that he had found the right team. And the team had found the right first baseman, too.  That season he led the Cubs in both batting average (.306) and runs batted in (76), though for the first time in their long history, the Cubs finished last in the National League. Things got better when manager Joe McCarthy came on board, and the Cubs finished first in 1929.  Wrigley never forgave McCarthy for the team’s failure to win the World Series, however, and McCarthy found himself replaced by Rogers Hornsby.  The players disliked the acid-tongued and hard-driving Hornsby, and with no pennant hopes in sight in 1932, he was fired and player Grimm was elevated to the manager’s seat. The Cubs worked well with easygoing “Jolly Cholly,” and they captured the National League pennant that year and also three years later (but failed to come through in either the 1932 or 1935 World Series).  After a second-place finish in 1937, Grimm felt he was losing his ability to handle and relate to players, and he resigned during the 1938 season.  Catcher Gabby Hartnett took over, and the team won the pennant in down-to-the-wire, dramatic fashion (but again did not win the World Series). Grimm stayed on in baseball, broadcasting games and managing Bill Veeck’s then minor-league Milwaukee Brewers.  In the mid-1940s he came back to Chicago and in 1945 he once more took the Cubs to the World Series (and once again lost).  In 1949 he moved to the Cubs’ front office, holding a variety of coaching, managing, and consulting positions with the organization. charlie_grimm_dj2Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley publicly referred to Grimm as “my favorite baseball character.”  The word “character” is indeed correct.  Grimm always said that his baseball philosophy was “make it fun.”  He told a Sports Illustrated writer in 1955 that “I’ve always had a lot of fun.  When I was a kid we used to have those old-fashioned Saturday nights at our house with music you could hear for miles. Dad played the bull fiddle, Mom had a harmonica, my brother Bill played the guitar and Ollie would blow the bass tuba and my sister Margaret would be at the piano.  We all played by ear.”  (Left: the dust jacket of Grimm’s 1968 memoir, which was reissued in 1983 under the title Jolly Cholly’s Story: Grimm’s Baseball Tales.) Grimm’s hijinks carried over to the baseball field, too, where he often entertained the crowds (and the players) with impromptu dances, pratfalls, and pantomimes.  As renowned sportswriter and publisher J. G. Taylor Spink wrote in The Sporting News in 1945, “Charlie [is] a skilled mimic.  Without any studied effort, he can imitate the walk, talk and actions of almost anyone in the National League.  His impersonations of umpires keep the fans in stitches and give the players and fellow umpires many a chuckle (when he is not mimicking them). “Occasionally, however, his mimicry gets him into trouble.  Last year in Cincinnati the Cubs were giving the Reds a terrific drubbing.  The fans were riding the Reds in unmerciful fashion.  Honus Lobert, then coach of the Reds, stopped Grimm on the way to the coaching box and asked him to give the crowd a laugh to take their minds off the Cincinnati players.  Grimm readily agreed.  The first person he noticed was George Barr, the umpire, who has a strut all his own. “Barr called a decision at third base and as he strutted down the left field foul line, Grimm followed, strutting after him.  The crowd was in an uproar.  Barr kept walking, with Grimm right behind him.  Suddenly Barr sensed something was up, and turned.  Grimm failed to turn quickly enough–and Charlie’s next walk was to the clubhouse.” For some fifty years, Charlie Grimm was a major part of the Chicago Cubs.  When he died, he became part of Wrigley Field, too, as his last wish was to have his ashes scattered about the ballpark. (Of course, as I say in the Early Years section of my Cubs page, a case could be made for Jimmy Wood being the true “original Mr. Cub,” though at that time the team was just being formed and it had no name until “White Stockings” was adopted.)
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team (batting team) is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called "runs". The objective of the defensive team (referred to as the fielding team) is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners' advance around the bases.[2] A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate (the place where the player started as a batter). The principal objective of the batting team is to have a player reach first base safely; this generally occurs either when the batter hits the ball and reaches first base before an opponent retrieves the ball and touches the base, or when the pitcher persists in throwing the ball out of the batter's reach. Players on the batting team who reach first base without being called "out" can attempt to advance to subsequent bases as a runner, either immediately or during teammates' turns batting. The fielding team tries to prevent runs by getting batters or runners "out", which forces them out of the field of play. The pitcher can get the batter out by throwing three pitches which result in strikes, while fielders can get the batter out by catching a batted ball before it touches the ground, and can get a runner out by tagging them with the ball while the runner is not touching a base. The opposing teams switch back and forth between batting and fielding; the batting team's turn to bat is over once the fielding team records three outs. One turn batting for each team constitutes an inning. A game is usually composed of nine innings, and the team with the greater number of runs at the end of the game wins. Most games end after the ninth inning, but if scores are tied at that point, extra innings are usually played. Baseball has no game clock, though some competitions feature pace-of-play regulations such as the pitch clock to shorten game time. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. Baseball's American origins, as well as its reputation as a source of escapism during troubled points in American history such as the American Civil War and the Great Depression, have led the sport to receive the moniker of "America's Pastime"; since the late 19th century, it has been unofficially recognized as the national sport of the United States, though in modern times is considered less popular than other sports, such as American football. In addition to North America, baseball is considered the most popular sport in parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia, particularly in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. In Major League Baseball (MLB), the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, teams are divided into the National League (NL) and American League (AL), each with three divisions: East, West, and Central. The MLB champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series. The top level of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League. The World Baseball Classic, organized by the World Baseball Softball Confederation, is the major international competition of the sport and attracts the top national teams from around the world. Baseball was played at the Olympic Games from 1992 to 2008, and was reinstated in 2020. Rules and gameplay Further information: Baseball rules and Outline of baseball Diagram of a baseball field Diamond may refer to the square area defined by the four bases or to the entire playing field. The dimensions given are for professional and professional-style games. Children often play on smaller fields. 2013 World Baseball Classic championship match between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, March 20, 2013 A baseball game is played between two teams, each usually composed of nine players, that take turns playing offense (batting and baserunning) and defense (pitching and fielding). A pair of turns, one at bat and one in the field, by each team constitutes an inning. A game consists of nine innings (seven innings at the high school level and in doubleheaders in college, Minor League Baseball and, since the 2020 season, Major League Baseball; and six innings at the Little League level).[3] One team—customarily the visiting team—bats in the top, or first half, of every inning. The other team—customarily the home team—bats in the bottom, or second half, of every inning. The goal of the game is to score more points (runs) than the other team. The players on the team at bat attempt to score runs by touching all four bases, in order, set at the corners of the square-shaped baseball diamond. A player bats at home plate and must attempt to safely reach a base before proceeding, counterclockwise, from first base, to second base, third base, and back home to score a run. The team in the field attempts to prevent runs from scoring by recording outs, which remove opposing players from offensive action, until their next turn at bat comes up again. When three outs are recorded, the teams switch roles for the next half-inning. If the score of the game is tied after nine innings, extra innings are played to resolve the contest. Many amateur games, particularly unorganized ones, involve different numbers of players and innings.[4] The game is played on a field whose primary boundaries, the foul lines, extend forward from home plate at 45-degree angles. The 90-degree area within the foul lines is referred to as fair territory; the 270-degree area outside them is foul territory. The part of the field enclosed by the bases and several yards beyond them is the infield; the area farther beyond the infield is the outfield. In the middle of the infield is a raised pitcher's mound, with a rectangular rubber plate (the rubber) at its center. The outer boundary of the outfield is typically demarcated by a raised fence, which may be of any material and height. The fair territory between home plate and the outfield boundary is baseball's field of play, though significant events can take place in foul territory, as well.[5] There are three basic tools of baseball: the ball, the bat, and the glove or mitt: The baseball is about the size of an adult's fist, around 9 inches (23 centimeters) in circumference. It has a rubber or cork center, wound in yarn and covered in white cowhide, with red stitching.[6] The bat is a hitting tool, traditionally made of a single, solid piece of wood. Other materials are now commonly used for nonprofessional games. It is a hard round stick, about 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) in diameter at the hitting end, tapering to a narrower handle and culminating in a knob. Bats used by adults are typically around 34 inches (86 centimeters) long, and not longer than 42 inches (110 centimeters).[7] The glove or mitt is a fielding tool, made of padded leather with webbing between the fingers. As an aid in catching and holding onto the ball, it takes various shapes to meet the specific needs of different fielding positions.[8] Protective helmets are also standard equipment for all batters.[9] At the beginning of each half-inning, the nine players of the fielding team arrange themselves around the field. One of them, the pitcher, stands on the pitcher's mound. The pitcher begins the pitching delivery with one foot on the rubber, pushing off it to gain velocity when throwing toward home plate. Another fielding team player, the catcher, squats on the far side of home plate, facing the pitcher. The rest of the fielding team faces home plate, typically arranged as four infielders—who set up along or within a few yards outside the imaginary lines (basepaths) between first, second, and third base—and three outfielders. In the standard arrangement, there is a first baseman positioned several steps to the left of first base, a second baseman to the right of second base, a shortstop to the left of second base, and a third baseman to the right of third base. The basic outfield positions are left fielder, center fielder, and right fielder. With the exception of the catcher, all fielders are required to be in fair territory when the pitch is delivered. A neutral umpire sets up behind the catcher.[10] Other umpires will be distributed around the field as well.[11] David Ortiz, the batter, awaiting a pitch, with the catcher and umpire Play starts with a member of the batting team, the batter, standing in either of the two batter's boxes next to home plate, holding a bat.[12] The batter waits for the pitcher to throw a pitch (the ball) toward home plate, and attempts to hit the ball[13] with the bat.[12] The catcher catches pitches that the batter does not hit—as a result of either electing not to swing or failing to connect—and returns them to the pitcher. A batter who hits the ball into the field of play must drop the bat and begin running toward first base, at which point the player is referred to as a runner (or, until the play is over, a batter-runner). A batter-runner who reaches first base without being put out is said to be safe and is on base. A batter-runner may choose to remain at first base or attempt to advance to second base or even beyond—however far the player believes can be reached safely. A player who reaches base despite proper play by the fielders has recorded a hit. A player who reaches first base safely on a hit is credited with a single. If a player makes it to second base safely as a direct result of a hit, it is a double; third base, a triple. If the ball is hit in the air within the foul lines over the entire outfield (and outfield fence, if there is one), or if the batter-runner otherwise safely circles all the bases, it is a home run: the batter and any runners on base may all freely circle the bases, each scoring a run. This is the most desirable result for the batter. The ultimate and most desirable result possible for a batter would be to hit a home run while all three bases are occupied or "loaded", thus scoring four runs on a single hit. This is called a grand slam. A player who reaches base due to a fielding mistake is not credited with a hit—instead, the responsible fielder is charged with an error.[12] Any runners already on base may attempt to advance on batted balls that land, or contact the ground, in fair territory, before or after the ball lands. A runner on first base must attempt to advance if a ball lands in play, as only one runner may occupy a base at any given time. If a ball hit into play rolls foul before passing through the infield, it becomes dead and any runners must return to the base they occupied when the play began. If the ball is hit in the air and caught before it lands, the batter has flied out and any runners on base may attempt to advance only if they tag up (contact the base they occupied when the play began, as or after the ball is caught). Runners may also attempt to advance to the next base while the pitcher is in the process of delivering the ball to home plate; a successful effort is a stolen base.[14] A pitch that is not hit into the field of play is called either a strike or a ball. A batter against whom three strikes are recorded strikes out. A batter against whom four balls are recorded is awarded a base on balls or walk, a free advance to first base. (A batter may also freely advance to first base if the batter's body or uniform is struck by a pitch outside the strike zone, provided the batter does not swing and attempts to avoid being hit.)[15] Crucial to determining balls and strikes is the umpire's judgment as to whether a pitch has passed through the strike zone, a conceptual area above home plate extending from the midpoint between the batter's shoulders and belt down to the hollow of the knee.[16] Any pitch which does not pass through the strike zone is called a ball, unless the batter either swings and misses at the pitch, or hits the pitch into foul territory; an exception generally occurs if the ball is hit into foul territory when the batter already has two strikes, in which case neither a ball nor a strike is called. A shortstop tries to tag out a runner who is sliding head first, attempting to reach second base. While the team at bat is trying to score runs, the team in the field is attempting to record outs. In addition to the strikeout and flyout, common ways a member of the batting team may be put out include the ground out, force out, and tag out. These occur either when a runner is forced to advance to a base, and a fielder with possession of the ball reaches that base before the runner does, or the runner is touched by the ball, held in a fielder's hand, while not on a base. (The batter-runner is always forced to advance to first base, and any other runners must advance to the next base if a teammate is forced to advance to their base.) It is possible to record two outs in the course of the same play. This is called a double play. Three outs in one play, a triple play, is possible, though rare. Players put out or retired must leave the field, returning to their team's dugout or bench. A runner may be stranded on base when a third out is recorded against another player on the team. Stranded runners do not benefit the team in its next turn at bat as every half-inning begins with the bases empty.[17] An individual player's turn batting or plate appearance is complete when the player reaches base, hits a home run, makes an out, or hits a ball that results in the team's third out, even if it is recorded against a teammate. On rare occasions, a batter may be at the plate when, without the batter's hitting the ball, a third out is recorded against a teammate—for instance, a runner getting caught stealing (tagged out attempting to steal a base). A batter with this sort of incomplete plate appearance starts off the team's next turn batting; any balls or strikes recorded against the batter the previous inning are erased. A runner may circle the bases only once per plate appearance and thus can score at most a single run per batting turn. Once a player has completed a plate appearance, that player may not bat again until the eight other members of the player's team have all taken their turn at bat in the batting order. The batting order is set before the game begins, and may not be altered except for substitutions. Once a player has been removed for a substitute, that player may not reenter the game. Children's games often have more lenient rules, such as Little League rules, which allow players to be substituted back into the same game.[3][18] If the designated hitter (DH) rule is in effect, each team has a tenth player whose sole responsibility is to bat (and run). The DH takes the place of another player—almost invariably the pitcher—in the batting order, but does not field. Thus, even with the DH, each team still has a batting order of nine players and a fielding arrangement of nine players.[19] Personnel See also: Baseball positions Players Defensive positions on a baseball field, with abbreviations and scorekeeper's position numbers (not uniform numbers) See also the categories Baseball players and Lists of baseball players The number of players on a baseball roster, or squad, varies by league and by the level of organized play. A Major League Baseball (MLB) team has a roster of 26 players with specific roles. A typical roster features the following players:[20] Eight position players: the catcher, four infielders, and three outfielders—all of whom play on a regular basis Five starting pitchers who constitute the team's pitching rotation or starting rotation Seven relief pitchers, including one closer, who constitute the team's bullpen (named for the off-field area where pitchers warm up) One backup, or substitute, catcher Five backup infielders and backup outfielders, or players who can play multiple positions, known as utility players. Most baseball leagues worldwide have the DH rule, including MLB, Japan's Pacific League, and Caribbean professional leagues, along with major American amateur organizations.[21] The Central League in Japan does not have the rule and high-level minor league clubs connected to National League teams are not required to field a DH.[22] In leagues that apply the designated hitter rule, a typical team has nine offensive regulars (including the DH), five starting pitchers,[23] seven or eight relievers, a backup catcher, and two or three other reserve players.[24][25] Managers and coaches The manager, or head coach, oversees the team's major strategic decisions, such as establishing the starting rotation, setting the lineup, or batting order, before each game, and making substitutions during games—in particular, bringing in relief pitchers. Managers are typically assisted by two or more coaches; they may have specialized responsibilities, such as working with players on hitting, fielding, pitching, or strength and conditioning. At most levels of organized play, two coaches are stationed on the field when the team is at bat: the first base coach and third base coach, who occupy designated coaches' boxes, just outside the foul lines. These coaches assist in the direction of baserunners, when the ball is in play, and relay tactical signals from the manager to batters and runners, during pauses in play.[26] In contrast to many other team sports, baseball managers and coaches generally wear their team's uniforms; coaches must be in uniform to be allowed on the field to confer with players during a game.[27] Umpires Any baseball game involves one or more umpires, who make rulings on the outcome of each play. At a minimum, one umpire will stand behind the catcher, to have a good view of the strike zone, and call balls and strikes. Additional umpires may be stationed near the other bases, thus making it easier to judge plays such as attempted force outs and tag outs. In MLB, four umpires are used for each game, one near each base. In the playoffs, six umpires are used: one at each base and two in the outfield along the foul lines.[28] Strategy See also: Baseball positioning Many of the pre-game and in-game strategic decisions in baseball revolve around a fundamental fact: in general, right-handed batters tend to be more successful against left-handed pitchers and, to an even greater degree, left-handed batters tend to be more successful against right-handed pitchers.[29] A manager with several left-handed batters in the regular lineup, who knows the team will be facing a left-handed starting pitcher, may respond by starting one or more of the right-handed backups on the team's roster. During the late innings of a game, as relief pitchers and pinch hitters are brought in, the opposing managers will often go back and forth trying to create favorable matchups with their substitutions. The manager of the fielding team trying to arrange same-handed pitcher-batter matchups and the manager of the batting team trying to arrange opposite-handed matchups. With a team that has the lead in the late innings, a manager may remove a starting position player—especially one whose turn at bat is not likely to come up again—for a more skillful fielder (known as a defensive substitution).[30] Tactics Pitching and fielding A first baseman receives a pickoff throw, as the runner dives back to first base. See also: Pitch (baseball) The tactical decision that precedes almost every play in a baseball game involves pitch selection.[31] By gripping and then releasing the baseball in a certain manner, and by throwing it at a certain speed, pitchers can cause the baseball to break to either side, or downward, as it approaches the batter, thus creating differing pitches that can be selected.[32] Among the resulting wide variety of pitches that may be thrown, the four basic types are the fastball, the changeup (or off-speed pitch), and two breaking balls—the curveball and the slider.[33] Pitchers have different repertoires of pitches they are skillful at throwing. Conventionally, before each pitch, the catcher signals the pitcher what type of pitch to throw, as well as its general vertical and/or horizontal location.[34] If there is disagreement on the selection, the pitcher may shake off the sign and the catcher will call for a different pitch. With a runner on base and taking a lead, the pitcher may attempt a pickoff, a quick throw to a fielder covering the base to keep the runner's lead in check or, optimally, effect a tag out.[35] Pickoff attempts, however, are subject to rules that severely restrict the pitcher's movements before and during the pickoff attempt. Violation of any one of these rules could result in the umpire calling a balk against the pitcher, which permits any runners on base to advance one base with impunity.[36] If an attempted stolen base is anticipated, the catcher may call for a pitchout, a ball thrown deliberately off the plate, allowing the catcher to catch it while standing and throw quickly to a base.[37] Facing a batter with a strong tendency to hit to one side of the field, the fielding team may employ a shift, with most or all of the fielders moving to the left or right of their usual positions. With a runner on third base, the infielders may play in, moving closer to home plate to improve the odds of throwing out the runner on a ground ball, though a sharply hit grounder is more likely to carry through a drawn-in infield.[38] Batting and baserunning Several basic offensive tactics come into play with a runner on first base, including the fundamental choice of whether to attempt a steal of second base. The hit and run is sometimes employed, with a skillful contact hitter, the runner takes off with the pitch, drawing the shortstop or second baseman over to second base, creating a gap in the infield for the batter to poke the ball through.[39] The sacrifice bunt, calls for the batter to focus on making soft contact with the ball, so that it rolls a short distance into the infield, allowing the runner to advance into scoring position as the batter is thrown out at first. A batter, particularly one who is a fast runner, may also attempt to bunt for a hit. A sacrifice bunt employed with a runner on third base, aimed at bringing that runner home, is known as a squeeze play.[40] With a runner on third and fewer than two outs, a batter may instead concentrate on hitting a fly ball that, even if it is caught, will be deep enough to allow the runner to tag up and score—a successful batter, in this case, gets credit for a sacrifice fly.[38] In order to increase the chance of advancing a batter to first base via a walk, the manager will sometimes signal a batter who is ahead in the count (i.e., has more balls than strikes) to take, or not swing at, the next pitch. The batter's potential reward of reaching base (via a walk) exceeds the disadvantage if the next pitch is a strike.[41] History Main article: History of baseball Further information: Origins of baseball The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision. Consensus once held that today's baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular among children in Great Britain and Ireland.[42][43][44] American baseball historian David Block suggests that the game originated in England; recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of each other, and that the game's most direct antecedents are the English games of stoolball and "tut-ball".[42] The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, by John Newbery.[45] Block discovered that the first recorded game of "Bass-Ball" took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player.[46] This early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants.[47] By the early 1830s, there were reports of a variety of uncodified bat-and-ball games recognizable as early forms of baseball being played around North America.[48] The first officially recorded baseball game in North America was played in Beachville, Ontario, Canada, on June 4, 1838.[49] In 1845, Alexander Cartwright, a member of New York City's Knickerbocker Club, led the codification of the so-called Knickerbocker Rules,[50] which in turn were based on rules developed in 1837 by William R. Wheaton of the Gotham Club.[51] While there are reports that the New York Knickerbockers played games in 1845, the contest long recognized as the first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history took place on June 19, 1846, in Hoboken, New Jersey: the "New York Nine" defeated the Knickerbockers, 23–1, in four innings.[52] With the Knickerbocker code as the basis, the rules of modern baseball continued to evolve over the next half-century.[53] By the time of the Civil War, baseball had begun to overtake its fellow bat-and-ball sport cricket in popularity within the United States, due in part to baseball being of a much shorter duration than the form of cricket played at the time, as well as the fact that troops during the Civil War did not need a specialized playing surface to play baseball, as they would have required for cricket.[54][55] In the United States Further information: Baseball in the United States and History of baseball in the United States Establishment of professional leagues In the mid-1850s, a baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan area,[56] and by 1856, local journals were referring to baseball as the "national pastime" or "national game".[57] A year later, the sport's first governing body, the National Association of Base Ball Players, was formed. In 1867, it barred participation by African Americans.[58] The more formally structured National League was founded in 1876.[59] Professional Negro leagues formed, but quickly folded.[60] In 1887, softball, under the name of indoor baseball or indoor-outdoor, was invented as a winter version of the parent game.[61] The National League's first successful counterpart, the American League, which evolved from the minor Western League, was established in 1893, and virtually all of the modern baseball rules were in place by then.[62][63] The National Agreement of 1903 formalized relations both between the two major leagues and between them and the National Association of Professional Base Ball Leagues, representing most of the country's minor professional leagues.[64] The World Series, pitting the two major league champions against each other, was inaugurated that fall.[65] The Black Sox Scandal of the 1919 World Series led to the formation of the office of the Commissioner of Baseball.[66] The first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, was elected in 1920. That year also saw the founding of the Negro National League; the first significant Negro league, it would operate until 1931. For part of the 1920s, it was joined by the Eastern Colored League.[67] Rise of Ruth and racial integration Compared with the present, professional baseball in the early 20th century was lower-scoring, and pitchers were more dominant.[68] The so-called dead-ball era ended in the early 1920s with several changes in rule and circumstance that were advantageous to hitters. Strict new regulations governed the ball's size, shape and composition, along with a new rule officially banning the spitball and other pitches that depended on the ball being treated or roughed-up with foreign substances, resulted in a ball that traveled farther when hit.[69] The rise of the legendary player Babe Ruth, the first great power hitter of the new era, helped permanently alter the nature of the game.[70] In the late 1920s and early 1930s, St. Louis Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey invested in several minor league clubs and developed the first modern farm system.[71] A new Negro National League was organized in 1933; four years later, it was joined by the Negro American League. The first elections to the National Baseball Hall of Fame took place in 1936. In 1939, Little League Baseball was founded in Pennsylvania.[72] Robinson posing in the uniform cap of the Kansas City Royals, a California Winter League barnstorming team, November 1945 (photo by Maurice Terrell) Jackie Robinson in 1945, with the era's Kansas City Royals, a barnstorming squad associated with the Negro American League's Kansas City Monarchs A large number of minor league teams disbanded when World War II led to a player shortage. Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley led the formation of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League to help keep the game in the public eye.[73] The first crack in the unwritten agreement barring blacks from white-controlled professional ball occurred in 1945: Jackie Robinson was signed by the National League's Brooklyn Dodgers and began playing for their minor league team in Montreal.[74] In 1947, Robinson broke the major leagues' color barrier when he debuted with the Dodgers.[75] Latin-American players, largely overlooked before, also started entering the majors in greater numbers. In 1951, two Chicago White Sox, Venezuelan-born Chico Carrasquel and black Cuban-born Minnie Miñoso, became the first Hispanic All-Stars.[76][77] Integration proceeded slowly: by 1953, only six of the 16 major league teams had a black player on the roster.[76] Attendance records and the age of steroids In 1975, the union's power—and players' salaries—began to increase greatly when the reserve clause was effectively struck down, leading to the free agency system.[78] Significant work stoppages occurred in 1981 and 1994, the latter forcing the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years.[79] Attendance had been growing steadily since the mid-1970s and in 1994, before the stoppage, the majors were setting their all-time record for per-game attendance.[80][81] After play resumed in 1995, non-division-winning wild card teams became a permanent fixture of the post-season. Regular-season interleague play was introduced in 1997 and the second-highest attendance mark for a full season was set.[82] In 2000, the National and American Leagues were dissolved as legal entities. While their identities were maintained for scheduling purposes (and the designated hitter distinction), the regulations and other functions—such as player discipline and umpire supervision—they had administered separately were consolidated under the rubric of MLB.[83] In 2001, Barry Bonds established the current record of 73 home runs in a single season. There had long been suspicions that the dramatic increase in power hitting was fueled in large part by the abuse of illegal steroids (as well as by the dilution of pitching talent due to expansion), but the issue only began attracting significant media attention in 2002 and there was no penalty for the use of performance-enhancing drugs before 2004.[84] In 2007, Bonds became MLB's all-time home run leader, surpassing Hank Aaron, as total major league and minor league attendance both reached all-time highs.[85][86] Around the world With the historic popular moniker as "America's national pastime", baseball is well established in several other countries as well. As early as 1877, a professional league, the International Association, featured teams from both Canada and the United States.[87] While baseball is widely played in Canada and many minor league teams have been based in the country,[88][89] the American major leagues did not include a Canadian club until 1969, when the Montreal Expos joined the National League as an expansion team. In 1977, the expansion Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League.[90] Sadaharu Oh managing the Japan national team in the 2006 World Baseball Classic. Playing for the Central League's Yomiuri Giants (1959–80), Oh set the professional world record for home runs. In 1847, American soldiers played what may have been the first baseball game in Mexico at Parque Los Berros in Xalapa, Veracruz.[91] The first formal baseball league outside of the United States and Canada was founded in 1878 in Cuba, which maintains a rich baseball tradition. The Dominican Republic held its first islandwide championship tournament in 1912.[92] Professional baseball tournaments and leagues began to form in other countries between the world wars, including the Netherlands (formed in 1922), Australia (1934), Japan (1936), Mexico (1937), and Puerto Rico (1938).[93] The Japanese major leagues have long been considered the highest quality professional circuits outside of the United States.[94] Pesäpallo, a Finnish variation of baseball, was invented by Lauri "Tahko" Pihkala in the 1920s,[95] and after that, it has changed with the times and grown in popularity. Picture of Pesäpallo match in 1958 in Jyväskylä, Finland. After World War II, professional leagues were founded in many Latin American countries, most prominently Venezuela (1946) and the Dominican Republic (1955).[96] Since the early 1970s, the annual Caribbean Series has matched the championship clubs from the four leading Latin American winter leagues: the Dominican Professional Baseball League, Mexican Pacific League, Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League, and Venezuelan Professional Baseball League. In Asia, South Korea (1982), Taiwan (1990) and China (2003) all have professional leagues.[97] The English football club, Aston Villa, were the first British baseball champions winning the 1890 National League of Baseball of Great Britain.[98][99] The 2020 National Champions were the London Mets. Other European countries have seen professional leagues; the most successful, other than the Dutch league, is the Italian league, founded in 1948.[100] In 2004, Australia won a surprise silver medal at the Olympic Games.[101] The Confédération Européene de Baseball (European Baseball Confederation), founded in 1953, organizes a number of competitions between clubs from different countries. Other competitions between national teams, such as the Baseball World Cup and the Olympic baseball tournament, were administered by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) from its formation in 1938 until its 2013 merger with the International Softball Federation to create the current joint governing body for both sports, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC).[102] Women's baseball is played on an organized amateur basis in numerous countries.[103] After being admitted to the Olympics as a medal sport beginning with the 1992 Games, baseball was dropped from the 2012 Summer Olympic Games at the 2005 International Olympic Committee meeting. It remained part of the 2008 Games.[104] While the sport's lack of a following in much of the world was a factor,[105] more important was MLB's reluctance to allow its players to participate during the major league season.[106] MLB initiated the World Baseball Classic, scheduled to precede its season, partly as a replacement, high-profile international tournament. The inaugural Classic, held in March 2006, was the first tournament involving national teams to feature a significant number of MLB participants.[107][108] The Baseball World Cup was discontinued after its 2011 edition in favor of an expanded World Baseball Classic.[109] Distinctive elements Baseball has certain attributes that set it apart from the other popular team sports in the countries where it has a following. All of these sports use a clock,[110] play is less individual,[111] and the variation between playing fields is not as substantial or important.[112] The comparison between cricket and baseball demonstrates that many of baseball's distinctive elements are shared in various ways with its cousin sports.[113] No clock to kill A well-worn baseball In clock-limited sports, games often end with a team that holds the lead killing the clock rather than competing aggressively against the opposing team. In contrast, baseball has no clock, thus a team cannot win without getting the last batter out and rallies are not constrained by time. At almost any turn in any baseball game, the most advantageous strategy is some form of aggressive strategy.[114] Whereas, in the case of multi-day Test and first-class cricket, the possibility of a draw (which occurs because of the restrictions on time, which like in baseball, originally did not exist[115]) often encourages a team that is batting last and well behind, to bat defensively and run out the clock, giving up any faint chance at a win, to avoid an overall loss.[116] While nine innings has been the standard since the beginning of professional baseball, the duration of the average major league game has increased steadily through the years. At the turn of the 20th century, games typically took an hour and a half to play. In the 1920s, they averaged just less than two hours, which eventually ballooned to 2:38 in 1960.[117] By 1997, the average American League game lasted 2:57 (National League games were about 10 minutes shorter—pitchers at the plate making for quicker outs than designated hitters).[118] In 2004, Major League Baseball declared that its goal was an average game of 2:45.[117] By 2014, though, the average MLB game took over three hours to complete.[119] The lengthening of games is attributed to longer breaks between half-innings for television commercials, increased offense, more pitching changes, and a slower pace of play, with pitchers taking more time between each delivery, and batters stepping out of the box more frequently.[117][118] Other leagues have experienced similar issues. In 2008, Nippon Professional Baseball took steps aimed at shortening games by 12 minutes from the preceding decade's average of 3:18.[120] In 2016, the average nine-inning playoff game in Major League baseball was 3 hours and 35 minutes. This was up 10 minutes from 2015 and 21 minutes from 2014.[121] In response to the lengthening of the game, MLB decided from the 2023 season onward to institute a pitch clock rule to penalize batters and pitchers who take too much time between pitches.[122] Individual focus Babe Ruth in 1920, the year he joined the New York Yankees Although baseball is a team sport, individual players are often placed under scrutiny and pressure. While rewarding, it has sometimes been described as "ruthless" due to the pressure on the individual player.[123] In 1915, a baseball instructional manual pointed out that every single pitch, of which there are often more than two hundred in a game, involves an individual, one-on-one contest: "the pitcher and the batter in a battle of wits".[124] Pitcher, batter, and fielder all act essentially independent of each other. While coaching staffs can signal pitcher or batter to pursue certain tactics, the execution of the play itself is a series of solitary acts. If the batter hits a line drive, the outfielder is solely responsible for deciding to try to catch it or play it on the bounce and for succeeding or failing. The statistical precision of baseball is both facilitated by this isolation and reinforces it. Cricket is more similar to baseball than many other team sports in this regard: while the individual focus in cricket is mitigated by the importance of the batting partnership and the practicalities of tandem running, it is enhanced by the fact that a batsman may occupy the wicket for an hour or much more.[125] There is no statistical equivalent in cricket for the fielding error and thus less emphasis on personal responsibility in this area of play.[126] Uniqueness of parks Further information: Ballpark Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. The Green Monster is visible beyond the playing field on the left. Unlike those of most sports, baseball playing fields can vary significantly in size and shape. While the dimensions of the infield are specifically regulated, the only constraint on outfield size and shape for professional teams, following the rules of MLB and Minor League Baseball, is that fields built or remodeled since June 1, 1958, must have a minimum distance of 325 feet (99 m) from home plate to the fences in left and right field and 400 feet (122 m) to center.[127] Major league teams often skirt even this rule. For example, at Minute Maid Park, which became the home of the Houston Astros in 2000, the Crawford Boxes in left field are only 315 feet (96 m) from home plate.[128] There are no rules at all that address the height of fences or other structures at the edge of the outfield. The most famously idiosyncratic outfield boundary is the left-field wall at Boston's Fenway Park, in use since 1912: the Green Monster is 310 feet (94 m) from home plate down the line and 37 feet (11 m) tall.[129] Similarly, there are no regulations at all concerning the dimensions of foul territory. Thus a foul fly ball may be entirely out of play in a park with little space between the foul lines and the stands, but a foulout in a park with more expansive foul ground.[130] A fence in foul territory that is close to the outfield line will tend to direct balls that strike it back toward the fielders, while one that is farther away may actually prompt more collisions, as outfielders run full speed to field balls deep in the corner. These variations can make the difference between a double and a triple or inside-the-park home run.[131] The surface of the field is also unregulated. While the adjacent image shows a traditional field surfacing arrangement (and the one used by virtually all MLB teams with naturally surfaced fields), teams are free to decide what areas will be grassed or bare.[132] Some fields—including several in MLB—use artificial turf. Surface variations can have a significant effect on how ground balls behave and are fielded as well as on baserunning. Similarly, the presence of a roof (seven major league teams play in stadiums with permanent or retractable roofs) can greatly affect how fly balls are played.[133] While football and soccer players deal with similar variations of field surface and stadium covering, the size and shape of their fields are much more standardized. The area out-of-bounds on a football or soccer field does not affect play the way foul territory in baseball does, so variations in that regard are largely insignificant.[134] A New York Yankees batter (Andruw Jones) and a Boston Red Sox catcher at Fenway Park These physical variations create a distinctive set of playing conditions at each ballpark. Other local factors, such as altitude and climate, can also significantly affect play. A given stadium may acquire a reputation as a pitcher's park or a hitter's park, if one or the other discipline notably benefits from its unique mix of elements. The most exceptional park in this regard is Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies. Its high altitude—5,282 feet (1,610 m) above sea level—is partly responsible for giving it the strongest hitter's park effect in the major leagues due to the low air pressure.[135] Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, is known for its fickle disposition: a pitcher's park when the strong winds off Lake Michigan are blowing in, it becomes more of a hitter's park when they are blowing out.[136] The absence of a standardized field affects not only how particular games play out, but the nature of team rosters and players' statistical records. For example, hitting a fly ball 330 feet (100 m) into right field might result in an easy catch on the warning track at one park, and a home run at another. A team that plays in a park with a relatively short right field, such as the New York Yankees, will tend to stock its roster with left-handed pull hitters, who can best exploit it. On the individual level, a player who spends most of his career with a team that plays in a hitter's park will gain an advantage in batting statistics over time—even more so if his talents are especially suited to the park.[137] Statistics Further information: Baseball statistics Organized baseball lends itself to statistics to a greater degree than many other sports. Each play is discrete and has a relatively small number of possible outcomes. In the late 19th century, a former cricket player, English-born Henry Chadwick of Brooklyn, was responsible for the "development of the box score, tabular standings, the annual baseball guide, the batting average, and most of the common statistics and tables used to describe baseball."[138] The statistical record is so central to the game's "historical essence" that Chadwick came to be known as Father Baseball.[138] In the 1920s, American newspapers began devoting more and more attention to baseball statistics, initiating what journalist and historian Alan Schwarz describes as a "tectonic shift in sports, as intrigue that once focused mostly on teams began to go to individual players and their statistics lines."[139] The Official Baseball Rules administered by MLB require the official scorer to categorize each baseball play unambiguously. The rules provide detailed criteria to promote consistency. The score report is the official basis for both the box score of the game and the relevant statistical records.[140] General managers, managers, and baseball scouts use statistics to evaluate players and make strategic decisions. Rickey Henderson—the major leagues' all-time leader in runs and stolen bases—stealing third base in a 1988 game Certain traditional statistics are familiar to most baseball fans. The basic batting statistics include:[141] At bats: plate appearances, excluding walks and hit by pitches—where the batter's ability is not fully tested—and sacrifices and sacrifice flies—where the batter intentionally makes an out in order to advance one or more baserunners Hits: times a base is reached safely, because of a batted, fair ball without a fielding error or fielder's choice Runs: times circling the bases and reaching home safely Runs batted in (RBIs): number of runners who scored due to a batter's action (including the batter, in the case of a home run), except when batter grounded into double play or reached on an error Home runs: hits on which the batter successfully touched all four bases, without the contribution of a fielding error Batting average: hits divided by at bats—the traditional measure of batting ability The basic baserunning statistics include:[142] Stolen bases: times advancing to the next base entirely due to the runner's own efforts, generally while the pitcher is preparing to deliver or delivering the ball Caught stealing: times tagged out while attempting to steal a base Cy Young—the holder of many major league career marks, including wins and innings pitched, as well as losses—in 1908. MLB's annual awards for the best pitcher in each league are named for Young. The basic pitching statistics include:[143] Wins: credited to pitcher on winning team who last pitched before the team took a lead that it never relinquished (a starting pitcher must pitch at least five innings to qualify for a win) Losses: charged to pitcher on losing team who was pitching when the opposing team took a lead that it never relinquished Saves: games where the pitcher enters a game led by the pitcher's team, finishes the game without surrendering the lead, is not the winning pitcher, and either (a) the lead was three runs or less when the pitcher entered the game; (b) the potential tying run was on base, at bat, or on deck; or (c) the pitcher pitched three or more innings Innings pitched: outs recorded while pitching divided by three (partial innings are conventionally recorded as, e.g., "5.2" or "7.1", the last digit actually representing thirds, not tenths, of an inning) Strikeouts: times pitching three strikes to a batter Winning percentage: wins divided by decisions (wins plus losses) Earned run average (ERA): runs allowed, excluding those resulting from fielding errors, per nine innings pitched The basic fielding statistics include:[144] Putouts: times the fielder catches a fly ball, tags or forces out a runner, or otherwise directly effects an out Assists: times a putout by another fielder was recorded following the fielder touching the ball Errors: times the fielder fails to make a play that should have been made with common effort, and the batting team benefits as a result Total chances: putouts plus assists plus errors Fielding average: successful chances (putouts plus assists) divided by total chances Among the many other statistics that are kept are those collectively known as situational statistics. For example, statistics can indicate which specific pitchers a certain batter performs best against. If a given situation statistically favors a certain batter, the manager of the fielding team may be more likely to change pitchers or have the pitcher intentionally walk the batter in order to face one who is less likely to succeed.[145] Sabermetrics Sabermetrics refers to the field of baseball statistical study and the development of new statistics and analytical tools. The term is also used to refer directly to new statistics themselves. The term was coined around 1980 by one of the field's leading proponents, Bill James, and derives from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).[146] The growing popularity of sabermetrics since the early 1980s has brought more attention to two batting statistics that sabermetricians argue are much better gauges of a batter's skill than batting average:[147] On-base percentage (OBP) measures a batter's ability to get on base. It is calculated by taking the sum of the batter's successes in getting on base (hits plus walks plus hit by pitches) and dividing that by the batter's total plate appearances (at bats plus walks plus hit by pitches plus sacrifice flies), except for sacrifice bunts.[148] Slugging percentage (SLG) measures a batter's ability to hit for power. It is calculated by taking the batter's total bases (one per each single, two per double, three per triple, and four per home run) and dividing that by the batter's at bats.[149] Some of the new statistics devised by sabermetricians have gained wide use: On-base plus slugging (OPS) measures a batter's overall ability. It is calculated by adding the batter's on-base percentage and slugging percentage.[150] Walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) measures a pitcher's ability at preventing hitters from reaching base. It is calculated by adding the number of walks and hits a pitcher surrendered, then dividing by the number of innings pitched.[151] Wins Above Replacement (WAR) measures number of additional wins his team has achieved above the number of expected team wins if that player were substituted with a replacement-level player.[152] Popularity and cultural impact Two players on the baseball team of Tokyo, Japan's Waseda University in 1921 Writing in 1919, philosopher Morris Raphael Cohen described baseball as the national religion of the US.[153] In the words of sports columnist Jayson Stark, baseball has long been "a unique paragon of American culture"—a status he sees as devastated by the steroid abuse scandal.[154] Baseball has an important place in other national cultures as well: Scholar Peter Bjarkman describes "how deeply the sport is ingrained in the history and culture of a nation such as Cuba, [and] how thoroughly it was radically reshaped and nativized in Japan."[155] In the United States The major league game in the United States was originally targeted toward a middle-class, white-collar audience: relative to other spectator pastimes, the National League's set ticket price of 50 cents in 1876 was high, while the location of playing fields outside the inner city and the workweek daytime scheduling of games were also obstacles to a blue-collar audience.[156] A century later, the situation was very different. With the rise in popularity of other team sports with much higher average ticket prices—football, basketball, and hockey—professional baseball had become among the most blue-collar-oriented of leading American spectator sports.[157] The Tampere Tigers celebrating the 2017 title in Turku, Finland Overall, baseball has a large following in the United States; a 2006 poll found that nearly half of Americans are fans.[158] In the late 1900s and early 2000s, baseball's position compared to football in the United States moved in contradictory directions. In 2008, MLB set a revenue record of $6.5 billion, matching the NFL's revenue for the first time in decades.[159] A new MLB revenue record of more than $10 billion was set in 2017.[160] On the other hand, the percentage of American sports fans polled who named baseball as their favorite sport was 9%, compared to pro football at 37%.[161] In 1985, the respective figures were pro football 24%, baseball 23%.[162] Because there are so many more major league games played, there is no comparison in overall attendance.[163] In 2008, total attendance at major league games was the second-highest in history: 78.6 million, 0.7% off the record set the previous year.[85] The following year, amid the U.S. recession, attendance fell by 6.6% to 73.4 million.[164] Eight years later, it dropped under 73 million.[165] Attendance at games held under the Minor League Baseball umbrella set a record in 2008, with 43.3 million.[166] While MLB games have not drawn the same national TV viewership as football games, MLB games are dominant in teams' local markets and regularly lead all programs in primetime in their markets during the summer.[167] Caribbean Since the early 1980s, the Dominican Republic, in particular the city of San Pedro de Macorís, has been the major leagues' primary source of foreign talent.[168] In 2017, 83 of the 868 players on MLB Opening Day rosters (and disabled lists) were from the country. Among other Caribbean countries and territories, a combined 97 MLB players were born in Venezuela, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.[169] Hall-of-Famer Roberto Clemente remains one of the greatest national heroes in Puerto Rico's history.[170] While baseball has long been the island's primary athletic pastime, its once well-attended professional winter league has declined in popularity since 1990, when young Puerto Rican players began to be included in the major leagues' annual first-year player draft.[171] In Cuba, where baseball is by every reckoning the national sport,[172] the national team overshadows the city and provincial teams that play in the top-level domestic leagues.[173] Asia An Afghan girl playing baseball in August 2002 In Asia, baseball is among the most popular sports in Japan and South Korea.[174] In Japan, where baseball is inarguably the leading spectator team sport, combined revenue for the twelve teams in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), the body that oversees both the Central and Pacific Leagues, was estimated at $1 billion in 2007. Total NPB attendance for the year was approximately 20 million. While in the preceding two decades, MLB attendance grew by 50 percent and revenue nearly tripled, the comparable NPB figures were stagnant. There are concerns that MLB's growing interest in acquiring star Japanese players will hurt the game in their home country.[175] Revenue figures are not released for the country's amateur system. Similarly, according to one official pronouncement, the sport's governing authority "has never taken into account attendance ... because its greatest interest has always been the development of athletes".[176] In Taiwan, baseball is one of the most widely spectated sports, with the origins dating back to Japanese rule.[177] Among children As of 2018, Little League Baseball oversees leagues with close to 2.4 million participants in over 80 countries.[178] The number of players has fallen since the 1990s, when 3 million children took part in Little League Baseball annually.[179] Babe Ruth League teams have over 1 million participants.[180] According to the president of the International Baseball Federation, between 300,000 and 500,000 women and girls play baseball around the world, including Little League and the introductory game of Tee Ball.[181] A varsity baseball team is an established part of physical education departments at most high schools and colleges in the United States.[182] In 2015, nearly half a million high schoolers and over 34,000 collegians played on their schools' baseball teams.[183] By early in the 20th century, intercollegiate baseball was Japan's leading sport. Today, high school baseball in particular is immensely popular there.[184] The final rounds of the two annual tournaments—the National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament in the spring, and the even more important National High School Baseball Championship in the summer—are broadcast around the country. The tournaments are known, respectively, as Spring Koshien and Summer Koshien after the 55,000-capacity stadium where they are played.[185] In Cuba, baseball is a mandatory part of the state system of physical education, which begins at age six. Talented children as young as seven are sent to special district schools for more intensive training—the first step on a ladder whose acme is the national baseball team.[173] In popular culture The American Tobacco Company's line of baseball cards featured shortstop Honus Wagner of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1909 to 1911. In 2007, the card shown here sold for $2.8 million.[186] Baseball has had a broad impact on popular culture, both in the United States and elsewhere. Dozens of English-language idioms have been derived from baseball; in particular, the game is the source of a number of widely used sexual euphemisms.[187] The first networked radio broadcasts in North America were of the 1922 World Series: famed sportswriter Grantland Rice announced play-by-play from New York City's Polo Grounds on WJZ–Newark, New Jersey, which was connected by wire to WGY–Schenectady, New York, and WBZ–Springfield, Massachusetts.[188] The baseball cap has become a ubiquitous fashion item not only in the United States and Japan, but also in countries where the sport itself is not particularly popular, such as the United Kingdom.[189] Baseball has inspired many works of art and entertainment. One of the first major examples, Ernest Thayer's poem "Casey at the Bat", appeared in 1888. A wry description of the failure of a star player in what would now be called a "clutch situation", the poem became the source of vaudeville and other staged performances, audio recordings, film adaptations, and an opera, as well as a host of sequels and parodies in various media. There have been many baseball movies, including the Academy Award–winning The Pride of the Yankees (1942) and the Oscar nominees The Natural (1984) and Field of Dreams (1989). The American Film Institute's selection of the ten best sports movies includes The Pride of the Yankees at number 3 and Bull Durham (1988) at number 5.[190] Baseball has provided thematic material for hits on both stage—the Adler–Ross musical Damn Yankees—and record—George J. Gaskin's "Slide, Kelly, Slide", Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson", and John Fogerty's "Centerfield".[191] The baseball-inspired comedic sketch "Who's on First?", popularized by Abbott and Costello in 1938, quickly became famous. Six decades later, Time named it the best comedy routine of the 20th century.[192] Literary works connected to the game include the short fiction of Ring Lardner and novels such as Bernard Malamud's The Natural (the source for the movie), Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., John Grisham's Calico Joe and W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe (the source for Field of Dreams). Baseball's literary canon also includes the beat reportage of Damon Runyon; the columns of Grantland Rice, Red Smith, Dick Young, and Peter Gammons; and the essays of Roger Angell. Among the celebrated nonfiction books in the field are Lawrence S. Ritter's The Glory of Their Times, Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, and Michael Lewis's Moneyball. The 1970 publication of major league pitcher Jim Bouton's tell-all chronicle Ball Four is considered a turning point in the reporting of professional sports.[193] Baseball has also inspired the creation of new cultural forms. Baseball cards were introduced in the late 19th century as trade cards. A typical example featured an image of a baseball player on one side and advertising for a business on the other. In the early 1900s they were produced widely as promotional items by tobacco and confectionery companies. The 1930s saw the popularization of the modern style of baseball card, with a player photograph accompanied on the rear by statistics and biographical data. Baseball cards—many of which are now prized collectibles—are the source of the much broader trading card industry, involving similar products for different sports and non-sports-related fields.[194] Modern fantasy sports began in 1980 with the invention of Rotisserie League Baseball by New York writer Daniel Okrent and several friends. Participants in a Rotisserie league draft notional teams from the list of active MLB players and play out an entire imaginary season with game outcomes based on the players' latest real-world statistics. Rotisserie-style play quickly became a phenomenon. Now known more generically as fantasy baseball, it has inspired similar games based on an array of different sports.[195] The field boomed with increasing Internet access and new fantasy sports-related websites. By 2008, 29.9 million people in the United States and Canada were playing fantasy sports, spending $800 million on the hobby.[196] The burgeoning popularity of fantasy baseball is also credited with the increasing attention paid to sabermetrics—first among fans, only later among baseball professionals.[197] Derivative games Main article: Variations of baseball Informal variations of baseball have popped up over time, with games like corkball reflecting local traditions and allowing the game to be played in diverse environments.[198] Two variations of baseball, softball and Baseball5, are internationally governed alongside baseball by the World Baseball Softball Confederation.[199] British baseball Main article: British baseball American professional baseball teams toured Britain in 1874 and 1889, and had a great effect on similar sports in Britain. In Wales and Merseyside, a strong community game had already developed with skills and plays more in keeping with the American game and the Welsh began to informally adopt the name "baseball" (Pêl Fas), to reflect the American style. By the 1890s, calls were made to follow the success of other working class sports (like Rugby in Wales and Soccer in Merseyside) and adopt a distinct set of rules and bureaucracy.[200] During the 1892 season rules for the game of "baseball" were agreed and the game was officially codified.[201] Finnish baseball Main article: Pesäpallo Finnish baseball, known as pesäpallo, is a combination of traditional ball-batting team games and North American baseball, invented by Lauri "Tahko" Pihkala in the 1920s.[202] The basic idea of pesäpallo is similar to that of baseball: the offense tries to score by hitting the ball successfully and running through the bases, while the defense tries to put the batter and runners out. One of the most important differences between pesäpallo and baseball is that the ball is pitched vertically, which makes hitting the ball, as well as controlling the power and direction of the hit, much easier. This gives the offensive game more variety, speed, and tactical aspects compared to baseball.[202] See also icon Baseball portal Baseball awards Baseball clothing and equipment List of baseball films List of organized baseball leagues Women in baseball Related sports Brännboll (Scandinavian bat-and-ball game) Comparison of baseball and cricket Lapta (game) (Russian bat-and-ball game) Oină (Romanian bat-and-ball game) Snow baseball (with similar rules played in India during winters) Stickball Stoop ball Vitilla Wiffle ball Chicago History   "It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago. She outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them." - Mark Twain, 1883 Chicago was only 46 years old when Mark Twain wrote those words, but it had already grown more than 100-fold, from a small trading post at the mouth of the Chicago River into one of the nation?s largest cities, and it wasn?t about to stop. Over the next 20 years, it would quadruple in population, amazing the rest of the world with its ability to repeatedly reinvent itself. And it still hasn?t stopped. Chicago continues to be a place that many people from diverse backgrounds call home. Before it was a city, it was the home to numerous indigenous peoples, a legacy which continues to frame our relationship with the city, the land, and the environment. Today, Chicago has become a global city, a thriving center of international trade and commerce, and a place where people of every nationality and background come to pursue the American dream. Indigenous Chicago Chicago is the traditional homelands of  Hooc?k (Winnebago/Ho?Chunk), Jiwere (Otoe), Nutachi (Missouria), and Baxoje (Iowas); Kiash Matchitiwuk (Menominee); Meshkwahkîha (Meskwaki); Asâkîwaki (Sauk); Myaamiaki (Miami), Waayaahtanwaki (Wea), and Peeyankih?iaki (Piankashaw); Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo); Inoka (Illini Confederacy); Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe), Odawak (Odawa), and Bodéwadmik (Potawatomi). Seated atop a continental divide, the Chicago region is located at the intersection of several great waterways, leading the area to become the site of travel and healing for many Tribes. The City understands that Tribes are sovereign Nations and should have the first voice in acknowledging their historical and contemporary presence on this land. If your Tribe would like to see changes, please reach out to us for comments. Early Chicago Chicago?s first permanent non-indigenous resident was a trader named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a free black man from Haiti whose father was a French sailor and whose mother was an African slave, he came here in the 1770s via the Mississippi River from New Orleans with his Native American wife, and their home stood at the mouth of the Chicago River. In 1803, the U.S. government built Fort Dearborn at what is now the corner of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive (look for the bronze markers in the pavement). It was destroyed in 1812 following the Battle of Fort Dearborn, rebuilt in 1816, and permanently demolished in 1857. A Trading Center Incorporated as a city in 1837, Chicago was ideally situated to take advantage of the trading possibilities created by the nation?s westward expansion. The completion of the Illinois & Michigan Canal in 1848 created a water link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, but the canal was soon rendered obsolete by railroads. Today, 50 percent of U.S. rail freight continues to pass through Chicago, even as the city has become the nation?s busiest aviation center, thanks to O?Hare and Midway International airports. The Great Fire of 1871 As Chicago grew, its residents took heroic measures to keep pace. In the 1850s, they raised many of the streets five to eight feet to install a sewer system ? and then raised the buildings, as well. Unfortunately, the buildings, streets and sidewalks were made of wood, and most of them burned to the ground in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The Chicago Fire Department training academy at 558 W. DeKoven St. is on the site of the O?Leary property where the fire began. The Chicago Water Tower and Pumping Station at Michigan and Chicago avenues are among the few buildings to have survived the fire. "The White City" Chicago rebuilt quickly. Much of the debris was dumped into Lake Michigan as landfill, forming the underpinnings for what is now Grant Park, Millennium Park and the Art Institute of Chicago. Only 22 years later, Chicago celebrated its comeback by holding the World?s Columbian Exposition of 1893, with its memorable ?White City.? One of the Exposition buildings was rebuilt to become the Museum of Science and Industry. Chicago refused to be discouraged even by the Great Depression. In 1933 and 1934, the city held an equally successful Century of Progress Exposition on Northerly Island. Hull House  In the half-century following the Great Fire, waves of immigrants came to Chicago to take jobs in the factories and meatpacking plants. Many poor workers and their families found help in settlement houses operated by Jane Addams and her followers. Her Hull House Museum is located at 800 S. Halsted St. Chicago Firsts Throughout their city?s history, Chicagoans have demonstrated their ingenuity in matters large and small: The nation?s first skyscraper, the 10-story, steel-framed Home Insurance Building, was built in 1884 at LaSalle and Adams streets and demolished in 1931.  When residents were threatened by waterborne illnesses from sewage flowing into Lake Michigan, they reversed the Chicago River in 1900 to make it flow toward the Mississippi.  Start of the "Historic Route 66" which begins at Grant Park on Adams Street in the front of the Art Institute of Chicago. Chicago was the birthplace of:  the refrigerated rail car (Swift) mail-order retailing (Sears and Montgomery Ward) the car radio (Motorola) the TV remote control (Zenith) The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, ushering in the Atomic Age, took place at the University of Chicago in 1942. The spot is marked by a Henry Moore sculpture on Ellis Avenue between 56th and 57th streets. The 1,451-foot Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower), completed in 1974, was the the tallest building in the world from 1974 to 1998. Chicago has played a central role in American economic, cultural and political history. Since the 1850s Chicago has been one of the dominant metropolises in the Midwestern United States, and has been the largest city in the Midwest since the 1880 census. The area's recorded history begins with the arrival of French explorers, missionaries and fur traders in the late 17th century and their interaction with the local Pottawatomie Native Americans. Jean Baptiste Point du Sable was the first permanent non-indigenous settler in the area, having a house at the mouth of the Chicago River in the late 18th century. There were small settlements and a U.S. Army fort, but the soldiers and settlers were all driven off in 1812. The modern city was incorporated in 1837 by Northern businessmen and grew rapidly from real estate speculation and the realization that it had a commanding position in the emerging inland transportation network, based on lake traffic and railroads, controlling access from the Great Lakes into the Mississippi River basin. Despite a fire in 1871 that destroyed the Central Business District, the city grew exponentially, becoming the nation's rail center and the dominant Midwestern center for manufacturing, commerce, finance, higher education, religion, broadcasting, sports, jazz, and high culture. The city was a magnet for European immigrants?at first Germans, Irish and Scandinavians, then from the 1890s to 1914, Jews, Czechs, Poles and Italians. They were all absorbed in the city's powerful ward-based political machines. Many joined militant labor unions, and Chicago became notorious for its violent strikes, but respected for its high wages. Large numbers of African Americans migrated from the South starting in the World War I era as part of the Great Migration. Mexicans started arriving after 1910, and Puerto Ricans after 1945. The Cook County suburbs grew rapidly after 1945, but the Democratic party machine kept both the city and suburbs under control, especially under mayor Richard J. Daley, who was chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party. Deindustrialization after 1970 closed the stockyards and most of the steel mills and factories, but the city retained its role as a financial and transportation hub. Increasingly it emphasized its service roles in medicine, higher education, and tourism. The city formed the political base for leaders such as Stephen A. Douglas in the 1850s, Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s, and Barack Obama in recent years. Pre-1830 Early native settlements At its first appearance in records by explorers, the Chicago area was inhabited by a number of Algonquian peoples, including the Mascouten and Miami. The name "Chicago" is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir.[1] Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called "chicagoua", grew abundantly in the area.[2] According to his diary of late September 1687: when we arrived at the said place called Chicagou which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quantity of garlic which grows in the forests in this region.[2] The tribe was part of the Miami Confederacy, which included the Illini and Kickapoo. In 1671, Potawatomi guides first took the French trader Nicolas Perrot to the Miami villages near the site of present-day Chicago.[3] Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix would write in 1721 that the Miami had a settlement in what is now Chicago around 1670. Chicago's location at a short canoe portage (the Chicago Portage) connecting the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River system attracted the attention of many French explorers, notably Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette in 1673. The Jesuit Relations indicate that by this time, the Iroquois tribes of New York had driven the Algonquian tribes entirely out of Lower Michigan and as far as this portage, during the later Beaver Wars.[4] René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, who traversed the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers south of Chicago in the winter of 1681?82, identified the Des Plaines River as the western boundary of the Miami. In 1683, La Salle built Fort St. Louis on the Illinois River. Almost two thousand Miami, including Weas and Piankeshaws, left the Chicago area to gather on the opposite shore at the Grand Village of the Illinois, seeking French protection from the Iroquois. In 1696, French Jesuits led by Jean-François Buisson de Saint-Cosme built the Mission of the Guardian Angel to Christianize the local Wea and Miami people.[5] Shortly thereafter, Augustin le Gardeur de Courtemanche visited the settlement on behalf of the French government, seeking peace between the Miami and Iroquois. Miami chief Chichikatalo accompanied de Courtemanche to Montreal.[4] The Algonquian tribes began to retake the lost territory in the ensuing decades, and in 1701, the Iroquois formally abandoned their claim to their "hunting grounds" as far as the portage to England in the Nanfan Treaty, which was finally ratified in 1726. This was largely a political maneuver of little practicality, as the English then had no presence in the region whatsoever, the French and their Algonquian allies being the dominant force in the area. A writer in 1718 noted at the Was had a village in Chicago, but had recently fled due to concerns about approaching Ojibwes and Pottawatomis. The Iroquois and Meskwaki probably drove out all Miami from the Chicago area by the end of the 1720s. The Pottawatomi assumed control of the area, but probably did not have any major settlements in Chicago. French and allied use of the Chicago portage was mostly abandoned during the 1720s because of continual Native American raids during the Fox Wars.[6] There was also a Michigamea chief named Chicago who may have lived in the region. In the 1680s, the Illinois River was called the Chicago River.[7] Retrospective map showing how Chicago may have appeared in 1812 (right is north, published in 1884) Retrospective map showing how Chicago may have appeared in 1812 (right is north, published in 1884)   Chicago in 1820 Chicago in 1820 First non-native settlements Fort Dearborn depicted as in 1831, sketched 1850s although the accuracy of the sketch was debated soon after it appeared. The first settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a free black man,[8] who built a farm at the mouth of the Chicago River in 1790.[8][9] He left Chicago in 1800. In 1968, Point du Sable was honored at Pioneer Court as the city's founder and featured as a symbol. In 1795, following the Northwest Indian War, some Native Americans ceded the area of Chicago to the United States for a military post in the Treaty of Greenville. The US built Fort Dearborn in 1803 on the Chicago River. It was destroyed by Indian forces during the War of 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, and many of the inhabitants were killed or taken prisoner.[10] The fort had been ordered to evacuate. During the evacuation soldiers and civilians were overtaken near what is today Prairie Avenue. After the end of the war, the Potawatomi ceded the land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. (Today, this treaty is commemorated in Indian Boundary Park.) Fort Dearborn was rebuilt in 1818 and used until 1837.[11]:?25? Growth of the city 1821 Survey of Chicago Thompson's plat, the first official map of what would become the City of Chicago Chicago in 1830, as depicted in 1884 Chicago in 1831, as depicted in 1893 by Rudolf Cronau Chicago in 1832, as depicted in 1892 Chicago in 1836 Extensions to city limits through 1884 In 1829, the Illinois legislature appointed commissioners to locate a canal and lay out the surrounding town. The commissioners employed James Thompson to survey and plat the town of Chicago, which at the time had a population of less than 100. Historians regard the August 4, 1830, filing of the plat as the official recognition of a location known as Chicago.[4] Yankee entrepreneurs saw the potential of Chicago as a transportation hub in the 1830s and engaged in land speculation to obtain the choicest lots. On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was incorporated with a population of 350.[12] On July 12, 1834, the Illinois from Sackets Harbor, New York, was the first commercial schooner to enter the harbor, a sign of the Great Lakes trade that would benefit both Chicago and New York state.[11]:?29? Chicago was granted a city charter by the State of Illinois on March 4, 1837;[13] it was part of the larger Cook County. By 1840 the boom town had a population of over 4,000. After 1830, the rich farmlands of northern Illinois attracted Yankee settlers. Yankee real estate operators created a city overnight in the 1830s.[14] To open the surrounding farmlands to trade, the Cook County commissioners built roads south and west. The latter crossed the "dismal Nine-mile Swamp," the Des Plaines River, and went southwest to Walker's Grove, now the Village of Plainfield. The roads enabled hundreds of wagons per day of farm produce to arrive and so the entrepreneurs built grain elevators and docks to load ships bound for points east through the Great Lakes. Produce was shipped through the Erie Canal and down the Hudson River to New York City; the growth of the Midwest farms expanded New York City as a port. In 1837, Chicago held its first mayoral election and elected William B. Ogden as its inaugural mayor. Emergence as a transportation hub Further information: Transportation in Chicago 1853 Bird's eye view of Chicago 1857 Bird's eye view of Chicago In 1848, the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal allowed shipping from the Great Lakes through Chicago to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The first rail line to Chicago, the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, was completed the same year. Chicago would go on to become the transportation hub of the United States, with its road, rail, water, and later air connections. Chicago also became home to national retailers offering catalog shopping such as Montgomery Ward and Sears, Roebuck and Company, which used the transportation lines to ship all over the nation. By the 1850s, the construction of railroads made Chicago a major hub and over 30 lines entered the city. The main lines from the East ended in Chicago, and those oriented to the West began in Chicago and so by 1860, the city had become the nation's trans-shipment and warehousing center. Factories were created, most famously the harvester factory that was opened in 1847 by Cyrus Hall McCormick. It was a processing center for natural resource commodities extracted in the West. The Wisconsin forests supported the millwork and lumber business; the Illinois hinterland provided the wheat. Hundreds of thousands of hogs and cattle were shipped to Chicago for slaughter, preserved in salt, and transported to eastern markets. By 1870, refrigerated cars allowed the shipping of fresh meat to cities in the East.[15] The prairie bog nature of the area provided a fertile ground for disease-carrying insects. In springtime, Chicago was so muddy from the high water that horses could scarcely move. Comical signs proclaiming "Fastest route to China" or "No Bottom Here" were placed to warn people of the mud. Travelers reported Chicago was the filthiest city in America. The city created a massive sewer system. In the first phase, sewage pipes were laid across the city above ground and used gravity to move the waste. The city was built in a low-lying area subject to flooding. In 1856, the city council decided that the entire city should be elevated four to five feet by using a newly available jacking-up process. In one instance, the five-story Brigg's Hotel, weighing 22,000 tons, was lifted while it continued to operate. Observing that such a thing could never have happened in Europe, the British historian Paul Johnson cites the astounding feat as a dramatic example of American determination and ingenuity based on the conviction that anything material is possible.[16] Immigration and population in 19th century Portrait of John Jones, a prominent early African-American businessman in Chicago Portrait of Mary Jane Richardson Jones, 1865 Husband and wife John and Mary Jones were among the most prominent early African-American citizens of Chicago. A bird's-eye view of Chicago in 1898. It became the second American city to reach a population of 1.6 million. 0:29 Chicago - State St at Madison Street, 1897 Although originally settled by Yankees in the 1830s, the city in the 1840s had many Irish Catholics come as a result of the Great Famine. Later in the century, the railroads, stockyards, and other heavy industry of the late 19th century attracted a variety of skilled workers from Europe, especially Germans, English, Swedes, Norwegians, and Dutch.[17] A small African-American community formed, led by activist leaders like John Jones and Mary Richardson Jones, who established Chicago as a stop on the Underground Railroad.[18] In 1840, Chicago was the 92nd city in the United States by population. Its population grew so rapidly that 20 years later, it was the ninth city. In the pivotal year of 1848, Chicago saw the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, its first steam locomotives, the introduction of steam-powered grain elevators, the arrival of the telegraph, and the founding of the Chicago Board of Trade.[19] By 1857, Chicago was the largest city in what was then called the Northwest. In 20 years, Chicago grew from 4,000 people to over 90,000. Chicago surpassed St. Louis and Cincinnati as the major city in the West and gained political notice as the home of Stephen Douglas, the 1860 presidential nominee of the Northern Democrats. The 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated the home-state candidate Abraham Lincoln. The city's government and voluntary societies gave generous support to soldiers during the American Civil War.[20] Many of the newcomers were Irish Catholic and German immigrants. Their neighborhood saloons, a center of male social life, were attacked in the mid-1850s by the local Know-Nothing Party, which drew its strength from evangelical Protestants. The new party was anti-immigration and anti-liquor and called for the purification of politics by reducing the power of the saloonkeepers. In 1855, the Know-Nothings elected Levi Boone mayor, who banned Sunday sales of liquor and beer. His aggressive law enforcement sparked the Lager Beer Riot of April 1855, which erupted outside a courthouse in which eight Germans were being tried for liquor ordinance violations. After 1865, saloons became community centers only for local ethnic men, as reformers saw them as places that incited riotous behavior and moral decay.[21] Salons were also sources of musical entertainment. Francis O'Neill, an Irish immigrant who later became police chief, published compendiums of Irish music that were largely collected from other newcomers playing in saloons.[22] By 1870, Chicago had grown to become the nation's second-largest city and one of the largest cities in the world. Between 1870 and 1900, Chicago grew from a city of 299,000 to nearly 1.7 million and was the fastest-growing city in world history. Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe, especially Jews, Poles, and Italians, along with many smaller groups. Many businesspeople and professionals arrived from the eastern states. Relatively few new arrivals came from Chicago's rural hinterland. The exponential growth put increasing pollution on the environment, as hazards to public health impacted everyone.[23] Gilded Age Further information: Architecture of Chicago and Chicago railroad strike of 1877 The Chicago Water Tower, one of the few surviving buildings after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. A residential building in Chicago's Lincoln Park in 1885, when the city had dirt roads Most of the city burned in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire. The damage from the fire was immense since 300 people died, 18,000 buildings were destroyed, and nearly 100,000 of the city's 300,000 residents were left homeless. Several key factors exacerbated the spread of the fire. Most of Chicago's buildings and sidewalks were then constructed of wood. Also, the lack of attention to proper waste disposal practices, which was sometimes deliberate to favor certain industries, left an abundance of flammable pollutants in the Chicago River along which the fire spread from the south to the north.[24][25][circular reference][26] The fire led to the incorporation of stringent fire-safety codes, which included a strong preference for masonry construction.[27] The Danish immigrant Jens Jensen arrived in 1886 and soon became a successful and celebrated landscape designer. Jensen's work was characterized by a democratic approach to landscaping, which was informed by his interest in social justice and conservation, and a rejection of antidemocratic formalism. Among Jensen's creations were four Chicago city parks, most famously Columbus Park. His work also included garden design for some of the region's most influential millionaires. The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 was constructed on former wetlands at the present location of Jackson Park along Lake Michigan in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The land was reclaimed according to a design by the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. The temporary pavilions, which followed a classical theme, were designed by a committee of the city's architects under the direction of Daniel Burnham. It was called the "White City" for the appearance of its buildings.[28] The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors; is considered among the most influential world's fairs in history; and affected art, architecture, and design throughout the nation.[29] The classical architectural style contributed to a revival of Beaux Arts architecture that borrowed from historical styles, but Chicago was also developing the original skyscraper and organic forms based in new technologies. The fair featured the first and until recently the largest Ferris wheel ever built. The soft, swampy ground near the lake proved unstable ground for tall masonry buildings. That was an early constraint, but builders developed the innovative use of steel framing for support and invented the skyscraper in Chicago, which became a leader in modern architecture and set the model nationwide for achieving vertical city densities.[30] Developers and citizens began immediate reconstruction on the existing Jeffersonian grid. The building boom that followed saved the city's status as the transportation and trade hub of the Midwest. Massive reconstruction using the newest materials and methods catapulted Chicago into its status as a city on par with New York and became the birthplace of modern architecture in the United States.[31] Rise of industry and commerce Further information: Economy of Chicago 1893 Bird's eye view of Chicago The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, the world's first skyscraper. Chicago became the center of the nation's advertising industry after New York City. Albert Lasker, known as the "father of modern advertising," made Chicago his base from 1898 to 1942. As head of the Lord and Thomas agency, Lasker devised a copywriting technique that appealed directly to the psychology of the consumer. Women, who seldom smoked cigarettes, were told that if they smoked Lucky Strikes, they could stay slender. Lasker's use of radio, particularly with his campaigns for Palmolive soap, Pepsodent toothpaste, Kotex products, and Lucky Strike cigarettes, not only revolutionized the advertising industry but also significantly changed popular culture.[32] Gambling In Chicago, like other rapidly growing industrial centers with large immigrant working-class neighborhoods, gambling was a major issue. The city's elite upper-class had private clubs and closely-supervised horse racing tracks. The middle-class reformers like Jane Addams focused on the workers, who discovered freedom and independence in gambling that were a world apart from their closely-supervised factory jobs and gambled to validate risk-taking aspect of masculinity, betting heavily on dice, card games, policy, and cock fights. By the 1850s, hundreds of saloons had offered gambling opportunities, including off-track betting on the horses.[33][34] The historian Mark Holler argues that organized crime provided upward mobility to ambitious ethnics. The high-income, high-visibility vice lords, and racketeers built their careers and profits in ghetto neighborhoods and often branched into local politics to protect their domains.[35] For example, in 1868 to 1888, Michael C. McDonald, "The Gambler King of Clark Street," kept numerous Democratic machine politicians in his city on expense account to protect his gambling empire and to keep the goo-goo reformers at bay.[36] In large cities, illegal businesses like gambling and prostitution were typically contained in the geographically-segregated red light districts. The businessowners made regularly-scheduled payments to police and politicians, which they treated as licensing expenses. The informal rates became standardized. For example, in Chicago, they ranged from $20 a month for a cheap brothel to $1000 a month for luxurious operations in Chicago. Reform elements never accepted the segregated vice districts and wanted them all destroyed, but in large cities, the political machine was powerful enough to keep the reformers at bay. Finally, around 1900 to 1910, the reformers grew politically strong enough to shut down the system of vice segregation, and the survivors went underground.[37] 20th century All Star Tournament, 18 Inch Balke Line, Chicago, May 7?14, 1906 Detail of lobby columns at the Ford Center for Performing Arts Merchants' Hotel on left, looking North from State and Washington Streets, before 1868 Birds-eye view of Chicago in 1916 Loop street scene in 1900; colorized photograph Chicago's manufacturing and retail sectors, fostered by the expansion of railroads throughout the upper Midwest and East, grew rapidly and came to dominate the Midwest and greatly influence the nation's economy.[38] The Chicago Union Stock Yards dominated the packing trade. Chicago became the world's largest rail hub, and one of its busiest ports by shipping traffic on the Great Lakes. Commodity resources, such as lumber, iron and coal, were brought to Chicago and Ohio for processing, with products shipped both East and West to support new growth.[39] Lake Michigan?the primary source of fresh water for the city?became polluted from the rapidly growing industries in and around Chicago; a new way of procuring clean water was needed. In 1885 the civil engineer Lyman Edgar Cooley proposed the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. He envisioned a deep waterway that would dilute and divert the city's sewage by funneling water from Lake Michigan into a canal, which would drain into the Mississippi River via the Illinois River. Beyond presenting a solution for Chicago's sewage problem, Cooley's proposal appealed to the economic need to link the Midwest with America's central waterways to compete with East Coast shipping and railroad industries. Strong regional support for the project led the Illinois legislature to circumvent the federal government and complete the canal with state funding. The opening in January 1900 met with controversy and a lawsuit against Chicago's appropriation of water from Lake Michigan. By the 1920s the lawsuit was divided between the states of the Mississippi River Valley, who supported the development of deep waterways linking the Great Lakes with the Mississippi, and the Great Lakes states, which feared sinking water levels might harm shipping in the lakes. In 1929 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in support of Chicago's use of the canal to promote commerce, but ordered the city to discontinue its use for sewage disposal.[40] New construction boomed in the 1920s, with notable landmarks such as the Merchandise Mart and art deco Chicago Board of Trade Building completed in 1930. The Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Great Depression and diversion of resources into World War II led to the suspension for years of new construction. The Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of the World's Fair held on the Near South Side lakefront from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial.[41][42] The theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding. More than 40 million people visited the fair, which symbolized for many hope for Chicago and the nation, then in the midst of the Great Depression.[43] The demographics of the city were changing in the early 20th century as black southern families migrated out of the south, but while cities like Chicago empathized with the condition of impoverished white children, black children were mostly excluded from the private and religious institutions that provided homes for such children. Those that did take in black dependent children were overcrowded and underfunded because of institutional racism. Between 1899 and 1945 many of the city's black children found themselves in the juvenile court system. The 1899 Juvenile Court Act, supported by Progressive reformers, created a class of dependants for orphans and other children lacking "proper parental care or guardianship" but the court's designations of "delinquency" and "dependency" were racialized[when defined as?] so black children were far more likely to be labeled as delinquents.[44][fact or opinion?] Politics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Further information: Political history of Chicago Nicely dressed Jewish men and boys standing on a sidewalk in Chicago, 1903 Theodore Roosevelt in Chicago, 1915 Map of downtown Chicago in 1917. During the election of April 23, 1875, the voters of Chicago chose to operate under the Illinois Cities and Villages Act of 1872. Chicago still operates under this act, in lieu of a charter. The Cities and Villages Act has been revised several times since, and may be found in Chapter 65 of the Illinois Compiled Statutes. Late-19th-century big city newspapers such as the Chicago Daily News - founded in 1875 by Melville Stone - ushered in an era of news reporting that was, unlike earlier periods, in tune with the particulars of community life in specific cities. Vigorous competition between older and newer-style city papers soon broke out, centered on civic activism and sensationalist reporting of urban political issues and the numerous problems associated with rapid urban growth. Competition was especially fierce between the Chicago Times (Democratic), the Chicago Tribune (Republican), and the Daily News (independent), with the latter becoming the city's most popular paper by the 1880s.[45] The city's boasting lobbyists and politicians earned Chicago the nickname "Windy City" in the New York press. The city adopted the nickname as its own. Violence and crime Polarized attitudes of labor and business in Chicago prompted a strike by workers' lobbying for an eight-hour work day, later named the Haymarket affair. A peaceful demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket near the west side was interrupted by a bomb thrown at police; seven police officers were killed. Widespread violence broke out. A group of anarchists were tried for inciting the riot and convicted. Several were hanged and others were pardoned. The episode was a watershed moment in the labor movement, and its history was commemorated in the annual May Day celebrations.[46] By 1900, Progressive Era political and legal reformers initiated far-ranging changes in the American criminal justice system, with Chicago taking the lead.[47] The city became notorious worldwide for its rate of murders in the early 20th century, yet the courts failed to convict the killers. More than three-fourths of cases were not closed. Even when the police made arrests in cases where killers' identities were known, jurors typically exonerated or acquitted them. A blend of gender-, race-, and class-based notions of justice trumped the rule of law, producing low homicide conviction rates during a period of soaring violence.[48] During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rates of domestic murder tripled in Chicago. Domestic homicide was often a manifestation of strains in gender relations induced by urban and industrial change. At the core of such family murders were male attempts to preserve masculine authority. Yet, there were nuances in the motives for the murder of family members, and study of the patterns of domestic homicide among different ethnic groups reveals basic cultural differences. German male immigrants tended to murder over declining status and the failure to achieve economic prosperity. Italian men killed family members to save a gender-based ideal of respectability that entailed patriarchal control over women and family reputation. African American men, like the Germans, often murdered in response to economic conditions but not over desperation about the future. Like the Italians, the killers tended to be young, but family honor was not usually at stake. Instead, black men murdered to regain control of wives and lovers who resisted their patriarchal "rights".[49] Progressive reformers in the business community created the Chicago Crime Commission (CCC) in 1919 after an investigation into a robbery at a factory showed the city's criminal justice system was deficient. The CCC initially served as a watchdog of the justice system. After its suggestion that the city's justice system begin collecting criminal records was rejected, the CCC assumed a more active role in fighting crime. The commission's role expanded further after Frank J. Loesch became president in 1928. Loesch recognized the need to eliminate the glamor that Chicago's media typically attributed to criminals. Determined to expose the violence of the crime world, Loesch drafted a list of "public enemies"; among them was Al Capone, whom he made a scapegoat for widespread social problems.[50] After the passage of Prohibition, the 1920s brought international notoriety to Chicago. Bootleggers and smugglers bringing in liquor from Canada formed powerful gangs. They competed with each other for lucrative profits, and to evade the police, to bring liquor to speakeasies and private clients. The most notorious was Al Capone.[51][52] Immigration and migration in the 20th century Further information: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago From 1890 to 1914, migrations swelled, attracting to the city of mostly unskilled Catholic and Jewish immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, including Italians, Greeks, Czechs, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, and Slovaks. World War I cut off immigration from Europe, which brought hundreds of thousands of southern blacks and whites into Northern cities to fill in the labor shortages. The Immigration Act of 1924 restricted populations from southern and eastern Europe, apart from refugees after World War II. The heavy annual turnover of ethnic populations ended, and the groups stabilized, each favoring specific neighborhoods.[53][54] While whites from rural areas arrived and generally settled in the suburban parts of the city, large numbers of blacks from the South arrived as well.[55] The near South Side of the city became the first Black residential area, as it had the oldest, less expensive housing. Although restricted by segregation and competing ethnic groups such as the Irish, gradually continued black migration caused this community to expand, as well as the black neighborhoods on the near West Side. These were de facto segregated areas (few blacks were tolerated in ethnic white neighborhoods); the Irish and ethnic groups who had been longer in the city began to move to outer areas and the suburbs. After World War II, the city built public housing for working-class families to upgrade residential quality. The high-rise design of such public housing proved a problem when industrial jobs left the city and poor families became concentrated in the facilities. After 1950, public housing high rises anchored poor black neighborhoods south and west of the Loop. "Old stock" Americans who relocated to Chicago after 1900 preferred the outlying areas and suburbs, with their commutes eased by train lines, making Oak Park and Evanston enclaves of the upper middle class. In the 1910s, high-rise luxury apartments were constructed along the lakefront north of the Loop, continuing into the 21st century. They attracted wealthy residents but few families with children, as wealthier families moved to suburbs for the schools. There were problems in the public school system; mostly Catholic students attended schools in the large parochial system, which was of middling quality.[56] There were a few private schools. The Latin School, Francis Parker and later The Bateman School, all centrally located served those who could afford to pay. The northern and western suburbs developed some of the best public schools in the nation, which were strongly supported by their wealthier residents. The suburban trend accelerated after 1945, with the construction of highways and train lines that made commuting easier. Middle-class Chicagoans headed to the outlying areas of the city, and then into the Cook County and Dupage County suburbs. As ethnic Jews and Irish rose in economic class, they left the city and headed north. Well-educated migrants from around the country moved to the far suburbs. Chicago's Polonia sustained diverse political cultures in the early twentieth century, each with its own newspaper. In 1920 the community had a choice of five daily papers ? from the Socialist Dziennik Ludowy (People's Daily; 1907?1925) to the Polish Roman Catholic Union's Dziennik Zjednoczenia (Union Daily; 1921?1939). The decision to subscribe to a particular paper reaffirmed a particular ideology or institutional network based on ethnicity and class, which lent itself to different alliances and different strategies.[57] In 1926, the city hosted the 28th International Eucharistic Congress, a major event for the Catholic community of Chicago. As the First World War cut off immigration, tens of thousands of African Americans came north in the Great Migration out of the rural South. With new populations competing for limited housing and jobs, especially on the South Side, social tensions rose in the city. Postwar years were more difficult. Black veterans looked for more respect for having served their nation, and some whites resented it. In 1919, the Chicago race riot erupted, in what became known as "Red Summer", when other major cities also suffered mass racial violence based in competition for jobs and housing as the country tried to absorb veterans in the postwar years. During the riot, thirty-eight people died (23 black and 15 white) and over five hundred were injured. Much of the violence against blacks in Chicago was led by members of ethnic Irish athletic clubs, who had much political power in the city and defended their "territory" against African Americans. As was typical in these occurrences, more blacks than whites died in the violence. Concentrating the family resources to achieve home ownership was a common strategy in the ethnic European neighborhoods. It meant sacrificing current consumption, and pulling children out of school as soon as they could earn a wage. By 1900, working-class ethnic immigrants owned homes at higher rates than native-born people. After borrowing from friends and building associations, immigrants kept boarders, grew market gardens, and opened home-based commercial laundries, eroding home-work distinctions, while sending out women and children to work to repay loans. They sought not middle-class upward mobility but the security of home ownership. Many social workers wanted them to pursue upward job mobility (which required more education), but realtors asserted that houses were better than a bank for a poor man. With hindsight, and considering uninsured banks' precariousness, this appears to have been true. Chicago's workers made immense sacrifices for home ownership, contributing to Chicago's sprawling suburban geography and to modern myths about the American dream. The Jewish community, by contrast, rented apartments and maximized education and upward mobility for the next generation.[58] Beginning in the 1940s, waves of Hispanic immigrants began to arrive. The largest numbers were from Mexico and Puerto Rico, as well as Cuba during Fidel Castro's rise. During the 1980s, Hispanic immigrants were more likely to be from Central and South America. After 1965 and the change in US immigration laws, numerous Asian immigrants came; the largest proportion were well-educated Indians and Chinese, who generally settled directly in the suburbs. By the 1970s gentrification began in the city, in some cases with people renovating housing in old inner city neighborhoods, and attracting singles and gay people. State Street c. 1907 State Street c. 1907   International Ballooning Contest, Aero Park, Chicago, July 4, 1908 International Ballooning Contest, Aero Park, Chicago, July 4, 1908   Bird's eye view of Chicago in 1938 Bird's eye view of Chicago in 1938   Oak Street Beach, 1925 Oak Street Beach, 1925 1930s Main article: Chicago in the 1930s Labor unions Chicago skyline from Northerly Island Taken sometime in 1941 After 1900 Chicago was a heavily unionized city, apart from the factories (which were non-union until the 1930s). The Industrial Workers of the World was founded in Chicago in June 1905 at a convention of 200 socialists, anarchists, and radical trade unionists from all over the United States. The Railroad brotherhoods were strong, as were the crafts unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. The AFL unions operated through the Chicago Federation of Labor to minimize jurisdictional conflicts, which caused many strikes as two unions battled to control a work site. The unionized teamsters in Chicago enjoyed an unusually strong bargaining position when they contended with employers around the city, or supported another union in a specific strike. Their wagons could easily be positioned to disrupt streetcars and block traffic. In addition, their families and neighborhood supporters often surrounded and attacked the wagons of nonunion teamsters who were strikebreaking. When the teamsters used their clout to engage in sympathy strikes, employers decided to coordinate their antiunion efforts, claiming that the teamsters held too much power over commerce in their control of the streets. The teamsters' strike in 1905 represented a clash both over labor issues and the public nature of the streets. To the employers, the streets were arteries for commerce, while to the teamsters, they remained public spaces integral to their neighborhoods.[59] World War II On December 2, 1942, the world's first controlled nuclear reaction was conducted at the University of Chicago as part of the top secret Manhattan Project. During World War II, the steel mills in the city of Chicago alone accounted for 20% of all steel production in the United States and 10% of global production. The city produced more steel than the United Kingdom during the war, and surpassed Nazi Germany's output in 1943 (after barely missing in 1942). The city's diversified industrial base made it second only to Detroit in the value?$24 billion?of war goods produced. Over 1,400 companies produced everything from field rations to parachutes to torpedoes, while new aircraft plants employed 100,000 in the construction of engines, aluminum sheeting, bombsights, and other components. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace as the 1910 - 1930 period, as hundreds of thousands of black Americans arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards.[60] Postwar Returning World War II veterans and immigrants from Europe (in particular displaced persons from Eastern Europe) created a postwar economic boom and led to the development of huge housing tracts on Chicago's Northwest and Southwest sides. The city was extensively photographed during the postwar years by street photographers such as Richard Nickel and Vivian Maier. In the 1950s, the postwar desire for new and improved housing, aided by new highways and commuter train lines, caused many middle and higher income Americans to begin to move from the inner-city of Chicago to the suburbs. Changes in industry after 1950, with restructuring of the stockyards and steel industries, led to massive job losses in the city for working-class people. The city population shrank by nearly 700,000. The City Council devised "Plan 21" to improve neighborhoods and focused on creating "Suburbs within the city" near downtown and the lakefront. It built public housing to try to improve housing standards in the city. As a result, many poor were uprooted from newly created enclaves of Black, Latino, and poor people in neighborhoods such as Near North, Wicker Park, Lakeview, Uptown, Cabrini?Green, West Town and Lincoln Park. The passage of civil rights laws in the 1960s also affected Chicago and other northern cities. In the 1960s and the 1970s, many middle- and upper-class Americans continued to move from the city for better housing and schools in the suburbs. Office building resumed in the 1960s. When completed in 1974, the Sears Tower, now known as the Willis Tower, was at 1451 feet the world's tallest building. It was designed by the famous Chicago firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which designed many of the city's other famous buildings. House in Chicago's inner city, 1974. Photo by Danny Lyon. House in Chicago's inner city, 1974. Photo by Danny Lyon.   Chicago Picasso, a 1967 sculpture in Daley Plaza. Pablo Picasso refused the $100,000 fee and donated it to the people of Chicago. Chicago Picasso, a 1967 sculpture in Daley Plaza. Pablo Picasso refused the $100,000 fee and donated it to the people of Chicago. Mayor Richard J. Daley served 1955?1976, dominating the city's machine politics by his control of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee, which selected party nominees, who were usually elected in the Democratic stronghold. Daley took credit for building four major expressways focused on the Loop, and city-owned O'Hare Airport (which became the world's busiest airport, displacing Midway Airport's prior claims). Several neighborhoods near downtown and the lakefront were gentrified and transformed into "suburbs within the city".[61] He held office during the unrest of the 1960s, some of which was provoked by the police department's discriminatory practices. In the Lincoln Park, Lakeview, Wicker Park and Humboldt Park communities, the Young Lords under the leadership of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez marched and held sit ins to protest the displacement of Latinos and the poor. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, major riots of despair resulted in the burning down of sections of the black neighborhoods of the South and West sides. Protests against the Vietnam War at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held in Chicago, resulted in street violence, with televised broadcasts of the Chicago police's beating of unarmed protesters.[62] In 1979, Jane Byrne, the city's first woman mayor, was elected, winning the Democratic primary due to a citywide outrage about the ineffective snow removal across the city.[63] In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, became mayor in 1989, and was repeatedly reelected until he declined to seek re-election in 2011. He sparked debate by demolishing many of the city's vast public housing projects, which had deteriorated and were holding too many poor and dysfunctional families. Concepts for new affordable and public housing have changed to include many new features to make them more viable: smaller scale, environmental designs for public safety, mixed-rate housing, etc. New projects during Daley's administration have been designed to be environmentally sound, more accessible and better for their occupants. 21st century In September 2008, Chicago accepted a $2.52 billion bid on a 99-year lease of Midway International Airport to a group of private investors, but the deal fell through due to the collapse of credit markets during the 2008?2012 global recession[64][65] In 2008, as Chicago struggled to close a growing budget deficit, the city agreed to a 75-year, $1.16 billion deal to lease its parking meter system to an operating company created by Morgan Stanley. Daley said the "agreement is very good news for the taxpayers of Chicago because it will provide more than $1 billion in net proceeds that can be used during this very difficult economy." The agreement quadrupled rates, in the first year alone, while the hours which people have to pay for parking were broadened from 9 a.m. ? 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. ? 9 p.m., and from Monday through Saturday to every day of the week. Additionally, the city agreed to compensate the new owners for loss of revenue any time any road with parking meters is closed by the city for anything from maintenance work to street festivals.[66][67] In three years, the proceeds from the lease were all but spent. In his annual budget address on October 21, 2009, Daley projected a deficit for 2009 of more than $520 million. Daley proposed a 2010 budget totaling $6.14 billion, including spending $370 million from the $1.15 billion proceeds from the parking meter lease.[68] In his annual budget address on October 13, 2010, Daley projected a deficit for 2010 of $655 million, the largest in city history.[69] Daley proposed a 2011 budget totaling $6.15 billion, including spending all but $76 million of what remained of the parking meter lease proceeds, and received a standing ovation from aldermen.[70][71] In 2011, Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor of Chicago.[72] Chicago earned the title of "City of the Year" in 2008 from GQ for contributions in architecture and literature, its world of politics, and the downtown's starring role in the Batman movie The Dark Knight.[73] The city was rated by Moody's as having the most balanced economy in the United States due to its high level of diversification.[74] Flag Four historical events are commemorated by the four red stars on Chicago's flag: The United States' Fort Dearborn, established at the mouth of the Chicago River in 1803; the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which destroyed much of the city; the World Columbian Exposition of 1893, by which Chicago celebrated its recovery from the fire; and the Century of Progress World's Fair of 1933?1934, which celebrated the city's centennial. The flag's two blue stripes symbolize the north and south branches of the Chicago River, which flows through the city's downtown. The three white stripes represent the North, West and South sides of the city, Lake Michigan being the east side. Major disasters Main article: Timeline of Chicago history The most famous and serious disaster was the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. On December 30, 1903, the "absolutely fireproof", five-week-old Iroquois Theater was engulfed by fire. The fire lasted less than thirty minutes; 602 people died as a result of being burned, asphyxiated, or trampled.[75] The S.S. Eastland was a cruise ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On July 24, 1915?a calm, sunny day?the ship was taking on passengers when it rolled over while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed. An investigation found that the Eastland had become too heavy with rescue gear that had been ordered by Congress in the wake of the Titanic disaster.[76] On December 1, 1958, the Our Lady of the Angels School Fire occurred in the Humboldt Park area. The fire killed 92 students and three nuns; in response, fire safety improvements were made to public and private schools across the United States.[77] April 13, 1992, billions of dollars in damage was caused by the Chicago Flood, when a hole was accidentally drilled into the long-abandoned (and mostly forgotten) Chicago Tunnel system, which was still connected to the basements of numerous buildings in the Loop. It flooded the central business district with 250 million US gallons (950,000 m3) of water from the Chicago River.[78][79] A major environmental disaster occurred in July 1995, when a week of record high heat and humidity caused 739 heat-related deaths, mostly among isolated elderly poor and others without air conditioning.[80] See also American urban history Bibliography of Chicago history Chicago in the 1930s Ethnic groups in Chicago; the larger groups have articles such as Poles in Chicago and History of African Americans in Chicago History of education in Chicago Political history of Chicago Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago Timeline of Chicago history Before the 19th century As interpreted from the 1670 translation of the de Soto narrative into French by Pierre Richelet, the Chucagua River, was believed to be the Mississippi. La Salle named Checagou, the transliterated from Spanish, as the gateway to the River of de Soto. Site of Chicagou on the lake, in Guillaume de L'Isle's map (Paris, 1718) 1673: French-Canadian explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, on their way to Québec, pass through the area that will become Chicago. 1677: Father Claude Allouez arrived to try to convert the natives to Christianity 1682: French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, passes through Chicago en route to the mouth of the Mississippi River. 1696: Jesuit missionary Francois Pinet founds the Mission of the Guardian Angel. It is abandoned four years later. 1705: Conflicts develop between French traders and the Fox tribe of Native Americans. 1719: The Comanche Indian Tribe settle in the Great Plains and in the Midwest of the United States. 1754: The Illinois Country becomes part of New France, days later The French and Indian War begins with the war against the British. 1763: The Illinois Country falls to British Troops after the defeat of New France. 1775: The Revolutionary War begins with America declaring independence from Britain. 1778: The Illinois Campaign is born under the command of George Rogers Clark to lead the fight against major British outposts scattered across the country. 1780s: Jean Baptiste Point du Sable establishes Chicago's first permanent settlement near the mouth of the Chicago River. 1795: Six square miles (16 km2) of land at the mouth of the Chicago River are reserved by the Treaty of Greenville for use by the United States. 1796: Kittahawa, du Sable's Potawatomi Indian wife, delivers Eulalia Point du Sable, Chicago's first recorded birth. 19th century 1800s?1840s 1803: The United States Army orders the construction of Fort Dearborn by Major John Whistler. It is built near the mouth of the Chicago River. 1812 June 17, Jean La Lime is killed by John Kinzie, making him the first recorded murder victim in Chicago. August 15, the Battle of Fort Dearborn. 1816: The Treaty of St. Louis is signed in St. Louis, Missouri. Ft. Dearborn is rebuilt. 1818: December 3, Illinois joins the Union and becomes a state. 1820 Chicago 1821 Survey of Chicago 1830 August 4, Chicago is surveyed and platted for the first time by James Thompson. Population: "Less than 100".[1] 1833: Chicago incorporated as a town.[1] 1837 Chicago incorporated as a city.[1] C.D. Peacock jewelers was founded. It is the oldest Chicago business still operating today. Chicago receives its first charter.[2] Rush Medical College is founded two days before the city was chartered. It is the first medical school in the state of Illinois which is still operating. The remaining 450 Potawatomi left Chicago. 1840 July 10, Chicago's first legally executed criminal, John Stone was hanged for rape and murder. Population: 4,470.[3] 1844: Lake Park designated.[4] 1847: June 10, The first issue of the Chicago Tribune is published. 1848 Chicago Board of Trade opens on April 3 by 82 local businessmen. Illinois and Michigan Canal opens and traffic begins moving faster. Galena and Chicago Union Railroad enters operation becoming the first railroad in Chicago 1849 Wauconda is founded. Merchants' Hotel on left, looking North from State and Washington Streets, before 1868 Chicago in 1830, as depicted in 1884 Chicago in 1832, as depicted in 1892 Chicago in 1836 1893 Bird's eye view of Chicago Fort Dearborn depicted as in 1831, sketched 1850s although the accuracy of the sketch was debated soon after it appeared. 1850s?1890s 1850: Population: 29,963.[3] 1851: Chicago's first institution of higher education, Northwestern University, is founded. 1852: Mercy Hospital becomes the first hospital in Illinois. 1853 October: State Convention of the Colored Citizens held in city.[5] Union Park named.[4] 1854: A cholera epidemic took the lives of 5.5% of the population of Chicago.[6] 1855 Chicago Theological Seminary founded.[1] April 21, Lager Beer riot. Population: 80,000.[4] 1856: Chicago Historical Society founded. 1857 Iwan Ries & Co. Chicago's oldest family-owned business opens, still in operation today, the oldest family-owned tobacco shop. Mathias A. Klein & Sons (Klein Tools Inc.), still family owned and run today by fifth and sixth generation Klein's. Cook County Hospital opens.[1] Hyde Park House built.[4] 1859: McCormick Theological Seminary relocated.[1] 1860 September 8, the Lady Elgin Disaster. Population: 112,172.[3] Daprato Statuary Company (Currently Daprato Rigali Studios) founded by the Daprato brothers, Italian immigrants from Barga. 1865 Corporal punishment was abandoned in schools.[4] Population: 178,492.[4] 1866: School of the Art Institute of Chicago founded. 1867 Construction began on the Water Tower designed by architect W. W. Boyington. Chicago Academy of Music founded.[4] 1868 Rand McNally is formed as a railway guide company. Lincoln Park Zoo founded.[4] 1869 Chicago Water Tower built. The first Illinois woman suffrage convention was held in Chicago The Chicago Club is established. Washington Square Park being developed.[4] 1870 St. Ignatius College founded, later Loyola University Population: 298,977.[3] 1871: October 8 ? 10, the Great Chicago Fire.[4][7] 1872 Montgomery Ward in business. Establishment of the first Black fire company in the city. The original library, inside the old water tower on the site that is now the Rookery Building. This former water tower was the site of the original public library, exterior view 1873: Chicago Public Library established.[4] 1875: Holy Name Cathedral dedicated.[4] 1877: Railroad strike.[8] Art Institute of Chicago As seen from Michigan Ave 1878 Art Institute of Chicago established. Conservator newspaper begins publication.[9][10] 1879: Art Institute of Chicago founded.[1] 1880: Polish National Alliance headquartered in city. 1881: Unsightly beggar ordinance effected.[11] Home Insurance Building Field Museum in Chicago 1885: Home Insurance Building building was the first skyscraper that stood in Chicago from 1885 to 1931. Originally ten stories and 138 ft (42.1 m) tall, it was designed by William Le Baron Jenney in 1884[12][13] Two floors were added in 1891, bringing its now finished height to 180 feet (54.9 meters). It was the first tall building to be supported both inside and outside by a fireproof structural steel frame, though it also included reinforced concrete. A landmark lost to history and is considered the world's first skyscraper. Chicago Water Tower and Chicago Avenue Pumping Station, circa 1886 1886 May 4, the Haymarket riot.[14] Chicago Evening Post published (until 1932).[1] 1887: Newberry Library established. 1888: Dearborn Observatory rebuilt. 1889 Hull House founded.[1][15] Auditorium Building completed.[1] Auditorium Theatre opened. 1890: The University of Chicago is founded by John D. Rockefeller. 1891 Chicago Symphony Orchestra founded by Theodore Thomas.[1] Provident Hospital founded.[1] 1892 June 6, The Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad, Chicago's first 'L' line, went into operation. Masonic Temple for two years, the tallest building in Chicago. Streetcar tunnels in Chicago (under the Chicago River) in use until 1906.[1] 1893 May 1 ? October 30, The World's Columbian Exposition (World's Fair); World's Parliament of Religions held.[16][1] October 28, Mayor Carter Harrison, Sr. was assassinated by Patrick Eugene Prendergast.[17] Sears, Roebuck and Company in business. First Ferris wheel built by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. Art Institute of Chicago building opens.[1] Monadnock Building completed.[1] Universal Peace Congress held.[18] Chicago Civic Federation founded.[17] 1894 May 11 ? August 2, the Pullman Strike.[14][1] ?enské Listy women's magazine begins publication.[19][20] Field Museum of Natural History established.[1] 1895: Marquette Building completed.[1] 1896 1896 Democratic National Convention held; Bryan delivers Cross of Gold speech.[21] Campaign "to improve municipal service and politics" begun in 1896.[1] Abeny beauty shop[22] and Tonnesen Sisters photo studio[23] in business. 1897 March 12, The Chicago Elevator Protective Association of Chicago was formed. Later, on July 15, 1901, to become the International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 2. The Union Loop Elevated is completed. National union of meat packers formed.[1] 1898: National peace jubilee was held.[1] 1899 Cook County juvenile court established.[24] Municipal Art League established.[1] Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building constructed. Chicago-Sanitary-and-Ship-Canal, during construction Chicago USA. Map of the business portion of Chicago. 1905 Source The New International Encyclopædia, v. 4, 1905, between pp. 610?11. 1900 Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal opens;[25] the Chicago River is completely reversed. Municipal Reference Library active (approximate date).[26] Labor strike of machinists.[8] Population: 1,698,575.[1] 20th century Construction of the Chicago Drainage Canal, 1900s 1900s?1940s See also: Chicago in the 1930s 1902: Meatpacking strike.[8] 1903 December 30, Iroquois Theater Fire City Club of Chicago formed. 1905 The Industrial Workers of the World was founded in June[27] Teamsters' strike.[1] Chicago Defender newspaper begins publication.[28] City Hall rebuilding completed.[1] Chicago Federal Building completed.[1] 1906 Municipal court established.[24] The Chicago White Sox defeated the Chicago Cubs in the only all-Chicago World Series. Sinclair's fictional The Jungle published.[14] Chicago Tunnel Company operated a 2 ft. narrow-gauge railway freight tunnel network (until 1959).[1] 1907: Adolph Kroch opens a bookstore which will evolve into Kroch's and Brentano's 1908 The Chicago Cubs win the World Series for the second year in a row Binga Bank in business.[29] 1909: Burnham's Plan of Chicago presented.[14] 1910: Population: 2,185,283.[1][30] July 1: Comiskey Park opened (originally called White Sox Park). December 22: Chicago Union Stock Yards fire (1910) 1911: Chicago and North Western Railway Terminal completed.[1] 1912: Harriet Monroe starts Poetry, which will soon make Chicago a magnet for modern poets. 1913 Great Lakes Storm of 1913 Wabash Avenue YMCA opens.[31] 1914: Alpha Suffrage Club active.[32] April 23: Wrigley Field opened (originally called Weeghman Park). All Star Tournament, 18 Inch Balke Line, Chicago, May 7?14, 1906 Jewish men and boys standing on a sidewalk in Chicago, 1903 Theodore Roosevelt in Chicago, 1915 During construction, 1915 (Chicago Daily News) 1915 July 24, the SS Eastland Disaster.[1] Chicago Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium founded.[30] 1916 Rebuilding of the American Fort Navy Pier built. [30] 1918 Micheaux Film and Book Company in business.[33] The Spanish flu killed over 8,500 people in Chicago between September and November 1918. 1919 July 27, the Chicago race riot of 1919. Real estate broker Archibald Teller opened the first Fannie May candy store. 1920: Population: 2,701,705.[30] 1921 Balaban and Katz Chicago Theatre built, (later the Chicago Theatre). Field Museum of Natural History relocates to Chicago Park District.[30] Street-widening and street-opening projects underway.[30] Medill School of Journalism opens.[30] 1922: Chicago Council on Global Affairs established.[34] 1924 Murder trial and conviction of Leopold and Loeb. October 9: Soldier Field opened. 1925 Goodman Theatre established. Chicago railway station opened.[30] The Tribune Tower was completed on Michigan Avenue. The building's large Gothic entrance contains pieces of stone from other famous buildings: Westminster Abbey, Cologne Cathedral, the Alamo, the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramid, and the Arc de Triomphe. 1926 Nederlander Theatre opened. Granada Theatre opened. 1927: Originally called the Chicago Municipal Airport, Chicago Midway International Airport opened. It was renamed in 1949 to honor the Battle of Midway in World War II. July 28: 27 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the Favorite Boat Disaster. 1929 February 14, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.[21][35] Oscar De Priest becomes U.S. representative for Illinois's 1st congressional district.[36][37] Civic Opera Building & Civic Opera House opened. 1930 March 6: 50,000 gather for International Unemployment Day, capping 10 days of protest against Great Depression conditions. May 12, Adler Planetarium opened, through a gift from local merchant Max Adler. It was the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere.[38] April 6, Twinkies are in Invented in Schiller Park. May 30, Shedd Aquarium opens. The Merchandise Mart was built for Marshall Field & Co. The $32 million, 4.2 million square foot (390,000 m2) building was the world's largest commercial building. It was sold it to Joseph P. Kennedy in 1945. 1933 Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago) opened. March 6: Mayor Anton Cermak was killed while riding in a car with President-elect Roosevelt. The assassin was thought to have been aiming for Roosevelt. 1933?34: Century of Progress World's Fair. 1934 May 19: Chicago Union Stock Yards fire (1934) July 1: Brookfield Zoo opened. July 22: John Dillinger was shot by the FBI in the alley next to the Biograph Theater.[21] 1935 January 19: Coopers Inc. sells the world's first briefs. Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago is awarded the very first Heisman Trophy 1937: Labor strike of steelworkers.[8] 1938: Community Factbook begins publication.[39] 1944: Premiere of Williams' play The Glass Menagerie. 1945: Ebony magazine begins publication.[40] 1946: Construction of Thatcher Homes begins. 1948: Chicago Daily Sun and Times newspaper begins publication.[9] 1950s?1990s 1950: Chess Records in business.[41] 1954: Johnson Products Company in business. 1955: The first McDonald's franchise restaurant, owned by Ray Kroc, opened in the suburb of Des Plaines. 1958 December 1, Our Lady of the Angels School Fire. The last streetcar ran in the city. At one time, Chicago had the largest streetcar system in the world. 1959: Second City comedy troupe active. 1960 September 26: Nixon-Kennedy televised presidential debate held.[21] The first of the Playboy Clubs, featuring bunnies, opened in Chicago. 1963 ? Donald Rumsfeld became U.S. representative for Illinois's 13th congressional district.[42] 1965?66 ? The Chicago Freedom Movement, centering on the topic of open housing, paves the way for the 1968 Fair Housing Act. 1966 July 13?14: Chicago student nurse massacre 1967 January 26 ? 27, Major snowstorm deposits 23 inches of snow, closing the city for several days.[2] August 1: maiden voyage of UAC TurboTrain. 1968: February 7: Mickelberry Sausage Company plant explosion kills nine and injured 70. August 26 ? 29, 1968 Democratic National Convention and its accompanying anti-Vietnam War protests. 1969 October: Weathermen's antiwar demonstration.[43] December 4: Black Panther Fred Hampton assassinated. The Chicago 8 trial opens. The 100-floor John Hancock Center was built. 1970 Soul Train television program begins broadcasting. Casa Aztlán (organization) founded.[44] 1971: Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center founded.[45] 1972: Vietnam Veterans Against the War headquartered in Chicago. 1973: Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world for the next 25 years, was completed. 1974: Steppenwolf Theatre Company founded. 1977: Chicago Marathon begins.[41] 1978: First BBS goes online on February 16. 1979 Heavy snowstorm and city's slow response lead to upset of incumbent mayor. May 25, the American Airlines Flight 191 crashes. Chicago's first female mayor, Jane M. Byrne, takes office. Woodstock Institute headquartered in city.[46] 1981: Hill Street Blues television show premieres on January 15. 1982 September ? October: Chicago Tylenol murders 1983 Harold Washington became the first African American mayor.[47] Ordinance banning handguns takes effect.[35][48] 1984 The Chicago Cubs reach the postseason for the first time since 1945 The Nike shoe Air Jordan is made for superstar basketball player of the Chicago Bulls Michael Jordan. Heartland Institute headquartered in city.[49] 1986 Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions, Inc. in business. The Chicago Bears win Super Bowl XX Presidential Towers complex completed 1988 Lights are installed in Wrigley Field Christian Peacemaker Teams headquartered in city.[49] 1990: Population: 2,783,726.[3] 1991: May 28, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Sony proudly revealed that it was working with Nintendo to create a version of the Super NES with an in-built CD drive. The two Japanese companies had been working together in secret on the project, tentatively titled the Nintendo PlayStation, since 1989 and with the hype about CD-ROM reaching fever pitch, Sony?s announcement should have been a highlight of the trade show. Eventually leads to betrayal of the company Nintendo to Sony into Leading to the beginning of PlayStation Counsel.[50] 1992: April 13, the Chicago Flood. 1995 The Chicago Heat Wave of 1995. Your Radio Playhouse begins broadcasting. Kroch's and Brentano's, once the largest privately owned bookstore chain in the US, closes. 1996 Chicago hosts the 1996 Democratic National Convention, sparking protests such as the one whereby Civil Rights Movement historian Randy Kryn and 10 others were arrested by the Federal Protective Service.[51] City website online (approximate date).[52][53] 1998: The Chicago Bulls won their sixth NBA championship in eight years. 21st century 2001: 9/11 Chicago International Speedway is opened. Boeing moves its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago A video game company called Bungie Launches Halo that would give Rise to Microsoft's Xbox counsels. 2002: Lakeview Polar Bear Club founded (now known as the Chicago Polar Bear Club). 2003 Meigs Field closed after having large X-shaped gouges dug into the runway surface by bulldozers in the middle of the night. Chicago Film Archives founded. February 17: 2003 E2 nightclub stampede June 29: 2003 Chicago balcony collapse 2004: Millennium Park opens.[54] 2005 The Chicago White Sox win their first World Series in 88 years. Regional Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning established.[55] 2006 May 1, the 2006 U.S. immigration reform protests draw over 400,000. Cloud Gate artwork installed in Millennium Park. 2008: November 4, US President-elect Barack Obama makes his victory speech in Grant Park. In 2009, an Amtrak Lake Shore Limited train backing into Chicago Union Station Chicago Theater in 2011 2010 June 28: US supreme court case McDonald v. City of Chicago decided; overturns city handgun ban.[48] Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup. City of Chicago Data Portal launched.[3] 2011 February 2: 900 cars abandoned on Lake Shore Drive due to Blizzard. March 30: Last of Cabrini Green towers torn down. Rahm Emanuel becomes mayor. Population: 8,707,120; metro 17,504,753.[56] 2012 38th G8 summit and 2012 Chicago Summit are to take place in Chicago. The first of an ongoing franchise of NBC Chicago-set dramas, Chicago Fire, makes its world premiere on WMAQ 2013 Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup scoring 2 goals in 17 seconds to defeat the Boston Bruins Robin Kelly becomes U.S. representative for Illinois's 2nd congressional district. 2014: January: Chiberia August: Archer Daniels Midland completes its headquarters move from Decatur to the Loop. November 2: Wallenda performs high-wire stunt.[57] 2015 606 linear park opens. Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup yet again for the third time in six years, establishing a "puck dynasty" nationwide and arguably becoming the best team in the NHL. Video of the murder of Laquan McDonald is released by court order, and protests ensue. 2016: June 16: McDonald's announces it will move its headquarters from Oak Brook to the West Loop by 2018. ConAgra completes its headquarters move from Omaha to the Merchandise Mart. November 2: Cubs win the world series. Navy Pier in 2017 2017 January 21: Women's protest against U.S. president Trump.[58] City approves public high school "post-graduation plan" graduation requirement (to be effected 2020).[59] 2018: Walgreens announces the move of its headquarters from Deerfield, including 2,000 jobs, to the Old Chicago Main Post Office. 14th Street Coach Yard and Willis Tower, October 2018 2019 May 20: Lori Lightfoot becomes the first female African-American mayor of Chicago. 2020 March 16: First Chicago death due to the COVID-19 pandemic; Governor J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot issue a stay at home order. Over 7,700 people in Chicago died in the pandemic. May 28 ? June 1: George Floyd protests in Chicago 2022 May ? July: 2022-2023 abortion protests 2023 May 15: Brandon Johnson becomes mayor. See also History of Chicago List of mayors of Chicago National Register of Historic Places listings in Chicago
  • Features: Press Photograph
  • Time Period Manufactured: 1925-1949
  • Subject: Chicago Cubs, Chicago
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
  • Material: Paper
  • Year of Production: 1935
  • Original/Licensed Reprint: Original
  • Image Color: Black & White
  • Featured Person/Artist: CHARLIE GRIMM
  • Unit of Sale: Single Piece
  • Theme: BASEBALL
  • Type: Photograph

PicClick Insights - Chicago Cubs Charlie Grimm Great Shot Shouting 1935 Original Photo Vintage PicClick Exclusive

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