When it comes to rivalries, make no mistake, the enmity Cubs and White Sox fans have for each other has deep roots and goes back more than 100 years ago.
In fact, the rivalry started shortly after the Western League was renamed the American League and the White Stockings became Chicago’s second baseball team in 1900. In those days, baseball historians said, antagonism between the teams was fueled as much by the teams themselves as it was by the fans.
“The White Sox were sort of considered upstarts who didn’t belong in the city,” said author and baseball historian Bernard Weisberger. “The Cubs-Sox rivalry was just as lively then as it is now.”
Unofficial Cubs team historian Ed Hartig said the Cubs did their best to block a new team from coming to the city. When a new team became inevitable, the Cubs, who were not officially known by that name until 1907, tried to prevent the new team from using the word “Chicago” in its name.
To get back at their National League counterpart, Chicago’s AL team adopted the Cubs’ former name, the White Stockings, and later shortened it to “White Sox.”
“[The Cubs] fought tooth and nail to fight the White Sox from being organized in Chicago,” Hartig said. “It was back then that the hatred between the Cubs and Sox [formed].”
Boisterous fans shared in the intense rivalry and heckled one another during the 1906 World Series, added author Richard Lindberg, the unofficial Sox historian.
“It was said they were throwing rotten fruit at each other,” he said.
The underdog Sox had emerged as contenders that year, winning the World Series. The Cubs won in 1907 and ’08.
Fans also defined themselves by where they lived. Sox fans lived on the South Side in predominantly Irish, blue-collar communities. The Cubs had a following among the German, Italian and Polish immigrants living on the city’s West Side.
The ballparks back then were often thought of as being dirty. Scoreboards were hand-operated, and players’ names were announced via megaphone. Fans could buy limited souvenirs such as game-day programs for about a dime or felt team pennants, and concessions such as hot dogs, peanuts or Cracker Jack.
Tickets ranged from 25 cents for bleacher seats to $1 for box seats during regular season games. Those prices were doubled during the World Series games. Today, those tickets would cost between about $5 and $21.
“You didn’t go to the ballpark because of the ballpark amenities,” Hartig said. “There were concessions, but it was pretty crude.”
– For more on the rivalry, go to chicagosports.com/1906.
THE FANS
Fans, mostly male, arrived at the games wearing their Sunday best with suits and hats — dresses for the women — not today’s T-shirt-and-shorts ensembles. Back then, historian Ed Hartig said, lineups and teams varied little year to year, much less game to game. But games were exciting nonetheless. The city was home to two World Series champions. “Chicago was the baseball capital for a period of time there,” Hartig said (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).
THE PLAYERS
The players’ uniforms were made of scratchy wool or heavy flannel — and they didn’t have players’ names or numbers on them. In “When Chicago Ruled Baseball,” historian Bernard Weisberger writes that the uniforms were either solid or pin-striped white and gray to distinguish the home and away teams. Uniforms were utilitarian with collared outer jerseys, half- or three-quarter length sleeves and pants that buckled under the knee over wool stockings.
– During the 1906 World Series, Weisberger says, the Sox wore a white uniform with a folded collar, buttons down the front and a “C” on the left-breast pocket of the jersey, and caps with blue-piped seams. The Cubs wore gray uniforms that featured “Chicago” in block letters on the jerseys’ fronts with a smaller logo on the breast pockets.
– Post-1890s rules limited fielding gloves to no more than 14 inches in circumference and 10 ounces in weight, Weisberger writes. First baseman’s and catcher’s mitts were unrestricted in size.
– Bats were 23/4 inches in diameter and no longer than 42 inches. Bats used during the ’06 Series were heavy, 36 ounces or more, and thicker through the handle than today’s bats, Weisberger writes.
WEST SIDE GROUNDS
The Cubs played at a ballpark bound by West Polk Street, South Wolcott Avenue — known then as Lincoln Street — West Taylor Street and South Wood Street. It could seat 16,000 and featured the first double-decked wooden grandstand built in the city. There was a small balcony of boxes above the grandstands between the bases to accommodate the wealthy. In the book “The Chicago Cubs Encyclopedia,” by baseball historians Jerome Holtzman and George Vass, the ballpark is described as having round areas of bare grass at first base, third base and home plate.
39th STREET GROUNDS
Sox games were played not far from the current U.S. Cellular Field, at 39th Street and Princeton Avenue. The stadium seated about 6,000 fans in the stands, which were wooden. Historian Richard Lindberg writes in “Total White Sox” that the ballpark was intimate, allowing close interaction between players and fans. It wasn’t uncommon for unruly fans to harass umpires by throwing empty soda bottles. Seating was expanded by putting seats along the foul lines or stretching a wire across the outfield for fans to stand behind. Dressing rooms were non-existent. Players changed in their hotel rooms and arrived via horse cart or wagon. They entered the field using a runway leading through the left-field stands.
