History of Baseball Team Nicknames - Chicago, Illinois - Chicago Cubs

Chicago Cubs

In 1870, the first openly professional team in Chicago was called the Chicago White Stockings, in reference to the team colors and in contrast to the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The team carried that nickname along to the NA in 1871 and into the NL in 1876.

After the team's successes in the first half of the 1880s, the club began trading away its stars, and by the end of the decade the team was populated by young players, with the exception of long-time player–manager Cap Anson. By the late 1880s, local newspapers had started to call the team "Anson's Colts", or just "Colts". With the advent of the Players' League in 1890, what little talent the club still had was drained away, and the nickname, though never "official", became standard. (The Golden Era Cubs: 1876-1940, Eddie Gold and Art Ahrens, Bonus Books, 1985, p. 2) and

"Charley Hoyt wrote a play for Cap Anson, manager of the team, called 'The Runaway Colt', and subsequently the team was called Anson's Colts."(BBG) Actually, it was the other way around. The play was written and produced late in 1895, and its name was inspired by the club's nickname. (The National Pastime, Number 25, SABR, 2005, "Anson on Broadway", p.74-81.

In any case, 1890 is the usual date given for the replacement of "White Stockings" with "Colts" as the club's predominant nickname.

The Colts name would stick around, off and on, for the next 15 years. It was reinforced by a squad of many young players, contrasting with the veteran Anson, who had become known as "Pop" by the 1890s. Anson left the team after the 1897 season, and the local papers called the team the Orphans for a while, because they had lost their "Pop". They apparently still had some "pop" in their bats, finishing fourth in a twelve-team league.

"A Chicago newspaper held a contest to select a new name. The term Cubs was chosen, but as other newspapers ignored the name at first, it was some time before the new nickname came into general use. Fred Hayner, sports editor of the Chicago Daily News, was among the first to use the name of Cubs." (BBG)

The 2007 Arcadia book called Chicago Cubs: Tinker to Evers to Chance, by Art Ahrens, contains a series of facts in various places on pages 9–56 that add up to an explanation of the gradual transition from "Colts" to "Cubs":

• The newspapers predominantly called the club the "Orphans" during 1898–1900.
• The few promising players on the club jumped to the new American League in 1901, including several to the White Sox. The erstwhile "Orphans" had so few good players left that the papers called them the "Remnants", as the 53–86 team's percentage would stand as the club's record low for the next 60 years.
• When Frank Selee took over the managerial reins in 1902, his youth program revived the older nickname, and the team was again called the "Colts" in the papers frequently.
• At that same time, also referencing the team's youthful squad, some writers starting calling the team the "Cubs".
• The "Cubs" nickname took hold over the next four seasons. Sporting Life leaned toward "Cubs", while The Sporting News favored "Colts", as did the Chicago Tribune. During 1905, "Colts" was still more common, as Selee preferred that name. But Selee retired due to ill health in mid-season 1905, and Frank Chance was elevated to the managing job. With new management and an emerging dynasty, by 1906 the old "Colts" was largely passé and "Cubs" was the primary nickname.
• Among various short-lived and little-remembered nicknames laid on the team by the media around 1906, perhaps the funniest was "Murphy's Spuds" or just "Spuds", a reference to Irish-American team owner Charles Murphy, and the stereotype connecting Irish people with potatoes (Irish potatoes were colloquially called "Murphy spuds" or just "Murphys").

By the time the Chicago National Leaguers played their cross-town World Series with the White Sox in 1906, the "Chicago Cubs" nickname was well established. An editorial cartoon after the Series showed a cabin with an unknown figure inside, with only his white socks visible, up on a footrest, with the skin of a bear nailed to the wall outside, and six more white socks hanging on a clothesline (the Sox had beaten the Cubs in six games). (John Devaney and Burt Goldblatt, The World Series: A Complete Pictorial History, Rand McNally, 1975, p. 27)

By 1907, the name "Cubs" was appearing on the team's scorecards. (Ahrens) The first uniform acknowledgment of the nickname came in 1908, when a bear cub holding a bat was placed inside the round "C" that was already on the uniform shirt. The familiar "C" encircling "UBS" first appeared the following year, on the road shirts. With this official acknowledgment, the old nickname of "Colts" was gone for good. Either a bear cub symbol or the word "CUBS" has appeared on home and/or road shirts ever since then. (Okkonen)

Despite the best efforts of the MLB Promotion Corporation, which began in the late 1960s, the Cubs did not trademark this iconic circle-C-UBS logo (which has been a steady fixture on uniforms and publications since 1937) until the late 1970s.

The nickname "Cubbies", a diminutive of something already small or young, gained favor in large part due to Harry Caray's famous rendering of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". Instead of drawing out the single-syllable "Cubs" into two syllables in place of "home team", Caray used "Cubbies" to make the line flow better.

The Chicago Bears of the National Football League played their games at the Cubs' Wrigley Field from 1921–1970, and were renamed (from "Staleys") in honor of their hosts.