The Cubs Begin Their Record 116-Win Season

By early June 1906, the Chicago Cubs were already pulling away from the rest of the National League. On June 7, the Cubs walloped the Giants 19-0 at the Polo Grounds behind Jack Pfiester and Ed Reulbach, continuing a stretch that would produce the greatest regular season record in baseball history. The 1906 Cubs finished 116-36, a winning percentage of .763 that still stands as the all-time record.

The team was a machine built by manager Frank Chance, who also played first base. The infield of Chance, Johnny Evers, Joe Tinker, and Harry Steinfeldt turned double plays with mechanical precision. The pitching staff featured Mordecai Brown, Ed Reulbach, Jack Pfiester, and Carl Lundgren, four starters who combined for a 1.75 ERA.

Brown was the anchor. He had lost most of his index finger in a farming accident as a child in Indiana, with two other fingers left permanently crooked by a subsequent injury, and the mangled hand gave his curveball a sharp, unnatural break that hitters could not solve. He went 26-6 in 1906 with a 1.04 ERA, the second-lowest single-season ERA in modern baseball history behind only Dutch Leonard's 0.96 in 1914.

The Cubs went 56-21 at West Side Grounds and a remarkable 60-15 on the road, their home park on the Near West Side of Chicago. They clinched the pennant on September 19, finishing 20 games ahead of the second-place Giants.

Then they lost the World Series. The "Hitless Wonders" Chicago White Sox, a team that batted .230 during the regular season, upset the Cubs in six games. The Sox hit .198 in the Series but got timely hitting and strong pitching from Nick Altrock and Doc White. The Cubs, heavily favored, scored only 18 runs in six games.

The loss stung, but the 1906 Cubs remain a standard for regular-season dominance. The 2001 Seattle Mariners tied the 116 wins in a 162-game schedule, but their winning percentage fell short. Chicago's .763 has survived 120 years and counting.