Illinois' bicentennial: the man who saved baseball

During Illinois' bicentennial year, the state's baseball fans have many reasons to celebrate the history of their Chicago Cubs and White Sox.

Despite curses, scandals and long droughts, the Cubs and the White Sox have won a combined total of 16 pennants and six World Series since the 1903 National Agreement between the National and American leagues. Arguably the greatest team in franchise history, the 1907 Cubs won a remarkable 112 games and defeated Ty Cobb's Detroit Tigers in the World Series. Ten years later, the 1917 White Sox dominated the American League, won 100 games and went on to a World Series victory over John McGraw's New York Giants.

Many of the greatest players in baseball history have taken the field in Cubs or White Sox uniforms on their way to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The 1907 Cubs have four players, including pitcher Three Finger Brown, enshrined at Cooperstown. The 1917 White Sox have three players in the Hall of Fame, and would have four, had Shoeless Joe Jackson not been banned from baseball after the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

When the Hall of Fame opened its doors in 1939, the Cubs and the White Sox were well represented. In a photograph of the surviving members of the 1939 class, Pete Alexander, who pitched for the Cubs for nine seasons, is standing next to Pirates legend Honus Wagner. Seated beside Babe Ruth is Eddie Collins, who played second base for the pennant-winning 1917 and 1919 White Sox.

Also in that 1939 induction class was Charlie Comiskey, one of the founders of the American League and owner of the Chicago White Sox for 31 years. A Chicago native, Comiskey's White Sox won the first of their four American League pennants in 1901. After winning their second pennant in 1906, the White Sox, dubbed the "Hitless Wonders," went on to defeat a powerful Cubs team in the World Series.

In 1910, the White Sox began play in the newly constructed Comiskey Park. The White Sox won their second World Series in 1917, and their fourth American League pennant in 1919. After the Black Sox scandal broke at the end of the 1920 season, the White Sox never finished in the first division for the rest of Comiskey's life. He died in 1931 at the age of 82.

Absent from the 1939 Hall of Fame class was William Hulbert, who grew up in Chicago and became owner of the White Stocking franchise that became the Cubs. Hulbert became the founding father of the National League when he convinced the owners to form a new organization to bring integrity to the game. As National League president, he ended beer sales at ball parks and eliminated Sunday baseball. He threatened players with suspensions if they jumped contracts, and banishment if they consorted with gamblers. True to his word, he banned four members of the Louisville Grays after gamblers paid them to fix games.

Unlike Comiskey and Spalding, Hulbert was passed over by the Hall of Fame in 1939 and drifted into baseball obscurity. It wasn't until 1995 that the veterans committee corrected the oversight and elected Hulbert to the Hall of Fame. Today, a plaque honoring Hulbert hangs in the Hall of Fame gallery with those of popular Cub greats such as Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ron Santo.

Reading Baseball is a series of stories and commentaries by Richard 'Pete' Peterson, co-author, with his son Stephen of 'The Slide: Leyland, Bonds and the Star-Crossed Pittsburgh Pirates' and editor of 'The St. Louis Baseball Reader.' His essays appear regularly in the Times.