âtwas a Different World Last Series.
The Chicago Cubs have won the World Series. This is a time-bending statement, this is something is that has not happened in so long that most of us were not alive the last time it did happen. It was the longest time in baseball history for a team to go between championships, and it almost didnât happen this time⊠but that is beside the point. This is more a blog about time and circumstance than about baseball and sports.
It was 1908 when last the Cubbies took the pennant. The American Pastime was in itâs infancy, the game itself was in its childhood. When last the Cubbies took the pennant we were (or should I say they, as none of us were aroundâŠ) still using the Indian Head cent, and a penny went a lot farther than it does today. The Lincoln Head penny was still a year away, in 1909 for the commemoration of what would have been Mr. Lincolnâs 100th birthday.
Teddy Roosevelt resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, in the 8th  and final year of his presidency. Outlaws of the American West, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, perished in Bolivia. Baby Face Nelson was born, Al Capone turned 9. Babe Ruth turned 13. In the World Series of that year, the Cubbies beat the Detroit Tigers in 5 games, in a rematch of the 1907 Series. Mr. & Mrs. Jacob Murdock became the first ever to drive a car across country, from Los Angeles to New York in a Packard. The trip took 32 days. A large meteor crashed to Earth in Siberia, in what would come to be known as the Tunguska Event. 1908 was the year Gideonâs Bible first began appearing in hotel rooms, and in other baseball news, the Yankees lost 103 games, while winning 51.
The population of the U.S.A. was 88,710,000, with 1,710,000 in Chicago to celebrate the Cubs, and 4,240,000 to piss over the Yankees. Only thirty people lived in Las Vegas, and Miami was just a temporary settlement. Crossword puzzles, beer in the can, and iced tea were still things of the future. 20% of adults couldnât read or write. There had never been a world war...
On average, folks lived for 47 years. 14% of homes had bathtubs, 92% of homes did NOT have a telephone. There were only 8,000 cars in existence chugging along at speed limits of 10 miles per hour, and only 144 miles of paved road in all the land. The average pay was 22 cents per hour (told you those Indian Head cxents went a long wayâŠ), or $8.80 for a full 40-hour workweek, an average salary of $458 per year. Eggs were 14 cents a dozen, coffee 15 cents a pound. The first Ford Model T hit the showroom, selling brand new for $825.
There were no televisions, no shopping malls, no Empire State or Chrysler Buildings, no Sears Tower, no World Trade Center. The Eiffel tower was the tallest structure in the world, and the Brooklyn Bridge was the longest.
95% of all babies were born in the home, and 90% of all doctors had not been to college. Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local neighborhood drugstores. Back then pharmacists would say, âHeroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.â Women washed their hair once a month, with Borax and/or egg yolks, commercial shampoo was also still a thing of the future. The third highest cause of death in the U.S. was diarrhea. In fact, many of the things, objects, conveniences that we take for granted today did not exist, were not even conceived of, the last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. It was by every stretch of the imagination a completely different world, populated with completely different people. With the exception of a miniscule number of infants squirming in their cribs in 1908, everyone then living is long goneâŠ
