July 27, 1908 - Cubs blow lead, split a doubleheader, and then get bitten by bugs.

The Cubs missed a golden opportunity at a doubleheader sweep today, winning the first game 3-1, but blowing a lead late in game two and losing 6-5. Also, the Cubs got really itchy as an extra kick in the gut

A tough pill to swallow for the Cubs today, who were primed to take both ends of a doubleheader from the lowly Brooklyn Dodgers until a flat out collapse in the eighth inning of game two.

Game one was easy enough ... Ed Reulbach pitched well, Johnny Evers and Del Howard each had two hits, and the team played solid defense all around for a 3-1 victory. Evers did make a pretty bad base running blunder in the fifth, failing to touch third base while rounding to score on a Del Howard single. Umpire Cy Rigler saw the play unfold and called Evers out when the Dodgers appealed. It didn't end up mattering toward the victory, but the Cubs were trailing 1-0 at the time, so Evers was lucky it didn't come back to haunt them.

Caught ya!

The second game is where the real disaster took place. The Cubs looked to be sailing along to an easy win. They were up 5-3 in the eighth and pitcher Carl Lundgren easily dispatched of the first two Dodgers in the inning, and that was when everything fell apart.

John Hummel singled to center, and the weak-hitting Whitey Alpermann and his sub .200 batting average stepped to the plate. Alpermann hit a weak popup, but managed to put it just out of the reach of first baseman Frank Chance, and just inches inside the foul line for one of the cheapest singles you'll ever see.

Hey I'll give you one guess why they called him "Whitey." He had white hair of course! As we've already learned, we weren't exactly raising the bar on creativity in 1908 for nicknames. Oh your grandfather was an Indian? Well say hello to Indian Joe!

I'm Whitey because I'm white

Back to the game ... now with two outs in the eighth, up steps the might Tim Jordan for the Dodgers. Jordan ended up leading all of baseball in home runs in 1908 with 12, which seems like a pathetic total today, but it was a big deal back then.

And an even bigger deal ... Jordan had already crushed TWO home runs in this game. Two home runs in the same game was practically unheard of, and the 2016 statistical equivalent would probably be watching Kris Bryant tee off for about 7 home runs in a game.

With two strikes on him, Jordan proceeds to CRUSH a ball down the right field line that is just BARELY foul. Manager Frank Chance had seen enough, and had Lundgren put him on to load the bases, which ended up being a terrible move since pinch hitter Harry Lumley crushed a bases-clearing double to right center to give the Dodgers a 6-5 lead. The Cubs stuck out 1-2-3 in the 9th, and that's how the game ended. Whoops!

Timmy smash you

Hey buy the way ... as many Cubs fans are stressing out this week about giving up a couple prospects to get closer Aroldis Chapman from the Yankees, today in 1908 probably would've been a day the Cubs wished they had a stronger bullpen than the ... well ... they didn't have any bullpens back then ... but you get my point! You'll like him when he closes the door on a couple dozen victories for ya!

So despite winning the first game, things definitely ended on a sour note for the Cubs today. And to make matters worse, they were totally infested with bugs. It had rained for several days straight in New York leading up to today's games. So throw in that dampness with the generally unpleasant heat and humidity of a late July day, and you have yourself the perfect recipe for a lot of mosquitoes.

And their favorite place to hang out on a day like today is of course a concrete dugout below sunken below ground level, essentially making the Cubs players an easy target for the blood-sucking little beasts. So as if the loss wasn't enough, everybody got about two dozen bug bites as a scratchy reminder of their failure. Thanks! [Side note: I hate this stupid month of weather. It's hot and gross and I can't wait for September to get here.]

I suck (literally)

In summary ... the split puts the Cubs at 50-36 on the year. Pittsburgh won, so their lead over the Cubs remains at two and a half games. One more in the Dodger series tomorrow, and then on to Boston for four more.