August 11, 1908: Cubs finally win! Also, is a dog the key to stopping the 108 year Curse?

The Cubs snapped a five game losing streak with a 4-0 rain-shortened win in New York. Also, is a dog the key to stopping the 108 year Curse?

Finally a win! The Cubs were actually supposed to play a doubleheader today, but rain shortened the first game to just six innings and totally washed out the second. I have to think the Cubs were perfectly OK with that and thrilled to just get a win under their belt, finally breaking the five game losing streak they were wallowing in.

Jack Pfiester picked up the "complete" game shutout, giving up only two hits and striking out one. The rain started in the third inning, but remained light enough until the 6th when the skies opened up and dumped a massive storm onto the huge crowd on hand at the Polo Grounds, who immediately began scrambling for cover.

I will say the this ... the Polo Grounds in 1908 sounds like an absolutely terrible place to play a baseball game if you were the visiting team. The New York Giants would pretty much let in as many people as they wanted, and when the stands were full, they would let spectators just stand around in foul territory and crowd the field, to the point that they could easily interfere with the players in the game.

To make matters worse, their security was horrible, and they would only have a handful of police officers on hand to deal with the entire crowd. On this day in 1908, the crowd was so massive they basically locked the gates to prevent any more people from coming in, and the Tribune speculated it was very close to the record crowd of 25,000 that was set a couple days ago.

Here's a picture I managed to find of the insane overflow crowds ... It's kinda small, but you can see that they let people stand IN FAIR TERRITORY!

Umm ... no

The Cubs scored two runs in the second, thanks in part to two errors by the Giants. They then picked up their other two runs right before the rain in the 6th. Johnny Evers led off with a single, and then singles by Del Howard and Joe Tinker knocked him in. Howard and Tinker then executed a double steal to put runners on second and third, and Howard then scored on a wild pitch from Giants pitcher Hooks Wiltse.

My favorite moment of the day comes from the managers, John McGraw for the Giants and Frank Chance for the the Cubs. Apparently the two weren't exactly friends, and began exchanging insults with each other on the field. Insults that were thoroughly spectacular in how goofy and lame they were. Here's the exchange ...

McGraw: You've got a bunch of Germans with their heads down!

Chance: Aw, why don't you go out and pay some of the debts you owe!

OK ... so who wins this lame war of words? Regardless, I'm sure even the winner would get destroyed in a "Yo Momma" competition with just about anyone in 2016.

OK ... let me throw out a wild theory ... Is a dog the key to ending the Cubs 108 year curse? Hear me out.

On this day in 1908, Cubs outfielder Frank Schulte brought his new dog to the game ... a bulldog pup named "Cub" (I bet he thought long and hard on that one). Schulte thought Cub's presence would bring them good luck and end their losing streak ... which it totally did. Add in that in the coming weeks you're going to see an amazing run by the Cubs to get them to the World Series, so there's definitely some good mojo coming their way.

Did the lucky dog do it? Do we need to find a new lucky dog this year to finally break the Curse? Personally, I'll try just about anything, so I say go for it!

I'm good luck!

In summary, the win puts the Cubs at 57-42 on the year. Pittsburgh also won, so the deficit remains at three games, but they did move closer to second by beating the Giants. One final game with said Giants tomorrow, and then two makeup games with the first place Pirates to finally close out this long road trip.