September 22, 1908: Cubs sweep a doubleheader with the Giants, see first place for the first time in

Left for dead less than a week ago, the Cubs have pulled a miraculous turnaround to go from four and a half games out to tied for first in just FOUR short days. Today the Cubs swept a doubleheader with the first place Giants, winning 4-3 and 3-1.

The hero of the day? Cubs ace pitcher Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown.

Now I admittedly have given Brown some heat in recent weeks because he's been in a bit of a slump, but he came up huge today. The Miner (his other nickname), came in to save the day in game one to shut down the rallying Giants, and then immediately turned around and pitched a complete game victory in game two to lock the Cubs and Giants into a tie for tops in the National League.

Now THAT'S why the dude is in the Hall of Fame!

Cubs pitcher Orval Overall started game one and had a comfortable 4-0 lead heading into the 7th when he hit a brick wall of Giants bats. Mike Donlin led off with a double, followed by a Cy Seymour single, then another double from Art Devlin scored a run and knocked Overall out of the game.

On comes Brown, having thrown NO warmup pitches, walks cold into the game and shuts the Giants down. OK ... that's not exactly what happened since the first batter hit a double that scored the other two runs, but the dude had no warmups ... I'm using my poetic license to make him sound more badass!

I mean, he DID get the next three guys after that and then kept the Giants scoreless the rest of the way, so it was still pretty spectacular. We'll just call that double his "warmup pitch."

Cubs win game one 4-3.

On to game two when Brown took the hill for his scheduled start and ... ho hum ... delivered a complete game six hitter and added three strikeouts.

The Cubs actually trailed 1-0 in this one until the 6th when Johnny Evers led off with a walk. Frank Chance then added a walk of his own, followed by a Harry Steinfeldt double to right center that scored Evers. Solly Hofman followed with a sac fly to score Chance and give the Cubs the lead.

The Cubs added an insurance run in the 9th, but Brown didn't need it. Final score 3-1.

And just like that ... first place baby!!! Not surprisingly, Chicago returned to their baseball fever ways, and tomorrow's game will be relayed live to fans back home on the Tribune's electric scoreboard. Only difference this time, is that now it ain't free! previous games were open to the public and free of charge, while this one will cost you 25 cents.

To be fair, money raised was given to the Tribune's Hospital Fund, so we can cut them some slack. Though I will say this ... the newspaper has a bit of a God complex because today they took credit for making it rain. Front page news even!

Apparently some farmers in central Illinois recently took out an ad in the Tribune begging for rain, and as luck would have it, it rained the very next day. So naturally the Tribune saw this as a great opportunity to say "Hey see what happens when you give us lots of $$$$$ for ads!"

They even printed the thank you telegram from the farmers ...

So in summary, the Cubs are now 90-53 on the year and tied for first with the Giants! In other good news, they finally get to play just ONE game for the first time in five days.

Oh and let me just say ... it is without a doubt one the most historically significant games in Cubs baseball history. Now THAT'S a tease! Come back tomorrow and find out ...