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The Cubs and Pete Crow-Armstrong Flirt with Baseball History!

I’m sure my regular readers are shocked to see a modern player, Pete Crow-Armstrong, in the featured photo. It’s not often that I comment here on the Baseball History Comes Alive website about what’s happening in the modern game. As I’ve said many times, anything after about 1970 is a bit too modern for my taste!

I’m being slightly facetious. I’m a Cub fan, and so I do pay attention to the current game, especially with the Cubs off to a pretty good start to the 2025 season, in first place with a 31-20 (.608) record. However, whenever I stumble onto something that has a connection to baseball’s past, my baseball antenna and alarm bells immediately go off. I’d be remiss in my duties as your friendly baseball historian if I didn’t call it to your attention!

Pete Crow-Armstrong’s Historical Achievement

With that in mind, I read the other day that the Cubs’ exciting new star, Pete Crow-Armstrong – who could easily be mistaken for the batboy – is actually flirting with some notable historical achievements. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, after yesterday’s game, in which he hit two home runs including a grand slam and drove in six runs in the Cubs 13-6 victory over the Reds, PCA (as he’s affectionately becoming known to Cub fans) has already tied the single season record for games with six or more RBIs in a season, according to ESPN. In addition, he’s only the third National League player younger than 24 years old to achieve the feat in the modern era (post-1900), a list that includes only Wilmer Flores (2014) and Mel Ott (1930).

I’d say whenever you’re mentioned in the same sentence with Mel Ott, you must have done something pretty special!

Not Since 1898…

But I’m not done with the historical connections. After the Cubs 14-1 win over the Marlins on Tuesday, in their 49^th game, it was the team’s tenth time this season that they scored in double digits. The Cubs hadn’t accomplished this feat before the 50-game mark since 1898, when they scored ten-plus runs 11 times in their first 49 games.

So the Cubs offense has accomplished something the team hasn’t done for 127 years. It was so long ago that the team wasn’t even known as the Cubs yet, or even played at Wrigley Field. Back then, they were actually called the Chicago Orphans. In checking out that team, I found it included two future Hall of Famers: Clark Griffith and Frank Chance (of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance fame). One of the players on the roster had the great baseball name of “Button” Briggs. They played their home games at West Side Grounds, where they drew 424,352 fans for the 1898 season.

In spite of that great initial offensive surge, the 1898 Chicago Orphans finished with a record of 85-65-2 and in fourth place. As a Cub fan, I’ll be hoping the 2025 team does considerably better in the final standings!

Gary Livacari 

We’d love to hear what you think about this or any other related baseball history topic…please leave comments below.

Sources: Chicago Sun-Times, May 22 and May 24, 2025

Photo Credits: All from Google search

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