Baseball history unpacked, November 7

A wildly popular Cubs-centric look at baseball’s past. Here’s a handy Cubs timeline, to help you follow along as we review select scenes from the rich tapestry of Chicago Cubs and Major League Baseball history.

Today in baseball history:

• 1928 - The cash-strapped Braves send player/manager Rogers Hornsby to the Cubs in exchange for $200,000 and hurlers Percy Jones, Harry ‘Socks’ Seibold, Bruce Cunningham, outfielder Fred Maguire, and catcher Lou Leggett. Boston owner Emil Fuchs will replace the “Rajah’, who will hit .380 along with 39 home runs and 149 RBIs for his new club, in the dugout, making him the last person to manage a major league club without any professional playing experience until Ted Turner’s one game foray as a skipper, also with the Braves, in 1977. (1)
• 1964 - The National League approves the move of the Milwaukee Braves to Atlanta but orders them to stay in Milwaukee for the 1965 season, in spite of poor attendance over the last two years. The Braves will eventually move to Atlanta in 1966.
• 1973 - The Cubs trade second baseman Glenn Beckert and minor league prospect Bobby Fenwick to the Padres for outfielder Jerry Morales. The deal will prove to be beneficial to Chicago when their new fly-chaser spends four productive years in his first tenure with the club, including an All-Star selection in 1977, and their former infielder playing in only 73 games before being released by San Diego during the first month of the 1975 season. (1)
• 1979 - Cubs reliever Bruce Sutter, who had a 2.23 ERA and saved 37 of his team’s 80 victories, wins the National League Cy Young Award by a 72-66 margin over Houston’s Joe Niekro. (2)
• 2004 - After refusing a $60 million, four-year contract extension from the Boston Red Sox the previous winter, Nomar Garciaparra signs a one-year deal with the Chicago Cubs, the team he was traded to in 2004, for $8 million.
• 2013 - Rick Renteria becomes the Cubs’ 53rd manager in franchise history, the fourth in the last five years, when he signs a three-year contract with two club option years with the last-place team that finished the season with 96 losses. Chicago’s new 51-year-old skipper spent the previous three seasons as Bud Black’s bench coach in San Diego. (1)
• Cubs birthdays: Monte McFarland, Joe Hatten, Clarence Jones, Joe Niekro, Reggie Patterson, Glendon Rusch, Les Walrond.

Sources:

• (1) — The National Pastime.
• (2) — Today in Baseball History.
• (3) — Baseball Reference.
• (4) — Society for American Baseball Research.
• (5) — Baseball Hall of Fame.

Thanks for reading.