The Cubs began playing in 1870 as the Chicago White Stockings, joining the National League (NL) in 1876 as a charter member.

Due to a farm-machinery accident in his youth, Mordecai Brown lost parts of two fingers on his right hand, and in the process gained a colorful nickname. He turned this handicap into an advantage by learning how to grip a baseball in a way that resulted in an exceptional curveball (or knuckle curve), which broke radically before reaching the plate.

Hornsby hit .380 for Chicago in 1929 while recording 39 home runs and a league-leading .679 slugging percentage. His 156 runs scored led the major leagues and is still the team record while his .380 batting average remains the highest for a Cub since 1895.

Chuck Connors -- best known as the star of the The Rifleman -- played 66 games for the 1951 Cubs, hitting .239 with two home runs and 18 RBIs.

On July 30, 2014, the Cubs outlasted the Colorado Rockies in a marathon 4-3 victory that lasted 6 hours and 27 minutes. By the 16th inning, the Cubs had run out of relief pitchers, so they called on their backup catcher. John Baker, who hadn't pitched since the summer of 2000 for Yarmouth-Dennis in the Cape Cod League, earned his first major league victory after pitching a scoreless 16th inning.

From 1921 to 1951--with just a short break during World War II--the Cubs trained on Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles, primarily because of Cubs owner William Wrigley Jr.'s then-majority interest in the island. After some bad weather in 1951, however, the club moved spring training to Mesa, Arizona.

Cubs Manager Joe Maddon called on Mike Montgomery, who had zero career saves. Montgomery retired Michael Martinez (who had scored the game-winning run in Game 3) with an infield grounder.

Charlie Root may be the winningest pitcher in Cubs history, but he will forever be remembered as the man who served up Babe Ruth's "Called Shot" in the 1932 World Series, a home run he insists was never pre-ordained by Ruth. He said shortly before his death that had Ruth actually called the shot, he would have knocked the Yankee star on his butt with the next pitch rather than heave it down the middle.

Ernie Banks, nicknamed "Mr. Cub" and "Mr. Sunshine", was the Cubs' main attraction in the late 1950s, the National League Most Valuable Player in 1958 and 1959, and the Cubs' first Gold Glove winner in 1960. In 1969, through a Chicago Sun-Times fan poll, Cubs fans voted him the greatest Cub ever.

In addition his Hall of Fame pitching career, Jenkins played basketball for the Harlem Globetrotters from 1967 to 1969.