The Pecan Park Eagle

Even though tonight has been the only time we’ve had to focus upon its membership composition, The Pecan Park Eagle is proud to present its choices for the All Time 25-Man Chicago Cubs Modern Era Baseball Club. We eliminated consideration of Cub players from the 19th century period only because of the vast differences between the game played back then and the changes that were only beginning to appear with any rules similarity to the 2016 game, Besides, we didn’t want to take on the extra work of even trying to remediate  the likes of Anson “Cappy” Jones prior to his first practice with the rest of the team.

Players were picked for their excellence in one particular season as a Cub. They had to have played for the Cubs in that year from either the 20th or  21st centuries. It does not take any researcher long to affirm or discover that the recent 2016 World Series win by the Cubs may have ended the 108-year old victory drought in the franchise’s history, but there has been no such absence of extremely talented people who have passed through or spent their entire careers without ever even sniffing a shot at the baseball season’s seminal moment while they played for the Cubs. Ernie Banks survives as the poster boy for the disappointment of Cubs Nation over their long, foreboding, some-say “cursed” absence from the World Series, but Banks sadly remains as perhaps the greatest player in history to have missed out as a player on the field of baseball’s greatest glory call. Almost needless to say, Ernie Banks was the easiest pick for our particular all time greatest modern era Cubs team.

We may have missed out on somebody, but we would be willing to go into battle with this Cubs team against the best of any other club tomorrow afternoon, if that were possible.

These final observations are begging to be written here: (1) As will be noticeable quickly, a goodly number of these players already are members of the Baseball Hall of Fame; (2) We decided early on that we just couldn’t field an all time Cubs club without the roster presence of “Tinker and Evers and Chance”, even if that trio of bear cubs spends most of their time on the bench; (3) we also didn’t want the 2016 World Champion Cubs to be shut out here, so we picked the one man we think the Cubs could not have done without in the Series with the Indians; and (4) with the 8-man staff, most of whom are capable of winning complete games and also throwing some relief without regard for pitch count that the two specialist relievers we have picked should be enough to handle the rare occasion that this club shall see victory dancing in the wind on the wings of hoped-for success by a single closer. And, when a club does face our Cubs closer, they are going to be the ones whose fates are now blowing in the wind.

 Bill McCurdy

Publisher, Editor, Writer

The Pecan Park Eagle

Houston, Texas

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Here it is:

Amendment Note: Close to 10:45 PM, Monday, 11/07/16, we replaced Charlie Root of 1927 on the staff with Jon Lester of 2016. We needed a great lefty to go with all of our other right handed starters. – We never made any claims of perfection here on the first bounce. Besides, Charlie Root took the news pretty good for a man of his antiquity. 🙂

Pecan Park Eagle All Time Chicago Cubs Modern Era 25-Man Roster