Creating a chain of Cubs players back to the beginnings of baseball

An interesting exercise inspired by a Cubs-related tweet.

News item: Dodgers lefthander Clayton Kershaw, who had a player option for 2025, announced Monday that he’s going to “give it a go” for next year.

That produced this bit of interesting baseball history:

Those notes are Cubs-related. Ron Cey and Greg Maddux were teammates on the Cubs at the end of 1986 — in fact, they played in the same game twice, including this one in which Cey pinch-hit for Maddux.

Hoyt Wilhelm briefly pitched for the Cubs at the end of the 1970 season, but he and Cey were teammates with the Dodgers in 1971, and played in the same game twice.

So that got me thinking: How could I create a chain of Cubs players that would go back, from someone on the 2024 Cubs to someone who played for the Chicago NL franchise in 1876?

The longest-tenured Cub in 2024 was Kyle Hendricks, who debuted in 2014. The longest-tenured Cub in 2014 was Jeff Samardzija — but Samardzija and Hendricks were never actually teammates. In fact, Hendricks was called up to take Shark’s rotation spot after Samardzija was traded.

Thus we can only go back as far as 2010 to find the earliest of Samardzija’s teammates — Starlin Castro, Junior Lake and Brian Schlitter were all on the 2010 Cubs. Carlos Zambrano played for the Cubs in 2010 and debuted with the team in 2001. From 2001, the longest-tenured Cub that year was Sammy Sosa, whose first year with the Cubs was 1992.

Now we’re going to head back a number of years in a hurry. Sammy Sosa and Ryne Sandberg were teammates in 1992 (and for several other years), and Ryno’s first Cubs year was 1982.

Ryno and Fergie Jenkins were teammates in 1982 and 1983 — but Fergie’s second go-around with the Cubs started in ‘82, so unfortunately we can’t really count all the way back to 1966, when Jenkins first came to the Cubs. Instead, we’ve got to go to Bill Buckner, who began with the Cubs in 1977. From there we can go back to Rick Reuschel, who started with the Cubs in 1972.

And here’s where the chain picks up some years, because Reuschel was a teammate of Billy Williams, whose Cubs debut was in 1959. From there, Ernie Banks takes us to 1953, Dutch Leonard and Hank Sauer to 1949,

Phil Cavarretta, a longtime Cubs star, was on the Cubs in 1949, and just like that we’re back to 1935, where Gabby Hartnett takes us to 1922.

Catcher Bob O’Farrell was on the 1922 Cubs, and he was on the team in 1915 but played in just two games — but in both of those games, outfielder Frank “Wildfire” Schulte also played. Schulte’s tenure with the Cubs began in 1904.

Frank Chance played with Schulte in 1904, and debuted with the Cubs in 1898, one year after Adrian “Cap” Anson retired. There are several 1898 Cubs who played with Anson, notably outfielder Jimmy Ryan.

So here’s our chain from 1876 through 2024, 149 seasons:

Anson – Ryan – Schulte – O’Farrell – Hartnett – Cavarretta – Leonard/Sauer – Banks – Williams – Reuschel – Buckner – Sandberg – Sosa – Zambrano – Lake/Castro/Schlitter – Hendricks.

That’s a 17-player chain covering a century and a half.

In a future article, I’ll look at some of the weirdest sets of teammates on various Cubs teams, as Cey and Maddux were. Those two span 38 seasons, from 1971-2008. Wilhelm and Cey, similarly, span 1952-87, a 36-season span.