Fine Print

One hundred years ago this week, in the Sept. 16, 1902, Chicago Tribune, the names TINKER-EVERS-CHANCE appeared together in box score agate for the first time, the record of a routine 6-4-3 double play turned by the Cubs' Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance against the Reds. Today no DP combo resonates as powerfully. The three played together through 1912 and helped the Cubs win four pennants and two World Series. Yet their legend comes more from style than stats; in 1908, in fact, the Cubs turned a team-record-low 76 DPs. The world might have forgotten them if columnist, and Giants fan, Franklin P. Adams hadn't written the poem he called Baseball's Sad Lexicon for the New York World in 1910.

These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs and fleeter than birds,
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double—
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."