1918 World Series and Related Topics

Comiskey Park

Baseball park in Chicago, Illinois, located in the

White Sox Park in its early days. The "South Side" label refers to the White Sox themselves, not the stadium.

Site of Comiskey Park as it looked in 1992

In 1918, Comiskey Park hosted the World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox.

2018 World Series

The championship series of Major League Baseball's 2018 season.

Eduardo Núñez hit a three-run home run for Boston in the seventh inning.

Boston starter David Price got the win in Game 2, his second win of the 2018 postseason.

Jackie Bradley Jr. tied the game 1-1 with a two-out solo home run in the eighth inning.

Max Muncy hit the game-winning home run in the 18th inning of Game 3.

Steve Pearce had four RBIs and scored twice in Boston's Game 4 win.

Alex Cora, seen here as a player in 2008, led the Red Sox to the World Series championship in his first year as manager.

The Red Sox held a victory parade in Boston on October 31.

Red Sox at the White House with President Trump on May 9, 2019

Additionally, the Red Sox became the first team to win two World Series exactly one century apart, as they had defeated the Chicago Cubs in 1918, while the Dodgers were the first team since the 2011 Texas Rangers, and the first NL team since the 1992 Atlanta Braves, to lose consecutive Fall Classics.

Chicago Cubs

American professional baseball team based in Chicago.

The 1876 White Stockings won the NL championship.

The 1906 Cubs won a record 116 of 154 games. They then won back-to-back World Series titles in 1907–08.

A sports-related curse that was supposedly placed on the Chicago Cubs by Billy Goat Tavern owner William Sianis during Game 4 of the 1945 World Series.

Ryne Sandberg set numerous league and club records in his career and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2005.

Andre Dawson, 5× All-Star and 1987 NL MVP during tenure in Chicago

Sammy Sosa was the captain of the Chicago Cubs during his tenure with the team.

Kerry Wood, along with Mark Prior, led the Cubs' rotation in 2003.

Dempster emerged in 2004 and became the Cubs' regular closer.

Alfonso Soriano signed with the club in 2007.

Carlos Zambrano warming up before a game

Starlin Castro during his 2010 rookie season

One of two Cubs building blocks, Anthony Rizzo, swinging in the box

The Cubs celebrate after winning the 2016 World Series.

2016 Champions visit the White House in June 2017.

The Cubs responded by winning a pennant in the war-shortened season of 1918, where they played a part in another team's curse: the Boston Red Sox defeated Grover Cleveland Alexander's Cubs four games to two in the 1918 World Series, Boston's last Series championship until 2004.

The Star-Spangled Banner

National anthem of the United States.

Francis Scott Key's original manuscript copy of his " of Fort M'Henry" poem. It is now on display at the Maryland Historical Society.

An artist's rendering of the battle at Fort McHenry

The 15-star, 15-stripe "Star-Spangled Banner" that inspired the poem

A memorial to John Stafford Smith in Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester, England

Commemorative plaque in Washington, D.C. marking the site at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue where "The Star-Spangled Banner" was first publicly sung

One of two surviving copies of the 1814 broadside printing of the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem that later became the lyrics of "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the United States.

Crowd performing the U.S. national anthem before a baseball game at Coors Field

O'er the ramparts we watch in a 1945 United States Army Air Forces poster

Cover of sheet music for "The Star-Spangled Banner", transcribed for piano by Ch. Voss, Philadelphia: G. Andre & Co., 1862

Plaque detailing how the custom of standing during the U.S. national anthem came about in Tacoma, Washington, on October 18, 1893, in the Bostwick building

Defaced Francis Scott Key Monument in Baltimore, 2017. The statue was covered in red paint and the words "Racist Anthem".

The playing of the song two years later during the seventh-inning stretch of Game One of the 1918 World Series, and thereafter during each game of the series is often cited as the first instance that the anthem was played at a baseball game, though evidence shows that the "Star-Spangled Banner" was performed as early as 1897 at opening day ceremonies in Philadelphia and then more regularly at the Polo Grounds in New York City beginning in 1898.

Boston Red Sox

American professional baseball team based in Boston.

The 1901 Boston Americans team photograph

Iconic photo of the Huntington Avenue Grounds before the first modern World Series game

Carlton Fisk, best known for his "waving fair" home run in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series

Roger Clemens is the club's all-time strikeout (2,590), wins (192), and shutouts (38) leader

The Red Sox hosting a home game against the Atlanta Braves in July 2001

The Red Sox celebrate their clinching of the 2003 AL Wild Card with a victory over the Baltimore Orioles

David Ortiz was named 2004 ALCS MVP and 2013 World Series MVP. His #34 was retired by the club in 2017

Victorious Red Sox players being honored at the White House by President George W. Bush

The Massachusetts State House displaying a banner in honor of the Red Sox's 2013 World Series appearance. "B Strong" was a patch worn by the Red Sox in memory of Boston Marathon bombing victims

Left field grandstands during a 2014 game

Center field bleachers during a 2014 game

1907: Boston players leaving their hotel in Little Rock for a spring training game (photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library)

Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame at Fenway Park

In 1918, Babe Ruth led the team to another World Series championship over the Chicago Cubs.

Ed Barrow

American manager and front office executive in Major League Baseball.

Barrow's plaque in Monument Park in Yankee Stadium.

Ed Barrow's mausoleum in Kensico Cemetery

After a seven-year tenure, Barrow managed the Red Sox from 1918 through 1920, leading the team to victory in the 1918 World Series.

Harry Frazee

American theatrical agent, producer and director, and owner of the Major League Baseball Boston Red Sox from 1916 to 1923.

From left, Jacob Ruppert, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston, Frazee, and Edward J. Flynn at Yankee Stadium in 1923

Harry Frazee's grave in Kensico Cemetery

The Sox won another World Series title in 1918.

Carl Mays

American baseball pitcher who played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball from 1915 to 1929.

Mays in a batting stance at the Polo Grounds some time during 1919–1922.

The Red Sox returned to the World Series, and defeated the Chicago Cubs in 6 games.

Babe Ruth

American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935.

Ruth's birthplace in Baltimore, Maryland, is now a museum.

George Herman Ruth Sr. family in the 1900 US Census

Baseball card showing Ruth as a Baltimore Oriole, 1914

Providence Grays with Babe Ruth (top row, center), 1914

Ruth in 1918, his penultimate year with the Red Sox

Ruth in his first year with the New York Yankees, 1920

"How Does He Do It?" In this Clifford Berryman cartoon, presidential candidates Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox wonder at Ruth's record home run pace.

Ruth and Shoeless Joe Jackson looking at one of Babe's home run bats, 1920

Ruth in the stands on Opening Day, April 12, 1922, at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C.

Ruth after losing consciousness from running into the wall at Griffith Stadium during a game against the Washington Senators on July 5, 1924. Ruth insisted on staying in the game, despite evident pain and a bruised pelvic bone, and hit a double in his next at-bat. Note the absence of a warning track along the outfield wall.

Ruth took time off in 1927 to star with Anna Q. Nilsson in this First National silent production Babe Comes Home. This film is now lost.

Lou Gehrig, Tris Speaker, Ty Cobb, and Ruth, 1928

Gary Cooper and Ruth in the 1942 film The Pride of the Yankees

Ruth and his first wife, Helen Woodford, 1915

The Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of Ruth by Nat Fein

Tribute to Babe Ruth, Monument Park, as seen at the original Yankee Stadium

The unveiling of a Babe Ruth memorial plaque in Baltimore's old Memorial Stadium in 1955 with Claire Ruth, his widow, present.

Ruth memorabilia at the Baseball Hall of Fame (2014)

In 1918, the Red Sox won their third pennant in four years and faced the Chicago Cubs in the World Series, which began on September 5, the earliest date in history.

Cubs and Indians play Game 7 of the 2016 World Series

Curse of the Billy Goat

Sports curse that was supposedly placed on the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball franchise in 1945, by Billy Goat Tavern owner William Sianis.

Between that 1908 triumph, which was the Cubs' second world championship (they'd also won the Series in 1907 to become baseball's first back-to-back winners as well as the first franchise to appear in three consecutive World Series), and 1945, the first year of the alleged Billy Goat curse, the Cubs won the National League pennant six times but failed to win the Series: in 1910, in 1918 (won by the Boston Red Sox who themselves would soon become victims of an alleged baseball curse and not win another Series for 86 years), in 1929, in 1932 (known for Babe Ruth's called shot at Wrigley Field), in 1935 (a re-match of the 1908 series against the Detroit Tigers, with the Tigers winning this time, their first Series triumph in five appearances dating back to the early 1900s), and in 1938.