Chicago Cubs scoring 36 runs in two games? That’s nothing compared to this historic mark

The Chicago Cubs are getting a lot of airtime this week for having run up 36 runs in their Tuesday and Wednesday games at against the Cincinnati Reds.

It’s been widely noted that the total of 36 runs is the most the Cubs have scored in two consecutive games since 1897. The outburst has been impressive and steady: 20 runs followed by 16 more, and both against a fellow divisional contender.

Doing something unprecedented in 126 seasons is worth noting. But this whole discussion, to the extent it hearkens back to the 1897 achievement, does that outburst a disservice. The stretch enjoyed by Chicago a century and a quarter ago is even more remarkable than it sounds for a reason nobody is pointing out.

In June of 1897, the Chicago Cubs didn’t score 36 runs in two games; they scored 36 runs in ONE game. That 36-run outburst remains the all-time single-game scoring record, not just for the Cubs but for all of baseball.

And as amazing as the recent performances of the 2023 Cubs have been, it doesn’t match up to what happened in 1897. Those Cubs actually scored 43 runs in two consecutive games … then went out and scored 13 more in the next game, giving them a total of 56 runs in three games.

Just to match that, the 2023 Cubs would have to pile 20 more runs on the Reds Thursday night.

There are many fascinating nuggets surrounding that 36-run game the team then known as the Chicago Colts unleashed on their opponents, the Louisville Colonels, at West Side Park, the team’s home through 1915. Here are just a few.

• Unlike this week’s Cubs-Reds series, this was not a late-season match of contenders. The ballgame was played on June 29 between teams that stood 10th and 11th in the 12-team National League of that era. Just 50-some games into the season, the Colonels were already 18 games out of first place, the Colts 19.5 back.
• These teams, in short, were bad. Probably as a consequence, the game was played in front of an invitation-only audience of 1,150. Despite all the scoring, the whole thing took only two hours and 15 minutes from first pitch to last out.
• The rules of the day gave the home team (the Colts) the choice of batting first or last. In those days when it was not unusual for a baseball to be kept in play for the entire game, teams often opted to bat first in the desire to get the most pokes at the freshest, least squishy ball. That’s what the Cubs did.
• That decision paved the way for the Colts to score seven times in the eighth inning and eight times in the ninth, even though they already led 28-8 when they came to bat for that final time. Put another way, Chicago built a 21-7 lead and then added on 15 more runs.
• Chicago scored in all nine innings.
• Cubs infielder Barry McCormick batted eight times that afternoon and collected six hits.
• Louisville fielders committed nine errors behind starter Chick Fraser and reliever Jim Jones, leading to 17 of the Colts’ 36 runs being scored as unearned.
• Chicago’s only bona fide star player, 45-year-old player-manager Cap Anson, was about the only Colt who didn’t enjoy a big offensive day. He was held to one hit in four at-bats, although he did add three bases on balls.
• Fraser only lasted into the third inning before being removed, having allowed nine runs. Interestingly, being pulled so early allowed the Colonels to bring him back one day later, and it paid off. On that day, Fraser still allowed Chicago seven runs, but Louisville won an 8-7 decision for him.

The next day, July 1, the Colts welcomed the Pittsburgh Pirates to West Side Park with a 13-5 victory, running their offensive outburst for the three games to 56 runs. In fact, for the seven games between June 29 and the first game of a July 5 doubleheader, the Chicago Colts scored 87 runs, an average of nearly 12.5 runs per game.

Yet when that stretch was over, they were still an 11th-place team. By season’s end, they had risen only to ninth.

Certainly what the 2023 Cubs offense has done in scoring 36 runs in two games against Cincinnati is striking. But it pales by comparison with what their predecessors did in scoring 36 in just one game back in 1897.