Posted By:
Dave STo start...the '18 Cubs were not that good of a team. The NY Giants (1917 winner) had only 3 regulars left on their team by mid-season..and one returning pitcher. The Cubs breezed NOT because they were so good but because all the Giants had gone to war. Keep in mind that the US Gov't. stopped baseball just after Labor Day in '18 with the "Work or Fight" Order. They resumed only after a Gov't order issued a permit to play the Series....
Both Seies teams "went on strike" after Game 4 when they thought the Commissioners were going to cut their WS shares and thought they were playing for nothing. Players were coerced to play Game 5 by Commissioner-hired police reinforcements who were afraid of riots. That game started an hour late...and the majority of the players were supposedly drunk...
The Cubs also ran into some pitcher named Babe Ruth who threw 16 consecutive shutout innings. They just flat-out were not that good of a team! The infamous (ironically!) Fred Merkle was the Cubbies top hitter and RBI-man in 1918! Alexander the Great had gone to War and the pitching staff wasn't much. The team was just over-rated and couldn't handle The Babe, and the whiskey!