Team name changes were fairly common in baseball’s distant past. The Chicago Cubs were originally known as the White Stockings from 1876-1889, then the Colts from 1890-1897, followed by the Orphans from 1898-1902, before finally settling on the Cubs from 1903-present.  The Orphans period comes into play, with the offered 1900 program.



Pre-dating venerable Wrigley Field, this antique program was issued for a game between the Chicago Orphans and the Cincinnati Reds, at West Side Park. Though intersecting compacting folds limit the grade to (VG), this marvelous game day souvenir presents much better, with bold colors, a tight spine, fantastic graphics, and clean supple pages. Topped by a game in progress illustration, front cover advertising includes several products closely related to the game, or the collecting hobby, with Cracker Jack, Nate Moore Salted Peanuts, Pepsin Gum, and the Chicago Inter Ocean newspaper.



The neatly recorded scoring grids list several great players, with Frank Chance, Clark Griffith, Jimmy Ryan, and “Cupid” Childs for the Orphans; and “Wahoo Sam” Crawford, Tommy Corcoran, Mike Smith, Jake Beckley, and “Noodles” Hahn for the Reds. Based on the recorded score of 4-3 in favor of the Reds, this game was played on May 5th, in front of a crowd of 5,000. With such a small number in attendance, there could not have been many of these programs sold that day, and while any surviving program from the 1900 is rare, those linked to a particular game are exponentially tough. Opening Bid $250.