Cubs Need 10 Innings to Win 10,000th

By Benjy Lipsman in News on Apr 24, 2008 3:12PM

For a team with the "lovable losers" nickname, there has certainly been some winning over the past 130-plus seasons. On Wednesday, the Cubs became only the second major league franchise to reach the 10,000 win mark, beating the Colorado Rockies 7-6 in 10 innings.

Only the New York/San Francisco Giants have previously reached the 10k win mark. And amazingly, the Cubs even have an overall winning record! The team currently stands at 10,000-9,465 -- a .513 winning percentage. We were certain that when we heard they'd won 10k, that they'd surely lost at least 12k. Our bad! The White Sox currently have 8383-8191 franchise record since 1901 (.506).

The Cubs' pace of winning has certainly slowed in recent decades, though. The Cubs won their first game on April 25, 1876, and reached 5,000 on July 19, 1940. That means it took the Cubs 64 years to reach 5,000 wins, and another 68 to win the next five grand -- in spite of longer 162-game seasons since 1961.

Of course, all the wins in the world don't mean much to Cubs fans who only want to see a World Series title within their lifetime -- the only fans who can currently claim that sport triple-digit ages.