Chicago's 10 Greatest Teams
Note: Until 1986, the hockey team's name was always written as 2 words: "Black Hawks." But then the team's original charter was found, and it was discovered that it had been written as 1 word, "Blackhawks." They pointed this out to the NHL, and so they have been 1 word, "Blackhawks," ever since. This list will reflect that.
Honorable Mention to the 1876-86 Chicago White Stockings, forerunners of the Cubs. In 11 seasons, they won 6 National League Pennants. But with all of the rule changes since then, it's difficult to say how these players would have done in the modern era.
Honorable Mention to the 1929-38 Chicago Cubs. Every 3 years, they won a Pennant: 1929, 1932, 1935 and 1938. They weren't necessarily bad in between, just up against tough teams: They finished 4 games behind in 1928, 2 in 1930, 6 in 1933, 5 in 1936, and 3 in 1937.
But in those 4 Pennant seasons, they won just 3 World Series games -- as many as they would win in their next World Series, 1945. And then... And then, talk of goats, black cats, bad calls, too many hot day games, glaring errors, and inattentive fans.
Honorable Mention to the 1969-73 Chicago Cubs. So much is made of their 1969 run and their "September Swoon," falling from 9 1/2 games ahead of the New York Mets to 8 games back by season's end.
Did you know the Cubs finished closer in 1970, only 5 games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates? And only 5 games back in 1973, again to the Mets? I guess Pittsburgh isn't as juicy a story as New York; and, by 1973, the Mets doing something big was no longer a novelty. The Cubs also finished 2nd to the Pirates in 1972, but 11 games out. And they were in 1st place in the All-Star Break in 1977 -- the 1st time both the Cubs and the White Sox could truthfully claim that in the same season. But their dropoff was worse than the White Sox' was.
Honorable Mention to the 1984-89 Chicago Cubs. It's not really right to put these NL Eastern Division winners together, since they never topped 77 wins in the 4 seasons in between. But they're the only times the Cubbies reached the postseason between 1945 and 1998.
Honorable Mention to the 2003-08 Chicago Cubs. After a Wild Card berth in 1998, it looked like the Cubs might finally get it done in 2003, as they won a postseason series for the 1st time in 95 years, beating the favored Atlanta Braves in the NL Division Series.
They led the Florida Marlins 3 games to 1 in the NL Championship Series. Dropping Game 5 in the Miami suburbs wasn't a big deal, because the next 2 games were at Wrigley Field. And... Let the record show that the Cubs could have won Game 7, and were winning after 4 innings. Had they held that lead, the disaster of Game 6 would have been a footnote in baseball history.
They won 89 games in 2004, tailed off in 2005, were lousy in 2006, but won the Division in 2007 and 2008, though they got swept in the NLDS both times.
Honorable Mention to the 1901-08 Chicago White Sox. The American League entry adopted the White Stockings name upon their founding, and shortened it to "White Sox" in 1903 -- 4 years before the Boston team made their name "Red Sox."
The team also nicknamed the ChiSox, the South Siders and the Pale Hose won the 1st AL Pennant in 1901, finished 6 games back in 1904, just 2 back in 1905, won the Pennant and stunned the crosstown Cubs in the World Series in 1906, and finished 5 1/2 back in 1907 and 1 1/2 back in 1908, before they started to get old.
The next great White Sox team would be the biggest story in the history of Chicago sports. Bigger than any Cubs, Bears or Bulls team. That's right, bigger than Michael Jordan. But not for good reasons.
Somewhat Honorable Mention to the 1915-20 Chicago White Sox. After a down period, the ChiSox won 93 games in 1915, but could only get within 9 1/2 games of Boston. They were 2 games out in 1916, and then won 100 games and the World Series in 1917.
At this point, they were already nicknamed the Black Sox, not because of any perceived foulness of play or personal conduct, but because team owner Charlie Comiskey was so cheap! (How cheap was he?) He was so cheap, he made the players pay for their own laundry. And since he already didn't pay them enough, they mostly played in dirty uniforms.
They fell off a bit in 1918, but won the Pennant again in 1919. Now, let's clear something else up: They won 88 games. Their NL opponents, the Cincinnati Reds, won 95 games. True, the White Sox had more Series experience, but a Reds win, presuming everything was on the up-and-up, should not have been considered a big upset, certainly not on the level of 1914, when the Boston Braves swept the defending champion Philadelphia Athletics.
But the Reds did win, and even during the Series, there was talk that the fix was in. Late in September 1920, 8 White Sox players were suspended indefinitely for being in on the fix, and it cost them the Pennant: They finished 2 games behind Cleveland. The players were acquitted of fraud in court, but still banned for life. Losing those players -- 7 of them, anyway, as Chick Gandil, ringleader of the players' side of the fix, had already retired -- dropped them from a 96-win team in 1920 to a 92-loss team in 1921. The Sox didn't come with in 8 games of a Pennant again until 1955.
They were still a good team through the early 1960s, but didn't get close again until 1964, finishing 1 game behind the Yankees. They finished 2nd in 1963, '64 and '65, and then took a 4-way race to the final weekend in 1967, finishing 3 games behind the Red Sox. Then things fell apart, and, twice in the 1970s (despite a near-miss for the AL Western Division title in 1972), they almost moved, They were in 1st place in the AL West for most of 1977, but tailed off in August.
They won the Division in 1983, and were in the race most of the way in 1990, the last season of the old Comiskey Park. They won the Division in 1993, and were leading in the 1st season of the AL Central Division when the Strike of '94 hit. It would take a rebuilding following some trades in 1997 -- then mocked as "the Chicago White Flags" -- but it would work.
Honorable Mention to the 1920-27 Chicago Bears. The NFL's founding team, playing as the Decatur Staleys in Central Illinois in 1920 and the Chicago Staleys in 1921, they were the most feared bunch in pro football. They just missed winning the 1st League title in 1920, got it in 1921, finished 2nd the next 3 years, missed by a whisker in 1926, and came close again in 1927. Over that stretch, they averaged 9-2-2, but only won the 1 title.
Honorable Mention to the 1961-65 Chicago Bears. It was their misfortune to be really good at the same time, and in the same Division (the NFL Western Division), as a contender for the title of the greatest team in NFL history, the 1960s Green Bay Packers of Vince Lombardi.
But the last great football team built by team (and, for all intents and purposes, NFL) founder George "Papa Bear" Halas went 8-6 in 1961, 9-5 in 1962, and 11-1-2 in 1963, winning the NFL Championship by defeating the New York Giants at a frigid Wrigley Field.
In training camp in 1964, a car crash killed running backs Willie Galimore and Bo Farrington. Galimore looked like he was headed for the Hall of Fame. The Bears only finished 5-9 in 1964. So for 1965, they drafted Gale Sayers. They also drafted Dick Butkus. They went 9-5. But, due to injuries to themselves and others, that rookie season was as close as Sayers and Butkus would ever come to making the Playoffs. At least Bill Wade, Mike Ditka, Bill George and Ed O'Bradovich got that ring from 1963.
Honorable Mention to the 2005-10 Chicago Bears. The Lovie Smith and Rex Grossman years: 3 NFC North titles in 6 years, and the 2006 NFC Championship, are nothing to sneeze at. And they did have their chances in Super Bowl XLI against the Indianapolis Colts. But it never happened for this team, the closest they've come to a title since the Super Bowl Shuffle.
Honorable Mention to the 1920-25 Chicago Cardinals. Playing out of the White Sox' Comiskey Park, they were 6-2-2 in the NFL's 1st season, 1920. Had there been Playoffs in 1922 and 1923, they would have made it then, too. In 1925, they won the NFL Championship under questionable circumstances, although the NFL has never taken 93 years' worth of protests by the Pennsylvania-based Pottsville Maroons seriously. But the Cardinals only had plus-.500 records in 2 of the next 20 seasons.
Honorable Mention to the 1946-49 Chicago Cardinals. After winning only 12 games in the preceding 8 seasons -- just 1 in the preceding 3 -- the Cards got good again, going 6-5 in 1946, before going 9-3 and winning the NFL Championship in 1947, beating the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL Championship Game. They had their best record ever in 1948, going 11-1, but, this time, they lost to the Eagles in the NFL Championship Game -- and haven't won a title since. They went 6-5-1 in 1949, and then had just 2 plus-.500 seasons in the next 12 years.
The Cardinals moved to St. Louis in 1960 and Phoenix in 1988. The Arizona Cardinals beat the Eagles in the 2008 NFC Championship Game, to advance to Super Bowl XLIII, their 1st NFL Championship Game under any name in 60 years, but lost.
Honorable Mention to the 1946-50 Chicago Stags. They made the Playoffs in the 1st 4 seasons of the NBA, and won the Western Division Championship to make the 1st NBA Finals in 1947, where they lost to the Philadelphia Warriors. But they were folded in 1950, despite going 40-28 and reaching the round of 8. No Chicago basketball team would reach the NBA Finals again until 1991.
Honorable Mention to the 1966-75 Chicago Bulls. These were the 1st 9 seasons of the team's history, and they made the Playoffs in 8 of them. But only in 1974 and 1975 did they win a Playoff series, and only in 1975 did they win a Division title, the Midwest Division.
They won only 1 Playoff series from 1975 to 1990, and wouldn't win their Division again until 1991. For a long time, that 1 Bulls banner from 1975 looked very lonely in the rafters at Chicago Stadium, compared to all those Blackhawks banners.
Honorable Mention to the 2004-15 Chicago Bulls. The fall from grace after Jerry Krause broke up the Michael Jordan team was hard: Over the next 6 seasons, their overall place in the Eastern Conference was 15th out of 15, 15th, 15th (bottoming out in 2000-01 with 15-67), 15th, 12th and 14th.
But then they got good again, making the Playoffs in 10 of the next 11 years. They won Central Division titles in 2011 and 2012. They won Playoff rounds in 2007, 2011, 2013 and 2015. In 2011, they reached the Conference Finals for the 1st time in 13 years, before smacking into the Miami LeBrons. Still, while the Bulls haven't scared anybody in 20 years, they are no longer a joke team that used to be great.
Honorable Mention to the 2013-16 Chicago Sky, who made the WNBA Playoffs 4 straight seasons, reaching the Finals in 2014.
Honorable Mention to Loyola University Chicago, whose Ramblers basketball team won the 1963 National Championship, and reached the Final Four again earlier this year.
Honorable Mention to DePaul University, whose Blue Demons made the Final Four in 1943 and 1979.
Honorable Mention to the 1969-73 Chicago Black Hawks. They won 4 straight NHL Western Division regular-season titles, reached the Stanley Cup Semifinals every season, and reached the Finals in 1971 and 1973.
They won 4 Smythe Division titles in 5 years from 1976 to 1980, but never got past the Quarterfinals. They won 2 more Division titles in the 1980s, and 3 more in the 1990s. They reached the Playoffs' round of 4, under varying names, in 1974, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1992, and 1995; and the Stanley Cup Finals in 1992.
But from 1995 to 2009, they didn't win a single Playoff series; from 1997 to 2008, they were in a grand total of 5 Playoff games, and lost 4 of them. Then owner Bill Wirtz died, and his son Rocky rebuilt them, and they became a great team again.
Honorable Mention to the Chicago Sting. They won the Central Division of the North American Soccer League in 1976, 1980, 1981 and 1984; and won the League title, the Soccer Bowl, in 1981 and 1984 -- making them the last NASL Champions.
Honorable Mention to the 1998-2006 Chicago Fire. In their 1st season, 1998, they won American soccer's "Double," both the MLS Cup and the U.S. Open Cup. They won the Open Cup again in 2000; the Open Cup and the MLS regular-season title, the Supporters' Shield, in 2003; and the Open Cup again in 2006.
Now, the Top 10:
10. 2000-08 Chicago White Sox. The Pale house won the Al Central in 2000, finished 3rd in 2001, and finished 2nd 3 straight seasons. Then came 2005: They won 99 games, most of any Chicago baseball team since the '35 Cubs, and they did something only the 1999 Yankees had done since the expansion of the Playoffs for the 1995 season: They went through the postseason 11-1, sweeping the Red Sox, dropping Game 1 of the AL Championship Series to the Los Angeles Angels before taking 4 straight, and then sweeping the Houston Astros (then in the NL), thus winning their 1st Pennant in 46 years, and the 1st World Championship for any Chicago baseball team in 88 years.
The 90 games they won in 2006 was only enough to finish 3rd. They had a bad year in 2007, but made a big comeback (helped by a Detroit Tigers choke) to take the Division again in 2008.
9. 2015-17 Chicago Cubs. Let's put sentiment aside here: This is the greatest story in the history of Chicago sports, but not the greatest team -- yet. They could yet add to this.
There is no publicly-known evidence that the current bunch of Cubs have used performance-enhancing drugs. And they're not headhunters. So they don't appear to be cheating. Therefore, this, not anything he did in Boston, is Theo Epstein's masterstroke.
The Cubs won the Wild Card in 2015, and got all the way to the NLCS, before they let the Mets walk all over them in 4 straight. Determined not to let that happen again, they won 103 games in 2016, most of any Chicago team since 1907. They beat the San Francisco Giants in the NLDS. They beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS, for their 1st Pennant in 71 years.
That would have been enough for a lot of people. Not for the 2016 Cubs. Just when it looked like they might blow a 3-games-to-2 lead in Cleveland, they hung on and beat the Indians to win Game 7, and win their 1st World Championship in 1908.
They won the Division again last year, but lost the NLCS to the Dodgers. They are in 1st place in the NL Central as I write this, so there may be more to come.
8. 1960-67 Chicago Black Hawks. Not the most accomplished team in franchise history, but possibly the most talented. With Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita on the forward line, Pierre Pilote in defense, and Glenn Hall, so good he was known as Mr. Goalie, between the pipes, in 7 years, the Hawks made the Playoffs every season (that was a big deal at the time), won the 1961 Stanley Cup, made the Finals again in 1962 and 1965, and, in 1966-67, for the 1st time in team history (there was even a supposed "curse" about this), finished 1st overall in the NHL standings.
The team that reached the Finals in 1971 and 1973 was already a different team, especially after Hull left for the WHA in 1972.
7. 1984-91 Chicago Bears. This was a team built in the image of its head coach, Mike Ditka, the former Bears star who practically invented the position of tight end. It was tough. It was mean. But it was also talented. And it was also smart. As a result, it could afford to be arrogant.
In 1984, they won the NFC Central Division, but got embarrassed by the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game. So it was Super Bowl or bust for the 1985 season. And, despite a Monday Night Football loss to the Miami Dolphins, it seemed inevitable.
For a single season, it's pretty hard to top the 1985 Bears. They went 15-1. They beat the Giants 21-0 in the Division Playoff. They beat the Los Angeles Rams 24-0 in the NFC Championship. Then came Super Bowl XX, at the Superdome in New Orleans, January 26, 1986. To everyone's shock, the great Walter Payton fumbled on the 1st possession, and the New England Patriots took their chance and kicked a field goal. Maybe that little kick in the complacency was what the Bears needed: By the time the Pats seriously threatened again, it was 44-3. It ended 46-10.
So why didn't the Bears win another title? Defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan decided that he and Ditka couldn't mix, and he sought a head coaching job, getting it with the Philadelphia Eagles. As it turned out, Ryan needed Ditka a lot more than Ditka needed him: During Buddy's tenure in South Philly, the Eagles won just 1 NFC East title and went 0-3 in Playoff games, while the Bears continued to win NFC Central titles, and beat the Eagles in the 1988 Playoffs, the famous Fog Bowl.
Ditka won the NFC Central 6 times in 7 years, and made the Playoffs 7 times in 8 years from 1984 to 1991, before the team got old and his health caught up with him. Yes, "Da Bears" should've won more. But they became one of the most legendary teams in NFL history, and however long Ditka has left to live, he can know that he did that. And Chicagoans can know that he gave it to them.
6. 1933-38 Chicago Black Hawks. After losing in the 1931 Stanley Cup Finals, they had to retool, In 1934, they won the team's 1st Stanley Cup, despite goaltender Charlie Gardiner dealing with an infection that, in those pre-antibiotic days, ended up killing him at age 29 just 2 months after the clinching game.
The Hawks reached the Quarterfinals the next 2 seasons, then missed the 1937 Playoffs. Bill Stewart, who had been an NHL referee and an MLB umpire, was hired as the NHL's 1st American-born head coach, and he put more Americans on his team than had ever been on an NHL team, and it worked: The 1938 Chicago Black Hawks went 14-25-9, but made the Playoffs, and won the Cup, the worst record of any team ever to do so.
The team tailed off after that, making the Finals only once between 1938 and 1961, in 1944.
5. 1932-37 Chicago Bears. What do you get when you have Red Grange and Bronko Nagurski in the same backfield? If it's your team, you've got an embarrassment of riches. If it's the other team, you've got a problem.
The Bears won the 1st NFL Championship Game in 1932, won it again in 1933, and went undefeated in 1934, 13-0, before losing the Championship Game when the Giants found better shoes for a frozen Polo Grounds field. After a dropoff in 1935, the Bears went 9-3 in 1936, and won the NFL Western Division again in 1937, but lost the Championship Game to the Washington Redskins. By the time they reached the title game again in 1940, they were a different team.
4. 1904-13 Chicago Cubs. They won 93 games in 1904, and 92 in 1905, but neither was close enough to get them the Pennant. So in 1906, they won 116 games, a total since matched only once, and never surpassed, in MLB history. But they lost the World Series to the crosstown White Sox.
They left no doubt in 1907, winning 107 and sweeping the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. They had a tough 3-way race with the New York Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1908, and needed to win what amounted to a Playoff with the Giants to take the Pennant. They did, and beat the Tigers again.
They won 104 games in 1909, but it wasn't enough to overcome the Pirates. They won 104 again in 1910, and this time it was enough for the Pennant, although they lost the World Series. Seasons of 92, 91 and 88 wins were not enough to win Pennants, and then the Federal League broke this team up. They won another Pennant in 1918, but were mostly mediocre until the late 1920s. And they didn't win another World Series until well into the 21st Century.
3. 2008-15 Chicago Blackhawks. It's not nice to say this, but the best thing that's happened to the 'Hawks since Hull, Mikita and Hall arrived in the late 1950s is that Bill Wirtz died in 2007. What Rocky Wirtz had to do just to make the team no longer be a joke was massive. That he was able to do that, and to build a champion, makes him perhaps the biggest hero in the team's 92-year history.
In 2009, they made the Conference Finals for the 1st time in 14 years. In 2010, they made their 1st Stanley Cup Finals in 18 years, and won their 1st Stanley Cup in 49 years. They lost in the 1st round the next 2 seasons, but won another Cup in 2013. They reached the Conference Finals in 2014, and made it 3 Cups in 6 years in 2015.
Since then, they've lost in the 1st round twice and missed the Playoffs this year. But I wouldn't definitively say they're done just yet. Joel Quenneville's a good coach, and they've still got Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, and as good a goaltending tandem as the League now has, in Anton Forsberg and Corey Crawford.
2. 1939-50 Chicago Bears. The Bears of the Fighting Forties are the team that led to the coining of the nickname the Monsters of the Midway. George Halas installed Sid Luckman as quarterback and the Basic T Formation as his offensive game plan in 1939, and went 8-3. It wasn't enough to win the Western Division.
The next year, 8-3 was enough to win it, and they went to Griffith Stadium to play the Washington Redskins for the NFC Championship, and it was the greatest destruction in the history of the NFL -- indeed, in the history of major league sports finals anywhere in the world: 73-0. That is not a typographical error: Seventy-three to nothing. (Only 2 regular season games have had a team score 70 points.) If you're a soccer fan, that's like Real Madrid winning the Champions League Final by beating Liverpool 10-0.
The Bears went 10-1 in 1941, and won the title again. They went undefeated in 1942, 11-0, but the Redskins got revenge. The Bears settled things by beating the Redskins in the 1943 Championship Game. After 2 seasons of wartime depletion, the Bears won their 4th title in 7 seasons in 1946.
In 1947 and 1948, they weren't even the best team in Chicago, as the Cardinals made it to the title game both seasons. But they rebounded to be 9-3 in each of the next 2 years. In 1950, they finished tied for 1st with the Rams, who had a 70-21 win over the Baltimore Colts. (The other team to hit 70 in NFL history? In 1966, the Redskins beat the New York Giants 72-41.) The Rams won that game, and the Bears needed to rebuild. But what a legacy they had already built.
1. 1987-98 Chicago Bulls. In 12 seasons, 31 Playoff rounds won, and 8 trips to the Eastern Conference Finals. In 8 seasons, 1990-91 to 1997-98, 6 Central Division titles, 6 Eastern Conference Championships, and 6 NBA Championships.
The 1st 3, 1991-93, were Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright, B.J. Armstrong and John Paxson. The last 3, 1996-98, were Dennis Rodman, Ron Harper, Steve Kerr and Toni Kukoc. All 3 were Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and coach Phil Jackson.
Scott Simon, a Chicago native who hosts a show on National Public Radio, says that the best thing about the Jordan Era Bulls is that, wherever he went in the world, when he said he was from Chicago, people stopped saying, "Ah, Chicago, Al Capone, bang bang!" and started saying, "Ah, Chicago, Michael Jordan!"