The latter of the two parks, where the franchise played for nearly a quarter century, was the home of the first two world champion Cubs teams (1907 and 1908), the team that posted the best winning percentage in Major League Baseball history and won the most games in National League history (1906), the only cross-town World Series in Chicago (1906), and the immortalized Tinker to Evers to Chance double-play combo.

Although the park's useful life turned out to be as short as the ball club's stay at the Lakefront (seven years), it was also memorable, as the team won back-to-back National League pennants in its first two seasons there.

The club spent the first five-plus weeks of the 1885 season on the road,[3] and the park was finally opened on June 6 with a victory over the St. Louis Maroons, late of the Union Association.

The only team that gave them any problem was the New York Giants, who won 10 of the clubs' 16 meetings and finished just two games behind Chicago in the standings.

If projected to a modern 162-game schedule, that translates to 125 and 123 wins, respectively, in a very lopsided league (the third-place club finished 30 games back).

The championships of the 1880s were disorganized in comparison to the modern World Series, exemplified by the 1885 contest, which ended in dispute with no clear winner.

In the reports of the opening game of June 6, 1885, when Chicago player George Gore homered near the right field corner, the St. Louis Maroons complained (or "kicked", in popular slang of the time) that the foul line was shorter than the minimum allowed, 210 ft (64 m).

One paper quoted Chicago club owner Albert Spalding as stating the distance to be 216 ft (66 m), implicitly confirmed by the measurement.

An artist's conception of the new field includes a rooftop tier of private seating on the grandstand, and roofed bleachers beyond first and third base.

Photographs from the early 1900s suggest those plans were left dormant until starting in 1905, when the team began playing well and expansion of the ballpark seating was begun.

Although the 340-560-340 sounds symmetrical, the left field side was much more spacious, and the distance to center was actually very deep left-center, possibly the far corner of the property.

On August 5, 1894, during its first full season as home to the Cubs (at that point known as the Colts), West Side Park suffered severe damage from fire during a game against the Cincinnati Reds.

As the fire spread through the first-base side stands, panicked fans trying to escape pressed up against the barbed wire fence separating them from the playing field.

One highlight, albeit for the visitors, occurred on July 13, 1896, when Philadelphia Phillies outfielder/firstbaseman Ed Delahanty smacked four home runs in one game, only the second player to do so.

In contrast to Bobby Lowe's feat two years earlier, which was aided by a short foul line, two of Delahanty's were inside-the-park.

Behind the home plate stands, the team and ticket offices were housed in a fairly ornate two-story brick building topped with statues of baseball players.

Although the Cubs had one of the most successful seasons in major league history, winning 116 contests against just 36 losses, they were defeated by the light-hitting White Sox four games to two.

The Cubs finally brought a championship to West Side Park the following year when they swept the Detroit Tigers after ending the first contest in a tie.

For 1905, several rows of private box seats were built on top of the original grandstand roof behind home plate.

With gambling becoming an increasing problem in baseball, starting in 1911 the playing field was adorned with large signs (as with some other major league ballparks) reminding both fans and players, "No Betting Allowed."

Four years later, the upstart Federal League placed a franchise on the North Side and began play in Weeghman Park.

When the Federal League collapsed after the 1915 season, Charles Weeghman, owner of the now-defunct Chicago Whales, was allowed to buy a substantial interest in the Cubs.

It even served as a setting for Buffalo Bill's Wild West, thus converting the entire former ballfield into a different kind of "bull pen".

Newspaper reporters commented that the crowd seemed less enthused than they had the previous summer, as if they were getting complacent: "Chicago fans are a peculiar lot...