M. Brown Cubs Shirt

Mordecai Peter Centennial "Three Finger" Brown (1876–1948) lost most of his right index finger and the use of two others to a childhood farm-machinery accident, and turned the resulting grip into one of the National League's nastiest curveballs. A switch-hitter who threw right, he anchored the Chicago Cubs rotation through the franchise's championship run, winning twenty or more games every year from 1906 through 1911 and beating Christy Mathewson in head-to-head matchups often enough to make the rivalry national news. The T206 "Cubs Shirt" card depicts him in plain Chicago flannels — one of his several poses in the foundational 1909–1911 White Border tobacco set. He won twenty-six games for the 1908 World Series champions and another twenty-seven the following year, finishing his career with a 2.06 ERA that ranks among the lowest in the live-ball record book despite his having never thrown a live-ball pitch. Brown died February 14, 1948 in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1949.