The 1958 Cubs: The contender that could have been...

Ernie Banks at Spring Training, March 10, 1958The other day, I told you the story of the 1975 Cubs, a team that had a terrific offense but finished far down the National League standings due to their atrociously bad pitching staff.

Here’s the tale of another Cubs club from about a generation earlier that had the league MVP in Ernie Banks and several other good hitters that contended briefly but collapsed due to a lack of good pitching.

By the end of the 1957 season the Cubs had failed to contend for over a decade and had just one non-losing season since 1946, a 77-77 year in 1952, when Hank Sauer was NL MVP.

1957 had been yet another in a bad string of seasons for the ballclub. They finished…