The Cubs were a strong team throughout the 1930s, including the 1936 season. They were the defending National League champions that May when they traded future Hall of Famer Chuck Klein (a relative disappointment with the Cubs) back to the Phillies for pitcher Curt Davis and a speedy left fielder near the end of his career; Ethan Allen.

Allen anchored left field for the rest of the season--his last year in the majors as a regular. The lifetime .300 hitter did manage to hit .295 for the Cubs, and he stole 12 bases, but it was obvious that he wasn't in the long-term plans for the team. They sold him to the Browns after the season.

But the Ethan Allen story doesn't end there, and it doesn't end with the end of his playing days in 1938. Allen may have had a bigger impact in the world than any other member of the 1936 Cubs. (No, he wasn't the founder of Ethan Allen furniture.)

Three years after he retired from baseball, former Cub Ethan Allen invented the Cadaco-Ellis board game All Star Baseball, which remains the best-selling baseball board game of all time.

Boys who grew up in the 40s, 50s, and 60s surely have fond memories of playing All-Star Baseball. The annual versions of the game were released every year between 1941 and 1993, the year Allen passed away. It wasn't discontinued until shortly thereafter because of competition from new computer games and greatly increased player licensing costs.

Allen wasn't just an entrepreneur after his playing days. He also became a college baseball coach; coaching the mens varsity team at Yale University. Among his players was a skinny first baseman who would go on to become the President of the United States: George Herbert Walker Bush.

He might not have had a big impact on the 1936 Cubs, but Ethan Allen made his mark on America.