The Cubs: The Complete Story of Chicago Cubs Baseball » (None)

GLENN STOUT is the author of Young Woman and the Sea, Red Sox Century, Yankees Century, The Dodgers, and The Cubs. He has been the editor of The Best American Sports Writing since its inception.

The definitive narrative history of the Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs have won the hearts of generations of fans, even if they haven’t always won those pivotal games. They were America’s most successful baseball club at the turn of the twentieth century, but by the turn of the twenty-first, things had changed. The Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908, and the last time they clinched the National League Pennant was in 1945. Yet the Cubs have some of the most devoted fans in all of sport. As Glenn Stout writes in the introduction, “They are the game’s last unsolved mystery, the final conundrum, a historical enigma, baseball’s oldest story, with an ending that has yet to be written.” The Cubs chronicles the long, rich, counterintuitive history of this team in all its depth, nuance, and color. We catch a rare glimpse of the early days of Chicago baseball in the 1860s and 1870s and witness the magical 1906 season, with its 116 wins, still the most in major league history. Ernie Banks’s legendary career is covered in detail, as are decisive seasons, such as 1969’s heartbreaking loss to the Amazin’ Mets. Sammy Sosa’s sixty-plus home runs are here too—together with later allegations regarding corked bats and steroids. The authors cast an analytical eye on the tumultuous reign of chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley and his son Philip, as well as the Tribune Company's planned sale of the Cubs. And we hear the true story behind the “Curse of the Billy Goat”—what has really “cursed” the Cubs all these years.
A must-have for Cubs fans past and present, The Cubs tells the complete story in a single narrative for the first time since 1945.

Publishers Weekly

A definitive account of the last remaining team to have gone almost a century without earning a World Series championship, this illustrated team history displays the superb gifts that have graced the authors' similar studies (Yankees Century; The Dodgers). Stout combines skillful writing with methodical research to produce detailed and insightful reporting on the truth behind team myths. (The book is not authorized by the Cubs organization.) He shows how the 1906 Cubs, "perhaps the best club of that time period," won the 1907 and 1908 world championships while also being "underachievers" who quickly collapsed after their championships. He notes long-time owner P.K. Wrigley took almost seven seasons after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers to sign black players. And his account of the 1969 season, when they lost the division title to that year's "Amazin' Mets," deftly shows that the team really wasn't as good as its record looked, with too many wins earned against weaker new expansion teams. Johnson's copious selection of photographs brilliantly displays all Cub eras in their glory and misery, from a cover photo of "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks joyously clicking his heels in Wrigley Field, to a full-page photo of a black cat crossing third baseman Ron Santo's path during a game against the Mets that helped decide the fate of the 1969 season. (Oct. 1)

Acknowledgments xv Introduction xvii

1867–1897 The Captain’s Club 3

1898–1905 “Trio of Bear Cubs” 29

1906–1908 Peerless 47

1909–1918 Dynasty’s End 73

1919–1925 Wrigley In and Wriggling Away 97

1926–1931 And the Last Shall Be First 115

1932–1938 Lights Out 141 Neverland by Richard A. Johnson 152

1939–1945 War Stories 173

1946–1953 Doormats 197 Cubs at Wrigley by William Nack 204

1954–1965 Mr. Cub 223

1966–1968 Here Comes the Sun 249

1969–1971 A Series of Swoons 265

1972–1981 Trials and Tribune-lations 289 A Summer at Wrigley Field by Rick Telander 292 It Was Wrigley, Not Some Goat, Who Cursed Cubs by Mike Royko 310

1981–1984 Big Shoulders 319

1985–1994 Days of Grace and Disgrace 345 The Joke Goes On Forever by John Schulian 362

1995–1998 Say It Ain’t So, Sammy . . . 375 The Meaning of Cubness by Scott Turow 380

1999–2006 CubsWin!!! . . . Doh! 399 There’s No Crying in Baseball by Penny Marshall 414

Appendix A: The Cubs’ Annual Record 431 Appendix B: All-Time Cubs Teams 437 Index 445