From Ernie Banks, the legendary "Mr. Cub," to Sammy Sosa, today's record-setting sensation, "Cubs Nation" traces the history of a team that often had everything going for it and yet was so hampered by losses that it came to define the term "lovable losers."
Dr. Joe Stowell is a Chicago Cubs fan—to the death! For Joe, there is nothing quite like showing up on a bright summer day at the friendly confines of Wrigley Field to cheer the Cubbies on. Cubs fans are so fanatic that they are now called the “Cubs Nation.” To belong to the Cubs Nation means that you belong to something bigger than yourself. What group are "you" passionate about? Do you have your own sports team you’re devoted to? Are you dedicated to a cause? To a set of friends? To a national identity? What cause have you sacrificed your all to and aren't ashamed about it? Is it to a career? To some change in your community? To the defense of an institution or your friends? According to Joe Stowell, there is a bigger revolution happening right under our noses. There is a cause greater than nation, creed, or even a sports team. In his trademark style, Joe Stowell wakes up readers to a revolution of the heart occurring now and transforming our nation—the Jesus Nation.
The New York Times Bestseller With inside access and reporting, Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer and FOX Sports analyst Tom Verducci reveals how Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon built, led, and inspired the Chicago Cubs team that broke the longest championship drought in sports, chronicling their epic journey to become World Series champions. It took 108 years, but it really happened. The Chicago Cubs are once again World Series champions. How did a team composed of unknown, young players and supposedly washed-up veterans come together to break the Curse of the Billy Goat? Tom Verducci, twice named National Sportswriter of the Year and co-writer of The Yankee Years with Joe Torre, will have full access to team president Theo Epstein, manager Joe Maddon, and the players to tell the story of the Cubs' transformation from perennial underachievers to the best team in baseball. Beginning with Epstein's first year with the team in 2011, Verducci will show how Epstein went beyond "Moneyball" thinking to turn around the franchise. Leading the organization with a manual called "The Cubs Way," he focused on the mental side of the game as much as the physical, emphasizing chemistry as well as statistics. To accomplish his goal, Epstein needed manager Joe Maddon, an eccentric innovator, as his counterweight on the Cubs' bench. A man who encourages themed road trips and late-arrival game days to loosen up his team, Maddon mixed New Age thinking with Old School leadership to help his players find their edge. The Cubs Way takes readers behind the scenes, chronicling how key players like Rizzo, Russell, Lester, and Arrieta were deftly brought into the organization by Epstein and coached by Maddon to outperform expectations. Together, Epstein and Maddon proved that clubhouse culture is as important as on-base-percentage, and that intangible components like personality, vibe, and positive energy are necessary for a team to perform to their fullest potential. Verducci chronicles the playoff run that culminated in an instant classic Game Seven. He takes a broader look at the history of baseball in Chicago and the almost supernatural element to the team's repeated loses that kept fans suffering, but also served to strengthen their loyalty. The Cubs Way is a celebration of an iconic team and its journey to a World Championship that fans and readers will cherish for years to come.
This collection of 19 essays examine the role of baseball's Cubs in the history and politics of Chicago. They focus on topics such as the rise of a nationwide fan base through the long reach of superstation WGN; the local uses and views of icons Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, and Ryne Sandberg; historical divides along lines of race (on the field) and class (in the stands); Wrigley Field as a public space both sacred and cursed; the importance of local and nationwide media coverage; and the Cubs' impact on Chicago music and literature.
Chicago in the Roaring Twenties was a city of immigrants, mobsters, and flappers with one shared passion: the Chicago Cubs. It all began when the chewing-gum tycoon William Wrigley decided to build the world’s greatest ball club in the nation’s Second City. In this Jazz Age center, the maverick Wrigley exploited the revolutionary technology of broadcasting to attract eager throngs of women to his renovated ballpark. Mr. Wrigley’s Ball Club transports us to this heady era of baseball history and introduces the team at its crazy heart—an amalgam of rakes, pranksters, schemers, and choirboys who take center stage in memorable successes, equally memorable disasters, and shadowy intrigue. Readers take front-row seats to meet Grover Cleveland Alexander, Rogers Hornsby, Joe McCarthy, Lewis “Hack” Wilson, Gabby Hartnett. The cast of characters also includes their colorful if less-extolled teammates and the Cubs’ nemesis, Babe Ruth, who terminates the ambitions of Mr. Wrigley’s ball club with one emphatic swing.
In the summer of 1932, at the beginning of the turbulent decade that would remake America, baseball fans were treated to one of the most thrilling seasons in the history of the sport. As the nation drifted deeper into the Great Depression and reeled from social unrest, baseball was a diversion for a troubled country—and yet the world of baseball was marked by the same edginess that pervaded the national scene. On-the-field fights were as common as double plays. Amid the National League pennant race, Cubs’ shortstop Billy Jurges was shot by showgirl Violet Popovich in a Chicago hotel room. When the regular season ended, the Cubs and Yankees clashed in what would be Babe Ruth’s last appearance in the fall classic. After the Cubs lost the first two games in New York, the series resumed in Chicago at Wrigley Field, with Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt cheering for the visiting Yankees from the box seats behind the Yankees’ dugout. In the top of the fifth inning the game took a historic turn. As Ruth was jeered mercilessly by Cubs players and fans, he gestured toward the outfield and then blasted a long home run. After Ruth circled the bases, Roosevelt exclaimed, “Unbelievable!” Ruth’s homer set off one of baseball’s longest-running and most intense debates: did Ruth, in fact, call his famous home run? Rich with historical context and detail, The Called Shot dramatizes the excitement of a baseball season during one of America’s most chaotic summers.
After his first Cubs game when Rich Cohen was eight, his father asked him to make a promise. "Promise me you will never be a Cubs fan. The Cubs do not win," he explained, "and because of that, a Cubs fan will have a diminished life determined by low expectations. That team will screw up your life." Here he captures the story of the team, its players and crazy days-- not just what happened, but what it felt like and what it meant. He searches for the cause of the famous curse, and came to see the curse as a burden but also as a blessing.
America seems divided as never before, segregated into political tribes with antithetical beliefs. But are these sides really that different? Does virtue lie at just one political extreme? On what are our political opinions and affiliations based? Is one side correct and the other wrong? Is the divide really a conflict between socialism and capitalism, and if so, what do these ideologies mean and how did they evolve? The Power Matrix attempts to answer these questions graphically using the simple assumption that everything in the universe is based on energy. This basic understanding allows one to construct graphs chronicling how different forms of complexity emerged. Human society is just another complex system that conforms to the laws of nature. Examining the origins and evolution of society allows us to see the modern world in context and explains why our current circumstances are so unique and fragile. Perhaps this perspective will make it easier for Americans and to discover that our friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens who disagree with us are not immoral or ignorant, and that maybe everyone has a unique perspective and something worthwhile to say.
Beginning with the premise that there is no other rivalry in team sports like that between the Cubs and the White Sox this work traces the history of the antagonism (and, at times, open hostility) between the fans of the two clubs. Of special interest is the baseball culture that is fostered in Chicago, as well as a recounting of the memorable on-field moments between the two teams. There are 50 photographs and two essays that deal with the question of bias at the Chicago Tribune.