Chicago Cubs Story of a Curse

A captivating blend of reportage and memoir exploring the history of the Chicago Cubs

For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the Cubs have always been more than a team: they ve been the protagonists of a King Arthur epic, in search of the Holy Grail that is winning the World Series.

A chronicle of the last few miraculous seasons as experienced through the prism of Cubs history, The Chicago Cubs tracks the famous curse, which was placed on the team in 1945 by the infamous owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, who was ejected from Wrigley Field when he tried to bring his goat into the grandstand for the fifth game of the World Series. He vowed the team would never get back to the championship. And they hadn t until now.

Cohen follows the Cubs early days as the first powerhouse baseball team, winners of the 1907 and 1908 World Series; their storied players, such as Billy Sunday, the second baseman who became the most popular preacher in America; their old stadiums; their owners, from the chewing gum magnate William Wrigley to Thomas Ricketts, director of Ameritrade; and their time between the two World Wars all of it leading up to the momentous 2016 World Series appearance and the breaking of the famed curse. A captivating blend of reportage and memoir, drawing on Cohen s extensive interviews and travels with recent Cubs players, owners, and coaching staff, The Chicago Cubs is a portrait not only of a team but also of a city, a game, and what it means to be a perpetually disappointed fan who is finally rewarded.

A captivating blend of reportage and memoir exploring the history of the Chicago Cubs

When Rich Cohen was eight years old, his father took him to see a Cubs game. On the way out of the park, 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." As a result, Cohen became not just a Cubs fan but one of the biggest Cubs fans in the world. In this book, he captures the story of the team, its players and crazy days. Billy Sunday and Ernie Banks, Three Finger Brown and Ryne Sandberg, Bill Buckner, the Bartman Ball, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo--the early dominance followed by a 107 year trek across the wilderness. It's all here--not just what happened, but what it felt like and what it meant. He searches for the cause of the famous curse. Was it the billy goat, kicked out of Wrigley Field in Game 5 of the 1945 World Series, or does it go back further, to the very origins of the franchise? Driven mad with futility, he went on the road with the team in search of answers, interviewed great players present and past, researched in libraries but also in the bleachers, double-fisted, a frosty malt in each hand, demanding answers. He came to see the curse as a burden but also as a blessing. Cubs fans are unique, emissaries from a higher realm, warning of hubris and vanity. The blue cap with the red C said, "My Kingdom is not of this world." He interviewed the architects of the 2016 Cubs, the team that broke the curse. Here's what he asked: How the hell did you do it? He was at (almost) every game of the 2016 playoff run--a run that culminated in (maybe) the single greatest baseball game ever played. He was excited but also terrified. Losing is easy. What would it mean to win? Wearing a Yankees hat meant corporate excellence. Wearing a Mets hat meant miracles. But wearing a Cubs hat meant loving the game on its most humdrum afternoon--September 13, 1979, say, 14 games out of first place, Larry Bittner driving in Ivan DeJesus. Would we lose that? Would being a Cubs become ordinary? A mix of memoir, reporting, history and baseball theology, this book, forty years in the making, has never been written because it never could be--only with the 2016 World Series can the true arc of the story finally be understood.

The New York Times bestselling author of Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football "knocks it out of the park" (Vanity Fair) in this captivating blend of sports reportage and memoir, exploring the history of the 2016 World Series champions, the Chicago Cubs.

Now a New York Times bestseller

When Rich Cohen was eight years old, his father took him to see a Cubs game. On the way out of the park, 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."

Cohen became not just a Cubs fan but one of the biggest Cubs fans in the world. In this book, he captures the story of the team, its players and crazy days. Billy Sunday and Ernie Banks, Three Finger Brown and Ryne Sandberg, Bill Buckner, the Bartman Ball, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo--the early dominance followed by a 107 year trek across the wilderness. It's all here, in The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse--not just what happened, but what it felt like and what it meant.

Featuring extensive interviews with players, owners, and coaches, this mix of memoir, reporting, history, and baseball theology--forty years in the making--has never been written because it never could be. Only with the 2016 World Series can the true arc ofthe story finally be understood.