A fantastic love letter to the Chicago Cubs doubling as a baseball history tome. The book really shines when it’s deep diving into the history of the sport.

Fabulous book with great insight.i thoroughly enjoyed reading this Book. May even consider reading it again. Thank you

This book was interesting, but a few factual errors that will definitely be noticed by fans detracted from the content.

The most paradoxical sports team in the U.S. would have to be the Chicago Cubs. For the last century, the Cubs have alternated between being unlucky and complete incompetence. The 108 year gap between World Series championships is, by far, the longest of any Major League team. And yet, no American team in any sport commands the loyalty that the Lovable Losers do. For years, the Cubs have been the most profitable Major League team, no matter their position in the standings.
As a Cardinal fan,I was always happy to have the worst team in the National League in our division. It meant several easy wins each season. But all that changed in 2016, when the perennial doormat became the dominant NL team, winning the Series in a dramatic, seventh game.
This transformation and the long run up to it are the subjects of Rich Cohen’s The Chicago Cubs: Story of a Curse. Cohen, the co-creator of the HBO series, Vinyl has suffered along with hoards of other Northsiders since he was a kid. Cohen effectively interweaves his personal love affair with the history of his team.
Most poignant are the chapters on the 1984 season when the Cubbies won 96 games and their division only to fall to the lowly San Diego Padres, 3-2 in the League Championship Series.
Cohen places much of the blame on the team’s long series drought on team owners, William Wrigley and his son, Philip. Neither man was willing to spend the kind of money needed to field a top-notch team. Instead they promoted the stadium. Wrigley Field as a great place for Chicagoans to spend a summer afternoon. Their scheme worked, as fans filled the ivy-covered stadium year after year.
The trend continued when the Chicago Tribune took over ownership. Airing Cub games on their satellite TV station, WGN, guaranteed them a profit and mitigated any incentive to spend cash improving the line up.
Cohen also blames the fans for the team’s long post-season absence. Their loyalty meant that owners could get away with fielding second-rate teams year after year.
Many Cub fans, though, put the blame squarely on a goat. In 1945, a bar owner brought his mascot, a billy goat to the game. Upon being ejected by management, the tavern owner declared that the Cubs would not win until the goat was allowed back into the stadium, The Cubs made it to the Series that year but lost in seven games to Detroit. It would be 71 years before the Cubs would be back in the Series.
It was only after the Tribune sold the Cubs to a group lead by investment banker, Thomas Ricketts, that the team began the turnaround that led to the 2016 victory. The chapter on how Ricketts broke traditions and revamped the team is the most enlightening part of the book.
But Cohen’s book isn’t just a straightforward history of the Cubs. He makes room for short biographies of the many colorful characters who wore the Cub’s uniform over the last century.
There is, of course, Mr Cub himself, Ernie Banks. Banks was , undoubtedly the greatest major leaguer to never play in a post-season game. Bank’s charm and enthusiasm for the game brought many fans out to cheer him on. But the fans love of Banks made the front office reluctant to let him go after his baseball skills declined.
There is also the tragic story of Grover Alexander, a talented pitcher who was sent to fight in France during World War I. He returned alcoholic, shell-shocked and subject to epileptic seizures, He nevertheless came back to the Cubs and proved and effective pitcher until his erratic behavior and frequent absences led the team to trade him. Alexander would end up dying alone in a cheap hotel room in 1950.
The volume concludes with a detailed retelling of the 2016 series championship between the Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, another team with a long World Series drought. Cohen, who attended game seven, adds a number of details that only an in-person observer would notice.
After blowing a 5-1 lead, the Cub’s collapse is halted by rain. Cohen wanders around the soggy stadium wondering the Cub’s curse is real. What happened after the rain stopped is like something out of a 1930s B-movie. Anyone who missed the game or has forgotten the conclusion to the series would do well to read Cohen’s account.
These and other stories make The Chicago Cubs an ideal volume for any baseball fan or anyone interested in Chicago and its history.

Chicago Cubs by Rich Cohen is another memoir/history hybrid that takes the reader through the often tortured history of the Chicago Cubs-even though its really the fans whom they have tortured over the years. It’s similar to George Will’s book on Wrigley Field that came out a couple of years ago. Like the best baseball books, it’s lighter and it’s prose passes like the summer day in which the Cubs play baseball. Books about the Cubs have a special life or energy about them that make them transcend baseball books and I’m happy to say that Rich Cohen’s contribution fits the bill.

As a Chicago Cubs fan since the mid-1960’s, one who has read several hundred baseball books, I’m not often impressed by many new baseball books but this one was absolutely terrific.

Author Rich Cohen provides an interesting look at Cubs history but really starts to shine when he talks about the Cubs from that ill-fated year, 1969, and on, but especially when he talks about the magical 2016 championship year.

The book is filled with great stories from Ernie Banks and other Cub greats but I especially liked those stories he recounts from his own lifetime of Cubs fandom.

Very impressive and highly recommended!!

It's almost a cliche, if you are a Cubs fan your life is one of disappointment, all because of The Curse. In the exploration of the history of the Cubs, Cohen, a life-long cubs fan, explores what made them bad as well as the whole question of whether there is a curse or not.

I loved the insights into historical baseball, the history of the Cubs and his portraits of many players and games. All this makes the book worthwhile but the last third of the book concentrates on the current Cubs: their owner, GM, and players. Cohen looks at how they built the team, the philosophy behind it, and, of course, their take on The Curse.

And the book has a happy ending, finishing up with detailed descriptions of the 2016 play-offs and World Series.

If you like baseball, you'll love this book.

Rich Cohen will be at the Bookstall on Thursday, Oct. 5 at 6:30pm to promote his new book, THE CHICAGO CUBS: STORY OF A CURSE. This is a fun and yet, in-depth look at the history of franchise written by an avid fan who has also crafted several New York Times bestsellers and is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Cohen affectionately traces the history of the Cubs from the very beginning of the franchise to their recent World Series win. Sixteen pages of black and white photos with images of Harry Caray, Wm. Wrigley, Jr. and Joe Maddon plus famous Cubs (Chance, Santo, Banks, Sandberg, Baez, Bryant and more) are included. But Cohen's personal story – a fan since the mid 70's when he was 8 years old - adds greatly to the charm of this book. THE CHICAGO CUBS received a starred review from Booklist.

This is good , an insight into a club and a fan and his relationship with the club . Its almost fever pitch for an american without some of the literary touches . I want to sometimes have my wife understand why i like sport this would help

Two words if you’re a baseball fan: Read It! Four words if you’re a Cub fan: Read It Right Now!

Nearly every person, baseball fan or not, knows about the Chicago Cubs ending their 108-year “curse” by winning the 2016 World Series. Much has been written and said about the curse, the team and their magical season. Now comes a book that not only talks about 2016, but the author’s odyssey into discovering why there was such a curse and why he, as a Cubs fan, was so engrossed in finding the cause.

Rich Cohen’s fandom for the Cubs began when he was eight years old and continued strong. In this book that is part memoir, part storytelling and part reporter, he tells of his times at Wrigley Field, about the history of the Cubs from their very successful early years to the various experiences that proved the franchise was cursed (the billy goat in 1945, the black cat at Shea Stadium in 1969, the ground ball through Leon Durham’s legs in 1984, Steve Bartman in 2003 and so on…) and just what it is like to be a Cubs fan.

The book is chock full of humorous lines and passages. He compares the current general manager, Theo Epstein, to a mountain climber. After Epstein led the Cubs to the championship after leading the Boston Red Sox to end their own curse in 2004, Cohen said that Epstein moved to Chicago “as a climber will move from Everest to K2.” Also, the new video boards at Wrigley Field that tamed the famous swirling winds are “Thorazine for Wrigley’s schizophrenia.” Lines like these kept me chuckling through the book.

As for fandom, he states that being a Cubs fan makes one “different, special, better” and that other teams’ fans were “shallow.” He also doesn’t believe a Cubs fan will only talk about 1908 or 2016. He states that the typical Cubs’ fan experience is illustrated in a game during the 1979 season in which the Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Cubs 23-22 on a windy May afternoon. There was a throw that hit a batboy, who was knocked out, or so the legend states. Whether or not it was true, Cohen uses that game and story to illustrate what it is like to be a fan.

Of course, the book’s high point for the reader is the 2016 World Series and this section is written much like how an excited fan (albeit a fan with a press pass and who is writing a separate article on the actor Chris Pratt) would write. The reader who wants just the facts and highlights of the games will come away less than satisfied, but the reader who wants to “feel” the experience will enjoy this portion the best. Especially if that reader is a Cubs fan.

This is an entertaining book that any Cubs fan will want to add to his or her library. Even if the reader is a fan of one of the other 29 teams, or even not a baseball fan, it is worth the time to read for entertainment purposes as the book will do that as well.

I wish to thank Farrar, Straus and Giraux for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.