Charlie Murphy is written by Jason Cannon. I am a huge baseball fan so I was excited to read this book. I had never heard of Charlie Murphy prior to this story. I really enjoyed the historic details that were in this book. While I am not a Cubs fan, getting to know their history and their growth through Murphy was fascinating. You don't realize how different baseball players lives were back in the early 1900's. This is a great book for any fan of baseball. Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read a copy of this book - all thoughts are my own.

The early history of the Chicago Cubs is very different than the club that is familiar to baseball fans. For one example, they have not always played home games in Wrigley Field on the north side of the city – they were at the West Side Ball Park in the early 20th century when they had their greatest run of success with five consecutive National League pennants and two World Championships. That and many other differences make the era of owner Charlie Murphy very interesting and that comes through in this biography of Murphy by Jason Cannon.

Murphy can be accurately described as an owner who certainly was not like his contemporaries. Acquiring the Cubs for the bargain price (at least to Murphy) of $100,000, Murphy didn’t rest on his remarkable rise from newspaper reporter to a team owner. He immediately immersed himself into the running of the ball club, overseeing much of the operations. He was very active in the trades and personnel of the team, but was also wise enough to leave the managing of the team on the field to the capable hands of Frank Chance, one part of the famous “Tinkers to Evers to Chance” double play team.

Despite Murphy’s connections (his co-owner was Charles Taft, the half brother of President William Howard Taft who was a visitor to a Cubs game) and his ideas for innovation in the game, he eventually gained enemies in both the National League offices (Charles Ebbets of the Dodgers was an especially harsh critic of Murphy) and to his popular players. His poor handling of the contracts with Chance and then Evers for managing the club led to not only bad public relations with Cubs fans but also to his fellow owners and the two league presidents. Believing that he was not helping Organized Baseball, Murphy was forced out in 1913 and the club eventually was sold to Charles Weeghman, who moved them to the north side and started to have the personality of the team we know now.

As for the complete story of Murphy, from his beginnings to his ownership of the Cubs and the fractured relationships at the time of his ouster, Cannon does a very good job of brining him to life to the reader and illustrating an accurate picture of the business side of the game at that time. Cannon doesn’t stope when Murphy’s time in baseball was done, however, as he also informs the reader about Murphy’s ownership of a theatre in his hometown of Willmington, Ohio. The excellent research and detail make it a book that has to be read slowly and carefully, but it will be worth the time as the reader will learn much about the man who was behind the first great era of the Chicago Cubs.

I wish to thank University of Nebraska Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

An excellent biography of the man who made the Cubs. He may be a footnote to history but his stamp on the organization made the Cubs champions, something they could not say again for more than 100 years. The book gave great details on how Murphy ran the Cubs and rankled the magnates at the same time. A great read that I would highly recommend.

A truly interesting autobiography on the man who started the Chicago Cubs fame. He was fiery, misunderstood and a true innovator for baseball. What he achieved during his ownership of the Cubs was fantastic and some of the players he had on the team are all-time greats in baseball. A must read for the die hard Cub fans!

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.