Before the Curse

Before the Curse PDF

Author: Randy Roberts

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2012-01-15

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0252093364

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Before the Curse: The Chicago Cubs' Glory Years, 1870–1945 brings to life the early history of the much beloved and often heartbreaking Chicago Cubs. Originally called the Chicago White Stockings, the team immediately established itself as a powerhouse, winning the newly formed National Base Ball League's inaugural pennant in 1876, repeating the feat in 1880 and 1881, and commanding the league in the decades to come. The legendary days of the Cubs are recaptured here in more than two dozen vintage newspaper accounts and historical essays on the teams and the fans who loved them. The great games, pennant races, and series are all here, including the 1906 World Series between the Cubs and Chicago White Sox. Of course, Before the Curse remembers the hall-of-fame players--Grover Cleveland Alexander, Gabby Hartnett, Roger Hornsby, Dizzy Dean--who delighted Cubs fans with their play on the field and their antics elsewhere. Through stimulating introductions to each article, Randy Roberts and Carson Cunningham demonstrate how changes in ownership affected the success of the team, who the teams' major players were both on and off the field, and how regular fans, owners, players, journalists, and Chicagoans of the past talked and wrote about baseball.

Da Curse of the Billy Goat

Da Curse of the Billy Goat PDF

Author: Steve Gatto

Publisher: Protar House, LLC

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 9780972091046

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History and discussion of the legendary Curse of the Billy Goat, the Chicago Cubs' pennant races and World Series games, and baseball's curses.

America's Game

America's Game PDF

Author: Bryan Soderholm-Difatte

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-06-08

Total Pages: 505

ISBN-13: 1538110636

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This comprehensive survey of major league baseball looks at the national pastime’s legendary figures, major innovations, and pivotal moments, from the beginning of the twentieth century through World War II. In America's Game: A History of Major League Baseball through World War II, Bryan Soderholm-Difatte provides a comprehensive narrative of the major developments and key figures in Major League Baseball, during a time when the sport was still truly the national pastime. Soderholm-Difatte details pivotal moments—including the founding of the American League, the 1919 Black Sox scandal, and navigating the Great Depression and two World Wars—and concludes with a chapter examining the exclusion of black ballplayers from the major leagues. Central personalities covered in this book include baseball executives Judge Landis and Branch Rickey, managers John McGraw and Joe McCarthy, and iconic players such as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. America’s Game isn’t simply about celebrating the exploits of great players and teams; it is just as much about the history of Major League Baseball as an institution and the evolution of the game itself. With significant changes taking place in baseball in recent times, this book will remind baseball fans young and old of the rich history of the game.

Merkle's Curse

Merkle's Curse PDF

Author: Jerold Jacover

Publisher:

Published: 2017-05-25

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 9781946977939

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During the summer of 2003, two life-long fans of the Chicago Cubs realized that their favorite team is really cursed. They, and their adult sons, become obsessed with undoing this curse, lest it undermine their team's march to its first World Series in almost sixty years and its first Major League Championship since 1908. Unbeknownst to them, the curse had its origins in an Old Testament prophesy that has had a profound effect on both the history of the world and the game of baseball. In the process, it traces a dark, forbidding path from the Holy Land, through the Roman Empire, medieval Europe, West Africa, and pre-Columbian America, before leaving an imprint on the United States and its national pastime. A story about friends, family, freedom and faith, the reader won't know until the final pages how these die-hard Cub fans were able to solve the mystery of Merkle's Curse.

Haunted Baseball

Haunted Baseball PDF

Author: Mickey Bradley

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2007-08-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1599215810

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Baseball and ghost stories are as American as apple pie. Haunted Baseball combines both with this fun and freaky collection of otherworldly yarns. Collected from baseball players, stadium personnel, umpires, front-office folks, and fans, the tales told here explore the spooky connection between baseball and the paranormal, including Babe Ruth sightings at a former brothel, the Curse of the Billy Goat that still haunts the Chicago Cubs, of hidden passageways within the depths of Dodger Stadium, and of the spirits of legendary stars that inspire modern-day players at Yankee Stadium. We hear why Johnny Damon believes in ghosts, and how the memories of a 9/11 hero inspired Ken Griffey Jr. to hit a home run against the Phillies—a team against which he'd never even gotten a hit! There's the story of how Sam Rice settled a decades-old baseball controversy with a message from beyond the grave, and how the late Roberto Clemente had premonitions of his own death in a plane crash. With a wealth of anecdotes that have never before been told before, the authors present an entertaining and eerie look at our national pastime.

Merkle's Curse

Merkle's Curse PDF

Author: Jerry Jacover

Publisher:

Published: 2008-05

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 9781604629354

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Two Cubs fans and their sons discover their favorite team really is cursed and set out to undo it before it ruins the Cub's chance in the next World Series. Unknown to them, the curse has its origins in an Old Testament prophesy that has affected both the history of the world and the game of baseball.

Essential Cubs

Essential Cubs PDF

Author: Doug Myers

Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 9780809226108

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This informative and entertaining review of more than 100 years of Chicago Cubs baseball is a grand slam for any Cubs fan. Myers covers the most memorable moments, greatest performances, and oddest quirks in the team's history.

My Summer as a Cub

My Summer as a Cub PDF

Author: R. Rathbone Leonard

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2011-09-22

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1456794116

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Lenny Puddock writes of his experiences as a Chicago Cub during the 2011 baseball season. Puddock is a 32-year-old physical therapist for the Indianapolis National Institute of Fitness and Health who attended Randy Hundleys Fantasy Camp. Part of the Fantasy Camp experience is his developing friendship with Gertrude Castellano, a waitress who becomes a singing star. They romance at a distance. Puddock is invited to the Cubs Spring Training after an outstanding performance at the Camp. The Cubs offer him a contract with the Daytona Class A team and he accepts. Puddock is moved up to Class AA Tennessee in mid-May and is called up to the Cubs in mid-July. He was batting .378. In mid-August Mike Quade resigns as manager. Ryne Sandberg, who had an escape clause in his contract with a Phillies Minor League team, becomes the Cubs manager. When Puddock joined the parent club, the Cubs were 10 games out of first place. By the end of August they are four from the Wild Card spot. In the waning days of August the roster was two short due to injuries. Sandberg did not want to disrupt the Iowa or Tennessee playoff-bound teams, so he activated Greg Maddux and himself, thinking the roster had to contain the maximum 25 players. Plans were to activate two players before the August 31 midnight deadline but due to an interns goof not recognizing the difference in Eastern Standard Time and Central Standard Time, the move came too late. In essence the Cubs would have only a 23-player Post-Season roster. The Cubs win their Division and League playoffs and enter World Series for the first time in 76 years. In an amazing ninth inning of the seventh game, the Cubs win the Series.

The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik

The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik PDF

Author: David Arnold

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2019-05-21

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 0425288870

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"As he did in his fantastic debut Mosquitoland, David Arnold again shows a knack for getting into the mind of an eccentric teenager in clever, poignant fashion." —USA Today This is Noah Oakman → sixteen, Bowie believer, concise historian, disillusioned swimmer, son, brother, friend. Then Noah → gets hypnotized. Now Noah → sees changes: his mother has a scar on her face that wasn’t there before; his old dog, who once walked with a limp, is suddenly lithe; his best friend, a lifelong DC Comics disciple, now rotates in the Marvel universe. Subtle behaviors, bits of history, plans for the future—everything in Noah’s world has been rewritten. Everything except his Strange Fascinations . . . A stunning surrealist portrait, The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik is a story about all the ways we hurt our friends without knowing it, and all the ways they stick around to save us.

The New York Game

The New York Game PDF

Author: Kevin Baker

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2024-03-05

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 0375421831

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The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • A hugely entertaining history of baseball and New York City, bursting with larger-than-life figures and fascinating stories from the game’s beginnings to the end of World War II. "You’re going to beg for extra innings. Without missing a scandal or a sensation, with an eye on how assimilation transforms the picture, Kevin Baker has written a buoyant, double coming-of-age story. "—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Baseball is “the New York game” because New York is where the diamond was first laid out, where the bunt and the curveball were invented, and where the home run was hit. It’s where the game’s first stars were born, and where everyone came to play or watch the game. With nuance and depth, historian Kevin Baker brings this all vividly back to life: the still-controversial, indelible moments—Did the Babe call his shot? Was Merkle out? Did they fix the 1919 World Series? Here are all the legendary players, managers, and owners, in all their vivid, complicated humanity, on and off the field. In Baker’s hands the city and the game emerge from the murk of nineteenth-century American life—driven by visionaries and fixers, heroes and gangsters. He details how New York and its favorite sport came to mirror one another, expanding, bumbling through catastrophe and corruption, and rising out of these trials stronger than ever. From the first innings played in vacant lots and tavern yards in the 1820s; to the canny innovations that created the very first sports league; to the superb Hispanic and Black players who invented their own version of the game when white baseball sought to exclude them. And all amidst New York’s own, incredible evolution from a raw, riotous town to a new world city. The New York Game is a riveting, rollicking, brilliant ode to America’s beloved pastime and to its indomitable city of origin.