Lit fest to host authors of Cubs book
The timing couldn’t have been better scripted.
The Cubs are in the playoffs and the biggest book ever written about the lovable, often laughable organization is hitting the shelves.
Wrigley Field as it appeared for the 1945 World Series. It marked the fifth World Series held at the north side park.
Glen Stout and Richard Johnson, who collaborated on "The Cubs," will take part in several sessions at this weekend’s Midwest Literary Festival in Aurora.
How to Write & Sell Your Magazine Articles: 1 p.m. Saturday in the Meyer D room at North Island Center.
Writing About Sports in Chicago: 2:30 p.m. Saturday in the Meyer D room at North Island Center.
What Makes A Best American Story: 4 p.m. Saturday in the Meyer D room at North Island Center.
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About How to Become a Writer: Noon Sunday in the Marquee Room at North Island Center.
Famous People I Secretly Know: 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the Meyer A room at North Island Center.
Simply called "The Cubs," the 460-page, 4-pound hardcover chronicles the Cubs’ entire history — one that includes 99 years of futility.
“It’s supposed to keep you occupied through the fall,” author Glen Stout said Thursday from his Chicago hotel.
As Stout wrote in the introduction, “(The Cubs) are the game’s last unsolved mystery, the final conundrum, a historical enigma, baseball’s oldest story, with an ending that’s yet to be written.”
Stout and Richard Johnson, who selected the photographs for "The Cubs," spent three years immersed in Chicago history, the lives of Cubs fans, and the surreal environment in and around Wrigley Field.
Stout and Johnson will be in Aurora today through Sunday, talking about their collaboration on the most definitive history of Chicago’s National League team at the fifth annual Midwest Literary Festival.
Thankfully, Stout pointed out, their current book tour, which includes stops and book signings in Chicago, doesn’t completely overlap Cubs games with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“Otherwise,” he said, “we’d be talking to crickets.”
Stout and Johnson also authored numerous award-winning books, including Red Sox Century, Yankees Century and The Dodgers.
"The Cubs," however, proved quite an undertaking. It chronicles the long, rich, counterintuitive history of the team in all its depth, nuance and color.
“We said, ‘Let’s try to bring a new slant on things,’” Johnson said, “and help tell a story that’s never been seen in print before.”
The book includes a rare look at the early days of Chicago baseball in the 1860s and 1870s; the magical 1906 season, with the team’s 116 wins, still the most in major league history; Ernie Banks’ legendary 19-year career as “Mr. Cub”; the tumultuous reign of chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley and his son Philip, as well as the Tribune Company’s planned sale of the team; and the true story behind the “Curse of the Billy Goat” and what has really “cursed” the Cubs all these years.
“We found stories that haven’t been told,” Stout said. “We don’t depend on what other books have said about the team. This book isn’t a valentine to the Cubs, but it’s not a slam-job, either.”
Published by Houghton-Mifflin, the book features hundreds of stunning black-and-white photos and cartoons.
Living just outside Boston, Johnson said he’s “had an affinity for the Cubs for a long time.”
A photo of Banks jumping for joy adorns the cover, and won out over three other photographs selected by Johnson, including shots of Wrigley Field, which Johnson calls “the temple of baseball, the symbol of the team.”
Before submitting his recommendation for the cover, however, an editor approached Johnson with the exact same photo of Banks, and a debate that never started was over.
“It’s hard to think of any team in North American sports where an athlete is more identified with a franchise than Ernie Banks,” Johnson said.
Currently available at all major bookstores and online, "The Cubs" has already drawn rave reviews from critics, award-winning authors and national publications.
“The Cubs are a historian’s team and a writer’s team,” Johnson said. “To document and chronicle a team that’s always had a soft place in my heart was a joy.”