Wrigleyville: A Magical History Tour of the Chicago Cubs

by Peter Golenbock

Book Overview

Based on interviews with players, coaches, fans, and personnel, an oral history of the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field recounts the 1871 founding of the Chicago franchise and the team's ongoing quest for a World Series championship.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312140797
• ISBN13: 9780312140793
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 541 Pages
• Weight: 2.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Wrigelyville Plus

This book is about the Chicago Cubs. But it is not about purely the Chicago Cubs of the Wrigleyville era. So the subtitle A Magical History Tour of the Chicago Cubs is a more accurate title of this book. Some reviews complain that there is not enough coverage of the more recent past.Well I have read Cub histories and other team histories that seem to elaborate on the more recent- what is more familiar. This book contains 498 pages of text. It starts the Cubs History from 1876 through the early 1990's. This book is anthology. Not skimping on the premodern era of 1876 -1899, but includes it. I found each era covered about the same amount of time. the author had a clear goal about writing balance history about the Chicago Cubs. Balance in the sense of covering the whole historically. Yes this book is a promotion for baseball, critical analysis of baseball and socity problems need look elsewhere, but I enjoy getting losed in a good read.

A Great Baseball Book!

Being a baseball fan but not necessarily a Cubs fan, I was a little worried that I might not enjoy this book. But you soon find yourself captured in the history of the Cubs organization. Much of the "corporate" attitude that the Cubs front office holds today was started well before many of us were born. The book is a great historical record of not only the Cubs, but of Major League Baseball itself. Every baseball purist would love this book and it's a must read for any die-hard Cub fan.

Wonderful for any fan

As a life-long Cub fan, I always wanted this book. I finally got it for Christmas a couple years ago and had it finished in 3 days. I was lost in this book, from the early days of the White Stockings, right up to the Ryne Sandberg era. I saw the updated version at a bookstore and had to have it. I've read it countless times, but I always anticipate what's up ahead. Peter Golenbock did a tremendous job!

Only lack of modern history prevents a 5-star rating

I heartily recommend all of Mr. Golenbock's works, Wrigleyville as well as Bums and Fenway. The author shares my passion for the greatest game ever invented, and it is especially heartening that he chose to write about the Cubs. This book shares much of its content with many recent epics about baseball, such as Ken Burns' Baseball, and Our Game by Charles C. Alexander. The relatively recent trend in emphasizing baseball's traditions and history render this book to be judged as a nice find; but if it weren't for the above mentioned books, it would be a treasure. Unlike the above mentioned books, however, the author has chosen a topic that forces him to look away from developments that occurred on the East Coast. I understand that baseball was invented pretty much on the East Coast, and a substantial portion of its history evolved there. But one thing I found maddening about Ken Burns' masterwork was the notion that New York City was the Sun which all the other baseball planets revolved around. Mr. Golenbock, as well, chose first to write about New York and Boston teams. It is to his credit that he has shown the same love and passion in his chronicling of Cubs history, which is every bit as long, involved, and passionate as Dodger or Red Sox history. As I noted above, there is very little attention paid to recent times...as any Cub fan knows, there has been very little to cheer about for the last half century. The author does a admirable job in analyzing the transition from William Wrigley, a baseball man, to his son Phillip, a gum man, and the long term harm on the franchise. I just wish he could have went one step further, to similarly dissect the "cost-benefit" approach the Tribune Company has used since it took over in 1981.

If you grew up with the Cubs, you need to own this book.

I have to admit a bias in that I am an insufferable Cubs fan, one who spent more than a few childhood days at Wrigley Field. Despite that, Golenbock's book enlightened me to things I am ashamed to say I did not know. For instance, I had no idea the Cubs' original name was the White Stockings. I had assumed all along they were the Cubs. That revelation took some getting used to, for if you're a lifelong Cubs fan, you can't admit to accepting anything White Sox. That aside, Wrigleyville isn't exactly filled with heretofore unknown information, but it does go into particular detail about pre-1900s Cubs history that you're unlikely to find anywhere else. Golenbock seems to have spent the bulk of his energy on the pre-WWII period, and appears to assume the reader is already a Cubs fan with post WWII knowledge. That isn't a complaint, merely an observation. The chapters devoted to Cap Anson, Albert Spaulding, Mike Kelly and Frank Chance are filled with stories even Ernie Banks couldn't have known. Which brings me to my next point. While the passages from Dickie Noles, Darold Knowles and Gene Oliver were entertaining, where were Ernie Banks, Jim Hickman, Phil Regan, Joe Amalfitano, Don Kessinger, Paul Popovich, Bill Madlock etc....? The one paragraph attributed to Joe Pepitone appeared verbatim in his own book. However, as someone who grew up with the Cubs since the late Sixties, it was extremely enlightening to hear from Glenn Beckert, Randy Hundley and Ron Santo. That, however, made the dearth of information from Ryne Sandberg, Shawon Dunston, Andre Dawson, Keith Moreland, Leon Durham, Jody Davis and Jim Frey all the more glaring. But please don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be without this book. Until now, the idiosyncrasies of P.K. Wrigley were only a rumor, and while we always had him to blame for the College of Coaches and the Lou Brock trade, I would now like to thank him for holding out on night baseball and thereby adding to the considerable charm of Wrigley Field. One last thing. In light of the recent passing of the legendary Harry Caray, and the obvious reverence in which Golenbock holds him, it is lamentable there isn't more from him here. Golenbock ends the book with what amounts to a mini-tribute to Harry, and since he makes the correct observation that the current editions of the Cubs are synonomous with Harry, it would have been nice to have had him flesh out that concept to its conclusion. Because, to paraphrase more than one interviewee, my idea of Heaven is being at Wrigley Field on a weekday afternoon in July with Grace in the on-deck circle and Harry at the mike, warbling yet another rendition of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" as I order another Old Style and tell the story of how I saw Hank Aaron make the final out for Ken Holtzman's no-hitter in 1969. Ahhh, you can't beat fun at the ol' ballpark....