Before the Ivy: The Cubs' Golden Age in Pre-Wrigley Chicago

by Laurent Pernot

Overview

All Cub fans know from heartbreak and curse-toting goats. Fewer know that, prior to moving to the north side in 1916, the team fielded powerhouse nines that regularly claimed the pennant. Before the Ivy offers a grandstand seat to a golden age:

BEHOLD the 1871 team as it plays for the title in nine different borrowed uniforms after losing everything in the Great Chicago Fire

ATTEND West Side Grounds at Polk and Wolcott with its barbershop quartet

MARVEL as superstar Cap Anson hits .399, makes extra cash running a ballpark ice rink, and strikes out as an elected official

WONDER at experiments with square bats and corked balls, the scandal of Sunday games and pre-game booze-ups, the brazen spitters and park dimensions changed to foil Ty Cobb

RAZZ Charles Comiskey as he adopts a Cubs hand-me-down moniker for his team's name

THRILL to the poetic double-play combo of Tinker, Evers, and Chance even as they throw tantrums at umpires and punches at each other

CHEER as Merkle's Boner and the Cubs' ensuing theatrics send the team to the 1908 World Series

Rich with Hall of Fame personalities and oddball stories, Before the Ivy opens a door to Chicago's own field of dreams and serves as every Cub fan's guide to a time when thoughts of "next year" filled rival teams with dread.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252080289
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	01/20/2015
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Born and raised in France, Laurent Pernot came to the U.S. as a Chicago-area foreign-exchange student in 1988 and caught ’89 Cubs playoff fever. He is the executive vice chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, and lives in the city with his wife Jennifer and sons Gabriel, Luca and Leo.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 From Little English Acorn to Giant American Oak 5

2 The Baseball Frontier 10

3 Chicago's Hired Guns 17

4 The Phoenix 24

5 Chicago's Own League 31

6 The Birth of a Dynasty 37

7 Keeping the Stockings White 47

8 West Side Home 51

9 The National League Ain't the World 58

10 The Sabbath Battles 62

11 "It Was Straight Whiskey" 67

12 "Mighty Casey Has Struck Out" 73

13 Baseball Missionaries 80

14 The Lean Years 84

15 Back to the West Side 87

16 From Colts to Cubs 92

17 The Saddest of Possible Words? 99

18 "The Fellows Who Made the Game" 110

19 Out in Left Field? 122

20 Again, Chicago is Champion 130

21 Covering the Bases 136

22 Three More Pennants 139

23 Going, Going 151

24 Gone 156

Appendix A About the Ballparks 159

Appendix B The Team through the Decades 161

Notes 165

Bibliography 187

Index 193