Before Wrigley Became Wrigley: The Inside Story of the First Years of the Cubs? Home Field

by Sean Deveney

Overview

Chicago’s Wrigley Field opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park, the new North Side stadium erected for use by the Federal League’s Chicago team, which would eventually be called the Whales. It was built in just 50 days, with an rectangular shape in the style of New York’s Polo Grounds, designed to fit the odd dimensions of the lot—which formerly housed a seminary school—that Whales owner “Lucky” Charley Weeghman had purchased with a 99-year lease at a little over $300,000. In all, it took $250,000 and a plenty of scrambling to build the park.

That seminal event is at the heart of Before Wrigley: The Inside Story of the First Years of the Cubs’ Home Field . The book will explore the early years of Wrigley Field, when it bore a different name and housed a different team. Sean Deveney has mined documents and resources from baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, as well as the Chicago History Museum, to supplement the reports in newspapers and magazines of the day, giving readers a behind-the-scenes look at origins and birth pangs of the park.

At the center of the Before Wrigley drama is a cast of typically colorful Chicago characters, particularly Weeghman, the young and flamboyant restaurant man who started out in the city as an $8-a-week waiter, eventually became a millionaire baseball magnate, and then lost everything. There’s tightwad owner Charles Murphy, who oversaw the Cubs’ early 20th century dynasty (yes, there was a Cubs dynasty), only to run off his famed infield of Tinkers, Evers and Chance, and be run out of the game himself. There are crooked baseball officials like Ban Johnson and Garry Herrmann, crooked politicians like mayor “Big Bill” Thompson, rogue ballplayers out to make a quick buck or two and, of course, the generally fair and hard-working citizens of Chicago.

Using careful and detailed research, incorporated into the bizarre and gripping narrative of the city, the game and the team in the mid-1910s, Before Wrigley gives Cubs’ fans a rollicking account of their beloved ballpark’s little-explored early days.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613216750
Publisher:	Sports Publishing LLC
Publication date:	04/01/2014
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Sean Deveney has been a writer and editor at Sporting News since 1999, covering all aspects of sports. He has authored four books, including The Original Curse, Facing Ted Williams, and Before Wrigley Became Wrigley.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Cubs and the North Side, Day One 1

Chapter 2 The Chicago Theological Lutheran Seminary Lot 9

Chapter 3 Lucky Charley Weeghman 19

Chapter 4 Charles Webb Murphy 29

Chapter 5 Joe Tinker and the Federal League 41

Chapter 6 Weeghman and the War 53

Chapter 7 Crisis Management 63

Chapter 8 Murphy and Evers 73

Chapter 9 Groundbreaking on the North Side 83

Chapter 10 The Battle of the Dock 93

Chapter 11 "The Fellows from the North Side Were Actuated with Pride" 105

Chapter 12 A Promising Start for the New League 115

Chapter 13 War and Strategy 125

Chapter 14 Lazy Days 137

Chapter 15 Stretch Run, 1914 147

Chapter 16 Peace Foiled 157

Chapter 17 "I Have Just Signed Walter" 171

Chapter 18 Showdown in Judge Landis's Court 181

Chapter 19 The 1915 Season Begins 193

Chapter 20 The Cubs, the Whales, and the Future of Chicago Baseball 205

Chapter 21 A Champion on the North Side 215

Chapter 22 The Cubs Head North 227

Epilogue 237

Notes 244

Bibliography 259

Index 263

Editorial Reviews

03/17/2014
This solid account of the early years of the Chicago Cubs’ beloved Wrigley Field will delight fans who have been looking for a World Series championship since 1908. But what most current fans probably don’t know is that championship was won in the Cubs’ original stadium on Chicago’s West side, not in its the current North Side home in Wrigley Field, which wasn’t built until 1914. Sports writer Deveney (The Original Curse) recounts the Byzantine business, sports, and political stories behind the ballpark’s beginning, which was first named Weeghman Park and was used by the Chicago team of the old Federal League—a “short-lived outlaw circuit” that boldly claimed major-league status and “challenged the dominance of the American and National Leagues.” “Fortune, treachery, and foresight” were all factors in building the park, which is on the former site of the Chicago Theological Lutheran Seminary. Deveney gives an excellent and thoroughly detailed account of the “winding path” that led the Cubs to that piece of land, including the likes of Charlie Weeghman, a flamboyant millionaire who first saw the possibility of baseball success on the city’s budding North side, , and legendary Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

“This solid account of the early years of the Chicago Cubs’ beloved Wrigley Field will delight fans who have been looking for a World Series championship since 1908. . . . Deveney gives an excellent and thoroughly detailed account of the ‘winding path’ that led the Cubs to that piece of land.”— Publishers Weekly

“With Charlie Weeghman, the passionate but certainly flawed visionary at the center, the cast of characters (crooked politicians, ballplayers, officials) richly enliven this nuts-and-bolts tale of how deals were done and dreams were held together with spit and glue. Verdict: Compulsory for Chicago Cubs fans.”—Library Journal

“A fascinating historical tale...[T]he book really does read like a novel.”
-Bleacher Report

“Before Wrigley Became Wrigley proves once again the more things change in Chicago, the more they stay the same. Sean Deveney’s dogged research and eye for detail make this little-known tale of Chicago's two biggest vices—politics and the Cubs—a fascinating and timely read, particularly as the Jumbotron era approaches.” –Paul Sullivan, Chicago Tribune, Cubs beat writer

“Remember when the Cubs played on the West Side of Chicago, and a new ballpark opened on the North Side for a Federal League team to put down its roots and challenge the status quo of the major leagues? Of course you don’t, because it was a hundred years ago. But the birth of baseball’s most hallowed—and maybe accursed—ground is a wild tale, and in Before Wrigley Became Wrigley, Sean Deveney chronicles how it happened, from a lunch-counter magnate taking on baseball’s big boys to the eventual, and at the time unthinkable, move of the Cubs to the corner of Clark and Addison. Baseball wouldn’t be the same without this story.” –Jesse Spector, Sporting News baseball insider

“Wrigley Field is an iconic stadium, perhaps the most well-known American sports arena in the world. In Before Wrigley Became Wrigley, Sean Deveney paints a picture of how Wrigley as we know it came into being—and how it nearly didn’t come into being at all. It is a must read for fans everywhere!” –David Kaplan, co-host of Cubs pregame and postgame shows, Comcast Sports Chicago

“In Before Wrigley Became Wrigley, Sean Deveney has a fascinating story about the origins the game’s most classic ballpark. Read it and you’ll understand how baseball’s early years shaped what is now Wrigley Field, which has endeared itself to fans as a reasonable stand-in for the Cubs (who apparently had their fill of World Series titles by the time the park opened).” –Steve Aschburner, Author, Harmon Killebrew: Ultimate Slugger

“Sean Deveney delves into a trove of historical documents to assemble an entertaining narrative of Chicago’s much loved sports venue against the background of corrupt city politics and a colorful ensemble of players, in and out of baseball (including the immortal Tinker, Evers, and Chance) presented decade by decade.” — The Daily Beast

“This is an immersive look back at the political intrigue—from the clubhouse to City Hall—that pitted the owners of the fledgling National and American leagues against the upstart American Association and Federal League. . . . [I]t’s an excellent read.” — Chicago Sun-Times

“This solid account of the early years of the Chicago Cubs’ beloved Wrigley Field will delight fans who have been looking for a World Series championship since 1908. . . . Deveney gives an excellent and thoroughly detailed account of the ‘winding path’ that led the Cubs to that piece of land.”— Publishers Weekly

“With Charlie Weeghman, the passionate but certainly flawed visionary at the center, the cast of characters (crooked politicians, ballplayers, officials) richly enliven this nuts-and-bolts tale of how deals were done and dreams were held together with spit and glue. Verdict: Compulsory for Chicago Cubs fans.”—Library Journal

“A fascinating historical tale...[T]he book really does read like a novel.”
-Bleacher Report

“Before Wrigley Became Wrigley proves once again the more things change in Chicago, the more they stay the same. Sean Deveney’s dogged research and eye for detail make this little-known tale of Chicago's two biggest vices—politics and the Cubs—a fascinating and timely read, particularly as the Jumbotron era approaches.” –Paul Sullivan, Chicago Tribune, Cubs beat writer

“Remember when the Cubs played on the West Side of Chicago, and a new ballpark opened on the North Side for a Federal League team to put down its roots and challenge the status quo of the major leagues? Of course you don’t, because it was a hundred years ago. But the birth of baseball’s most hallowed—and maybe accursed—ground is a wild tale, and in Before Wrigley Became Wrigley, Sean Deveney chronicles how it happened, from a lunch-counter magnate taking on baseball’s big boys to the eventual, and at the time unthinkable, move of the Cubs to the corner of Clark and Addison. Baseball wouldn’t be the same without this story.” –Jesse Spector, Sporting News baseball insider

“Wrigley Field is an iconic stadium, perhaps the most well-known American sports arena in the world. In Before Wrigley Became Wrigley, Sean Deveney paints a picture of how Wrigley as we know it came into being—and how it nearly didn’t come into being at all. It is a must read for fans everywhere!” –David Kaplan, co-host of Cubs pregame and postgame shows, Comcast Sports Chicago

“In Before Wrigley Became Wrigley, Sean Deveney has a fascinating story about the origins the game’s most classic ballpark. Read it and you’ll understand how baseball’s early years shaped what is now Wrigley Field, which has endeared itself to fans as a reasonable stand-in for the Cubs (who apparently had their fill of World Series titles by the time the park opened).” –Steve Aschburner, Author, Harmon Killebrew: Ultimate Slugger

“Sean Deveney delves into a trove of historical documents to assemble an entertaining narrative of Chicago’s much loved sports venue against the background of corrupt city politics and a colorful ensemble of players, in and out of baseball (including the immortal Tinker, Evers, and Chance) presented decade by decade.” — The Daily Beast

“This is an immersive look back at the political intrigue—from the clubhouse to City Hall—that pitted the owners of the fledgling National and American leagues against the upstart American Association and Federal League. . . . [I]t’s an excellent read.” — Chicago Sun-Times

From the Publisher

02/15/2014
Today's baseball fans, especially Chicagoans, would be hard-pressed to imagine their game without the Cubs, Wrigley Field, or even a team on the North Side of town. But it all could have gone differently. Deveney's (Sporting News) story of the early years of a stadium built in under two months on a plot of land that was previously the site of a Lutheran seminary, reveals a city and sport very much rough around the edges and in the throes of adolescence. With Charlie Weeghman, the passionate but certainly flawed visionary at the center, the cast of characters (crooked politicians, ballplayers, officials) richly enliven this nuts-and-bolts tale of how deals were done and dreams were held together with spit and glue. VERDICT Compulsory for Chicago Cubs fans; MLB buffs generally will geek-out over the insights into organized baseball's earlier days. Readers interested in city planning and urban history should also consider.—Benjamin Malczewski (BM), Toledo-Lucas Cty. P.L.

Library Journal