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.

Full Product Details

9780252080289

Table of Contents

Reviews

"""In a time when a seemingly endless flow of baseball books emerge, some books rise to the top. Laurent Pernot's book is in that class. Painstakingly researched, Pernot delves deep into source materials and produces a book on baseball's first dynasty --the Chicago Cubs--in a highly readable and more importantly accurate fashion. For the casual baseball fan this book will give you the foundational information needed to make you a more knowledgeable student of the game. For baseball historians, the book is a brilliant aggregation of stories which capture the thrills, foibles, and unmatched drama on field and off of the Chicago National League Ball Club. This book will gather no dust on my bookshelf."" --Brian A. Bernardoni; Wrigley Field historian and recipient of the 2010 Jerome Holtzman Award ""If you like the Chicago Cubs and thoroughly researched and well-written books, then you're going to dig Before the Ivy. Pernot weaves all kinds of information and insight into this lively early history of this once-great and championship-riddled organization, the now World Series-deficient Chicago Cubs."" --Carson Cunningham, co-editor of Before the Curse: The Chicago Cubs' Glory Years, 1870-1945"

Quite readable... Pernot does not ultimately suggest there is a cure for Cub fever, but he certainly gives us the basis for a better understanding of the phenomenon. --Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature In a time when a seemingly endless flow of baseball books emerge, some books rise to the top. Laurent Pernot's book is in that class. Painstakingly researched, Pernot delves deep into source materials and produces a book on baseball's first dynasty --the Chicago Cubs--in a highly readable and more importantly accurate fashion. For the casual baseball fan this book will give you the foundational information needed to make you a more knowledgeable student of the game. For baseball historians, the book is a brilliant aggregation of stories which capture the thrills, foibles, and unmatched drama on field and off of the Chicago National League Ball Club. This book will gather no dust on my bookshelf. --Brian A. Bernardoni; Wrigley Field historian and recipient of the 2010 Jerome Holtzman Award If you like the Chicago Cubs and thoroughly researched and well-written books, then you're going to dig Before the Ivy. Pernot weaves all kinds of information and insight into this lively early history of this once-great and championship-riddled organization, the now World Series-deficient Chicago Cubs. --Carson Cunningham, co-editor of Before the Curse: The Chicago Cubs' Glory Years, 1870-1945 An excellent reference of the glory days for those poor fans caught up in the endless cycles of 'Wait Until Next Year' on the Northside of Chicago. --SABR's The Inside Game

If you like the Chicago Cubs and thoroughly researched and well-written books, then you're going to dig Before the Ivy. Pernot weaves all kinds of information and insight into this lively early history of this once-great and championship-riddled organization, the now World Series-deficient Chicago Cubs. --Carson Cunningham, co-editor of Before the Curse: The Chicago Cubs' Glory Years, 1870-1945

Author Information

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.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available