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

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.

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Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Introduction 1. From Little English Acorn to Giant American Oak 2. The Baseball Frontier 3. Chicago's Hired Guns 4. The Phoenix 5. Chicago's Own League 6. The Birth of a Dynasty 7. Keeping the Stockings White 8. West Side Home 9. The National League Ain't the World 10. The Sabbath Battles 11. "It Was Straight Whiskey" 12. "Mighty Casey Has Struck Out" 13. Baseball Missionaries 14. The Lean Years 15. Back to the West Side 16. From Colts to Cubs 17. The Saddest of Possible Words? 18. "The Fellows Who Made the Game" 19. Out in Left Field? 20. Again, Chicago is Champion 21. Covering the Bases 22. Three More Pennants 23. Going, Going . . . 24. Gone Appendix A. About the Ballparks: Stadiums of the Chicago Cubs and their Ancestors Appendix B. The Team through the Decades Notes Bibliography Index|

"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

"A well-written and entertaining read, filled with copious illustrations and photos that might sustain the rabid Cub's fan base as they 'wait until next year.'"—Journal of Sport History

"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
|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.