When the White Sox met the Astros in the 2005 World Series, it marked only the second time Chicago team had appeared in a televised World Series. (The first was in 1959 when the White Sox lost to the Dodgers.) Of the other 12 Series involving the Cubs or White Sox, seven occurred before the radio broadcasting of baseball. Five others were broadcast, but because the games were played during the workday, fans continued to get their coverage from newspapers. There they found accounts penned by some of the greatest journalists of the 20th century, including Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice, Arthur "Bugs" Baer and Westbrook Pegler, as well as legendary Chicago scribes Charles Dryden, James Crusinberry, Hugh Fullerton, I.E. Sanborn, and Irving Vaughan. With a chapter on each World Series involving a Chicago team, this book covers 100 years of championship diamond contests in the Windy City, from the intra-city classic of 1906 to the end of the White Sox's 88-year championship drought in 2005. Contemporary accounts from newspapers and sports publications complement the author's informed commentary, providing two views of the Series: one shared by those who were there, and one informed by the decades since.

In 1906 the baseball world saw something that had never been done. Two teams from the same city squared off against each other in a World Series that pitted the heavily favored Cubs of the National League against the hardscrabble American League champion White Sox. Now, more than a century later, noted historian Bernard A. Weisberger tells the tale of a unique time in baseball, a unique time in America, and a time when Chicago was at the center of it all. When Chicago Ruled Baseball brings to life a dazzling epoch in a land of the self-made man—where A. G. Spalding helped establish baseball as both a national pastime and a thriving business, where Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown overcame a horribly disfiguring injury and pitched his way into the Hall of Fame . . . and Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance proved that you could use teamwork to stand out as stars. Weisberger brings to life an unforgettable story of how a city that had rebuilt itself from the ashes of the Great Fire thirty-five years earlier became the focal point of an entire baseball-loving country, and one grand sporting contest staked its claim as one of the most remarkable and electrifying World Series ever to be played. Some images that appeared in the print edition of this book are unavailable in the electronic edition due to rights reasons.

Founded in 1869, the Chicago Cubs are a charter member of the National League and the last remaining of the eight original league clubs still playing in the city in which the franchise started. Drawing on newspaper articles, books and archival records, the author chronicles the team's early years. He describes the club's planning stages of 1868; covers the decades when the ballplayers were variously called White Stockings, Colts, and Orphans; and relates how a sportswriter first referred to the young players as Cubs in the March 27, 1902, issue of the Chicago Daily News. Reprinted selections from firsthand accounts provide a colorful narrative of baseball in 19th-century America, as well as a documentary history of the Chicago team and its members before they were the Cubs.

This book examines the relationship between sport and religion with regard to twenty-first century topics such as race, fandom, education, and culture. The contributors provide new insights into the people, movements, and events that define the complex relationship between sport and religion around the world. A wonderful addition to any academic course on religion, sports, ethics, or culture as a whole.

This collection of 19 essays examine the role of baseball's Cubs in the history and politics of Chicago. They focus on topics such as the rise of a nationwide fan base through the long reach of superstation WGN; the local uses and views of icons Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, and Ryne Sandberg; historical divides along lines of race (on the field) and class (in the stands); Wrigley Field as a public space both sacred and cursed; the importance of local and nationwide media coverage; and the Cubs' impact on Chicago music and literature.

Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.

The dramatic postseason collapses and logic-defying defeats suffered by the Boston Red Sox in the 86 long years between their 1918 and 2004 world championships are the stuff of legend. Fan fixation on the climactic moments--Johnny Pesky's late throw in 1946, Bill Buckner's boot in 1986 and so many others--leaves the full story of the team's experiences in the playoffs and World Series too little remembered. This thorough history covers all postseason appearances from 1903 through 2005, including the one-game playoffs of 1948 and 1978. A review of each playoff team's regular season exploits not only explains how the team qualified for postseason play, but also captures the feeling of the team and its fans during the campaign. Every postseason game is studied in detail.