Da Curse of the Billy Goat

Da Curse of the Billy Goat
Author: Steve Gatto
Publisher: Protar House, LLC
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2004
Genre: World Series (Baseball)
ISBN: 9780972091046

History and discussion of the legendary Curse of the Billy Goat, the Chicago Cubs' pennant races and World Series games, and baseball's curses.

The Billy Goat Curse

The Billy Goat Curse
Author: Gil Bogen
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2008-12-17
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 078643354X

In 1945 the most famous curse in sports was placed on the Chicago Cubs when Bill Sianis and his goat were ejected from Wrigley Field. Though Sianis purchased two tickets for the fourth game of the World Series against Detroit, the goat's stench led to the pair's ouster. The indignant Sianis allegedly cursed the Cubs, promising that they'd never again play in the World Series at Wrigley Field. More than six decades later, the team has yet to win a pennant. There were years when fortune seemed to pluck defeat from the wings of sure victory. The book focuses on the attitudes of players and fans, as well as attempts to exorcise the curse. It features photographs and interviews of former Cub players, as well as a foreword by Hall of Fame shortstop Ernie Banks.

The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (Third Edition)

The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (Third Edition)
Author: Paul Dickson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 1001
Release: 2011-06-13
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0393073491

The definitive work on the language of baseball—one of the “Five Best Baseball Books” (Wall Street Journal). Hailed as “a staggering piece of scholarship” (Wall Street Journal) and “an indispensable guide to the language of baseball” (San Diego Union-Tribune), The Dickson Baseball Dictionary has become an invaluable resource for those who love the game. Drawing on dozens of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century periodicals, as well as contemporary sources, Dickson’s brilliant, illuminating definitions trace the earliest appearances of terms both well known and obscure. This edition includes more than 10,000 terms with 18,000 individual entries, and more than 250 photos. This “impressively comprehensive” (The Nation) book will delight everyone from the youngest fan to the hard-core aficionado.

The Ultimate Chicago Cubs Time Machine Book

The Ultimate Chicago Cubs Time Machine Book
Author: Martin Gitlin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2021-04-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1493051792

The Ultimate Chicago Cubs Time Machine presents a timeline format that not only includes the Cubs’ greatest moments—including their World Series appearance in 2016 and individual achievements—but also focuses on some very unusual seasons and events, such as the 1872 season when the Great Chicago Fire destroyed their stadium and uniforms. There are dozens of impressive, wild, wacky, and wonderful stories over the years regarding Cubs history, and Gitlin is the perfect person to write it with his trademark humor and thorough knowledge of team lore.

It Happened in Chicago

It Happened in Chicago
Author: Scotti Cohn
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2009-08-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 076275611X

Thirty-six episodes from the Windy City’s history, including legendary events such as the great fire and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, as well as lesser-known tales.

The Psychology of Baseball

The Psychology of Baseball
Author: Mike Stadler
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2008-02-28
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9781592403431

Readers can get inside the minds of the stars of the diamond in this extraordinary tour of brain power, psyche, and sheer will of Major League players. 20 illustrations.

The Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs
Author: Rich Cohen
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2017-10-03
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0374120927

After his first Cubs game when Rich Cohen was eight, his father asked him to make a promise. "Promise me you will never be a Cubs fan. The Cubs do not win," he explained, "and because of that, a Cubs fan will have a diminished life determined by low expectations. That team will screw up your life." Here he captures the story of the team, its players and crazy days-- not just what happened, but what it felt like and what it meant. He searches for the cause of the famous curse, and came to see the curse as a burden but also as a blessing.

The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking

The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking
Author: Matthew Hutson
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2013-02-26
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0452298903

A provocative and entertaining look at the psychology of superstition and religion, how they make us human—and how we can use them to our advantage What is so special about touching a piano John Lennon once owned? Why do we yell at our laptops? And why do people like to say, “Everything happens for a reason”? Drawing on cognitive science, anthropology, and neuroscience, Matthew Hutson shows us that magical thinking is not only hardwired into our brains—it’s been a factor in our evolutionary success. Magical thinking helps us believe that we have free will and an underlying purpose as it protects us from the paralyzing awareness of our own mortality. Interweaving entertaining stories, personal reflections, and sharp observations, The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking reveals just how this seemingly irrational process informs and improves the lives of even the most hardened skeptics.

Northsiders

Northsiders
Author: Gerald C. Wood
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2008-08-21
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0786436239

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.

Wrigley Regulars

Wrigley Regulars
Author: Holly Swyers
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2010-07-20
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 025203550X

Holly Swyers turns to the bleachers of Chicago's iconic Wrigley Field in this unique exploration of the ways people craft a feeling of community under almost any conditions. Wrigley Regulars examines various components of community through the lens of "the regulars," a group of diehard Chicago Cubs fans who loyally populate the bleachers at Wrigley Field. In a time when many communities are perceived as either short-lived or disintegrating, the Wrigley regulars have formed their own thriving set of pregame rituals, ballpark traditions, and social hierarchies. Swyers examines the conditions, practices, and behaviors that help create and sustain the experience of community. At Wrigley Field, these practices can include the simple acts of scorecard-keeping and gathering at the same location before each game or insisting on elaborate rules of ticket distribution and seating arrangements, as well as more symbolic behaviors and superstitions that link the regulars to each other. A bleacher regular herself, Swyers uses a qualitative approach to define community as the ways in which people arrive at an awareness of themselves as a group with a particular relationship to the larger world. The case of the regulars offers a challenge to the claim that community is eroding in an increasingly fragmented and technologically driven culture, suggesting instead that our notions of where we find community and how we express it are changing.