For Cub Fans Only - A Book Review

For Christmas, one of the things I received was a book called “For Cub Fans Only”. It’s a compilation of many Cubs fans stories of how, why, how long they are fans. Mostly the fans are everyday people with just a few celebrities (if you can call Tom Dressen a celebrity).

I can’t tell if it’s a good book or not. For the most part I enjoyed the tour through Cub history because while I was reading all of these stories and recollections, my mind drifted to my own experiences at Wrigley; growing up and racing home from school to catch the last three innings of a game; etc. But there are some glaring issues.

One interesting one is that the author, Rich Wolfe, apparently interviewed people using a tape recorder and then just transcribed the material into the appropriate chapters. The book reads the way the people talk, which is cool until you read someone’s contribution who sounds like a regular caller to the SCORE. Additionally Wolfe makes no attempt to correct the mistakes people make in their stories. One fan claims to have been at Wrigley the day that Ernie Banks hit his 513th homerun. From what I remember about Cub history, the NEXT homerun Ernie hits will be 513.

There are some cool nuggets of information scattered throughout the book. Here are a few:

Brent Musberger was the home plate umpire when Tim McCarver made his pro-baseball debut for Keokuk in 1959
In 1977, the first year of existence for the Seattle Mariners, the distance to the fences was measured in fathoms rather than feet
More NFL games have been played at Wrigley Field than any other stadium in the country. Mile High Stadium was second until it was demolished
Sadly, Ernie Banks and O.J. Simpson are cousins. Their grandfathers were twins
In 1916, the Giants had a 26-game winning streak. When they started the streak they were in fourth place and when the streak ended they were in . . .fourth place

And even though the pain is still strong from 2003 (and actually even stronger after reading the book, since it was written during the off-season between the 2003-2004 seasons and the Championship series is something almost everyone comments on), this partial list of Letterman’s “Top10 messages left on Steve Bartman’s answering machine” is pretty hilarious:

“You owe me $7.50 for the beer I threw at you.”
“I’m with Century 21 – heard you might be moving.”
“Hey I just got back in the country – how was the game?”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll get another shot at the World Series in 2098.”
“Hey, it’s Don Zimmer. Thanks for taking the heat off me.”
“Hi, this is Mike from Hasbro. I’m calling to verify some information for your Trivial Pursuit question.”
“Hey, it’s Bill Buckner. Want to hang out?”