This was an ok book. I heard that it was amazing so my expectation let it become a bit of a letdown. Overall happy to have ready it, but wanted more juice out of it in general. Guess mainly just on the connection/relatability aspect. Joe Madden was a good character and the first half was cool seeing how Theo Epstein contracted the team. ( )

Quite disappointing. Just a retelling of the world series games and some background on how management and the team got together. No stats, no data, no analysis, nothing that would show any uniqueness at all. ( )

5496. The Cubs Way The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse, by Tom Verducci (read 27 Aug 2017) This book tells of the most joyful event in sports in my lifetime. I became in the spring of 1938 at age 9 a rabid Cubs fan and have been one ever since and this book tells of the 2016 Cubs. It has a lot of technical baseball language and lore but is a joy to read because of the great events it tells of. The account of Game 7 of the 2016 World Series is so heart-poundingly exciting as to be unreadable if one did not know that all comes out super good in the end. The third and second last sentences: "It was a feeling that went far beyond Progressive Field. From the packed streets around Wrigley Field, where people had gathered all night around her sacred grounds, to the sons and daughters who watched with fathers and mothers in the biggest baseball television audience in a quarter of a century, to the many who wanted this night even more for the ones they loved and buried than for themselves, the faithful everywhere did not need the cool rain upon their skin to feel the change." (I admit that as I typed these words my eyes filled with tears of sheerest joy.) ( )

I'm not particularly familiar with Tom Verducci, senior sports writer, reporter/studio analyst, and author of this book. But as a nearly lifelong Cubs fan still celebrating and high off the 2016 World Series win, I was anxious to read a book recapping the spectacular season that ended the 108-year drought. And this one seemed to be receiving hype before it was published, so this was the one for me.

This won't be a lengthy, in-depth review. The book covers not the history of the Cubs franchise, but the development of this particular 2016 team -- the players, managers, and administration that all came together to make the season as magical as it was. Emphasizing a true team approach with positivity, values, personality, and culture, it's so refreshing to read about a group of guys that really, truly cared for each other and thrived on that special vibe. And to take it all the way made it so much more meaningful. Verducci did certainly do his research and was able to interview all players, coaches, and staff and was often right in the thick of things during the year, both pre-season and post-season. As a die-hard Cubs fan, I was bound to enjoy this book anyway, but I'm pleased to say it was well-written and enjoyable, and I would recommend it to baseball fans, and others, regardless of what team they affiliate themselves with. ( )

A GREAT FATHER'S DAY GIFT! A GREAT MOTHER'S DAY GIFT!

OR GRADUATION.....OR BIRTHDAY....OR.....

"The Cubs Way" by Tom Verducci is an excellent baseball book, a must for baseball fans, not just for Cubs fans. I have read a number of baseball books, and I have found many of them to be rather boring and poorly written. This book is exceptional, even before you get to the title page. Upon opening the book, you see in full color a copy of the lineup card that Joe Maddon kept in his hand for the Game 7. There are stats all over the place, scratchings, old sayings, initials, even a mild obscenity. To interpret all this for the reader, there is a key on the facing page which explains it all. Well, not quite all. Here's Verducci's opening to a paragraph on the Matrix, a number assigned to each batter: "The proprietary number Maddon assigns to each batter to capture how well the batter matches up against the starting pitcher." I hadn't read one word of the text yet, and already I was loving this book.

There are three major elements to this 363 page book - how key players were acquired, how some of the innards of baseball applied to the 2016 Cubs, and how each of the seven games of the World Series played out. By innards I mean all those components that impacted on players' performance throughout the year - from sabremetrics to pitchers' release points to Maddon's witty sayings. For example, ever hear of TrackMan? This is a system that provides information on a pitcher's speed, spin rate, spin axis, release point, and stride. I give Verducci tons of credit for introducing such material without inducing reader drowsiness. He covers a number of interesting details of the game like this without getting too techie; he always seemed to have the right balance of not too much, not too little. Ditto for his occasional mentions of how sabremetrics continues to develop to as a management tool and how pitching coaches work with pitchers to fine tune their mechanics. I particularly enjoyed a detailed chapter on how the Cubs negotiated with Jon Lester to sign with them as free agent. Verducci also goes in-depth to describe Jake Arrieta's performance, mechanics and regimen - not just as one of the all-time greats for the Cubs, but also as one of the all time worsts for the Orioles.

Interwoven with chapters on acquisitions and performance, are chapters on each of the seven games of the 2016 World Series. I watched each of those games, heard a lot of analysis of the games during their telecast (including a lot by on-air Verducci) but still learned a lot by reading some of his comments on the games in "The Cubs Way".

It's not a perfect book. But what I felt to be flaws were only minor things. He mentions -perhaps on three or four different points in the book Rizzo's naked recitation of great inspirational movie lines; it makes the book feel like some of the chapters were written in a vacuum. Some players are mentioned to illustrate a particular point, e.g. Stephen Ridings and TrackMan, an though it's not key to the point Verducci is making, readers, particularly this one, want to know "OK, thanks for telling me the Cubs drafted him in the 8th round of 2016 but where's Ridings now? How's he doing?". But those are nits. This is a 5 star book. A winner for Cubs fans, a winner for most baseball fans. ( )