Mr. Wrigley's Ball Club - by Roberts Ehrgott (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Chicago in the Roaring Twenties was a city of immigrants, mobsters, and flappers with one shared passion: the Chicago Cubs. It all began when the chewing-gum tycoon William Wrigley decided to build the world's greatest ball club in the nation's Second City. In this Jazz Age center, the maverick Wrigley exploited the revolutionary technology of broadcasting to attract eager throngs of women to his renovated ballpark.

Mr. Wrigley's Ball Club transports us to this heady era of baseball history and introduces the team at its crazy heart--an amalgam of rakes, pranksters, schemers, and choirboys who take center stage in memorable successes, equally memorable disasters, and shadowy intrigue. Readers take front-row seats to meet Grover Cleveland Alexander, Rogers Hornsby, Joe McCarthy, Lewis "Hack" Wilson, Gabby Hartnett. The cast of characters also includes their colorful if less-extolled teammates and the Cubs' nemesis, Babe Ruth, who terminates the ambitions of Mr. Wrigley's ball club with one emphatic swing.

Review Quotes

"["Mr. Wrigley's Ball Club"] is a smartly written, well-researched look at the Cubs from 1925 to 1932."--Bob D'Angelo, "Tampa Tribune"--Bob D'Angelo"Tampa Tribune" (06/02/2013)

"Roberts Ehrgott does first-rate work as a baseball historian and storyteller in his addictive, entertaining "Mr. Wrigley's Ball Club". He captures 1920s baseball and Jazz Age America in all its swinging, sweaty, booze-soaked charm. A real winner."--Jonathan Eig, "New York Times" best-selling author of "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig "and "Get Capone"--Jonathan Eig (10/01/2012)

"Roberts Ehrgott has written a graceful, engrossing account of an era in which the Cubs, while already falling short of winning the World Series, built a national following in the age of flash, flappers, mobsters, molls, bank runs and breadlines."--Scott Simon, "Chicago Tribune"--Scott Simon"Chicago Tribune" (04/05/2013)

"What sets the book apart from many set in baseball is how Roberts Ehrgott handles the context in which the fun and games transpired. In the '20s, Chicago was certainly the Cubs, but it was also Al Capone, and, as Ehrgott writes, "Chicagoans venturing to other parts of the country and abroad learned that their city was becoming a byword for mayhem and violence." . . . Chicago's dizzy baseball hopes and dreams seem especially poignant against the background of the onset of the Great Depression."--Bill Littlefield, "Boston Globe"--Bill Littlefield"Boston Globe" (06/08/2013)

About the Author

Roberts Ehrgott has written for and edited several national publications, including the Saturday Evening Post. He served as a historical consultant for Mark Jacob and Stephen Green's Wrigley Field: A Celebration of the Friendly Confines.