Game Of My Life Chicago Cubs

Whether they wore white stockings or blue helmets, the baseball players of Chicago’s North Side have always had great stories to tell. Now fans of this loveable franchise will finally get to hear from twenty-eight of the best players as they relive that singular moment which defined their Cubs career. In this newly updated edition of Game of My Life Chicago Cubs, veteran sportswriter Lew Freedman brings readers off the bench and onto the field with such greats as Billy Williams, Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins, and more.

A history of Chicago Cubs baseball collects the team's most memorable moments as related by some of the most famous names to wear the uniform, including Ernie Banks, Ryne Sandberg, and Kerry Wood.

Since their founding in 1919, the Chicago Bears have carried the hearts and souls of football fans throughout the country. Now supporters of one of the NFL’s most storied franchises will go into the locker room and onto the turf with over twenty Bears legends in Game of My Life Chicago Bears. In this newly revised edition, sportswriter Lew Freedman opens the doors to players’ private remembrances of how it was and how they reacted to the spotlight. Big touchdowns, career-making moments, and championship glory shared all come to the surface for Bears of the past half-century. Readers will hear tales from Hall of Famers such as Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, Mike Singletary, Stan Jones, and so many more. Within these pages, Chicago gridiron greats offer glimpses of the National Football League in the 1950s, the 1960s, and right up through present-day play. More than sixty years of Bears experience is represented in this collection of tales told by the men who lived through some of the most memorable moments in franchise history.

The definitive and revealing biography of Chicago Cubs legend Ernie Banks, one of America's most iconic, beloved, and misunderstood baseball players, by acclaimed journalist Ron Rapoport. Ernie Banks, the first-ballot Hall of Famer and All-Century Team shortstop, played in fourteen All-Star Games, won two MVPs, and twice led the Major Leagues in home runs and runs batted in. He outslugged Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Mickey Mantle when they were in their prime, but while they made repeated World Series appearances in the 1950s and 60s, Banks spent his entire career with the woebegone Chicago Cubs, who didn't win a pennant in his adult lifetime. Today, Banks is remembered best for his signature phrase, "Let's play two," which has entered the American lexicon and exemplifies the enthusiasm that endeared him to fans everywhere. But Banks's public display of good cheer was a mask that hid a deeply conflicted, melancholy, and often quite lonely man. Despite the poverty and racism he endured as a young man, he was among the star players of baseball's early days of integration who were reluctant to speak out about Civil Rights. Being known as one of the greatest players never to reach the World Series also took its toll. At one point, Banks even saw a psychiatrist to see if that would help. It didn't. Yet Banks smiled through it all, enduring the scorn of Cubs manager Leo Durocher as an aging superstar and never uttering a single complaint. Let's Play Two is based on numerous conversations with Banks and on interviews with more than a hundred of his family members, teammates, friends, and associates as well as oral histories, court records, and thousands of other documents and sources. Together, they explain how Banks was so different from the caricature he created for the public. The book tells of Banks's early life in segregated Dallas, his years in the Negro Leagues, and his difficult life after retirement; and features compelling portraits of Buck O'Neil, Philip K. Wrigley, the Bleacher Bums, the doomed pennant race of 1969, and much more from a long-lost baseball era.

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.

Jenkins' life story--from Chatham, Ontario, to Cooperstown--is compelling, and Fergie tells it himself in his own unique and inimitable style. A tremendous all-around athlete who has always been proud of his roots and representing his country during a lifetime in the game, Jenkins established a reputation as one of the greatest pitchers of not only his era but of all time. A strikeout king who whiffed more than 3,000 batters, Jenkins earned the trust of his managers as a pitcher who completed what he started. This is the story of a man who refused to be leveled by sadness and disappointments away from the playing field. It is also the story of behind-the-scenes good humor in clubhouses and what takes place on baseball teams as they live and play together for months at a time, as only Fergie can tell it.

Ernie Banks is perhaps the most popular ballplayer in the history of the Chicago Cubs--a man as famous for his personality and trademark phrases as for his accomplishments on the field. Nicknamed "Mr. Cub," Banks won two National League Most Valuable Player awards and slugged 512 home runs, all while battling discrimination and poverty. His conduct away from the field was so exemplary he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Based on extensive research and personal interviews conducted by the author, this biography details the life of the Texas-born shortstop and first baseman, from his childhood playing softball to his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame to his death in 2015.

From the first San Francisco Giants game at Seals Stadium in 1958 through the team's unforgettable 2010 post season thrills, this book tells the greatest stories of the San Francisco Giants through the eyes of the players themselves.