With inside access and reporting, Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer and Fox Sports analyst Tom Verducci reveals how Theo Epstein and Joe Maddon built, led, and inspired the Chicago Cubs team that broke the longest championship drought in sports, chronicling their epic journey to become World Series champions.
It took 108 years, but it really happened. The Chicago Cubs are once again World Series champions.
How did a team of untested young players and carefully selected veterans come together to break the longest championship drought in sports? With exclusive interviews with all of the people integral to the World Series victory, The Cubs Way chronicles the Chicago Cubs’ transformation from perennial underachievers to the best team in baseball, revealing the keys to this incredible achievement.
Beginning with Theo Epstein’s first season with the team in 2012, Tom Verducci shows how Epstein went beyond Moneyball thinking when planning, step-by-step, the path to a championship. Leading the organization with a manual he helped developed called The Cubs Way, Epstein focused on the mental side of the game as much as the physical, emphasizing chemistry and character as well as statistics.
To accomplish his goal, Epstein needed manager Joe Maddon, an eccentric innovator, as his counterweight on the Cubs’ bench. A man who encourages themed road trips and a lack of rules to keep his team loose, Maddon mixed New Age thinking with Old School leadership to help his players find their edge. The Cubs Way tracks the untold stories of how key players such as Rizzo, Bryant, Schwarber, Russell, Arrieta, and Lester were deftly brought into the organization by Epstein, and guided by Maddon to outperform expectations.
Capping off the epic tale, The Cubs Way relives the magnificent highs and the precarious lows of the instant-classic seven-game World Series. From manager’s game plans to rain-delay pep talks, Verducci provides a previously unseen view from the bench, inside the locker room, and even in the owner’s box. This is the World Series unveiled.
The Cubs Way is a celebration of an iconic team and its journey to a World Championship that fans and readers will cherish for years to come.
