The Complete Chicago Cubs: Fully Revised & Up to Date. The Total Encyclopedia of the Team

Rating:
Summary: Schadenfreude
Review: National rumor has it that a favorite saying in Alabama is "Thank God for Mississippi" - the reason being that while Alabama ranks 49th in countless metrics connected to wealth, lack-of-drawl, and general well-being, she can always rely on her still-more-hapless cousin to bring up the rear. In Boston we thank the Holies for the Cubs - the one team that can make us feel like the smug hosts of champions. This is a work of extraordinary detail, featuring exhaustive statistics, biographies, legends, & etc. And although it wasn't written specifically to soothe ruffled Red Sox fans, true students of the team will note than in virtually every topic on offer, the Cubs (and their supporters) are ever so slightly worse off than the benighted denizens of Fenway. Gentile struggles to put a brave face on all of this, but his various upbeat declarations carry all the credibility of a jubilant North Korean government pronouncement. The book's very cover contains a subtle concession of abject defeat in describing the Cubs as "one of the most successful franchises of the 19th century." While the Red Sox hardly ruled the 20th century, at least our championship memories are a decade younger than those of the Wrigley wretches.