In a new e-book that will captivate Cubs fans, a Morton Grove sportswriter riffs on 10 key decisions in Cubs history, and how they could have turned out differently. Read this excerpt, which has Ray Kroc buying the team in 1973 and making it a winner.
Patch contributor George Castle, a 23-year Morton Grove resident, just authored his 11th sports book that presents 10 “what if’s” in Cubs history. “Alou Makes the Catch: An Alternative History of the Chicago Cubs” plays off real persons and events to show how the star-crossed team’s championship drought might have been broken on several occasions since 1908. In this excerpt, Castle sketches what might have happened had McDonalds founder Ray Kroc, who in the real timeline tried but failed to buy the Cubs in the early 1970s, actually succeeded in the off-season of 1973-74 as a disconsolate Philip K. Wrigley opted to finally sell. “Alou Makes the Catch” costs $2.99, can be viewed on a Kindle and can be ordered from Amazon.com at http://www.…
Cubs third baseman Ron Santo's long awaited arrival to the Hall of Fame inspires this week's Sunday Comics Patch.
A tribute to Chicago Cubs legend Ron Santo, by Illustrator Charley Krebs. Poem by Steve Cesario. Read Patch's feature story: Former North Shore Resident Ron Santo Tapped For Baseball Hall of Fame
Misunderstanding of Ron Santo’s diabetes delayed induction in Cooperstown.
While he’s pleased with his father’s Dec. 5 election to baseball’s Hall of Fame, the late Ron Santo’s oldest son, Ron Santo, Jr., wonders if the enshrinement could have come years earlier — while Santo was still alive — if previous Hall voters understood the difficulty of playing with unregulated diabetes. Santo, Jr., 50, of Des Plaines, said the all-time great Cubs third baseman pulled off an under-rated feat by performing at a Hall-of-Fame level without being able to accurately measure his blood-sugar levels. As a result, he sometimes experienced diabetic reactions, likely aggravated by daylong games at Wrigley Field in the 1960s and early 1970s, then switching to a nighttime schedule on the road. “When he was up for the baseball writers…
Norm Knott
5:12 pm on Thursday, January 10, 2013
Nice. But this book was already written except history was revised in every season since 1908. The book? "If They Did It" by Siergey & Simetz. http://www.jimsiergey.com/if_they_did_it1.htm more ›