Jesse Rogers and Bruce Miles want to cut to the heart of what makes the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago Cubs. In their new book, The Franchise: Chicago Cubs, the season reporters go beyond well-known narratives to uncover the team’s unique identity.
Rogers, an ESPN sportscaster, defined that identity while speaking with Little Village in advance of his Aug. 14 appearance at Iowa City’s Prairie Lights Bookstore.
“I grew up as a Cubs fan in the Chicago area and of course as a kid that was the only ballpark I knew … I thought every city had a park like this with ivy and in a neighborhood,” Rogers said. “So many players live within biking and walking distance of the field and you just don’t see that in other cities. So I think the connection between the team and its fan base is amplified because of Wrigley Field and where it’s located.”
Beyond the connection of Wrigleyville — the neighborhood around the famed ballpark — Rogers and his co-author explore other aspects of the team’s history and fans’ loyalty through thick and thin. The result is a collection of stories to entertain long-time fans and the newer crop that coalesced following the team’s 2016 World Series win.
The stories include both the good and the bad. As Rogers said, “… that’s the thing about the Cubs, there’s such a history of losing you can’t talk about them without it.”
A sports journalist since the mid-1990s, Rogers has covered the Cubs for ESPN since 2009. (Miles, his co-author, has and even longer tenure, having covered sports in the Chicago area for more than 40 years.) Rogers went back to the players he knew growing up watching, the Cubs of the ’80s and ’90s.
“For me it was Ryne Sandberg, it was Gary Matthews, it was Rick Sutcliffe and Andre Dawson,” he said. “My favorite chapter to write was the chapter on pranks. There are always pranks going on.”
Rogers knew that Sutcliffe and Ryan Dempster were pranksters, but the antics of the quiet, introverted Sandberg came as a surprise.
“I learned a lot from Bruce’s chapters,” he added. “Like Gabby Hartnett. I’ll bet a lot of Cubs fans don’t even know who he is.”
Hartnett was the catcher who hit a walk-off home run in a 1938 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates that was dubbed the “Homer in the Gloamin’.”
“[The chapter on 1969] seemed like a natural one to do because it was known as the best Cubs team not to win something,” Rogers said. “Even when the Cubs won the division, let’s say in ’84 and ’89, people still talked about the ‘69 team as fondly as any team that went to the playoffs.”
Then there was 1997 when the Cubs lost their first 14 games. With injuries and the other teams’ superior pitching talent, the Cubs couldn’t catch a break. However, the worm turns, and toward the end of the season trades were made that gave them a playoff berth the next year.
As for the Cubs today? “They’re starting to build something,” Rogers says. “I believe they’ll make the playoffs.”
Jesse Rogers will read from The Franchise: Chicago Cubs at Prairie Lights on Monday, August 14 at 6 p.m.
Diane DeBok is an Iowa native living in Eastern Iowa.
