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The New York Times Bestseller

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 composed of unknown, young players and supposedly washed-up veterans come together to break the Curse of the Billy Goat? Tom Verducci, twice named National Sportswriter of the Year and co-writer of The Yankee Years with Joe Torre, will have full access to team president Theo Epstein, manager Joe Maddon, and the players to tell the story of the Cubs' transformation from perennial underachievers to the best team in baseball. 

Beginning with Epstein's first year with the team in 2011, Verducci will show how Epstein went beyond "Moneyball" thinking to turn around the franchise. Leading the organization with a manual called "The Cubs Way," he focused on the mental side of the game as much as the physical, emphasizing chemistry 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 late-arrival game days to loosen up his team, Maddon mixed New Age thinking with Old School leadership to help his players find their edge.  

The Cubs Way takes readers behind the scenes, chronicling how key players like Rizzo, Russell, Lester, and Arrieta were deftly brought into the organization by Epstein and coached by Maddon to outperform expectations. Together, Epstein and Maddon proved that clubhouse culture is as important as on-base-percentage, and that intangible components like personality, vibe, and positive energy are necessary for a team to perform to their fullest potential. 

Verducci chronicles the playoff run that culminated in an instant classic Game Seven. He takes a broader look at the history of baseball in Chicago and the almost supernatural element to the team's repeated loses that kept fans suffering, but also served to strengthen their loyalty.  

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.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown; Reprint edition (April 3, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0804190038
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0804190039
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.16 x 0.85 x 7.98 inches
Reviewer: John W. Pearson
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: RECALIBRATE IN 17 MINUTES
Review: Last night at Major League Baseball’s All-Star game, Chicago Cubs Manager Joe Maddon led the National League’s elites to a narrow loss, 2 to 1, in an extra-inning pitchers battle. (You think your job is challenging? Imagine trying to coalesce big egos and big bats into one harmonious team in less than 24 hours.)According to author/sports writer Tom Verducci, Maddon is “the Johnny Appleseed of aphorisms.” On the first day of the Chicago Cubs’ 2016 spring training camp, Maddon delivered his first of three “annual meetings” speeches to the players—and his pithy observations were boiled down to six points (#1: “Embrace the target.”), two key words—Expectations and Pressure—and then six more one-liners, including “Do simple better” and “The process simplifies the task.”Time-out! Wait-a-minute! Is this a baseball book—or a management book? Yes…and it’s already on my Top-10 list for 2017, and just might be my Book-of-the-Year pick. It’s amazing—and I’ve already shipped copies to two friends."The Cubs Way: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse," by Tom Verducci, senior baseball writer for Sports Illustrated, is 375 pages of leadership/management savvy, page-turning drama, and behind-the-scenes sports innovations.Are you trying to change the culture in your organization? Imagine arriving as president of Cubs baseball operations in 2012 (and enduring a 101-loss season), keeping fans engaged during the building process, then hiring a new manager in 2015—and WHACK!—in 2016, the Cubs win their first World Series since 1908!Did I mention that the instant-classic-of-a-series with Cleveland culminated in a sudden death Game 7 in Cleveland on November 2, 2016? Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win! (Did I mention it was also my birthday?)OK…slight conflict of interest. I’m a Cubs fan. I endured 21 winters in the Chicago area, but enjoyed numerous summer afternoon baseball games at Wrigley Field, nicknamed "The Friendly Confines", a phrase popularized by "Mr. Cub", Hall of Fame shortstop and first baseman Ernie Banks (“Let’s play two!”). Read my review of A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred.But trust me—whether you’re a baseball fan or not, whether you’re a Cubs fan or not, you’ll love this book—if you have any inclination to enrich your leadership and management style.So…back to Maddon’s speech in 2016. His iPad notes also included three favorite leadership quotes:• “Change before you have to.” (Jack Welch)• “Wisdom is the reward for a lifetime of listening when you would have preferred to talk.” (Doug Larson)• “Communication creates collaboration. Big ears are better than big egos. When you’re not listening, ask good questions.” (Bill Walsh)Those insights are from page 261, just one of 54 pages I noted on the blank pages in the front of my book. (I learn with a pen.) Actually, I tried to read the book just for fun. Couldn’t! Fifty pages in I started making notes.Let me tempt you with nine more management morsels. Chew slowly:#9. Recalibrate. In Game 7 of the World Series, the heavens opened and a 17-minute rain delay sent the players to their locker rooms after the ninth inning, with the score tied. In a players-only meeting, the Cubs used that “divine intervention” of 17 minutes to recalibrate. Memo to managers: consider a 17-minute recalibration exercise when your team is stuck. (See Chapter 19.)#8. Activate. Theo Epstein was hired as the youngest general manager in MLB history when the Boston Red Sox hired him in 2002 at age 28. In 2004, the Red Sox won their first World Series championship in 86 years and won another championship in 2007. So when Epstein joined the Cubs in 2012, he systematized almost everything with a 259-page manual. (Imagine!) He then asked the staff to be responsible “for turning those words into a workplace environment that promoted growth.” (See Chapter 6 to understand “The Cubs Way.”) Have you activated a “words into action” plan?#7. Read. To develop the communication skills of a future team leader, Manager Joe Maddon gave infielder Addison Russell (“too quiet for a middle infielder”) a reading assignment: Stephen King’s historical novel, 11/22/63: A Novel. “Maddon asked Russell to report back every 50 to 100 pages to discuss it.” By the way, Russell hit a grand slam in Game 6—just the 19th player to do so in a World Series.#6. Exploit. In addition to the hyper-focus on analytics and technology in baseball today (stunning!), Epstein made a bet on an “old-school resource: people.” The author quotes their early aspirations:--“…maybe we can be better than anyone else with how we treat our players and how we connect with players and the relationships we develop…--Maybe our environment will be the best in the game…--Maybe our vibe will be the best in the game…--Maybe our players will be the loosest and maybe they’ll have the most fun…--And maybe they’ll care the most.”#5. Communicate. One of Epstein’s big a-ha! moments: just for fun, he pulled out a scouting report on a player-turned-coach—and his coach was stunned to read that the scout noted areas needing improvement, but no one had told him during his playing days! Who needs to improve but has never received feedback from you?#4. Relocate. “After the 2012 season, as he does every year, Epstein took a Change of Scenery survey. He asked his 40 or so scouts and baseball operations people to submit a list of names of major and minor league players they believed would flourish with a change of scenery and why.#3. Balance. Even baseball players crave a balanced life, so when the Cubs were recruiting Pitcher Jon Lester in 2015, they noted that “the Cubs fly the fewest miles in baseball over the course of a regular season, and how a home schedule heavily tilted toward day games would allow the Lesters to have breakfast with their kids and tuck them in at night on 63 game days.”#2. Prioritize. CEOs and managers will pick up immediate interviewing techniques from "The Cubs Way." Example: Epstein interviewed Maddon with “a long list of a manager’s responsibilities, including empowering the coaching staff, working with the media, handling the bullpen, creating lineups, dealing with a petulant superstar, and running spring training.” The assignment: place them in order of importance and explain why.#1. Teach. In his early years, Maddon led baseball clinics across Europe and “the preparation and teaching emboldened him.” He observed, “You will remember 75 percent of what you write down…and you will remember 90 percent of what you teach. So I wrote it down and then I taught it.” What’s the learning style of your team members?Go Cubs!

Reviewer: Kenneth C. Mahieu
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Great Gift for Father's Day - and for Mother's Day! or Graduation, or Birthday, or ....
Review: "The Cubs Way" by Tom Verducci is an excellent baseball book, a must for baseball fans, not just for Cubs fans. I have read a number of baseball books, and I have found many of them to be rather boring and poorly written. This book is exceptional, even before you get to the title page. Upon opening the book, you see in full color a copy of the lineup card that Joe Maddon kept in his hand for the Game 7. There are stats all over the place, scratchings, old sayings, initials, even a mild obscenity. To interpret all this for the reader, there is a key on the facing page which explains it all. Well, not quite all. Here's Verducci's opening to a paragraph on the Matrix, a number assigned to each batter: "The proprietary number Maddon assigns to each batter to capture how well the batter matches up against the starting pitcher." I hadn't read one word of the text yet, and already I was loving this book.There are three major elements to this 363 page book - how key players were acquired, how some of the innards of baseball applied to the 2016 Cubs, and how each of the seven games of the World Series played out. By innards I mean all those components that impacted on players' performance throughout the year - from sabremetrics to pitchers' release points to Maddon's witty sayings. For example, ever hear of TrackMan? This is a system that provides information on a pitcher's speed, spin rate, spin axis, release point, and stride. I give Verducci tons of credit for introducing such material without inducing reader drowsiness. He covers a number of interesting details of the game like this without getting too techie; he always seemed to have the right balance of not too much, not too little. Ditto for his occasional mentions of how sabremetrics continues to develop to as a management tool and how pitching coaches work with pitchers to fine tune their mechanics. I particularly enjoyed a detailed chapter on how the Cubs negotiated with Jon Lester to sign with them as free agent. Verducci also goes in-depth to describe Jake Arrieta's performance, mechanics and regimen - not just as one of the all-time greats for the Cubs, but also as one of the all time worsts for the Orioles.Interwoven with chapters on acquisitions and performance, are chapters on each of the seven games of the 2016 World Series. I watched each of those games, heard a lot of analysis of the games during their telecast (including a lot by on-air Verducci) but still learned a lot by reading some of his comments on the games in "The Cubs Way".It's not a perfect book. But what I felt to be flaws were only minor things. He mentions -perhaps on three or four different points in the book Rizzo's naked recitation of great inspirational movie lines; it makes the book feel like some of the chapters were written in a vacuum. Some players are mentioned to illustrate a particular point, e.g. Stephen Ridings and TrackMan, an though it's not key to the point Verducci is making, readers, particularly this one, want to know "OK, thanks for telling me the Cubs drafted him in the 8th round of 2016 but where's Ridings now? How's he doing?". But those are nits. This is a 5 star book. A winner for Cubs fans, a winner for most baseball fans.

Reviewer: Christopher Lok
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I enjoyed this book a lot. It gave a great breakdown on what the Cubs did to end their drought, especially the role Epstein and Maddon had. It talks a little bit about sabremetrics and the analytics side of things, which is of course the trend in the sport nowadays, but interestingly enough it also stresses the human part of things. Some may consider the human side (e.g., drafting players of good character rather than just good stats) intagible or non-diagnostic and thus irrelevant, but the book makes a compelling case that this does matter, especially in a team sport. Great book overall.

Reviewer: Ferran Pons
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I thought it would be a kind of self-helping book, but it is a very engaging novel. The book mix each world series game with stories of players and staff in a very good way. The explains how and why the Cubs aquire the players and managers.As I red the book, I re-lived the World Series, it was exciting.It is one of this books thay you don’t want never to end.

Reviewer: Tomas Tejero
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Para los fanaticos del beisbol, es una lectura obligada. No solo explica como se construyo el equipo que finalmente rompió la racha más larga sin ganar un campeonato para un equipo profesional; tambien da muy buenos detalles de lo que sucedía de puertas adentro del club, las negociaciones, las contrataciones, la vision de la directiva, el estilo de liderazgo del manager, la mistica del equipo y los jugadores... Exelente libro!

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Great insight to a champion team winning for the first time in over a century.

Reviewer: Ryan Burke
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: An excellent book. Charts the beginnings of the Epstein / Hoyer era right through to game 7. Every chapter approaches a new subject whilst every other chapter (mostly) covers each game towards the grand prize. Has a ton of information which is very interesting and very well written. Easily read the book while on a recent holiday. Even for a fan of baseball, let alone the Cubs, it's a fascinating account of one of sports most famous tales. Highly recommended read.