The Million-to-One Team: Why the Chicago Cubs Haven't Won a Pennant Since 1945

Castle dismisses the standard excuses—curses, a billy goat, the winds of Wrigley Field, the hot sun of day baseball, and just plain bad luck. Using extensive research, crucial interviews, and cold logic, he has discovered the real causes of the Cubs’ record-setting ineptitude. Like a detective, the author follows the clues and amasses the evidence. Much of the blame falls squarely on one man and an atmosphere of conservative bottomline management that fostered fear and a losing mentality.

This book explores in depth a history of ineffective drafts, weak farm systems, a patronage system that sanctioned poor management, bad trades, and racial attitudes. The result is a fascinating, original, and compelling unraveling of the mystery behind the odds-defying The Million-to-One Team.

This history is more detailed for the 80's and 90's era Cubs, as these were the teams that the author personally covered as a Chicago area sports journalist. For example, he really delves into recent Cubs drafts, what happened to their top picks, and analyzes every major trade the club has made in the last 20 years.

The author has an ax to grind when it comes to the Cubs. He, like us, is a bitter lifelong Cubs fan, and he focuses on the failures much more than the successes we've had along the way. I guess that is to be expected, as the treatise here is to explain why the Cubs have always been, at the end of the day, failures. So yeah, we may have gotten Fergie Jenkins for next to nothing in an awesome trade with the Phillies in 1966 (we gave up Bob Buhl and Larry Jackson -- that's right, Buhl and Jackson), but here, you're going to hear more about how we gave away Ray Culp after 1967 for nothing, only to see him win 50 games for the Red Sox between 1968 and 1970, just when we needed him.

The bottom line, this author will show you, is that the Cubs management was often inept, behind the times, fighting racial stigmas if not downright prejudices, and sorely lacking in having "baseball men" running the show and making baseball decisions. What the author will indirectly show you, through this book, was that something was always "being done" about various problems, although that thing may in hindsight have resulted in mistakes. Trades were made, people were fired or replaced, things were always moving. Hey, they even tried the College of Coaches. Unfortunately for all of us, it just never worked out in the end, despite incredibly close calls in 1969, 1984 and 1989.

Coming out with favorable reviews here are Gordie Goldsberry, John Holland and Dallas Green. Up for sacrificial skewering are anyone living after 1932 with the last name "Wrigley" and Leo Durocher. Andy McPhail is treated with a degree of neutrality. He is shown to be bringing the Cubs up to modern times in terms of player development, but is also shown to be a little too "patient", as he is not a native Chicagoan, is more of a future-baseball-Commissioner type with a sense of distance from competitive zealousness, with the end result that while he is competent, he does not understand a Cubs fan's sense of urgency.

All in all, a four star book for Cubs fans, with some faults as described above, and also including a very large number of editing errors, but mostly highlights.


Great View into Cubs History   January 13, 2001
2 out of 5 found this review helpful

This book does a good job of getting behind the scenes of Cubs management over the last half of the 20th century. It is a good source of management history for any serious Cubs fans. At times the book is overly negative, but this is expected from serious fans that have been heartbroken by the Cubs. Also, the author should have a serious talk with his editors as there are numerous errors. Overall, not the best book around, but it definitely does do what it advertises, which is give a good history of Cubs management.


Must Have for Cubs Fans   October 17, 2000
18 out of 18 found this review helpful

The million to one team is probably the best book ever written on the Chicago Cubs. It goes through the problems the cubs have endured throughout their history, but doesn't dwell on them. It rather shows the missed opportunities that the management has gone through, and that we, as fans, should remain hopeful. George Castle goes through the trials and tribulations of the entire cubs history, and how botched trades or failures in drafts can hurt you not only for 1-2 years, but can still be stinging 4-5 years down the line. Mr. Castle paints a picturesque scene that could have been the cubs. He shows how the upper management is to blame for this "million to one" streak of seasons without a world series.