Try Not to Suck: The Exceptional, Extraordinary Baseball Life of Joe Maddon

by Bill Chastain, Jesse Rogers

Overview

With his irreverant personality, laid-back approach, and penchant for the unexpected, Joe Maddon is a singular presence among Major League Baseball managers. Whether he's bringing clowns and live bear cubs to spring training or leading the Chicago Cubs to their first World Series victory in 108 years, Maddon is always one to watch.  In Try Not to Suck, ESPN's Jesse Rogers and MLB.com's Bill Chastain fully explore Maddon's life and career, delving behind the scenes and dissecting that mystique which makes Maddon so popular with players and analysts alike. Packed with insight, anecdotes, and little-known facts, this is the definitive account of the curse-breaker and trailblazer at the helm of the Cubs' new era.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781629376745
Publisher:	Triumph Books
Publication date:	03/26/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	217,449
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Bill Chastain is a sports journalist who covers the Tampa Bay Rays for MLB.com. He is the author of 100 Things Jets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die, Hack’s 191: Hack Wilson and His Incredible 1930 Season, Payne at Pinehurst: The Greatest U.S. Open Ever, Purpose and Passion: Bobby Pruette and the Marshall Years, Steel Dynasty: The Team that Changed the NFL, and The Steve Spurrier Story: From Heisman to Head Ball Coach. He lives in Tampa, Florida. Jesse Rogers has been part of the Chicago sports media scene since the mid 90's. He covered the Chicago Blackhawks for ESPN when they broke their championship drought in 2010 and was an insider on the Cubs beat when they won the World Series in 2016. He's been a television, internet and radio reporter for ESPN since 2009 and was previously heard on 670 The Score as a longtime studio host for Blackhawks radio broadcasts. Ben Zobrist is a three-time All-Star, two-time World Series champion, and was the 2016 World Series MVP with the Chicago Cubs.

Table of Contents

Foreword Ben Zobrist vii

1 The Hat 1

2 Pino Maddonini 7

3 Joe College 21

4 Coaching Calls 29

5 Moving up the Angels Chain 41

6 To the Major Leagues 63

7 Scioscia Takes Over 83

8 A Sad Time, Then Euphoria 93

9 Angels Swan Song 103

10 A Franchise in Need 111

11 9=8 Magic 151

12 Handling Success 173

13 Shot and a Beer 195

14 Early Optimism 203

15 Four Over Instead of Four Under 213

16 Addison's Plight 223

17 Embrace the Slogan 235

18 A Fast Start 245

19 The Hiccup 251

20 American Legion Month 261

21 Games 6 and 7 269

Epilogue: 2017 283

Sources 293

Editorial Reviews

01/15/2018
Sports journalists Chastain (100 Things Jets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die) and Rogers offer a breezy but detailed look at the life and career of Joe Maddon, the manager who led the Chicago Cubs to victory in the 2016 World Series. The authors follow Maddon from his youth in Hazleton, Pa., through his undergraduate years as a baseball player at Lafayette College, and into a short career playing for the California Angels, an organization that emphasized “the lost process of apprenticeship” and that encouraged Maddon to develop his talent for coaching. The authors convincingly illustrate how Maddon combined his knowledge of baseball fundamentals with “the analytics of the game way in advance of analytics driving the game as they later would,” which helped establish his reputation as a loose, freewheeling coach who, as one player put it, “was talking millennially before it became the way to talk to guys.” While the authors discuss Maddon’s more controversial moments, such as his pitching decisions in games six and seven of the Cubs World Series games, the book is more hagiographic than critical (“Not only did he have athletic ability, he had a natural curiosity”). This is a perceptive look at an exciting baseball manager, but one that will be of most interest to die-hard Cubs fans. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly