April 3, 2017
Just in time for the baseball spring training season, NPR Weekend Edition host Simon delivers a short and heartfelt memoir about his lifelong love for the Chicago Cubs. Unlike his earlier Home and Away: Memoir of a Fan, which combined stories about Chicago sports with a look at his development as a journalist, this memoir is all Cubby blue: “Being a Cubs fan is my nature, my heritage, and probably somewhere in my chromosomes.” He tells fascinating tales of growing up and going to school near the Cubs’ fabled Wrigley Field as well as having Jack Brockhouse, a legendary Cubs broadcaster, as his godfather. He also excels on explaining the myth of the Cubs being “in the orbit of some dark star” until they won the World Series in 2016, as well as the truth that the team “didn’t deserve to be in the World Series in 2003 if they couldn’t come back from a debacle that led to a breakdown and win game seven.” Simon gives readers a wonderful look at how a Cubs fan—indeed, any devoted fan of any team—has a feeling of “love, not loyalty.”