Press Releases
Crown Archetype to publish THE CUBS WAY by award-winning sports writer Tom Verducci
On sale March 28, 2017
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED’s SENIOR BASEBALL WRITER
AND FOX SPORTS ANALYST
TOM VERDUCCI
TO WRITE BOOK CHRONICLING THE CHICAGO CUBS’ EPIC JOURNEY
TO BECOME THE 2016 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS
THE CUBS WAY SET FOR MARCH 2017 PUBLICATION
(November 16, 2016, New York, NY) Crown Archetype, an imprint of Penguin Random House’s Crown Publishing Group, will publish a new book by Tom Verducci, a two-time winner of the National Sportswriter of the Year Award. Scheduled for publication on March 28, 2017, THE CUBS WAY: The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse will be released simultaneously in the United States and Canada in print, digital, and audio formats.
THE CUBS WAY will tell the inspiring story of the Chicago Cubs’ transformation from perennial underachievers to the best team in major league baseball. Granted full access to team president Theo Epstein, manager Joe Maddon, and the Cubs players, Verducci will reveal how Epstein and Maddon built, led, and inspired the team that broke a 108-year championship drought by focusing on the mental side of the game as much as the physical, emphasizing chemistry as well as statistics.
Starting with Epstein’s first year with the team in 2011, Verducci will detail how key players like Anthony Rizzo, Addison Russell, Jon Lester, and Jake Arrieta were deftly brought into the organization by Epstein and managed 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.
The deal was announced today by Crown Archetype Vice President and Editorial Director Tricia Boczkowski. Executive Editor Mary Reynics acquired North American, electronic book, and first-serial rights from David Black of the David Black Agency and will edit the book. The Penguin Random House audiobook edition will be narrated by the author.
Said Boczkowski, “The Chicago Cubs’ dramatic triumph in winning the World Series Championship for the first time in 108 years was the greatest sports story of the year and one that will endure in baseball lore. THE CUBS WAY is a celebration of this iconic team and an exploration of their journey to breaking the longest curse in baseball. We’re thrilled to have Tom Verducci, one of the most respected sportswriters today, narrating their inspiring and historic story.”
Said Verducci, “The Cubs won 114 games on their way to one of the most meaningful championships in our lifetimes. The beauty of their story is in all the little victories it took to build a consummate example of teamwork.”
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Crown Archetype is an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Penguin Random House (http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/) is the world’s first truly global trade book publisher. It was formed on July 1, 2013, upon the completion of an agreement between Bertelsmann and Pearson to merge their respective trade publishing companies, Random House and Penguin, with the parent companies owning 53 percent and 47 percent, respectively. Penguin Random House comprises the adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction print and digital trade book publishing businesses of Penguin and Random House in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India; Penguin’s trade publishing activity in Asia and South Africa; DK worldwide; and Random House’s companies in Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile. Penguin Random House employs more than 10,000 people globally, across almost 250 editorially and creatively independent imprints and publishing houses that collectively publish more than 15,000 new titles annually. Its publishing lists include more than 70 Nobel Prize laureates and hundreds of the world’s most widely read authors.