The Other Side of Losing by Peter Brav, A Chicago Cubs Baseball Novel

Author: Peter Brav

Genre: Sports Novel, Chicago Cubs

Paperback, 456 Pages, Copyright 2009

Rating: Mature Audiences – Language, Adult Themes

Purchase: Amazon

The last time the Chicago Cubs won the World Series Teddy Roosevelt was president and the first radio transmission had just been sent. As another spring unfolds in the great city by the lake, there is no reason to believe that this baseball season will be any different than the hundred plus Chicago Cubs seasons that preceded it. Although so many years of losing have brought no swagger, no champagne and no rings, they have brought togetherness among Chicago Cubs fans that winning simply can’t touch.

So it is with best friends Benny Katzman and Riley McGowan and the other Chicago Cub fanatics who congregate to drown their sorrows at Salvatore’s, a favorite downtown haunt in the shadow of Wrigley Field. Benny, an unmarried middle-aged attorney with an office upstairs from the restaurant, has represented countless minor league baseball players always a bit short of the big leagues. Riley, a small businessman with a unique view on everything and everyone, has a worsening illness and a son, 19 year-old Richie, who can’t seem to stay out of trouble. They are joined by, among others, Gabriel Wilson, a handicapped neighborhood kid whose father is one of the crime lords of the city; Liz Abeles, a stunning waitress who wants to be an actress but seems very short on talent; John Dennis, a shopping center tycoon turned dishwasher; and Sadie Kaufman, a woman who survived the Holocaust to embrace Chicago Cub baseball.

When Benny signs Isaac Chance and Will Hardy, two aging minor leaguers from the South, he has every reason to think that they will end up the same place his other clients have—broke and back home. As the Chicago Cub season progresses, and Riley’s health, Gabriel’s security, Richie’s prospects, and Liz’s career are all plunging, so much seems to hang in the balance. Benny proves himself the truest of friends and both Richie and Gabriel the most surprising of sons. The ending on the field is dramatic enough. But it is the ending off the field that will restore faith in the power of losers to win, of good guys to come out on top and of triumph to warm the soul.

Reviews of this Sports Novel:

There are always a bunch of baseball books released right at the start of every season, and among the cream of this year’s crop is “The Other Side of Losing,” a novel likely to tickle the fancy of any fan with a soft spot in their hearts for the Chicago Cubs. For this edge of your seat page-turner by Peter Brav chronicles a valiant effort by that seemingly-cursed Chicago Cub franchise to follow in the footsteps of the Boston Red Sox by ending the longest World Series drought.

The last time the Chicago Cubs won was over a century ago in 1908 and, if you listen to the odds-makers in Las Vegas, they are actually the favorites to represent the National League in the upcoming fall classic. Of course that’s easier said than done, given that many superstitious Chicago Cubs loyalists still consider the club to be saddled by an enduring hex said to have been cast in the wake of a team mascot’s being banned from Wrigley Field during Game 4 of the 1945 World Series.

You don’t need me to explain exactly what a live goat was doing in a box seat in the first place, because Mr. Brav has imperceptibly interwoven that incident and a cornucopia of other fascinating Chicago Cub trivia into his delightful fictional account of a season where it looks like the lovable perennial losers’ might finally get to experience “The Other Side of Losing.”

Meticulously researched in a fashion anyone familiar with the North Side of the Windy City is apt to appreciate, this struggle of the underdog Chicago Cubs against the odds unfolds on the streets and inside several working-class establishments located right in the shadow of Wrigley. In an earthy style rather reminiscent of Chicago native son David Mamet, the gifted author introduces us to a colorful cast of motley characters right out of a Damon Runyon yarn.

The engaging story is nattily narrated by Benny, a lawyer with a storefront office whose best friend, Riley, owns a cleaners up the block. After hours, they like hanging out at Salvatore’s, a Chicago Cubs working-class watering hole with a waitress attractive enough to date ballplayers. The plot thickens when a couple of minor league prospects Benny represents are called up by the Cubs, and they proceed to make some major contributions during the ensuing miraculous campaign. Meanwhile, Brav masterfully spins several compelling sidebars by embroiling his principal cast members in somewhat sobering predicaments to be resolved satisfactorily en route to the big October showdown with the Yankees on the baseball diamond.

Yet, always simmering just beneath the surface is the burning question, can this really be the year the Chicago Cubs break the spell? Or are they fated to remain also-rans forever? Far be it from me to spoil the ending of such a riveting read. However, I suspect that if you’re a Chiacago Cubs fan, you might be impatient to find out the answer. After all, if life, as they say, really imitates art, your Chicago Cubs prospects in 2011 might be revealed by the finale of this timely tome’s possibly prophetic pages.

Peter Brav has been writing stories all his life and many of them seem to center around baseball. Not the game per se, not just the players and their moves around the bases either. His stories are the stories of people who live and die with their teams, having inexplicably and joyously cast their lots with the rotation of a little white sphere hurtling home. He resides in Princeton, New Jersey. More about Peter Brav…