Charlie Murphy: The Iconoclastic Showman behind the Chicago Cubs

Winner of the 2023 SABR Larry Ritter Book Award 
Finalist for the 2022 CASEY Award

You don’t know the history of the Chicago Cubs until you know the story of Charles Webb Murphy, the ebullient and mercurial owner of this historic franchise from 1905 through 1914. Originally a sportswriter in Cincinnati, he joined the New York Giants front office as a press agent―the game’s first―in 1905. That season, hearing the Cubs were for sale, he secured a loan from Charles Taft, the older half brother of the future president of the United States, to buy a majority share and become the team’s new owner. In his second full season, the Cubs won their first World Series. They won again in 1908, but soon thereafter Murphy’s unconventional style invited ill will from the owners, his own players, and the press, even as he led the team through their most successful period in team history.

In Charlie Murphy: The Iconoclastic Showman behind the Chicago Cubs, Jason Cannon explores Murphy’s life both on and off the field, painting a picture of his meteoric rise and precipitous downfall. Readers will get to know the real Murphy, not the simplified caricature created by his contemporaries, but the whirling dervish who sent the sport of baseball spinning and elevated Chicago to the center of the baseball universe. Cannon recounts Murphy’s rise from the son of Irish immigrants to sports reporter to Cubs president, charting his legacy as one of the most important but overlooked figures in the National League’s long history.

Jason Cannon worked in collegiate sports information before turning to teaching and writing. He is the author of A Time for Reflection: The Parallel Legacies of Baseball Icons Willie McCovey and Billy Williams and his articles have appeared in NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture.