Hoodoo: Unraveling the 100-Year Mystery of the Chicago Cubs, is an entertaining account of a multi-year quest to understand, and ultimately set right, the events contributing to Cubs unprecedented World Series drought.

Propelled by the cleansing effects of the 2003 infamous foul ball destruction and armed with a stack of Chicago newspapers from 1908, Grant DePorter, lifelong Cubs fan and President of Harry Caray’s Restaurant Group, set out to understand the extraordinary series of misfortunes that had plagued the Cubs for generations. He poured over the four-foot high stacks of one-hundred-year-old newspapers with a scientist’s resolve. The more he read, the clearer it became that he was looking for what was commonly known at the time as a “hoodoo,- or a harbinger of bad luck.

Along the way, DePorter uncovered many remarkable coincidences and never-before-told stories, including:

•1908 cartoon depicting a man bearing an uncanny resemblance to Sam Sianis, leading a goat on a leash. The goat is speaking the word “Never.- (page 62)

•The endless list of superstitions subscribed to by the 1908 players, including:
o Don’t strike out the first batter
o Never touch a catcher’s mitt before a game
o If you see a hairpin, pick it up
o Passing a wagon full of unbaled hay or empty barrels on the way to a game is good luck (page 124)

•“Mr. Cub- Ernie Banks’ story of how voodoo predicted his baseball success and how superstition ran rampant among Cubs players and managers as recently as 1969 (page 106).

Illustrated with cartoons from Chicago’s four newspapers in 1908, along with current work by Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Sun-Times cartoonist Jack Higgins, the book chronicles the journey of understanding and ultimate elimination of the epic hoodoo afflicting the Chicago Cubs.

* Special edition signed by Ernie "Mr. Cub" Banks

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