The Plan

April 15, 2017
Since the author is a broadcaster for a company, Comcast SportsNet Chicago, that is 25 percent owned by the Ricketts family, who have a 95 percent stake in the Chicago Cubs, this probably won't be the most impartial account of that team's historic run to the 2016 World Series title. But Kaplan's access to principal owner Tom Ricketts, general manager Theo Epstein, manager Joe Maddon, and numerous coaches and players was key to his understanding, then sharing, the process by which Ricketts was able to purchase the team, attract long-term corporate sponsorships, rebuild its depleted farm system, modernize its outdated spring-training facility (with public help), bring Wrigley Field into the twenty-first centuryfor better or worseand at last win a title after a 108-year drought. Kaplan occasionally gets mired in the details, like his account of the financial squabble between the Cubs and the owners of rooftop properties behind the outfield bleachers, but he otherwise stays on task in delivering a fine case study in how to create a winning baseball culture.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)