Cubs Coffee Table Book Was A Glorious Gamble
(CBS) When Vineline Magazine editor Gary Cohen and the Cubs staff decided to start compiling photos and essays about the 2016 season, they were banking on a happy ending.
"As we were getting close to the postseason, you start working on it as if it's going to happen, but then again, the Cubs could've not won and gone out in the NLCS like they did in 2015 and all the work is for naught," Cohen tells WBBM's Lisa Fielding.
"But you travel with the team, you gather as much content as you can. When big moments happen, you try to capture those moments in writing and on camera and you hope for the best," he says. "The beginning of Game 7, we knew it was going and it was going to happen -- then all of the sudden Rajai Davis hit that home run and we went, 'Oh my God, we might not be doing this book, what if this goes the wrong way?'"
There was a big sigh of relief in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 7, and the rest is history.
"This book wouldn't exist if the World Series hadn't happened," Cohen says. "It all came together very quickly. The Cubs win the World Series, it's been 108 years, lots of people are going to put out books and magazines and commemorative pieces, but as the official one for the Cubs, we wanted to provide fans something that they really weren't going to see anywhere else."
The new book, released by the Cubs in April and titled "Fly the W," is a 300-page coffee table book, featuring photographs from team photographer Steve Green, essays penned by various members of the Cubs family and plenty of stories and other features from the historic run that the Cubs went on last season.
"We start with the beginning of the collaboration between Tom Ricketts and Theo Epstein, so we look a little bit at how the team was built and then to the season," Cohen says.
He adds: "From spring training, Joe Maddon setting up the 'Embrace The Target' message; to the first half; the All-Star Game with eight Cubs players going; the second half and really dive in once they go to the postseason. We really cover every part of the season."
"You only get 108 years one time. This is the one. It would be great if it happened again, it would be meaningful, but this one is the meaningful one," Cohen says. "I'm a bit biased. It's a beautiful book, and it has stuff you won't find anywhere else."
"Fly the W" is available online and in the Cubs Store outside Wrigley Field. Any orders for Father's Day need to be placed by June 9.
