Chicago Cubs: Baseball on Catalina IslandPaperback, 12 April 2010

The world of sports in the earlier decades of the 20th century certainly wasn't like the one we know today--it's even wilder.

From the Roaring Twenties and up to the golden age of the 1950s, chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. owned both the Chicago Cubs and Santa Catalina Island in Southern California, so despite being over 2000 miles apart, the team would hold their spring training on the island from 1921 to 1951. Despite a rigorous training schedule, the players obviously felt the sunshine on their faces and the sand between their toes, and decided to have some fun as well. It wouldn't be unusual to find a rookie ballplayer (nicknamed Hack) uprooting trees with his bare hands or a future president of the United States getting into a barroom brawl with some grizzled sportswriters. Even movies stars such as Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe were known to drop by. There were grand steamships, big bands, hopes and dreams, and World Series rings--it's Chicago Cubs: Baseball on Catalina Island.