At his father's deathbed in 1932, Wrigley promised never to sell the Cubs. Unfortunately for the team, he lived up to that promise. Not only didn't he have the passion for baseball that his father William Wrigley Jr. had, he was completely indifferent to it. He didn't even attend the World Series in 1932, 1935, 1938, and 1945, even though his team was playing. Those teams from the 30s were essentially built by his father and his father's handpicked executives. The '45 team was a wartime fluke. After '45, we really saw the P.K. Wrigley effect.
While it would be totally unfair to say that this bad century is totally P.K. Wrigley's fault, it's hard not to point a finger at him. He owned the team from 1932-1977, during which time the most powerful team in the National League became the laughing stock of baseball.
For twenty years in a row, under P.K. Wrigley, the Cubs never finished higher than 5th place (1947-1966).
Charlie Grimm, a man who managed for him three different times, explained Wrigley's helping hand this way: "Whatever we said in the meetings, he'd always say, 'No that ain't right, let's do it this way.' He was absolutely wrong about everything."
Then again, it's not fair to blame the whole bad century on this one man.
He's only responsible for 45 years.
