I’m not very well suited for this one.
Not a Cubs fan. Don’t detest them like all you Cardinals and White Sox fans do. I do believe that if you truly love baseball, at least a little part of you must bear some fondness for the Cubbies.
Wrigley Field, “The Friendly Confines,” with the ivy on the outfield wall since 1937. Nothing but day games for decades. Site of the Babe’s called shot against the chirpy Cubs in the 1932 World Series. Home of Ernie Banks, who coined “The Friendly Confines” and was known to smile broadly and say, “let’s play two.”
The wind blowing out over Waveland Avenue, and major leaguers looking like slow-pitch softball sluggers as they took advantage.
The Curse of the Billy Goat, rooted in the city’s Billy Goat Tavern, which found the spotlight in the 1980s thanks to a recurring Saturday Night Live skit featuring Bill Murray, a Billy Goat regular, and Chicagoan John Belushi, who recited the trademark refrain, “Cheeburger, Cheeburger, Cheeburger. No Coke. Pepsi.”
Fergie Jenkins. Full name Ferguson, but Fergie just felt better. Unless you had to hit against him.
Sammy Sosa. Say what you will about supplements and such, Sosa’s 1998 friendly duel with the Cardinals’ Mark McGwire as they pounded past Roger Maris’ MLB-record 61 home runs captivated all of us, baseball fans or not, and brought big league baseball back into good graces with the American sports fan.
Even if you were not a Cubs fan, if you are of a certain age, a baseball buff who had leisure time in the 1980s and a TV, you watched the Cubs on WGN. You watched the Braves on WTBS. Depending on where you lived, you saw the Mets on WOR. There was no nightly range of games to watch. You wanted to see baseball on TV, those were your choices.
The Cubs had the incomparable Harry Caray, that lovable lout, perhaps soused, but leaning out of the WGN broadcast booth and singing “Take Me Out To the Ballgame” over the public address system to the Wrigley fans in the seventh inning stretch.
For goodness’ sakes, the Cubs had Bill Murray as their unofficial No. 1 fan. And we all were nuts for that nut, Bill Murray. Noogies for everybody!
It wasn’t just because Lee Smith spent more time with the Cubs than any of his other MLB stops that he entered Cooperstown in Chicago blue. Ask him today, and his eyes will sparkle when the Castor resident talks about the Cubbies, his buddy Randy Hundley, his catcher, and more of his teammates.
Today, his eyes are doubtlessly damp at the loss of one of them, the greatest Cub of this generation, Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg, whose cruel battle with cancer ended Monday at age 65.
When the sad news broke late in the evening, passionate tributes poured in from every angle – teammates, MLB peers, fans, random people who had been graced by Ryno’s personal touch, showing kindness and going out of his way to make a fan’s day. The highlights flashed almost incessantly across SportsCenter.
“A quiet superstar” was one description. Here was his:
“I love to play baseball. I’m a baseball player. I’ve always been a baseball player. I’m still a baseball player. That’s who I am,” he said from the podium at Cooperstown during his 2005 Baseball Hall of Fame induction.
He also said things like, “If you played the game the right way, played the game for the team, good things would happen.”
Talk about For Love of the Game, Ryne Sandberg personified it.
Thanks to Lee Smith, I saw it up close, almost exactly six years ago, on the eve of Smith’s Cooperstown enshrinement. The flame-throwing reliever and his wife kindly put me and my pal, Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame artist Chris Brown, on the invitation list to the Cubs’ otherwise exclusive party celebrating his induction. We were star-struck along with several of his Natchitoches American Legion baseball teammates, and other family and friends.
All of the team’s living Hall of Famers were there, and they all spoke about their relationships with Lee. Billy Williams, who scouted him. Fergie Jenkins, whose career ended with Lee closing games for him. Andre’ Dawson, and Lee’s 1984 teammate, that season’s runaway National League MVP, Sandberg. As we milled around the venue, we didn’t flinch at chances to chat with luminaries like MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, and yes, all of the Cubs greats.
No one was more gracious or sincerely nice than Sandberg. It probably helped that Chris pitched in the Cubs organization after his Northwestern State career, but I would never have imagined going into that evening that we’d share a five-minute conversation with the Chicago icon.
I’ll always remember that one of big league baseball’s most popular and accomplished players didn’t big league us. He didn’t bounce away quickly. He was enjoying it.
Because Ryne Sandberg loved baseball.
“The reasons I am here, they tell me, is that I played the game a certain way,” he said on his own Cooperstown weekend, “that I played the game the way it was supposed to be played.”
He was speaking of baseball. He played the game of life just right, too.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com