Welcoming an Old Cub

In my bedroom above where my TV sits is a large shelf that holds a ton of medals and trophies. Many of these are scholarly in nature; the old BookIt! program from Pizza Hut gave out medals if you completed your goal every month in a given school year, and I have several trophies from the reading program at St. Paul's Lutheran School in Aurora where I went from preschool through 8th grade. I also have several sports items, including a lot of medals and trophies from my park district T-Ball and soccer days, as well as letters from St. Paul's for my 4 years in both soccer and basketball.

I also have a few baseballs up there, some I got at various baseball games, other souvenir, non-game balls from different locales. Some are autographed by various Major League players like Jhonny Peralta, Scot Shields, or Shawn Estes, to name 3. My dad gave me a ball signed by the members of one or both of the Twins World Series teams. But there's one ball that sits front and center that means a lot more than all the rest put together.


In the spring of 2004 I went to Arizona with my mom and brother to go visit my grandparents and aunt. We went during the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament so I was kept fairly well entertained, but we made plans since we were in Mesa to go catch a Cubs spring training game. Before we went my aunt gave me a ball that she had gotten at a previous game, and I took a marker with me in hopes of getting an autograph. We got to HoHoKam park and I went down by the field to look for autographs. I found a sparse area where a few fans were lined up looking for autographs before finally realizing I was by the visitors' dugout. I looked across the way and saw many more fans by the opposite side, and was preparing to head that way when I saw a line heading up to the press box. It took me a couple seconds to realize they were lined up to go see beloved former Cub and radio analyst Ron Santo.

I hopped in line and was probably one of the last people to get there. Unfortunately it was hard to see up into the box and I had to stand on the back of a box seat to get close (nearly breaking my ankle in the process). But I said a quick hello, he said hello back, signed the ball, I thanked him, and climbed down, starstruck. I held in my hand a beat up baseball, but a very valuable souvenir. I didn't get any further autographs that day. I didn't need any more. My trip was validated.

That baseball sits in a protective case in my room now where I can easily see it, a reflection of my Cubbie blue blood. I thought back to that Mesa trip in the winter of 2010 when Santo passed away. I was an intern at WGN Radio at the time and they sent me to his church the day before the funeral to see if there were any fans lined up (this was mid-to-late morning and the visitation was scheduled for that afternoon) to pay their respects. To my surprise there weren't, but Chicago police had a small presence prepared for the occasion. I didn't get the opportunity to go in and pay my respects. I was back at Tribune Tower the next day to help with coverage of his funeral. It was a tear jerker, of course. I also missed out then on an opportunity to run outside the tower and catch his hearse as it passed in front of the building, as duty called. (Audio editing is fun, but time consuming.)

It saddened me that he passed away before he could get into the Hall of Fame, and it was bittersweet when I found out he got voted in earlier this year. He's one of now 12 3rd basemen in Cooperstown, and his numbers rank up there with the best of them. 342 home runs, 1331 RBI's, a lifetime .277 average, 5 Gold Gloves, 9 trips to the All-Star Game, and he did all of this without ever sniffing the postseason in a pitching-heavy era... all while battling diabetes. So many Hall of Famers sing his praises today, and will be enjoying an emotional scene with Santo's family and Cub fans all around the world.

I never saw him play obviously, but I grew up listening to him on WGN. He was still a favorite of mine because of his love for his Cubs and fans like me.

Click your heels one more time Ronnie. You've earned it. Welcome to Cooperstown.