Dec 10, 2010 13:30
Today essentially is a day of mourning for Chicago. It's fitting that, on the last 10th of the year, when the year is 2010, the Cubs would say goodbye to their #10.
I'm not a Cubs fan. Despite proximity--growing up on the Northwest Side, having grandparents that lived just south of Addison, and my great-grandmother on Clark at Irving--my father turned me into a Sox fan. When I got very into baseball in the early 1990s, all I watched were Sox games. That's not to say that I've never watched Cubs games; I believe I've mentioned in sixth grade that my teacher would turn on Cubs games for the last 15-30 minutes of school on slow days. This would have been right around the time when they got lights, so many, if not all, home games were still during the day.
Even now, many Cubs home games still occur during the day, and that's how I got introduced to Ron Santo. It just so happened to be in 2003, one of their more magical years (and probably as magical as they've been in recent decades). That was when I worked in an instrument repair shop, where we were able to listen to whatever we wanted, and in the spring and summer and early fall, that meant the Cubs games if they were on. Which is funny, really, because most of the people back there weren't Cubs fans. You'd have maybe two to four Cubs fans, the operations manager (who worked in the office behind the shop) who grew up Downstate and was a Cardinals fan (and you'd better watch yourself when those two played each other), the main woodwind guy who was from Minnesota, and me. But we'd all listen to the games--well, we didn't have a choice--and it was clear that Pat Hughes knew his stuff and that Ron Santo loved the Cubs. All you had to do was listen to one game and you knew how Ronnie felt. He had an honesty about his broadcasting style that you'll probably never see again, unless a kid is let into the booth for a few innings. They were a good team, and funny. There'd usually be a run-down on which toupee Ron wore that day (usually his gamer--I believe he had three of them). And, at some point, you'd hear Ron exclaim, either excitedly when something went well, or dejectedly when a ball got dropped or the other team scored. He had a colorful personality and I'm glad I was exposed to it.
His funeral this morning was broadcast on at least two of Chicago's TV stations; one was on a digital offshoot channel, but WGN showed it on its primary channel, not only the mass at Holy Name Cathedral but also the procession to Wrigley. I think it was the procession that amazed me more, because you expect certain things at a funeral mass, but long before they hit the stadium, people would pause along the sidewalk, simply stopping to watch the hearse, or else waving, saluting, making the sign of the cross, taking a picture. When they hit Wrigley, the crowd cheered and started singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and at one point the hearse stopped for a minute and the crowd swarmed around it. You'd have thought he was still alive and waving back to everyone. But that's how he touched people, in such a way that in death, he was never more alive.
I can't tell you when the Cubs might win the World Series, but I don't doubt that Ron will help the Cubs from beyond in any way he can.
Rest in peace, Ron.
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