GO TO PREVIOUS SECTION: May 1-May 7
PART III, continued
May 8th to May 14th
May 8, 2005
In a perfect world—or, at the very least, in a better one—I would have watched the Bulls and Wizards play Game 7 at the United Center this afternoon. That was not the case, however, and instead I spent my Monday getting a few things ready for camp, little preparation jobs like accessing my gym shoe situation and re-breaking in my glove. I also spent this afternoon reacquainting myself with the current baseball season, a season that I’ve pretty much ignored in favor of focusing entirely on the Bulls playoff run. I haven’t ignored the season completely, but if you had to choose between focusing your attention and energy on the surging Bulls or the slumping Cubs, what would you choose?
So now the Bulls are done, and I feel like a parent who returns home from a much needed vacation and finds the house in disarray. Sure I knew that the Cubs were struggling just to stay above .500, but the Bulls gave me the leeway to forget almost entirely about baseball and simply live in a world where the team I root for is in the postseason. I haven’t really thought too much about the Cubs lately, and it’s gotten to the point where I’ll miss the whole game and then just catch the score on the radio. If they win, awesome. If they lose, who cares? I’m watching playoff hoops.
Of course, reality was always in the back of my head, and not only did I know that it was there but I also knew that very soon, I would be forced to face it. So I enjoyed the Bulls to my fullest capacity, and now…well, now I’m returning to reality and finding out what every other Cub fan already knows: the wind is blowing in, the vendors are out of beer, and we’re down ten runs with two outs in the ninth. Oh, and by the way, the White Sox have the best record in baseball.
There was some good news today. The Cubbies beat Philadelphia 2-1 behind Carlos Zambrano to prevent a Philly sweep and stop the bleeding on a seven game—SEVEN GAME???!!—losing streak. The White Sox also have a streak going, one they extended today with a 5-4 win over Toronto, and while their streak has lasted eight games instead of seven, it’s a different kind of streak. They are in the midst of what is commonly referred to as a “winning streak.” Yes, the Sox have won eight in a row and 16 of 19 and currently sit atop baseball with an MLB-best record of 24-7.
So that’s reality, and all things considered, it’s rather surprising. What’s not surprising, however, is the lack of excitement over the White Sox’s hot start. If the Cubs were running away with the division at 24-7 behind a fun manager and good pitching, the city would have shut down. People would have watched the Bulls’ Game 6 meltdown and said, “Thank goodness, finally, now we can watch the Cubs with no distractions.” But that’s not the way things go on the South Side, where even a first-place club can’t sell out its own park. The announced attendance at Wrigley today was 38,656, which according to ESPN.com makes our park 97.7% full. In the White Sox’s most recent home game—a 2-1 win over the Royals on May 5th that finished off a series sweep of Kansas City and gave the Sox five wins in a row and a mark of 21-7—the announced attendance at The Cell was 15,389…which, if you were wondering, leaves two-thirds of the stadium’s newly painted seats empty. The Sox have now won three more games to boost their streak to eight in a row, and when they return home to Comiskey on Thursday the 12th they will more than likely still be the best team in baseball, and what will the best team in baseball probably get upon returning to their home city and their home stadium and their home fans?
Approximately 30,000 empty seats.
Yes, that’s right. It doesn’t matter what the Sox do. U.S. Cellular Field, in all of its renovated glory, will always be empty. And the Cubbies, those darlings of baseball, will always take the field in front of nearly 40,000 screaming fans. And that, my friends, is what our parents meant when they looked down at us all those many years ago and shocked us with the three words we’ve all learned to accept: “Life isn’t fair.”
Do not be amazed by what I am about to say. Do not read into it or look for deeper meaning or attempt to figure out what kind of mental state I am in as I write it. What I am about to say, I say not only as a Cubs vI believe through and through: The Chicago White Sox are hands down the saddest franchise in all of sports. People talk and talk and talk about the Cubs and the Red Sox, about curses and what ifs, about a routine ground ball that scooted under the first baseman’s legs and a routine foul ball that was knocked away by a fan. People talk about Bartman and Buckner, about Bucky Dent and Brant Brown and Aaron Boone. They talk about the Evil Empire and the ’69 Mets, about incredible starts and legendary collapses. They talk about a goat—a GOAT—that wasn’t allowed into a stadium, and a very good but still mortal pitcher sold to a rival and then blossoming into a cultural icon and Hall-of-Fame slugger. They throw around words like “epic” and “tragic” and “fate” and “curse,” and they make movies and write books and produce television programs that document the pain and suffering of Cub fans and Red Sox fans, and they do all of this without looking for one instant at the saddest team of all. The Cubs last won a championship in 1908, the longest title drought of any professional sports team. Until last fall, the Red Sox were high on that list, having gone 86 years without a title. 86 years is certainly a long time, but do you know what’s longer than 86 years? 87 years, as in 87 years since the last time the White Sox have won a title.
So the Cubs haven’t won a title since 1908. OK, that sucks. But the White Sox haven’t won one since 1917. 1908, 1917. 97 years ago, 88 years ago. Get the point? If there is an emotional difference for a fan between going 97 years without a title and going 88 years without a title, then I would like to know it. Even as I sit here and consider the remote—and, quite frankly, hilarious—possibility of a 95-year-old Cubs fan in a nursing home somewhere being teased mercilessly by his 95-year-old Sox fan roommate, I still can’t say that one is any easier than the other. 1908, 1917, 1918…they’re all interchangeable.
I understand the discrepancy. The White Sox have the misfortune of being bad without style or drama. Sure they have the Black Sox scandal, which some refer to as the Black Sox curse in an effort to gain some notoriety and sympathy, but they haven’t lost in shocking and dramatic ways. Bartman sticks his hand out, people say, “Oh, it’s the Billy Goat.” The ball goes under Buckner’s legs, people say, “Oh, it’s the Babe.” The Sox get swept in the 2000 ALDS, or lose to Toronto in six games in the 1993 ALCS, and they just got beat. No myth. No curse. No Shakespearian collapse. They lost. That’s it.
They also have the misfortune of playing baseball in the same market as arguably the most popular franchise in all of sports. The Cubs dominate this city in just about every possible way imaginable. It’s not even close.
1. Ballpark- Wrigley Field vs. U.S. Cellular Field
Advantage: Cubs
Explanation: On its own terms, the Cell is a terrific park, and though I dislike the name change, I must admit that the sight lines are great, the food is better, and the new fan-zones that they’ve built look awesome. That said, you just can’t top Wrigley Field. The park is an attraction in and of itself—Comiskey may have been, though to a lesser extent, but the Cell definitely is not—and when you add to that park the surrounding neighborhood of Wrigleyville, it’s a lethal combination.
2. Legend- Billy Goat Curse vs. Black Sox Scandal
Advantage: Cubs
Explanation: The Billy Goat Curse is so ridiculous that it’s fun. Fans enjoy it, because they know that it’s kind of absurd. I mean, the guy wanted to bring his goat into the park and couldn’t. On the other hand, eight guys lost the World Series on purpose.
3. Perception- Lovable Losers vs. Losers
Advantage: Cubs
Explanation: Again, pretty self-explanatory. The Cubs trademarked the “Lovable Loser” schtick, making it nearly impossible not to have fun at a game. As I explained earlier, there’s more to it than that—being a Cub fan is about appreciating the good things in life, so winning is sweeter and losing is just a part of the game—but the perception is that the Cubs are fun no matter what. The White Sox, on the other hand, don’t have a schtick. They just don’t win. And maybe even worse than that, they’re rarely awful. The Cubs have had some pretty incredibly awful seasons, seasons in which you would go absolutely insane if your emotions were tied to wins and losses. So Cubs fans makedo by accepting losing as a way of life, and once we do that we’re free to simply enjoy a nice day at the ballpark.
White Sox fans don’t have that kind of mentality, because they’re always a lot closer to winning. Take the 1990s, for example. The Sox won 816 games in the ’90s, good for fourth in the decade behind the Braves (925 wins, 8 postseason appearances, 5 pennants, 1 World Series win), Yankees (851, 5, 3, 3) and Indians (823, 5, 2, 0). But the Sox’ 816 wins yielded only one postseason appearance, a division championship in 1993. While the Cubs had their moment in the sun in the one-game playoff win over San Francisco at Wrigley in 1998, the Sox played no top shelf memorable games in the ’90s. Not one. In fact, all of their most memorable moments were bad. In 1991 they moved into New Comiskey, which was the last of the big ballparks. In 1992, Baltimore moved into Camden Yards, setting off the current trend of small retro parks built in the mold of Wrigley and Fenway. In 1994, the Sox were building on their 1993 success with a 67-46 record when the strike wiped out the rest of the season. In 1995 while only 3 ½ games out of first place, the Sox orchestrated the infamous “White Flag Trade” in which they sent Wilson Alvarez, Roberto Hernandez, and Danny Darwin to the Giants for six minor leaguers, effectively giving up on the season. Sure the trade ended up being a positive one for the Sox with Keith Foulke and Bobby Howry helping them to an AL-best 95 wins in 2000, but nobody knew that then and the move sent Sox fans up in arms. The 1990s typified the marketing problems that face the White Sox today: teams that were good enough to compete but never dominant and rarely memorable mixed with bad luck, bad timing, and bad public relations. All of it adds up to a squad that is second fiddle in its own city.
So, which is a sadder story? Is it the Cubs, a baseball team that hasn’t won a title since 1908 but compensates that with a great ballpark that is always full, a great fan base, and a fun-loving reputation? Or is it the White Sox, a baseball team that hasn’t won a title since 1917 and is strapped with an out-of-date ballpark in a lousy neighborhood with teams that are just good enough to give fans a whiff of winning while never dominating and rarely leaving a lasting impression, and on top of all that a team faced with in-city competition from arguably the most popular franchise in sports?
To me, the answer is simple: life is much better on the North Side than it is on the South Side. We have it great, as do the Red Sox, even without their title last year. Even if the Yankees had finished off their sweep of Boston in the ALCS and gone on to win another meaningless championship, Red Sox fans would still have it better than White Sox fans, and for lots of the same reasons that Cubs fans have it better than White Sox fans. Red Sox fans have an identity, and a team that has given them lots of memories. Sure they’re unpleasant memories, but they’re memories just the same. Losing makes winning better, and losing dramatically makes for better stories than losing normally.
Would Boston’s World Series win last year been as sweet without Bucky Dent and Bill Buckner and Aaron Boone? Of course not. Would they rather lose in obscurity like the White Sox do? Would they rather lose without drama, without remarkable, unexplainable plays that go against them, without the curse of the Babe to fall back on? Of course not. Having a widely-recognizable curse means that a loss isn’t really a loss. It’s just “the way things are.” If you lose with a curse, it’s because your team is cursed. If you lose without a curse, it’s because your team is bad. You’re telling me that Red Sox or Cubs fans would rather be bad than cursed? That they’d rather be regular schmoes like the White Sox or Indians or Giants or Astros or Brewers instead of the Red Sox, a team with a legend and a Shakespearian history? You’re telling me that we would have rather lost a World Series the way Cleveland did in 1997? Game 7 of the World Series, and the Indians—a team that last won a World Series in 1948—headed into the bottom of the ninth with a 2-1 lead on Florida, an expansion team in its fifth year of existence. Instead of holding the lead and capturing Cleveland’s first professional title since the Browns won the NFL Championship in 1964, the Indians blew the lead and ended up losing the game and the series 3-2 in the bottom of the 11th.
How did the Indians lose their lead in the ninth, you might ask? Perhaps it was an easy groundball to first base that went under the legs of Jim Thome and allowed Florida to tie the game. Or perhaps leftfielder Dave Justice was unable to catch a Craig Counsell foul ball because an Indians fan interfered with the play, and with new life Counsell sent the very next pitch into center field for a game-tying base hit. Or perhaps after catching a fly ball in center field, Marquis Grissom trotted absentmindedly towards the dugout thinking he had made the third out of the inning when in fact it was only the second, giving Moises Alou time to tag up at third and score.
Any one of those plays would have signaled an Epic Collapse on the part of the Indians. The play would have gone down in history as another in a long line of unbelievable game-changing plays in sports, leaving Cleveland fans wondering if perhaps, on this night, fate was against them. Losing like that allows fans the opportunity to chuckle a bit at the bizarre twists and turns of life, because those plays turn losing into epic tragedies that extend beyond sports. In a sense, they take the players off the hook.
But nothing I’ve listed above happened in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1997 World Series. Nothing spectacular happened, nothing memorable happened, and nothing otherworldly happened. Moises Alou singled, reached third on a hit by Charles Johnson, and scored on a sacrifice fly to right by Craig Counsell. That’s it. Routine baseball. A hit to get it going, another to move the runner along, and a deep sac fly to score him. Get ‘em on, get ‘em over, get ‘em in. Epic? Not even close. Memorable? Hardly. Prelude to Edgar Renteria’s game-winning hit in the 11th? Sure. But legendary? No way. You think Boston fans would have preferred that ending? You think they would have rather seen Ray Knight reach third on Bob Stanley’s wild pitch, and then have Mookie Wilson score Knight on a deep sac fly to right? Come on. (And yes, I know that there were already two outs in the inning when the Mets rallied, but you get my point.) Boston’s tenth inning collapse was incredibly painful, as was Buckner’s error, but by losing the way they did rather than the way Cleveland did, Boston fans were given an opportunity to elevate the play from “Unfortunate But Normal Sports Occurrence” to “Preordained Tragedy,” and in turn elevate themselves from “Unfortunate But Normal Sports Fans” to “Victims of a Cruel Fate.” And perhaps, most importantly of all, losing the way they did rather than the way Cleveland did gave Boston fans a memorable game that strengthened their fandom and ultimately made their 2004 championship that much sweeter.
And really, that’s what you want as a sports fan: memories. Red Sox fans talk about the pain that sprung from Bill Buckner and Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone just as Cubs fans talk about the pain that sprung from the ’69 Mets and Steve Bartman, but along with the pain comes joy, because everybody loses, but how many teams lose the way the Cubs and Red Sox lose? How many teams lose with flair, drama, and a sense of history? How many teams lose in big games with everyone watching, as opposed to in the regular season in unspectacular fashion? There is joy in being a Cubs or Red Sox fan; joy in knowing that your pain makes you stand out, and joy in knowing that you’ve been through something horrible and lived to talk about it. It’s that pain that had people rooting for a Cubs-Red Sox World Series in 2003, and it’s that pain that made the 2004 Red Sox a national story. It’s that pain that makes “Fever Pitch” a hit movie,[1] and it’s that pain that packs Wrigley Field day in and day out, because miserable memorable moments are always better than miserable unmemorable moments.
Here in the early going, in this young 2005 baseball season, the Cubs are floundering and struggling to find an identity. But their ballpark is packed, and if they turn it around and head to the playoffs, ESPN and Sports Illustrated and the Score and every single baseball fan, critic, pundit, historian, and novice on this planet will be talking about the Cubs and their attempt to “reverse the curse” and win their first World Series in almost a century. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, the White Sox have the best record in baseball, and no one cares.
That, my friends, is a painful existence.
May 10, 2005
I’m walking through D&D Finer Foods in Evanston, picking up some things for Mom, when I get a call. It’s Swiryn.
“Yo man.”
“What’s up?”
“I’ve got some news.”
“Yes?”
“Leb just offered me the Ridge V.D. spot.”
“Whoa! Congratu-fucking-lations!” And then: “You’re taking it, right?”
“Oh, definitely.”
“Well that’s awesome. Good for you, Mike.”
“Thanks man.”
Three villages in camp…Junior, Intermediate, Senior…and along with the three-man counseling teams in each cabin, each village has once counselor who acts as the Village Director, known as the “V.D.” (It’s a weird abbreviation, I know, but you get used to it quickly.) In 2002, the V.D.’s were (from Juniors up): Cliff Lissner (11th summer at NSC), Jeff McCormack (7th), and Brad Holland (6th). Cliff left North Star in ’02 to become assistant-director at Chippewa Ranch Camp—he has since become owner/director—sending the multi-faceted Big Dog McCormack down to the J-Village and moving our friend and former cabinmate Marc Siegel (Big Ten in 2001 with Cliff) into the Ridge spot. The trio of Jeff, Marc, and Brad remained in 2004, but we all knew that changes would be coming this year, for a few reasons. When Jack Weiner died in the winter of 2001, Doug Willson (Big Ten ’99) took over as C.I.T. director, a job he held for two summers. When Doug left, Jeff took over, and Shlensky—who had secured his spot as the lead counselor in J-1 following his C.I.T. year in 2001—became the unofficial assistant J-Village V.D. Knowing that being both a V.D. and C.I.T. director was too much work, even for an incredible counselor and staff member like Jeff—actually, especially for Jeff, who also oversees work on the program, and heads up disc golf, and has a newborn son—the V.D. spot was dropped from his responsibilities after last summer. Meanwhile, after 13 consecutive summers at North Star, Marc hung up his waterskis after ’04 and took, in the words of Mr. Blonde, a “real job job-type job”…and in the Villa, after becoming the longest-tenured international staff member in North Star history, Brad Holland decided to return to Australia and begin a career in camping in his home country.
That was last year.
Now here we were heading into the 2005 summer, and all three V.D. spots were now open, though we were all pretty sure that Shlensky would take over for the Juniors. This left two spots, and when it was determined that the Villa now required two V.D.’s due to all of the special events and leadership programs for the oldest campers, we knew that there would be two people heading up the Villa and one doing the Ridge. In the end, Dan—who has held just about every job at camp and is currently holding it down in Pine Manor (the name of the oldest cabin…more on that later)—took over the traditional Villa V.D. responsibilities while Jacob Segil—who, like Shlensky, had assumed an “unofficial assistant V.D.” spot in the Villa in 2004—took over as the Villa’s special events guy.
As for the Ridge, Swiryn, myself, and J.R. were the assumed final candidates, as Jacob was probably going to stay in the Villa even if he was not V.D. (None of this is known, of course. It’s just assumed base upon our understanding of how things work and simply knowing who the good candidates would be.) Having been on staff for a year longer than me and having been at camp for five more summers than J.R.—and, of course, tenure aside, Mike is overflowing in all of the qualities that one would want for a V.D.—Swiryn was easily the frontrunner. Knowing that I was a viable candidate but also knowing that Swiryn wanted the job more and was better-qualified, I told Leb during the final week of 2004 that I was not interested in the job, and though I do not know how seriously J.R. or anyone else was considered, it ended up going to Swiryn, who, in the end, was the most qualified for it anyhow.
“So,” I say with a laugh, “I guess you’re one of them now.”
“Yeah man. I’ve joined the Dark Side.”
But in reality, it’s not like that at all. Everyone has a job to do at camp, and our power structure is in place not for the self-serving interest of “power,” but simply for the purposes of efficiency. Camp is a place in which leadership opportunities are abundant, and the best indication that we are doing our jobs well is when everyone at camp feels responsible for himself. When people know what is expected of them and are put in situations geared towards their success, everyone becomes stronger. Particularly on our staff, where we have so many dedicated and talented people working both in and out of the cabin, job titles are more about responsibility than prestige. There is a job to be done, and someone qualified needs to do it, and that’s where it ends with us. Shlensky, Swiryn, Jacob, and Dan are all among the most-qualified people at camp for their jobs, and so they fill those positions because that’s what needs to be done. I am excited to see Andy and Jake reach those spots, but I am particularly excited for Mike, my brother in camping. Even if I was his equal as a candidate, I would still be thrilled to see him taking this spot, and it’s not because he’s “moving on up.” It’s because we’re moving on up. His promotion is a nod to our collective talent and dedication. It is a nod to our collective ascension. There are only four V.D. spots, and many viable options to fill them. The only thing keeping Robby, Ari, Frost, Heldman, Weiss, and Byron from being considered this summer is age. The promotions of Andy, Jake, and Swiryn is a testament to all of us. That’s what makes me happy.
In 2001, it was Cliff, Jeff, and Brad, all of whom had been on staff since at least 1997. Now, along with Dan, it’s Shlensky (joined staff in ’01), Swiryn (’01), and Jacob (’03). And the years, keep on rolling by…
******
One of the coolest aspects of camp is that the life-cycle is relatively short. Camper life is generally five to seven years, and even the most dedicated staff members move on to something new when they reach their early to mid 20’s. This means that camp regenerates itself almost completely every ten to fifteen years. When I was a camper, North Star was a much different place. On the surface, everything was the same. We still promoted the values that Lou and Renee instilled in us. But the staff at camp during the 1990s was very inclusive, and this created a powerful hierarchy of cool and uncool. My final summer as a camper was 1997, and the clique-nature of camp was still very much at its peak. Two years later, the final “old school” counselors left, and from what I hear, the summer of 2000 featured a very new-to-North Star staff.
2001 was the flip year. Swiryn came back in ’01, and the C.I.T.’s that summer were a very strong group, including long-timers Glickman, Shlensky, and Blumberg. (Jacob was their age, but took two years off after PM 2000, returning to staff in 2003). I came back in 2002, the same summer that another very strong group of C.I.T.’s joined staff: Robby, Heldman, Frost, Ari, Weiss, Byron, Sammy Kraus, and Matt Bernstein. That’s how it started: the natural evolution from the selfish, me-first staff to a group that was truly dedicated to North Star.
So that was part one. Part two meant a proactive reversal of the overall culture of cliques that was still clinging to many of our oldest campers. To this end, Dan and Swiryn headed up the two Pine Manor cabins in 2003, effectively changing the entire culture of the Senior Village, and in turn, of camp. That was a difficult summer, particularly for Swiryn and his cabin, a group of kids who entered their Pine Manor summers with the expectation of the “old school” attitudes towards camp. When I was a camper, “contraband” such as candy and pop were prevelant among returners, and the older you got the more food you brought. This wasn’t so much of a problem on its own, but it led to older campers becoming disinterested in the North Star community, returning summer after summer only to please themselves by hanging out with their friends in the cabin, eating, drinking pop, and playing cards. The fault of course lay not with the 15-year-olds in 2003; they were only doing what they’d been “trained” to do. The fault lay with the staff of the ’90s, who allowed and encouraged the wrong types of behavior to become the norm rather than the sneaking and winking exception.
What are our goals at camp? What is our purpose? We ask these questions often, and the simplist definitions that we come to our “fun” and “safe.” On the “fun” side, camp has always been strong. As a summer camp with activity-based programming, we have always moved in the right direction. But as a community in which all members feel safe to be themselves, North Star had been paddled upstream for so long that they’d actually changed the direction of the current. In 2003, Mike and Dan led the rest of us in putting our paddles back in the water and paddling as hard as we could the other way. Naturally, this created conflict with the oldest kids, particularly Mike’s cabin, who were more of the ’90s mold than was Dan’s cabin. And I felt for them. I remember one day during that summer…I was out disc golfing with three of Mike’s campers, three good kids who were in the “cool” group, and hence were being the most directly affected by our change in direction. I felt for them. I really did. They were telling me how harsh Mike was as a counselor, how he didn’t let them have any fun, how they wished that things would just stay how they were. They weren’t being jerks; they were just being kids who had gone to camp for four or five years, had gotten used to a certain expectation, and then, in their final year as campers, the summer that is supposed to be an absolute peak, they were being told that what they’d always done was wrong. It was tough. But you have to start somewhere, and ultimately their loss was North Star’s gain.
When I was a camper, there were probably about 40 12-year-olds, but the cool-culture knocked lots of those kids out and by the time reached Pine Manor there were only 11 of us. Now, just two years after the transitional summer of 2003, we enter ’05 with so many 15-year-olds that we will have, for the first time ever, four Pine Manor cabins. This is completely unprecedented, and it’s a testament to the job that our staff has done over the past three summers. The natural evolution plus the proactive change. That’s what did it.
In life, a generation is about thirty years, meaning that in order to change the pervasive culture you have to wait awhile. The “natural evolution,” as it were, takes a long time. But camp gives us a vision, not just of how society and community work, but also how they can work if pushed in a different direction. To me, that’s one of the most exciting things about working at North Star.
May 13, 2005
I come downstairs after doing some reading, and my dad is sitting in the TV room.
“Did you see what we rented?”
“No. What?”
“The Santo movie. This Old Cub.”
“Oh sweet!”
“Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“You wanna watch it with us?”
“For a little bit while I eat. I called Luke because I felt like going out to play some catch, but he can’t find his glove and he needs a new one anyways, so we’re going to go out and get him a glove. But I was going to eat something first.”
“Well as soon as your mother gets off the phone, I’m turning it on.”
“Cool.”
This Old Cub is a documentary about Ron Santo. It was written and directed by his son, Jeff Santo, and looks at Santo’s life with the Cubs, from his playing career to his broadcasting career. It also looks at Santo’s lifelong battle with diabetes, a battle that has taken both of his legs, and while it focuses on Santo’s life, career, and positive spirit, the real heart of the movie is Santo the Cubs fan. Santo’s love for life, upbeat attitude, and faith that everything will turn out all right is what makes him so beloved by Cubs fans. Because of his attitude, Santo is the ultimate Cubs fan, the epitome of what being a Cubs fan is all about.
The movie also takes time to chronicle the tragic season of 1969, in which the Cubs spent nearly the entire season in first place before suffering the most dramatic late season collapse in sports history. 69 is a taboo number for all kids, but in our household it had nothing to do with sex. If you thought living through last season’s final week was bad—in case you’ve forgotten, the Cubs beat the Reds 12-5 on the last Monday of the season to push their Wild Card lead over Houston to a game and a half, and then proceeded to lose six of their final seven games to fall out of the playoff race—try living through the last month and a half of the 1969 season:
NL East Standings after August 14, 1969:
Cubs up nine games on the Cardinals and ten games on the Mets.
Final NL East Standings:
Cubs back eight games of the Mets.
For those of you scoring at home, that’s an unprecedented eighteen game swing between the Mets and the Cubs over a month and a half. I grew up hearing stories about that ’69 season. Anytime I was upset that the Cubs were losing, my parents told me about 1969 to show me that I didn’t know what losing was. And anytime I was happy that the Cubs were winning, my parents told me about 1969 to show me that with the Cubs, it can all change in a heartbeat. The 1969 Cubs were on track to become one of the greatest teams in Chicago sports history. Instead, they became the single greatest sports tragedy in the history of Chicago, and possibly, just possibly, in the history of mankind. They turned into a symbol of this city’s Murphy’s Law mentality.
But they had another meaning in my house. In my house, the ’69 Cubs were the best illustrator of my parents’ differing attitude towards sports. My dad is a realist. When he talks about the ’69 season, he sees the obvious tragic aspect, but he doesn’t live in that pain. He has fond memories of the team, of Banks, Williams, Santo, and Leo the Lip, of Fergie Jenkins and Ken Holtzman, of Randy Hundley and Glenn Beckert and Don Kessinger. He turned 19 in the middle of that summer, and from the stories I’ve been told and the time I’ve spent talking baseball with him, it seems that the ’69 Cubs marked the end of my dad’s childhood. The early seeds of that team were planted when my dad was a boy, and he tells stories about sitting out in the bleachers to watch his heroes play ball. He tells stories of Ernie Banks standing outside of the stadium and not leaving until every kid had left with an autograph and a smile. My dad grew up on the North Side, and attended Mather High School, and among my favorite stories of his are from his days at Jamieson Grammar School, where he wrote for the Jamieson Journal.
“I wrote for the school paper, the Jamieson Journal, and because we were editors my friend Sammy Wolf and I would have to go down to the printer to pick up the papers and bring them back for the school. There may have been someone else, but I just remember Sammy Wolf. The printer was down on Belmont, which is 3200, and we were at 5600, so we would take a bus south to Belmont but we’d get off at Addison instead and catch a few innings. We’d buy a couple of tickets and catch a few innings.”
“How much were tickets?”
“Well…I think good seats were about a buck and a quarter, maybe a little bit more. Bleachers were about eighty cents. We sat in the bleachers. I remember the programs cost fifteen cents each, so whatever it was it wasn’t a lot. So we’d watch a few innings, and then we’d walk from the park to the printer, pick up the papers, maybe two hundred or so for the whole school, and we’d each carry two bundles of papers to the train, and take the El back to school. We usually missed most of the day. And they never really figured out why it took us so long to pick up the papers.”
He laughs.
“So, you did this once a week?”
“Oh no. No, no. Once a month. Yeah. The paper came out once a month, and the season started in April, so April, May, June…we got out of school around the middle of June.”
“And then did you go again when school started up in August?”
“No, probably not. The school year didn’t start until after Labor Day, so by that time there wasn’t much left in the season. So it was really just at the beginning of the season and the end of the school year. Definitely eighth grade, probably seventh grade too. So, wow…” He thinks for a second. “It was probably only, you know, four, five, six times in my whole life that we did that.”
For my dad, the ’69 Cubs were a great team that, like most Chicago teams, just didn’t make it. It was rough while it happened, but now when he looks back on that season, it’s a snap of the fingers and a “that’s the way it goes sometimes,” but mostly it’s the last great memory of a Cub team that he watched growing up, a team that was together for the better part of his childhood and teenage years. Banks retired in 1971, but 1969 was his last full season. Santo hung ‘em up in ’74 after one unmemorable season with the White Sox. Billy Williams—“Sweet Billy,” as my parents always say—was with the team until ’74, and two years later manager Leo Durocher left. By the time the Cubs were back on top in 1984, it was a different team, and a different life for my dad. He’d finished school, fully experienced the Sixties, and was now a family man, back in Chicago, with a wife and two kids. The Durocher-led Cubs never had another season filled with as much promise as they did in 1969, and while there was pain in the outcome, my dad remembers that season as the most memorable year of his childhood team.
For my mom, however, it’s a whole different story. Mention the ’69 Cubs to my mom, and you’ll get a pained expression, followed by moans and groans and other nearly inaudible sounds. My mom is an optimist, and a very emotional person, and when she experiences something it stays with her. This was evident in many ways throughout my childhood, and it manifested itself in sports in a few places.
The first was in her dislike for Tony Gwynn, who she held personally responsible for the 1984 Cubs’ collapse in the NLCS. Whenever my brother or I would get one of his baseball cards in a pack, we’d give it to my mom as a “present” and watch as she flipped out. Finally though, towards the end of Gwynn’s Hall-of-Fame career, I convinced my mom to let him off the hook, because all he did was play well, and in a world of jerks and cheaters Tony Gwynn was one of the all-time classy and nice guys who played the game with respect and dignity and intelligence.
She also had it in for Isiah Thomas after he led the Pistons off the court before the end of Game 4 in ’91. “I don’t care how nice a guy he is, or how good a player he is, or if he was just really upset because they were swept. You don’t walk off the court like that. It’s bad sportsmanship.” She has since forgiven Isiah as well.
But the ’69 Mets were the worst, and anytime the Cubs are playing the Mets my mom is a little bit uneasy. While we joked about Tony Gwynn, I learned early on never to joke about the New York Mets. I was probably about eight or nine years old, and I had gotten into some kind of a stupid eight or nine-year-old fight with my parents, and in an act of rebellion I declared that I would now be a fan of the New York Mets.
I’ll never forget my mom’s reaction. She turned towards me, slowly, and said without any trace of fun: “There are some things in life that you don’t joke about.” She turned her back, and walked away. I got the point pretty quickly.
And so it was when This Old Cub turned to the summer of ’69 that my mom shivered and left the room. “I already lived this once. I don’t need to watch a movie about it.”
My dad and I stayed though, watching clips of Mr. Cub and Sweet Billy and the greatest Cub third baseman of all-time, Ron Santo. During the film, there were interviews with famous Chicagoans who told stories about the ’69 team. Bill Murray was working at the concession stand at Peter Jans Golf Course in Evanston, and said that he was mad that he was of an age where he had to have a job. He said that there were days when he’d close up early so that he could listen to the games on his own. Dennis Franz said that he was shipping out to Vietnam that summer, and was really upset that after waiting so long for a team like that one, that he’d have to be off in a country far away. Dennis Farina was a Chicago police officer at the time, and said that when asked about an assignment, cops would say that they “had it covered like Santo at third.” William Petersen spoke about the team and how much he loved those players, and when it came to the part about 1969, he just started mumbling, unable to come up with words. And finally Gary Sinise, who said that he quit his summer job just to be able to watch the Cubs that season.
I watch a bit more of the movie with my dad, and then I leave and go out to pick up Luke, grabbing my glove from my room and tossing it in my car. The Cubs are playing the Washington Nationals, and I listen to the last few innings on 720. When I pull up to Luke’s house, he comes out, and flips it to AM 1000 to hear the White Sox.
“Hey. Knock it off.”
“What? I want to hear the Sox game.”
“Wait for a commercial.”
But he can’t, so while we drive to Dick’s Sporting Goods store in Glenview, we flip back and forth between the two games, catching bits of both. We get into the store, and head straight to the baseball section to pick out a glove for Luke.
Now picking out a baseball glove is not like picking out a pair of shoes. There are similarities—shoes must fit right, and you want to get a pair that you like, since you’ll be wearing them every day—but there is one aspect to picking out a glove that just isn’t present in picking out a pair of shoes. While shoes have to fit right, they don’t have to feel right. With a glove, the feel is as important as the fit. How does one determine the right feel? Well, it’s hard to say, because it’s an indefinable feeling, which, I suppose, is why it’s the feel, and not the fit. The fit is about your hand; does the glove physically fit your hand in the way that it should, not too loose, not too tight. When you pick out a glove, the fit is easy to figure out, and of course you only consider gloves that have the right fit. Once you’ve got a glove that fits, then you see how it feels, because the right feel cannot be determined just from looks. The feel is emotional. The feel is about putting on a glove, and instantly being brought back to your days as a little leaguer, when your glove was an extension of your body, the most important part of your uniform, the one item that you most depend on to play the field. That’s where the feel comes from. Sometimes you’ll be playing a pick up game, and someone won’t have a glove, so they’ll borrow one from the other team. I’ve done that before. It happens. When you take a glove that’s not yours, it may fit right, but it’s just a tool. You trot out to the field wearing this foreign object on your hand, and you start pounding it and pushing it in an attempt to get the feel right. Then, the next time you’re playing ball with your own glove, you immediately feel the difference. It’s like jumping into your own bed for the first time after a vacation. “Ahhhh,” you say, sinking in. “My bed.” Sure, you’ve been sleeping in a bed, in a rectangular structure with blankets and pillows that serve a function of allowing you to get a comfortable and restful sleep, but it hasn’t been your bed, and then when you finally get a chance to jump into your bed…that’s the same as a glove. It just has a feel.
When we find the baseball section, Luke starts trying on gloves. Outfielders gloves, infielders gloves, bigger pockets, smaller pockets, Rawlings, Wilson, Louisville Slugger—“I wouldn’t buy a Louisville Slugger glove if I were you. They make bats. What do they know about gloves? It’s the kind of glove that Edgar Martinez would probably buy if he ever had to wear a glove.”—and as he’s trying them on he tosses them to me to see what I think. Each glove he tosses to me, I try it on, give it a few punches to break it in, and then toss it back.
“There’s no names on any of these.”
“I know. I think they stopped doing that.”
“Seriously?” He frowns. “That sucks.”
“Yeah. When I bought my glove, I was looking for one with a signature, but I couldn’t find one, so I just signed it Glenallen Hill.”
“Funny,” he says, as he tries on another. “I don’t remember who my old glove was signed by. You?”
“Dave Righetti. Old Yankee.”
“Oh yeah. I remember that glove. Whatever happened to that?”
“I retired it. It’s in the basement.”
He tosses me another glove, and I try it on, give it a few punches, and then I pick up a ball from the basket and start throwing it into the pocket.
“What do you think about this one?” Luke asks, holding another one up.
“Eh, I don’t know. I would never buy a black glove,” I say, as I bend the top of the glove that I’m holding to improve its pocket. “I like gloves that are dirt colored. Nothing too dark, nothing too light.”
“This one feels good,” he says, as he pushes his fingers into one.
“What is it?”
“Rawlings.” He pounds the pocket a bit. “Here. Gimme a toss.”
He backs up, and I throw the ball to him. He throws it back, and continues to break in his glove, and then I reach into the glove I’m holding and throw the ball back, and I continue to pound on the pocket, pretending I’m at second base at James Park, waiting for the next pitch, hoping for a grounder, and I throw it back to him, and I push down on the tops of the fingers, getting the glove loose, like I would out in the outfield, wondering if a ball would ever come my way, and then I throw it back to him, and he throws it back to me, and as I’m pushing and pounding and getting my fingers comfortable…
“Dude, I might have a problem here.”
“What?”
“This glove…I kind of like this glove.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” And I continue working it in, throwing the ball into the pocket before throwing it back to Luke. “I really like this glove.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, dude…I really like this glove.”
“But you already have a glove.”
“I know. But what if it’s the wrong glove. I mean, it feels right, but what if it only feels right because I haven’t felt the right one yet. What if this is my glove?”
“Your one true glove.”
“My one true glove.”
He thinks for a second. “You might have a problem there.”
“I know! Here,” I say, motioning to him, “throw it back.”
He tosses me the ball, and I catch it, and it feels really good. Really good.
“Oh man, dude. This glove feels really good.”
“This one’s feeling good too,” he says, as I throw it back to him. “I think I’m gonna get it. It feels right.”
“Cool.”
“Let’s go.”
“OK, but…well, hold on.” I’m still feeling the glove, imagining my days at James Park. “Just, just one second.”
“Dude, you’re not going to buy a second glove.”
“ Well, just hold on.”
“How much is it?”
“I don’t know. There’s no price.”
“I’m gonna buy mine, and when I do you can have them do a price check.”
“Fine.”
We walk up to the counter, but I don’t take my hand out of the glove. Luke buys his new glove, and a ball, and a three-quarter lengths White Sox shirt. When she’s done ringing up Luke’s stuff, she looks at me.
“Is that all?” she asks, pointing to my glove.
“Well, kind of. Can you do a price check on it?”
“Sure.” She swipes it. “$75.06.”
“Oh.” I think for a second. “Here’s the thing. I didn’t come here with the intention of buying a glove. I have a glove. I came to help him pick out a glove. But in doing so, I kind of fell in love with this glove. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“I guess so.”
“However, I really can’t afford to drop 75 bucks on a glove, particularly a second glove. It’s just too much money.”
“OK.”
“But I really want this glove.”
“What were you looking to spend?”
“Forty.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”
“Come on dude,” Luke says. “Honestly, you don’t have enough money to buy a second glove.”
“I know.”
“And you already have a glove.”
“I know.”
“And don’t you like your glove?”
“Yeah. I really like it.”
“So say goodbye to this glove, and let’s go play catch. You’ll feel better once you pick up your own glove.”
And with that we left, but I couldn’t help wondering if I had just left my one true glove behind.
When we get into the car, the Sox game is over. They were losing, but they came back to get the win, and we head back into Evanston while listening to postgame. Just east of Sheridan Road, down by the lake, there’s a turf field that the Northwestern Girls Lacrosse team practices on. It’s left open and lit at night, and people go there to play football, soccer, ultimate, or lacrosse. There’s a soccer game going on when we get down there, so we go to the grass field next to it and start playing catch. Luke is right: as soon as I put my fingers in my glove, I feel better, and though we start about twenty feet apart, we quickly move back so that we can both throw as far as we can. We throw high pop ups, and grounders, and bouncers, and line drives. We catch pop flies and then throw quickly to the other person, who catches the ball and swipes “home plate” to tag out the invisible runner. We throw balls that slip out of our hands, sending the other person chasing after it, and once we’ve chased after it we wind up and throw it back as far as we can, sometimes sending the other person running again. The grass is damp, and there are a few thin areas where a bit of mud has collected, and as the ball gets slicker we wipe it off on our shirts to dry it, and then wipe our hands on our shorts to dry them. The ball flies back and forth, wet and dry, and we field grounders with the urgency that comes from playing the infield, and we camp out under high pop flies and catch them with the laziness that comes from playing the outfield, and bask in the moment when all the attention is on you before you throw the ball back to the infield and return to your lonely post in right field. We do this for about a half hour, not talking, just playing catch, back and forth, from one person’s hand to the other person’s glove, and then back again, and just as we did in Little League, we stay close enough to maintain a game of catch but far enough away to be daring.
Then, after a while, we move in, and toss from about twenty feet away so that we can talk. Like me, Luke is a lifelong camp person, though his camp is Came Echo, the camp where he met Meghan, which then allowed her to meet me. Each summer after camp we get home and exchange stories, first as campers, then as counselors. Camp Echo, Camp North Star, Camp North Star, Camp Echo, traditions, games, songs, whatever. I’ll be back in Hayward this summer, but last we talked, Luke was up in the air about Echo.
“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Have you decided what you’re doing this summer?”
“I don’t think I’m going back.”
“No?”
“No. I’m applying to a few bars for a bartender or waiter job.”
“So no more Echo?”
“Not this summer.”
“Why not?”
“A few reasons. Camp has always been kind of a stressful job—I mean, it’s fun, obviously, but it’s also kind of stressful because I want to give the kids the best summer possible. School was always then very relaxing, because there was work to be done, and I just had to do it. That was it. Camp was fun, but it was stressful because I really wanted to do a good job for the campers. But then this year, school was really hard, and I’ve been working so hard with my homework and with student teaching, and getting ready to look for jobs, I just want something this summer that’s mindless and easy.”
He throws me the ball. I catch it.
“Yeah. I can see that.”
“And then there’s, well, there’s something else too.”
“What?”
“Well, a lot of people don’t get this, but you will. I’m tired of missing the White Sox season.”
I smile.
“Oh. Yeah, I know.”
“I mean, when you’re at camp, you’re so disconnected. You’re so…distant. You get the scores and all, and you know how the team’s doing, but you’re just not there.”
“Yeah. It’s different.”
“Right. So I watch the team in April and May, and then I go to camp, and then I come back in the middle of August and there’s all of these nicknames I don’t know about and all of these plays I haven’t seen, and I’m look ‘That’s cool,’ but I’m so out of it.”
I throw the ball back to him, and he catches it.
“And so I’ve been thinking about that, and with the Sox playing like they’re playing, I mean, it’s a long shot, but still, what if this is the year, ya know? What if this is it? What if this is the year that I’ve been waiting for? The year that all Sox fans would be talking about forever, and I’m gonna miss it? That would totally suck to be up in Michigan for the whole thing. Ya know man?”
“I know.”
“I mean, Sven’s out in Germany right now, and I was thinking about that, and thinking about how much of the season he’s going to miss, and how much that would suck for him, and I just decided that I didn’t want to go through with that.”
He throws the ball to me, and I catch it.
He continues: “I told that to a few people from camp, and they didn’t get it. They said that I could follow the Sox from camp and that all I’d be missing was the middle of the season. ‘What’s the big deal?’”
“They don’t get it.”
“Nope. They don’t get it.”
We throw around for a little while longer, and then, when our arms are tired and the ball is too dirty to wipe off and the tips of our index fingers are pushed in from rubbing against the laces of the ball, we decide to pack it up. Meghan is getting off of work and hanging out at her bar with her friends Lorrie and Swami—all three of them are Echo people with Luke—so Luke and I decide to meet them there after we go home and clean up. I drop Luke off at his house, and he walks inside, new glove in hand.
“Thanks for coming with. It was good to have someone there helping me.”
“No problem. It was fun. How does your glove feel?”
“Great. Yours?”
I smile. “Great. Am I picking you up?”
“No. I’ll meet you there.”
“OK. See you soon.”
“Peace.”
“Peace.”
My house is quiet when I get inside. It’s Friday night, and my folks are out, and I head up to take a shower and change clothes. I go into my room to toss my glove on my futon, and then I look at it, all dirty and dusty, with “1908” written in marker on one side and “Go Cubbies” on the other. One of the knots is coming loose, and I pull it tight, adjusting the fingers and making sure that everything is smooth. Then I set it back down on the futon, face up. Perfect. I get dressed, head out, and meet Meghan, Luke, and the girls at Prairie Moon.
GO TO NEXT SECTION: May 15-May 21
[1] I refuse to see this flick, as it looks exploitative to an absurd degree.