Fans, players line up to pay their last respects to Ron Santo
TONI GINNETTI Staff Reporter/tginnetti@suntimes.com December 9, 2010 2:12PM
The hearse carrying the casket of Ron Santo bears a flag with his jersey number as it arrives at Holy Name Cathedral Thursday in Chicago. (John J. Kim/Sun-Times)
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Updated: December 9, 2010 5:20PM
The first to arrive at Holy Name Cathedral Thursday were members of his ballpark family.
That included Ken, who drove the golf cart that would bring Ron Santo up the Wrigley Field ramps to the broadcast booth each day of the Cubs season. ``A lot of good memories,’’ he said through tears inside the vestibule of Holy Name. And Keith, who guarded the door to the press box at Wrigley. ``It’s not going to be the same for me,’’ he said.
Rick, Jim and Melvin — who work at the Cubs clubhouse door or the press gate — were in dress suits, waiting at the door of Holy Name to carry in the casket of Santo, who died last week at the age of 70 from complications from bladder cancer.
At Friday’s 10 a.m. funeral, Santo’s former teammates will serve as the pallbearers when the former Cubs third baseman and broadcaster will be remembered at a mass expected to draw some 1,000 mourners.
More would likely come if the historic cathedral on State Street could hold them.
Santo’s son Jeff said he arrived Wednesday night from Phoenix, his father’s winter home and where he passed away. He immediately “heard from friends of how much has been going on since last week. It’s been overwhelming. My dad is smiling down on us now because he wouldn’t have expected it. It’s been a blessing for us to know how much he was loved by the city.’’
Hundreds of fans began lining up hours before Thursday’s 4 p.m. public visitation began. They were clad in Santo jerseys, Cubs caps and scarfs bundled against the blustery temperatures and formed a line around the north side of the church.
Inside, during the invitation-only visitation, hundreds more — including his teammates, Cubs players he had covered as a broadcaster and friends — stood in line in a procession lasting hours.
``We’ve spent a lot of time this week with Vicki [Santo’s widow] and the kids and focusing on the celebration of his life,’’ Cubs president Crane Kenny said. ``We’ll get through this day and [Friday.] But I know it’s really going to hit me when we get to Mesa in February [for spring training] and he’s not going to be there in his golf cart riding from field to field and checking things out. And obviously when Pat [Hughes] does the first broadcast without him.
``He blew all the stereotypes,’’ Kenny said. ``There were so many funny things about Ronnie — his hairpiece catching on fire [in Shea Stadium], he left his [prosthetic] leg once in Milwaukee. But it’s a sad time right now.’’
A police escort brought the hearse carrying Santo to the church, the casket draped with the No. 10 flag the Cubs hoisted at Wrigley Field last summer on the day the team honored the 50th anniversary of his major league debut. Santo was a Cub from 1960 to 1973 before a final season with the White Sox, but his career as a nine-time All Star and five time Gold-Glove third baseman was eclipsed for many by a 21-year career as a Cubs broadcaster.
One of his Gold Gloves rested on his casket, flanked by his framed No. 10 jersey and an etching of him in his playing days.
``He had that courage and fight,’’ said Jeff Santo, who chronicled his dad’s career and the reality of his daily life as a double-amputee diabetic in a 2004 documentary film. ``He was one of those special people who appreciated what he had as a player with diabetes and in his life after he always would be doing something everyday for others. He never complained. He was a fighter and a tough man.’’
The mourners included teammates Ernie Banks and Glenn Beckert, his roommate for nine years. ``We only had two little spats in all those years,’’ Beckert said. Scores of players whose careers he described on the radio came. ``He used to throw batting practice to me in the off season at Northwestern, and then we’d go out to dinner with our wives,’’ said former Cub Joe Girardi, the New York Yankees manager who also grew up a fan.
``His family and the Cubs were everything to him,’’ Jeff Santo said. ``This has been his home and his heart, and he wanted us to come back here. He would be amazed by it all.’’
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