Feeling it with every swing
BY RICK MORRISSEY rmorrissey@suntimes.com
Ron Santo, by then the voice of the suffering Cubs fan, greets the Wrigley crowd in 2002.
Article Extras
People would ask me whether I knew Ron Santo, and my response was always the same: ''Yes, and so do you.''
The man who cheered and groaned on the radio, who urged and ached and pleaded, who died a thousand deaths with his Cubs -- that was Ron Santo. What you heard in that raspy voice was everything there was to him. He was pure, uncut fervor.
He died one last time Friday morning, and he never did get the things he wanted so badly: a Cubs World Series title and a plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y. But what a good life he led, 70 years' worth, and he knew it.
You can say his love for the Cubs went unrequited, that the team let him down season after season, often in cruel fashion. But he wasn't alone. There were thousands and thousands of fans who gladly stayed in the same co-dependent relationship with the franchise. He spoke for them.
His humanity was always on display, and that's why so many of us liked him. His diabetes would throw him a setback, and he'd endure. He'd get his hopes up for making the Hall of Fame, and he'd be crushed when he didn't get enough votes. A couple of days later, he'd emerge with a new layer of scar tissue and a renewed appreciation of the wonderful life he was leading.
Then he'd get back to bleeding over the Cubs. Nobody gave as much blood as this guy did.
He deserved to be in the Hall, but I always wondered if it was better that he didn't get inducted. He taught us perseverance. It was OK to really, really want something and to show it publicly. How many of us live our lives behind masks- Here was a man unafraid to show us everything he was feeling.
High-spirited star
Santo was much more popular as a radio broadcaster than he was as a player. When he was playing, the Cubs weren't the cultural phenomenon they are now. Wrigley Field-as-theme park has been a bigger curse than any billy goat: The team put more emphasis on the entertainment value of the franchise than on the product on the field. So the ballpark became the star. So did Harry Caray. And so did Santo.
It wasn't coincidence that the first statue outside Wrigley was Caray's, not Ernie Banks'. Santo deserves one, too, but how does a sculptor capture the spirit of the man who screamed ''Nooooooooooooo!'' when Brant Brown dropped that routine fly ball in 1998- Maybe something along the lines of ''The Scream'' by Edvard Munch.
That was the essence of Ronnie, wasn't it- He didn't need to rip players. You didn't have to read into anything he was saying. More so than the actual words, his tone said it all. ''Gosh!'' or ''Jeez!'' was followed by unintelligible grumbling and then, finally, deep depression. He didn't live and breathe Cubs; he radiated Cubs.
Whenever one of the players said, ''Nobody feels worse about what's going on than we do,'' he was wrong. The guy up in the booth was, at that very moment, opening another vein. And when the Cubs were in the middle of a rally, Santo was in the middle of a religious experience.
Hardcore baseball fans, the ones who want strategy and numbers from their announcers, didn't have much patience with Santo. He wasn't about that; he was about emotion.
It hurts to know that the byplay between Santo and play-by-play man Pat Hughes is gone. Santo would go off on a tangent, and Hughes would play him like a violin.
Santo hated Shea Stadium with a passion, thanks to the Cubs' collapse in 1969. It didn't help that his toupee once caught fire in the visiting club's broadcast booth. There might not have been a happier person on earth than Santo when Shea was demolished in 2009. There might not have been a happier play-by-play announcer than Hughes when that rug started smoking. He had one more thing to kid his partner about on the air.
It's how he played the game
Santo didn't measure his life in wins and losses, which is a good thing because he wouldn't have lived past '69 if he had. He measured his life in the blessings that he had been given: his family, his health and his Cubs.
He appreciated his fans, too. He never took them for granted. In his mind, he was the same as they were. You could see it in how he treated them. That was his gift. He was as loyal as a guide dog.
He lived with his diabetes and fought it, but he didn't make many concessions to the disease. You couldn't help but look at his blue jeans when he sat down and see the outline of the prostheses he wore. You also couldn't help but notice he didn't give them much of a thought.
He played 14 seasons with the Cubs and played a mean third base. People forget that Santo wasn't always a beloved character in Chicago. Other players viewed him as a hot dog. They didn't like when he jumped and clicked his heels after a victory. During a 1969 dust-up, Santo had his hands around manager Leo Durocher's neck before other players separated the two.
But he was a competitor with talent, the best kind of competitor.
The Cubs retired his number in 2003, and it flaps proudly on the left-field foul pole at Wrigley.
Goodbye, No. 10. We knew you well.
Comments Click here to view or make a comment