He retired in 1974, so obviously I'm too young to have seen him play and I've only seen the odd highlight film of his playing career. I remember knowing who he was when I was growing up a Cubs fan in the 80s but it wasn't till college that I really became a big Ron Santo fan.
The first couple years in college, the cable down in Champaign wasn't very good and as a result we only got the Cubs games that were on WGN. In addition to that, Christy was in school at Northern and that meant a lot of weekend road trips. So the end result was a lot of listening to Cubs games on the radio, and it was then that I really came to know the tandem of Pat Hughes and Ron Santo.
Now let's not mince words here. Ron, from a purely broadcasting standpoint, was terrible. He made absolutely no pretense at showing even the slightest hint of impartiality, he often forgot to either mute his mic when he was doing something noisy like clearing his throat or opening a bag of chips (yes, he ate while broadcasting), or would forget to unmute his mic on the few occasions when he remembered to mute it. And whenever anything exciting happened you'd have to wait a good 5 seconds to actually find out what happened because the first few seconds of air were always filled with Ron drowning out the play by play call with either a thunderous "Oh Yeah!" or an absolutely agonizing "Geez!" You always knew right away if something good or bad had happened, you just didn't know exactly what for a while.
But despite the fact that he certainly wasn't in line for any broadcasting awards, myself and most other Cubs fans loved listening to him. Because no matter how big of a Cub fan you were, no matter how much you lived and died with every pitch, Ron had you beat. Nobody was more excited when they won and nobody took it harder when they lost. So much so that it got to the point where whenever you listened to the Cubs blow another game in excruciating fashion, your own personal angst over the loss took a back seat to a desire to want to console Ron. You always knew that as hard as you could ever take a loss, he was taking it harder. And then you'd tune in the next day, and no matter if they were 20 games above or 20 games below .500 he'd be right back with as much optimism as he'd ever had and you almost had no choice but to get over yesterday's loss too. He wasn't Ron, the ultimate broadcaster, he was Ron, the ultimate Cub fan. And we loved him for it.
One of my favorite segments from the last couple years was the "daily pitching matchup breakdown with Ron Santo." Here's the hard-hitting analysis you could expect. No matter how bad a Cubs pitcher had performed recently, Ron had a feeling that today was the day he was gonna turn things around. And no matter how good the opposing pitcher was or how much he had dominated the Cubs in the past, Ron had a feeling that today was going to be the day that we were going to get to him. He wasn't Ron, the ultimate analyst, he was Ron, the ultimate optimist. And we loved him for it.
Honestly I don't know what he did during the off-season. I think he probably just sat around and simultaneously thrilled his fans and annoyed his family by relentlessly talking about what moves the Cubs had made or were going to make and how they were going to look next season. For Ron Santo, baseball wasn't his job, it was his life. And we loved him for it.
There's one story that does a great job of epitomizing him. Most people know part of it. It's the famous Brant Brown call. Late in September of 1998, with the Cubs tied for the wild card lead, they are playing the Brewers and it's the bottom of the ninth. The Cubs are leading by 2 runs with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth. Geoff Jenkins hits a completely routine fly ball to Brant Brown in left field, and he inexplicably just drops it. 3 runs score and the Cubs lose. As per usual, Ronnie talks right over Pat's call and just screams "OHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOO!" with such raw shock and anguish that you'd think someone had been murdered right before his eyes. Here's Pat Hughes describing the aftermath:
"After the inning ended I looked over and Ronnie had his forehead on the desk and wasn't moving. I thought he had died right there, so I poked him with my fingers to see if he was alive and he finally moved. After the game we were in the manager's office and I saw something that has never happened in American sports. The manager of the cubs, Jim Riggleman, put his arm around Ronnie and was trying to console him about the loss, Riggleman saying, don't worry, Ronnie, we're going to Houston and we're going to win and make the playoffs, and Ronnie just kept saying, 'how could he drop that ball?"
And what does Ron do next? He goes down to the clubhouse, gives Brant Brown a hug and tells him not to worry, that it's ok, and that he's made mistakes before and he knows how he feels. And the Cubs, despite getting swept in Houston, did end up making the playoffs that year, and no one was happier about it than Ron Santo (well, except maybe Brant Brown). We won't talk about what happened in the playoffs that year (or any year since 1908 for that matter).
I've always said that for whatever stupid reason, there was a group of miserable SOBs in the Hall that were going to make sure that he never got into the Hall of Fame while he was alive and that as soon as he passed away he'd get in for sure. I still think that's the case, and it makes me mad. Everyone that voted against him while he was alive and still does so now, that's fine. I disagree with them, but that's their right. But although I'm not a violent man, I'd like to go up to every guy who voted against him and changes their vote now and punch them in the face. His baseball numbers haven't changed in 36 years, so that means you weren't keeping him out because of what he did on the field. You were keeping him out because for whatever reason you disliked him and wanted to make sure that in his lifetime he never got to experience the one thing that would have meant the most to him. That is mean-spirited and despicable in a way that there's barely words for, and it makes you a horrible human being.
But at least he was around last year as the Cubs honored him on the 50th anniversary of his major league debut. And at least he lived to see his number retired and sent up the left field flagpole to a well deserved standing ovation at Wrigley in 2003. The next time I'm at Wrigley I look forward to raising a glass towards that flag and drinking a toast to the man that was the face of Cubs baseball for the last 50 years.
And so for the 2nd time in a week I have to say goodbye to someone who brought a lot of joy to my life. Farewell Ronnie; wherever you are, I hope there's baseball there!
2 comments:
Thank you John. Epic, moving, and true.
My favorite Ron Santo story involves his effort to secretly cope with acute diabetes while he was a player. Diabetes took away his ability to focus on an item, like, say, a baseball being thrown at you at high speed. He had double or triple vision, and saw two or three balls coming at him at once. When asked how he managed to hit a baseball in this condition, he said "I always swung at the ball in the middle."
Sad news, great post. Thank you for your sweet words honoring Ron.
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