As we continue to dig ourselves out of the third worst snow storm in Chicago's history, newsprint, the internet and the air waves are all filled with rants about the city's mishandling of the situation. At the center of the controversy is the incident where hundreds of people were stranded for hours in their vehicles on Lake Shore Drive as the thoroughfare came to a standstill after multiple wrecks blocked the road.
The snow piled up rapidly and in a matter of minutes the stopped cars became stuck, rendering them useless. Not to mention the frigid 70 mph winds coming directly off of the lake that created a truly hazardous condition for the members of the CPD and the CFD who eventually came to the rescue.
There are many tales of people living along the route bringing food and offering shelter to the stranded drivers, and others of the heroism of the rescue workers and hospital staffs who tended to the victims, but those stories took a backseat to the whining and finger pointing about inadequate preparation, and implementation of emergency procedures. First and foremost the naysayers say, the city should have closed Lake Shore Drive before the problem happened.
Perhaps. There is certainly no doubt that when this situation happens again as it certainly will, those who have control over such things will be very sensitive about what happened during the Great Blizzard of 2011 (Snowmageddon as it has been dubbed), and close the Drive pre-maturely which will no doubt bring criticism for strangling traffic by cutting off a major artery. The decision not to close LSD earlier ultimately proved to be the wrong one. It was a judgment call, the type of decision not unlike that of a baseball manager who chooses to walk a good hitter instead of pitching to him. If the next batter up hits into a double play, the manager is a genius, if he hits a home run, the fans demand the manager's head. Taking the metaphor to its logical conclusion, in the case of Lake Shore Drive, the next batter hit a grand slam.
Now I'll be the first to say that I was safe and sound at home by the time those folks were stuck in their cars, so I'm in no position to knock them. However, like the rest of the city I had been aware for at least three days that a storm of epic proportions was headed our way. Here is a link to an article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune the day before the storm. It's predictions turned out to be right on, off only in its underestimation of the force of the gusts coming off the lake.
Admittedly I dismissed the reports as bluster. I thought it was over-reacting when my employer suggested we all go home three hours early and take the next day off, even before the first snow flake fell. As our group had work we needed to finish, we stayed almost the full day. By the time we left the snow was coming down pretty hard and the Loop, at what would have normally been the heart of rush hour, was deserted. My prediction of "five inches at the most" would prove to be way off. When I got off the train nearly an hour later it became evident that this was a very serious blizzard. Mind you this was a full two hours before all the trouble on Lake Shore Drive and in those two hours the intensity of the storm only grew worse.
In all honesty I would say that the city did a magnificent job of assessing the situation and passing along the suggestion in no uncertain terms that people should go home before the tempest began. That action prevented a major catastrophe.
Yet for some reason, nearly 500 people chose to ignore the advice and paid dearly for it. Of course many of them no doubt had jobs that forced them to work into the evening hours. But I would guess that few of them did not have an alternative to driving that day. True, taking public transportation might have been an inconvenience for some of them but not anywhere close to what came to pass.
A Facebook friend posted the following:
You really know something about entitlement and self-pity when you hear the call-in whining of these idiots who ignored all warnings and got on Lake Shore Drive two hours into whiteout and then... surprise!... found themselves trapped without anyone (ANYONE!?! Shocking!) helicoptering in to rescue them.
Strong words to be sure but not off the mark. A commenter to the post noted that in his state of Arizona, when people get in trouble doing things they are warned not to, they must pay for their rescue. As far as I know, the city came to the rescue of the stranded "victims" not to mention their cars, all at the taxpayers' expense. My favorite comment to the post was this:
They see their vehicles as security, comfort, and empowerment. Love seeing Nature teach lessons.
The last original member of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Fellowship, New York based architect Edgar Tafel, has died. His New York Times obit can be found here.
I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Tafel several years ago in New York through my friend, the architectural historian Francis Morrone. Tafel in his own right is perhaps most famous for, in Morrone's words, being "an architect who always went his own way."
In a marked departure from his famous teacher, Tafel embraced contextualism, working hard to integrate his work with the city around it. Again quoting Francis Morrone, this time from the entry on the Church House for the First Presbyterian Church (pictured here), from his book, The Architectural Guidebook to New York City: "It is interesting that a Wright acolyte should have chosen a career as an urban architect, but with this, as with other buildings, Tafel seems to have treated the built environment the way his mentor treated the natural environment: as a principal determinant of his design."
One could say that unlike his contemporaries, Tafel looked outside of the Miesian box. In both form and the use of materials, his work took cues from the past, long before it became fashionable. The Times suggests this amusingly twisted term to describe his work: "proto--postmodernism."
Here in Chicago, those of us who are sports fans are in the midst of a frenzy this week that we haven't seen since, well for me since the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup last year. For most however, that is to say those who don't give a hoot about hockey, the match-up between the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers this coming Sunday in the NFC Championship Game, is indeed a once in a lifetime event. True the two football teams play each other twice every year, and in every game the tradition of the Bears/Packers rivalry is hyped ad nauseum during the incessant sports-babble that takes place before and after each professional football game. No matter how poorly one or both teams may be at any given time, there are always expectations usually fulfilled, that the game will be exceptionally emotional, intense and brutal, even by football standards.
Of course this game is different, it will determine which team will go to Super Bowl XLV, the Promised Land of professional football. As the Packers and the Bears are both charter members of the National Football League, this is by far the league's oldest continuous rivalry. To give an idea of the significance of these two teams to the NFL consider this, the winner of Sunday's game will be awarded the George Halas Trophy, named in honor of the founder, owner and long time head coach of the Bears. The winner of the Super Bowl in two weeks will be awarded the Vince Lombardi trophy, named in honor of the legendary coach of the Packers .
Despite all the hoopla, the Bears and Packers have hardly ever faced each other in a post-season game. The last time that happened was right after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. The Bears won that one by the way, 33-14 at Wrigley Field and went on to beat the New York Giants the following week to win the NFL Championship Game. Of course hardly anyone cared as we had just entered World War II.
Much as we in the Midwest like to make of this rivalry, it did not make ESPN's list of the top ten great sports rivalries. There is indeed much to quibble about the list, not the least of which is the fact that it only includes sports played in North America.
The point has to be made however that in recent history the Bears and the Packers have rarely been good at the same time and have seldom played against each other in a game of real consequence for both teams. A notable exception was the year 1963, the last time the Bears won the NFL Championship before there was a Super Bowl. The Packers won the NFL Championship the two previous years but 1963 was the Bears' turn. They beat the Packers twice that year, in fact they were the ONLY team to beat them in 1963.
The big game that people watch mostly for the commercials, the one that is measured in Roman numerals was first played in 1967. Can you guess who won Super Bowls I and II? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't the Bears.
Since then both teams have had their moments in the sun, including two Super Bowl victories between them, but they have not played against each other in a championship game.
That is until now.
As I see it, great sports rivalries are based on at least one of three criteria:
one or both teams possess tremendous historical success,
the teams are in the same division and continually battle for position in the standings, or
the teams' fans would despise each other regardless of any team affiliation.
The Packers and the Bears rivalry is special in that all three criteria apply. It may be hard to imagine today but both teams were once powerhouses in the NFL. The Bears have a total of nine NFL championships, most of them coming in the 1930s and 40s. They are second only to the Packers who have twelve. The two teams are of course division rivals and as mentioned above play each other twice per season.
It's the third category that is the most salient, where a game becomes more than just a game, but a measure of national or civic pride. Imagine a cricket match between India and Pakistan. Or the rivalry between two great cities such as Madrid and Barcelona when their teams face each other on the soccer pitch. Or the 1969 world ice hockey championship when the Czechoslovak national team defeated the USSR just months after Russian tanks rolled into Prague crushing the original Velvet Revolution.
Some would say that at least north of the Illinois-Wisconsin border, the rivalry between the Bears and Packers is as intense as all three of the above put together. Just ask Bears players who tell stories of their team bus being pelted by rocks thrown by grandmothers sitting in lawn chairs along the highway leading to Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Or go up to the Brat Stop just north of the border off I-94 and see the enormous stuffed bear wearing a Chicago Bear jersey hung in effigy. True, our two states have never been officially at war, and neither has ever held dominion over the other. Yet there remains, especially with our neighbors in the great state to the north, a great deal of animosity towards those of us living south of the border. I can't honestly say the reverse is true but perhaps my father-in-law who insists on wearing his full Packer regalia whenever he visits us down here in Bear country would disagree.
Like any great passion, the love of one team and abject hatred of another is usually handed down from generation to generation. Not so with me. My parents both hated football and I spent a lot of time as a child in Milwaukee, so I didn't grow up to be a Packer hater.
No, my true hatred of the Packers officially began on November 23rd, 1986. It was the season after the Bears won Super Bowl XX and they were having another tremendous year. That day the Packers were playing the Bears at Soldier Field and Charles Martin a defensive tackle for the Packers was shown on TV, wearing a towel with two numbers on it, 9 and 34, the numbers of the Bears Jim McMahon and Walter Payton respectively. It was to be his hit list. Now the indestructible Payton was no match for any defensive player no matter how large, tackling him was usually more painful for the tackler than for the intended victim. McMahon was another story. In the second half, after McMahon threw an interception, Martin body slammed McMahon to the ground dislocating his shoulder and ending his season. The Packers argued that the play was justifiable as a quarterback after throwing an interception is considered fair game. The refs disagreed and kicked Martin out of the game and the league for his cheap shot, suspended him for two games. Despite their 14-2 record, the Bears without McMahon went on to lose to Washington in the first round of the playoffs, and to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, for me it was the beginning of a beautiful enmity.
Still I have to respect this Packer team which on paper at least is probably superior to this year's Bears. Fortunately as they say, that's why the game is played on the field and not on paper. The Bears and the Packers split their two games this year, the Bears won (or more accurately the Packers lost) the first game in Chicago and the Packers held on and won the hard fought last game of the regular season up in Green Bay.
For the fans of the two teams, this game is far more important than the Super Bowl which this year will seem rather anticlimactic. Of course there are those who couldn't care less, and question why any of this matters. They see sports, football especially as modern day tribal warfare, a barbaric ritual enabling fans, mostly men, to return to their caveman roots, to cheer on warriors doing their bidding on the field to beat the crap out of other warriors fighting for our rival tribes in neighboring towns or states.
Well they're probably right. There is certainly much to be said about the outright hostility and violence that fans sometimes exhibit toward one another. Fortunately, at least in this country, sports hooliganism is fairly uncommon and rivalries like the Packers/Bears are usually played out in good humor. On the positive side, a winning season brings a community together in ways that no other public event could. This week I've seen perfect strangers, people who otherwise would not give each another the time of day, strike up conversations with one another about the game. It is a cause to celebrate and goodness knows, those causes are few and far between these days.
I dare say that a Packers victory on Sunday would mean more up in Wisconsin than a Bears victory would down here. I'm reminded about a front page article in the local paper I read while visiting the in-laws in Wisconsin on the day the Packers were to play a big playoff game several years ago. It was a point-counter point article between two Roman Catholic priests who seriously debated whether or not God was a Packer fan.
How foolish. Everybody knows that God wears blue and orange every Sunday. This Sunday I'll be sitting in my man cave cheering on my team as they hopefully beat up on the invading tribe from the north.
Go Bears!
Post script:
The Packers alas beat the Bears who seemed to have forgotten to show up for the game in the first half. The second half was another story and after losing their starting quarterback Jay Cutler to injury, and their second stringer Todd Collins to incompetence, third stringer Caleb Hanie led the team on two spirited scoring drives while the defense ended up playing heroically stopping the much lauded Packer offense on a number of key drives, keeping the Bears in the game until the end. Final score: 21-14.
The Packers will play the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl LXV on February 6th in Dallas, to which I will add:
Go Steelers!
Post-post script:
Guess I was wrong. Congratulations, gulp, World Champion Packers.
I came of age in the sixties and seventies, in the era of the Viet Nam War, Watergate, the height of urban decline, the race riots, the liberation movements, and many other events that shook the world from the relative complacency of the fifties. It was a time when we lost faith in our leaders and in concepts such as "my country right or wrong." The mantra of my generation was "question authority."
It is safe to say that the world changed forever during those years. My baby boom generation likes to claim credit for that. Of course the world changed forever many times in the last century, once for each of the two world wars and the Great Depression to name but three of the many earth shattering events that took place during that tumultuous century. Needless to say, the world is constantly changing and for the most part the changes have moved (with some notable exceptions) in the direction of individual liberty, freedom, and away from traditional values and the establishment.
England has been whittling away the powers of its Monarchy since the Magna Carta was written in 1215. The past forty years have seen that venerable institution fall from influence perhaps as much or more than in the previous eight centuries put together. With its traditions of pomp and circumstance carried out in a time where they seem to be out of step with the current state of the once mighty Empire, (not to mention contemporary styles, taste and fashion), the Monarchy has lost for many that very significant virtue in today's world, relevance.
In the midst of this comes a truly wonderful film called The King's Speech. The movie is about Albert (Frederick Arthur George), who would become King George VI, the father of the current Queen Elizabeth. This King George, played in the movie by Colin Firth, reigned during one of the darkest periods of English history, World War II. His reign also saw what was to be the end of the British Empire in favor of the Commonwealth.
The King's Speech is a human drama rather than a biography or a didactic, historical epic. It centers around the King's stammer, a speech impediment that afflicted Albert/GeorgeVI for most of his life. The two people closest to Albert in the film were his wife Elizabeth, (today known affectionately as the Queen Mum), played by Helena Bonham Carter, and Lionel Logue, a failed Australian actor turned speech therapist, played by Jeffery Rush.
That speech deficiency turned into a catastrophe after Albert's older brother became King Edward VIII upon the death of their father King George V, only to abdicate less than a year later so he could marry his lover, the twice divorced American, Wallace Simpson. Albert, the next in line, reluctantly assumed the throne and took the name of George, presumably because the name Albert was "too German" as Winston Churchill pointed out. Public speaking would become an unwanted but essential part of George's new life, and much of the film deals with his abject terror of it.
To their credit the film makers, director Tom Hooper and writer David Seidler chose to trust the intelligence of their audience to fill in the historical details for themselves. The significant terms of the day, "rearmament", "appeasement", and "Munich Pact" are not uttered in the film. We also learn very few significant details of the lives of the principal characters as so much of their legacy takes place after the last scene of the film. Yet in the process of watching this movie, not only do we gain tremendous insight into the personalities of three remarkable individuals, in the climactic scene, we witness time standing still while the world as people knew it at the time, was about to end.
A slight downside is the fact that some of the most important political figures of World War II are reduced to plot devises. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's main contribution to the plot is his refusal to support Edward's marriage. Winston Churchill contributes even less. His chief role is to inform King George that he too once had a speech impediment. And the politician most closely tied to the events that led directly up to the war, Neville Chamberlain, just stops in to say hello.
Even Adolph Hitler is used as a plot device. In a brilliant scene, the King and his family are gathered to watch newsreel footage of his recent coronation, the only depiction of the event in the movie. Following the coronation, the focus of the newsreel shifts to Hitler delivering one of his typically bombastic speeches. The newly crowned king watches the dictator with a mixture of horror and awe. His daughter Elizabeth asks him what Hitler is talking about and the king replies with almost starstruck bewilderment: "I can’t understand a word he’s saying, but he sure can speak."
In lesser hands the hero of the movie would view Hitler with nothing but contempt and disgust. Here, in one fell swoop, having George succumb ever so slightly to Hitler's compelling oratory style, not only gives the viewer insight into the Fürher's power over his own people, but also tells us volumes about King George's own feelings of inadequacy.
The speech referred to in the title of the movie is George VI's radio address to his Empire and to the world on September 3rd, 1939, announcing that the war that everyone (on the Allied side) had worked so tirelessly to avoid, had in fact begun.
Here is a recording of the actual speech:
In the film the king delivers the speech successfully, albeit haltingly with the help of Lionel Logue, and the soundtrack of the slow movement of Beethoven's 7th Symphony. It is a masterful piece of film making with Lionel conducting the "performance" as the world listens in, guiding his famous patient through what must have been an agonizing six minutes. It is one of those scenes that leaves the audience spent, in the end there is hardly a dry eye in the house.
The king's personal triumph comes on the eve of one of the darkest moments of history and the "feel good" ending for some stands in marked contrast to the gravitas of the situation. However I couldn't imagine any other way to end the movie without greatly reducing its dramatic impact. We know what was to follow after all, at least one would hope.
The one historic event that is dealt with in great detail in The King's Speech is the abdication of King Edward VIII. To this day many people, including a friend's 91 year old mother who we ran into at the theater, still see the abdication through rose colored glasses saying; "how romantic, imagine giving up a kingdom for the woman he loved."
The movie does not hesitate to portray Edward as history has proven him to be, that is to say a creep. Being born into the royal family is indeed a double edged sword, excessive privilege is more than tempered by unimaginable responsibility and sense of duty. Let's just say that Ed was big on the privilege part and not so much on the rest. His father George V realized as much. He is quoted as having said: "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie (Albert) and Lilibet (Albert's daughter Elizabeth) and the throne." The first part of the elder king's wish did not come true but the last part was certainly fulfilled. Confirming the thought that things happen for a reason, the scandal that resulted in Edward's abdication resulted in the far worthier man ascending to the throne at a time when he was most needed, and made Mrs. Simpson unwittingly the woman who very well may have saved England.
A subtext of the movie is the awkward relationship between the regal Albert/George VI and the commoner Logue. The comedy of manners is of course a common device and dare I say a cliché in much of the drama coming out of class conscious England. In this case it is Pygmalion with the roles reversed, here it is the commoner who usually has the upper hand over the aristocrat. While a bit predictable, these scenes point to the ever so slowly changing roles of the classes in British society. In his performance, Firth skillfully walks a tightrope. He portrays the King as vulnerable, sometimes unable to utter a single word in stressful situations, and given to inappropriate fits of emotion. However at all times he maintains his dignity, Firth comes close but never allows his character to be pathetic. Even the superior attitude with which Albert/George VI views his position in relation to Logue is portrayed sympathetically, we realize that Albert has never been in such an intimate relationship with a commoner and he simply doesn't know how to relate. Unlike his brother, Firth's character is ever duty bound, and never does he step out of that role, even when he is being a mere mortal, which is most of the time.
Both Bonham-Carter's and Rush's performances give us characters that are every bit the equals of Firth's. Bonham-Carter's Elizabeth is tough, intelligent and fiercely devoted to her husband. Similarly Rush's Logue greatly respects the Prince soon to be King, if not necessarily his position. Together the three performances give us rich characters for whom we care a great deal, as well as prepare us for the lives they would lead after the final scene in the film takes place.
As I mentioned above, the legacies of George VI, his wife Queen Elizabeth, and one could say the current Queen, were forged during the war. In a brief epilogue we are told that the King would reward Logue by inducting him into the Royal Victorian Order, first as a member, later as commander. As such he was the first commoner to be awarded in this manner. It also mentioned that the two men remained close friends until the king's death in 1952.
There is no mention of the following:
While they could have easily been spirited out of England, well out of harm's way, the King steadfastly insisted on remaining in London for the entire war, even during the Blitz as the city was decimated by German bombs. After the bombs found their way to the steps of Buckingham Palace barely missing the Royal Family, the Queen was quoted as saying; "Now we can look East Enders in the eye" referring to the terrible devastation the working class section of the city had already endured. The King and Queen made it a point to visit the bombed areas of their city and victims in the hospital. When the Queen came under scrutiny for appearing in the poorer sections of London in all her finery she replied that if the public were to visit her at her home they too, would show up in their finest clothing, she simply was responding in kind.
The Royals became a visible symbol of the city and the country's resolve during its darkest days. There was a great deal of concern about their safety, especially the safety of the children. Of this the Queen said: “The children will leave when I leave. I will leave when the King leaves. The King will never leave.”
For all of her efforts, Adolph Hitler dubbed her; "The most dangerous woman in Europe." Considering the source, quite a compliment indeed.
Princess Elizabeth cut her teeth during those terrible days. She was 13 in 1939 and made her first radio broadcast to the English people the following year. At the close of the war she actively participated in the war effort as a member of the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service. In stark contrast to her current public image, she was trained as a driver and mechanic and ended up driving and maintaining a military truck.
In the movie, King George contemplates his role as a figurehead, a man with a lofty title but without any jurisdiction, a mere symbol of the authority handed down to him from his ancestors. Because of his sense of duty and obligation, even though he questioned it, he took that role dead seriously and never strayed, just as his daughter after him.
In our society we value self expression and freedom above all, obligation and service are almost unheard of values these days. That is perhaps why George's brother's story continues to be so compelling to us. Edward it seems turned out to be much more a man of his day than George.
Regarding the Monarchy, today many of us are likely to just scratch our heads and say; "what's the point?"
As an American, it would be presumptuous of me to suggest what our brothers and sisters across the great pond with whom we share so much, do with their Monarchy. After all, we jettisoned the King of England, another George if I'm not mistaken, a long time ago. But I do believe that symbols matter. And a thousand year old symbol of a great nation's continuity is something that deserves to be considered, not just thrown out with the bath water.
Many years ago, around the time she ascended to the throne, the current Queen Elizabeth made a proclamation stating: "I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong."
Anachronistic as these words may sound, Queen Elizabeth as her parents before her, knows her place in the world.
I'm ushering in the new year with a blast from the past; "Watch the Birdie" by Anita O'Day, accompanied by a sensational film of 1940's Chicago with footage shot by a kindred spirit of mine who also loved streetcars and billboards.
Walking on the Randolph Street overpass above Columbus Drive today we saw a sight that has become quite familiar in town, the phalanx of police cars and black SUVs with tinted windows. I turned to my friends and said matter of factly: "look, the president is in town." A man with a grim look on his face shook his head. My heart sank when he told us that it was actually a procession for the firemen who were killed this morning. I knew exactly what he was talking about. In the morning the reports came over the radio of a burning building whose roof had collapsed with two firemen trapped inside. It sounded bad and all I could do was hope for the best. Then I got on with my day and forgot all about them, that is until I saw the fire trucks and a Chicago Fire Department ambulance carrying the body of one of the fallen heroes.
I haven't stopped thinking about them since.
Firefighters are special. A friend in the CFD gave me an insight a long time ago about what a firefighter is all about. When he was about to graduate from the Fire Academy, there was the scramble to get assigned to a "good" house. Most normal people would think that the difficult houses to get into are the ones in relatively safe neighborhoods, ones where a typical day includes maybe one or two false alarms, a trash fire and perhaps getting a call that there's a cat stuck in a tree.
Not so, the difficult houses to get into are the ones in the worst neighborhoods in the city, "where all the action is." That's why they became firefighters in the first place.
The fire today was in an abandoned building. The CFD could have contained the fire to the building and let it burn itself out. But firefighters don't do that. A group of them entered the burning building on the outside chance that there may have been squatters inside. Others were on the roof looking for hot spots. The two men who died were inside when the roof collapsed on them. Seventeen other firefighters were injured.
My heart aches this evening for the children who will have no father this Christmas, for the wives who have lost their soulmates, for the parents who have lost their sons. I keep thinking of the men as they left their homes for the last time, kissing their wives goodbye, telling their children to be good because Santa will be watching them, just as I do every time I leave for work in the morning. That morning ritual is so important because none of us ever knows for sure if we will come home in the evening.
Of course most firemen, policemen and people in other professions who put their lives on the line every day thank goodness, do in fact come home after work. All of them deserve our thanks and eternal gratitude because there is no way that we can repay them for what they do for us.
The names of the two men who will not be coming home again to their families are Corey Ankum and Edward Stringer. Pray for them.
As the boy and I were skating the other night we spotted two beautiful red hockey jerseys. One was worn by a teenager who donned a Montreal Canadien jersey with the number ten, the number of their retired star right winger Guy LaFleur. Ten must have significance in that family as a woman who appeared to be the boy's mother was also wearing the number ten. She wore a Chicago Blackhawk jersey with their current star Patrick Sharp's name emblazoned on the back.
Ten is a magic number in many sports. In soccer, the number is usually reserved for the best player on the team. The most famous number ten in all of sports is still probably Edison Arantes do Nascimento, known to all the world as Pelé. American football is a game dominated by the number and its multiples. The field is 100 yards long, you need to advance ten yards in order to keep the ball, and so on. Ten of course means perfection in sports that are determined by judges. For obvious reasons we base our numbering system on the number ten and all over the world, except of course here in the United States, measuring systems are based on ten.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that the most American of games does not revolve around ten. Baseball instead revolves around the number three and its multiples. A batter has three chances to defend the strike zone, a team has three outs per inning, a game is divided into nine innings and in order to win, a team must get the other team out 27 times. There are nine members of the team involved in the game at any given time during a game. The most famous and perhaps greatest baseball player of all time, Babe Ruth, wore the number three.
Some pretty good ball players have worn the number ten, but that number doesn't have any particular significance to the game. That is with the exception of the north side of Chicago where no member of the Chicago Cubs will ever again be assigned that number.
That's because on September 28th, 2003, the Cubs retired the number in honor of old number ten, Ron Santo, the all star third baseman who played with the team from 1960 until 1973. That it took thirty years for his team to officially recognize Santo should not be surprising as just about everyone knows of his tireless fight to get respect among the baseball community. Even his death last week may not help his chances of getting into baseball's Hall of Fame in its upcoming election which will take place next year. The fact is that as good as a player Santo was, he's borderline at best to qualify for inclusion in the halls of that hallowed institution in Cooperstown. Adding to that was his almost shameless campaigning for induction over the years which probably did more to hurt his chances than anything else.
Here I will make the heretical statement that it really doesn't matter much now if Ron Santo is ever inducted into the Hall of Fame. No, not because I'm a White Sox fan who thinks way too much attention has been given to Santo's passing.
On the contrary, I could not possibly have more admiration for the man and his contribution to the game of baseball. The outpouring of grief following his death, not seen in this town since the passing of Walter Payton, is absolutely deserved for a man who meant so much not only to Cub fans, but to an entire community, and especially to those who suffer from Juvenile Diabetes, the disease that Santo so courageously lived with throughout most of his life.
It may be that the best one can say about Santo's baseball career is that he was a solid, above average major league ball player. His post retirement years however are another story. Santo left the public life for the business world, then returned to be immersed in baseball as the radio "color man" for the Cubs beginning in 1990. He remained there for the rest of his life. To say that he was THE voice of the Cubs is a gross understatement. While Harry Caray's was the voice most people associate with the team, the voice that presided over the era that saw the team's meteoric rise in popularity, it must be remembered that Caray did the same for the White Sox and before them, the St. Louis Cardinals.
Santo was a Cub, through and through except for one year...
... which he claimed was the worst year of his life. The Cubs were dumping their old sandbys from the "glory days" of the late sixties and early seventies. Santo was to be shipped off to the California Angels but as a veteran he was entitled the right of refusal. He agreed instead to be traded to the south side. The Sox already had a full time third baseman Bill Melton, and as you can see from his baseball card above, Santo after a lifetime at third base, was turned into a second baseman. As you can imagine it was an experiment doomed to failure.
The last time I saw Santo play in person was a night game at old Comiskey Park. It was seat cushion night at the ballpark, the first 20,000 through the gates received a free promotional fanny pad. The cushions were used for everything but their intended purpose, at first they were used as noisemakers. 20,000 seat cushions make a hell of a racket when banged against open palms or wooden seats in unison.
Seat cushions also make pretty decent Frisbees as about 15,000 fans discovered when Santo booted a routine ground ball at his unnatural position. Cushions floated from all directions and quickly the field was covered with the unwanted souvenirs. The teams were cleared from the field and before order was restored, the Sox stood a good chance of forfeiting the game. I never heard Santo comment about the incident, but it certainly had to be one of the lowest of the low points of his career. He would retire from the game after that season.
Today the sight of Ron Santo in anything but a Cubs uniform is as incomprehensible as the sight of water flowing up.
The person who coined the expression, "bleeding Cubbie blue" certainly must have had Santo in mind. I would bet that never in the history of broadcasting did an announcer have so much at stake in one team. Not only did Santo take every win and loss personally, but every at bat, every ball, strike, popup, every line drive, every squib single. But what he took most personally were errors, especially at third base. Santo himself was a glove glover many times over and he had no tolerance for poor fielding or lack of hustle.
Santo's disappointment was palpable every time his team screwed up, which was often. But so was his excitement at the good stuff. He did nothing to cover up his emotions as his partner in the booth for the past 14 years Pat Hughes, described the action on the field.
Here's a typical exchange between the two:
Hughes: "The Cubs are down by one run, the bases are loaded with only one out, Alfonso Soriano is at the plate."
Santo: "C'mon let's' get a hold of one."
Hughes: "The pitcher checks the runners. Here's the stretch, and the pitch, Soriano hits a ground ball to third..."
Santo: "NO!"
Hughes: "...he scoops it up and throws to second for one..."
Santo: " ah JEEZ"
Hughes: "...and over to first for a double play."
Santo: "OH MAN"
Hughes "and that's the inning, no runs, three hits, and two left"
Santo: "SHEESH!, oh man..."
pause
Santo: "DAMN!"
Yet after every disappointing loss, Santo's trademark sign-off line to Hughes was: "well we'll get 'em tomorrow partner."
He'd begin each broadcast of a home game with "From beautiful Wrigley Field" and preface his daily interview with the current manager with: "Here's the fine manager of the Chicago Cubs..." And after each win, you could almost picture him jumping in the press box and clicking his heels just as he did during his playing days, two prosthetic legs and all.
Santo was not particularly articulate, his observations were not very astute, and he didn't go much into the finer points of the game as so many of his contemporaries do in the booth. He and Hughes often got into their banter and it wasn't rare that you'd hear something like:"Hey how'd that guy end up on second?"
Santo was like your old man sitting in his Archie Bunker easy chair watching the game right next to you.
Which is exactly why he was so endearing to his listeners. He was a fan just like us. Yes, I'm including myself, the Sox fan in that mix. I enjoyed listening to the Cubs more than my White Sox on the radio, mostly because of Ron Santo. And I also wanted the Cubs to win, mostly for Ron.
As tireless as his campaign for the Hall of Fame was, an infinitely deeper concern was JDRF, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Santo learned he had the disease shortly before signing with the Cubs in 1959. Fearful that it might keep him off the field, Santo kept it private, playing most of his career while keeping the disease a secret.
In the twilight of his playing career, so that young people in the future would not have to suffer as he did, he made his condition public and in the subsequent forty years helped raise over 60 million dollars for JDRF. Perhaps even more valuable was the example he set for those of us who cared to pay attention. As his condition deteriorated over the years, Ron Santo could have easily slipped out of the public eye to live out the remainder of his life in private, cherishing the glorious memories of the past while keeping his current struggles to himself, leaving us only the memory of a youthful high spirited player. Instead he chose to be as open and honest in public about his condition as he could. As parts of his body began to fail him one by one, like the brave Sir Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who loses his battle with King Arthur limb by limb, Santo kept going on as if to say: "hey it's only a flesh wound."
A particularly poignant moment was re-played over the radio on the day he died. Last season on the 50th anniversary of his debut in the major leagues, Santo threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Wrigley Field. Standing in front of the pitcher's mound he bounced the ball over home plate to Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster. Pat Hughes talking about it later in the booth joked to Ron in an uncharacteristically patronizing tone that Dempster shook his catching hand in pain after catching the ball. (I checked the video and Dempster did no such thing). Santo sounding slightly defeated said, "well I did the best I could."
We hear the word hero bandied about quite liberally to describe sports stars. But Ron Santo is truly deserving of the word. He was a man who was blessed with incredible talent but who was also dealt many bad cards in his life. Yet like any good poker player he was able to play them to their best advantage, and we all came out ahead. Santo was a great ballplayer to be sure. But his life on the field was eclipsed by his life off the field by a mile. In his later years Santo showed the world that living with diminished abilities did not mean a diminished life, not in the slightest.
It would have been nice, very nice, if Ron Santo's wish to have been inducted into the Hall of Fame could have been granted during his lifetime. It also would have been nice if he could have seen his Cubs in the World Series, if not win the thing. But as we will certainly see today and tomorrow as he is laid to rest, the outpouring of love for the man and the way he touched this community will far outweigh any plaque hung in a hall in remote Upstate New York.
Santo was replaced on the field by a number of competent third basemen, who just like him, didn't make it to the World Series. But replacing Ron Santo and what he has meant to Chicago for all these years will be impossible.
Post script:
On December 5, 2011, almost exactly one year after his death, the Veterans Committee elected Ron Santo posthumously into baseball's Hall of Fame. Congratulations Ronnie, wherever you are!
As we continue to dig ourselves out of the third worst snow storm in Chicago's history, newsprint, the internet and the air waves are all filled with rants about the city's mishandling of the situation. At the center of the controversy is the incident where hundreds of people were stranded for hours in their vehicles on Lake Shore Drive as the thoroughfare came to a standstill after multiple wrecks blocked the road.
,