From Bozo to Baseball

...As long as I can remember back, I have always been a completely obsessed sports fan...I mean I had every imaginable trading card of every player of every team from almost every sport. Looking back, I can even recall opening up a pack of baseball cards and seeing a Mickey Mantle card and being pissed that I got his card, furiously tearing it up and throwing it up in the air because he had retired that year...I'm thinking that must have been around 1969 and that card today probably would buy me some season's tickets to any sports venue for a year...

...All the Chicago teams were huge favorites to me growing up and it's impossible to rate them in some kind of all-time favorite order...But I do intend on spending some time giving you some of my insights and recollections regarding my vast array of golden sports memories throughout these memoirs...

First up...the Cubs...I know...I know...that's a shocker...me being from the South-Side but the Cubs were on WGN and they had a huge advantage of gaining my attention over the years...especially as a little youngster...On any given day, you could go from watching the kooky antics of Bozo's Circus at Noon followed by the Cubs Lead-Off Man Show...at 1pm...(which was sponsored by Danley Garages way back then and even now)...

....The Cubs were loaded back in 1969, so many of those players have their numbers flying out on flagpoles erected in the outfield bleachers...nowadays...but back then...these guys just were average to decently-great prospects...who could just do it all, that magical season...Santo, Billy Williams, Glenn Beckert, Randy Hundley, Fergie Jenkins and Mister Cub, himself, Ernie Banks...

...As a kid...baseball was King...It was by far...America's Pastime...in every sense of the word. Every kid wore a baseball cap...and they probably wore that cap every day, no matter how sweaty and grimy and dirty and ripped and bent it got...Losing your baseball cap was like losing a limb...It almost felt un-natural not to have one on...I kinda got mad because I'd see so many Cubs caps at department stores back then...but hardly any White Sox caps...It's no wonder that the Cubs held a huge lead in popularity...All the White Sox had back then was an aging shortstop, Louie Aparicio and a young fast-ball pitcher Tommy John...I can't recall anyone else being that great...maybe pitcher Joel Horlen and new knuckle-baller Wilbur Wood but that is reaching...a bit...

...We were basically a young generation that had inherited a passion for baseball from our fathers...who were equally rabid about baseball from their early years on up...also...My Dad absolutely hated the New York Yankees...and I also followed his lead by hating the Bronx Bombers...from the get-go, too...They were just awful back then...the Yanks...but they had the mystique of DiMaggio and Gerhig and Ruth to fall back upon...even though...that was a good 20-30-40 years before... Heck, Joe DiMaggio was doing Mr. Coffee commercials and that pretty much guaranteed a huge load of good poblicity & sales from his legendary, impeccable image, alone...

...Back to the Cubs in the summner of 1969...It was a special year in Cub history...They had spent so many years without a glimpse of hope of winning a championship...for so long...It had to have been way back around World War II...when they last had a decent chance of taking home a World Series...But this year in 69...everything was going their way...They were way out in front of the Cardinals, I believe and also the Mets...who were still basically considered a rummy expansion franchise compared to everyone else...

...I was up in Children's Memorial Hospital...at the time...for an extensive 3-4 month stretch and you just had to watch the Cubs to keep away the boredom...of being stuck in bed, in a huge plaster cast...after some kind of hellacious back surgery...

...All the doctors and nurses and just about anyone would come into my room and ask me for a score update...while the Cubs were on...because they knew I was glued to the game of that day and could pretty much recall all the highlights like a human highlight reel...

...Children's Memorial Hospital was only a little over a mile away from Wrigley Field...and Cub Fever was running rampant in a huge way...This just had to be their year, everyone kept excitedly repeating, over and over...

...Eventually, I was released from the hospital in July that summer but I kept a close eye on the Cubs as they made their way towards their pennant push...Jack Brickhouse and Lou Boudrou and Vince Lloyd were the everyday WGN announcers back then...and they were great broadcasters who shared the same enthusiasm for this incredible year...evolving on a daily basis for throngs of dedicated fans...Everyone was purely awe-struck by the lead the Cubs kept building and building upon...Wow...coulde this really be the year...!!!!

....The Cubbies, somehow, came up a little short...in the end...down the stretch...as the Amazing Mets...came out of nowhere with some awesome pitching talent...from the likes of young guns--Nolan Ryan & Tug McGraw & Jerry Koosman & Tom Seaver who would go on to capture the National League crown followed by an improbable World Series title....

...It was a bitter moment in time...to see the Cubs fade to a bunch of no-name guys from NYC but most of the Mets young players would go on to have stellar careers...The pain of losing for the Cubs almost overshadowed the brilliance of the Cubs players efforts...and that year...1969...would go down as one of the most traumatic as well as most memorable years in Cub history...

...Over the years...I have continued to follow baseball and the Cubs with great interest for many reasons. Some of my most favorite baseball memories are Cubs games or Sox games that I have either watched or attended with great friends and I'm sure I'll be jumping back in time to give you a glimpse of the essence of Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park and all that has transpired...before my eyes...Oh yeah, let's not forget those White Sox who got their act together finally...for some very memorable teams from the late 70's to mid-80's...And what about old Comiskey Park...which may have lacked the charm of other parks like Wrigley Field but still was held in reverence by baseball purists as the real place to see baseball in Chicago...I have every intention of instilling the aura that surrounded these ball parks, which should be alot of fun...

...Right now...at this moment...in October of 2008...the Cubs, the Sox and even the Brewers are in the play-offs, perched up at the top...ready to take a shot at a World Series title...The Cubs will face off against the Los Angeles Dodgers...another team...I really hate...We'll see what happens...The Sox are tussling with the new kids, the Tampa Bay Rays...and the Brew Crew are in for a battle with the Phillies of Philadelphia...These lucky teams are going for it all...this post-season...so this year, especially, in 2008, has been a remarkable year for baseball....that has unfolded...for all of the fans in the Upper Midwest and everywhere across the U.S.A...to enjoy immensely and elusively try to hold onto...every minute they can...

(...As a footnote...I did want to mention that with all those loads and loads of baseball cards I had collected, they had to be stacked, piled all up in rubber bands...My Dad, seeing this, would come home every so often with some really cool cigar boxes for me to store all my cards in...These cigar boxes were mostly top-notch, wooden, with a heavy metal clasp to keep it shut tight and its dimensions were a perfect fit for stuffing a huge bunch of cards together...And after awhile...the cards even developed a distinct pungent, sweet tobacco smell to them...Every so often...years later, whenever I would light up a cigar on occasion...I would think back to those cigar boxes my Dad had given me long ago...Gosh, that huge collection of baseball cards would be worth a fortune, right now, but I know I would probably still keep them, if I had the chance...I laugh now because I can still remember having a rookie Lou Pinella mini-poster they had specially made of all the promising rookies coming up back then when he came into the big leagues with the Kansas City Royals...Here we are, 40 years later and Lou is pretty much the cagey old manager of the Cubs...with his trademark fiery temper boiling over, now and then, beneath that once, youthful and talented athlete...from ages ago...You could say I did keep myself quite absorbed in sports back then...but it was a great hobby...and to think back at all the outstanding players I got to watch flourish before my eyes...was quite a treat...)