100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (10 page)

25. Go to Murphy’s Before and Bernie’s After

Or, if you prefer, go to Bernie’s before and Murphy’s after. Either way, you’ll be spending time at an authentic Cubs bar right across from Wrigley Field that will quickly establish your street cred as a Cubs fan. As long as you don’t use the expression “street cred.”

There are so many great places to choose from in Wrigleyville—The Cubby Bear, Merkle’s, Slugger’s, and the rebuilt Sports Corner bar at the corner of Sheffield and Addison, come to mind—it’s hard to choose just a couple. In fact, try them all and see which one suits you best.

But Murphy’s Bleachers and Bernie’s Tap & Grill stand out for a combination of their history, family ownership, and awesome beer gardens. Bernie’s, at 3664 N. Clark St., doesn’t have as long of a history as Murphy’s, but it’s been around a lot longer than any of the generic bars in Wrigleyville and has a reputation for smart Cubs fans who wouldn’t squeal if Mark Grace walked in the door.

The bar, originally known as Bernie’s Tavern, was opened in the 1950s
by Bernie Dillman, and it has been in the family ever since. It’s currently owned and operated by Linda Dillman, Bernie’s daughter-in-law, and her two sons. Dillman was once Ron Santo’s personal secretary, and the two remained close friends until his death in 2010.

Unlike Bernie’s, Murphy’s has changed family ownership several times over the years as evidenced by its name changes. When it was founded in the 1930s by Ernie Pareti it was known as Ernie’s Bleachers and then it became Ray’s Bleachers when he sold to Ray Meyer before Jim Murphy bought the bar in 1980 and kept up the tradition by giving it his family’s name.

Murphy was a vocal community leader and rooftop owner whose fight with the Tribune Co. against the Wrigley Field bleacher expansion helped fashion the groundbreaking partnership years later. He passed away in 2003 and his wife, Beth, now owns and operates Murphy’s with her two sons.

Like Bernie’s, Murphy’s has been renovated over the years yet somehow manages to seamlessly combine its modern features and old bar charm. Another reason to head over to Murphy’s is you never know who you’ll find there. Every Thursday is open mic night at Murphy’s, and in late June 2011 an old Cubs fan stepped up and belted out a couple of tunes.

The fan’s name? Eddie Vedder.

26. P.K. Wrigley: The Man Who Invented the Cubs

The Cubs were founded in 1876 and experienced their glory years around the turn of the 20
th
century, but the franchise as it’s known today wasn’t invented until many years later.

Philip Knight Wrigley was a tinkerer who would purchase expensive automobiles and immediately take them to his busy workshop where he would take them apart just for the pleasure of trying to make them better. Among his inventions was a non-slippable screwdriver, which he created on purpose, and the Cubs as lovable losers, which he created by accident and never came close to perfecting despite many years of tinkering.

“What is the combination? Why are we losing?” he once lamented to the
Chicago Tribune
’s David Condon. “I can’t pinpoint it, but you know in flying we have an indefinable explanation when a crash cannot be explained. We call it pilot error. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t the Cubs pilot.”

Wrigley inherited the Cubs from his father, William Wrigley Jr., in 1932 and for the next 45 years—until Philip’s death at the age of 82 in 1977—presided over the franchise in a way that was always futile, often admirable, and occasionally bizarre.

The last four seasons the Cubs made the World Series—in 1932, 1935, 1938
, and 1945—all came under P.K. Wrigley’s watch, although the first three are credited to his father and team president Bill Veeck Sr. and the last one to the dilution of baseball talent due to World War II.

Blame for the long run of losing that took place after the 1945 season is heaped on the shoulders of Wrigley, whose interest in the sport of baseball was minimal at best. The legendary Bill Veeck Jr., who worked for Wrigley for eight years beginning in 1933, wrote in his autobiography
Veeck—As In Wreck
, “If he has any particular feeling for baseball, any real liking for it, he has disguised it magnificently.”

Wrigley’s first concern was always the comfort of fans, although he never was able to quite understand the emotional discomfort wrought by losing. He once ripped out hundreds of box seats at Wrigley Field at considerable cost because he felt they weren’t wide enough, a move that decreased capacity among the most expensive seats.

Yet over the years he lowballed superstars like Ernie Banks when baseball’s reserve clause made it easy to do so, and he bristled when free agency arrived in the 1970s saying “nobody is worth over $100,000.”

Despite his stinginess with baseball players, Wrigley didn’t define himself by his wealth and was generous with fans. He would answer his own phone at work, surprising more than a few Cubs fans calling to complain who never expected to get the owner himself. In 1969, during the height of that crazy season, he even
arranged for dozens of Bleacher Bums to attend a three-game series in Atlanta.

Some of the ideas he brought to the Cubs were ahead of their time, such as having computers track hitting and pitching trends and having the scoreboard flash “hit” or “error” to let the fans know the outcome of a questionable play.

But he was wrong about night baseball, calling it a “fad” when it first became popular in 1935 and after a brief flirtation with lights in the 1940s refused to permit night baseball at Wrigley Field, in part out of devotion to local residents.

Wrigley had many downright goofy ideas, including using psychologists to discover what separates the best ballplayers from the worst. “We didn’t find out much about the 1 percent of the boys who could make the major leagues,” Veeck Jr. told the
Chicago Tribune
. “But we did find out a lot about the 99 percent who can’t.”

In 1961, Wrigley decreed the Cubs would not have a manager but instead would have a rotating “college of coaches.” This came about in part because of Wrigley’s distaste for firing people and also because he had noticed the dictionary defined “manager” as being a “dictator.
” He disapproved of the definition. The experiment lasted five years, whereupon Wrigley hired Leo Durocher, a dictator if there ever was one.

Probably the strangest thing Wrigley ever did came just a few years after he assumed ownership of the team. He paid $5,000 to an “Evil Eye,” whose job was to sit behind home plate and put a “whammy” on opposing teams. Not much else is known about this odd event but one thing is certain—it didn’t work.

Wrigley, who was demonstrably shy, stayed away from the ballpark during his final years, an irony because his greatest legacy is the ballpark. He poured millions of dollars into it out of a certainty that Wrigley Field was the greatest sales tool he had.

Decades later, as millions still pour into the Friendly Confines during losing seasons, it’s clear Wrigley was ahead of his time about that, as well.

27. Click Your Heels Like Ron Santo

Please be careful when you try this, if you think jumping into the air and clicking your heels is easy, it isn’t. Ron Santo’s jubilant jump on June 22, 1969
, thrilled Cubs fans and spawned a summer of imitators, at least two of whom ended up on the disabled list. Even Santo didn’t come away unscathed. On his inaugural leap he cut himself on the leg with one of his cleats.

“I’d see kids come along my car and be clicking their heels,” Santo said in
What It Means to be a Cub
. “It was fantastic. I got a card from two elderly people, and each of them had a leg up on a coffee table. They had tried to click their heels and both of them broke their ankles, but they sent me a card.”

There isn’t much unbridled joy allowed in baseball, not when “unwritten” rules state any such act will result in a beaning. Later in the season, Santo was pulled aside by St. Louis Cardinals catcher Tim McCarver, who explained his pitchers didn’t like when he clicked his heels, even if it was only after the game and only at Wrigley Field.

“Timmy,” Santo said, “when I go across those white lines, nobody is my friend. You just let them know I don’t care.”

That one act perfectly reflected a player—and later a broadcaster—whose emotions could never be buried.

Ronald Edward Santo was born in Seattle, Washington, on February 25, 1940, and 20 years later he was in training camp with the Cubs with his sights set on Wrigley Field. Manager Charlie Grimm told him he’d made the team, but just before camp broke the Cubs traded for veteran third baseman Don Zimmer.

The disappointment devastated Santo, who had passed on contracts worth two or three times as much as the Cubs offered because he believed their inferior lineup would allow him to reach the major leagues quicker. After threatening to not report to the minors, Santo cooled off and reluctantly headed off to Triple-A.

Three months later, the Cubs called him up and on June 26, 1960, he went 3-for-7 with 5 RBIs in a doubleheader at Pittsburgh. He played in his first game at Wrigley Field two days later, going 1-for
-4 against the Milwaukee Braves. He was home.

“I walked on the field, and there was atmosphere,” he said in
Banks to Sandberg to Grace
. “There’s nothing like it. The stands were empty. It was so beautiful. It was like playing in my backyard.”

He quickly became a fan favorite and perennial All-Star selection all while harboring a secret he’d learned after undergoing his first Cubs physical in 1958—Santo was a diabetic. It took him a few years to understand the needs of his body, but he still rarely missed games. During his first nine full seasons, he sat out a total of 11 games.

In 1971, Santo revealed he had diabetes, and raising money for research became the cause of his life. He raised $60 million through his foundation during his lifetime, and he never turned down a request to talk to any person—young or old—about the ups and downs of living life as a diabetic.

On the field, Santo seethed at all the losing the Cubs did during the first six years of his career when they lost more than 90 games four times, including a pair of 103-loss seasons. So when the core of Ernie Banks, Fergie Jenkins, Billy Williams, Don Kessinger, Randy Hundley, Glenn Beckert, and Santo started to win, it was a
revelation.

It was during the fabled 1969 season that Santo reached his high—seeing the Cubs in first place deep into the season—as well as his low, which came when his criticism of center fielder Don Young’s misplayed balls led to a torrent of media criticism and boos at Wrigley Field.

The season, of course, ended horribly. And Santo’s hatred of the New York Mets, who surged past the Cubs that season, was so complete he wouldn’t even take the field against them 15 years later during a 1984 reunion game. After the 1973 season, the Cubs decided they wanted to trade Santo, who was coming off a year in which he hit .267 with 20 homers and 77 RBIs. Not the same numbers as when he averaged 29 homers and 106 RBIs from 1964 to 1970, but he was still only 34 years old heading into the season. He had some baseball left in him.

The Cubs didn’t agree. They had just traded for third-base prospect Bill Madlock and put together a deal that would have sent Santo to the California Angels. As a player with 10 years in the major leagues and five with the same team, Santo had veto rights and rejected the trade. He just didn’t want to leave Chicago. So the Cubs arranged a trade to the White Sox, and Santo accepted it.

Santo agreed to the trade so he could stay in Chicago and continue his career, but the Sox already had a third baseman in Bill Melton and tried to fit Santo in at second base. He ended up hurting his arm, played only 117 games, and retired at season’s end with 342 homers and 1,331 RBIs.

He had a thriving oil business and other investments to fall back on and spent the next 15 years enjoying his retirement. The disappointments of not getting into the Hall of Fame began in 1980 when he only received 4 percent of the vote in his first year on the ballot, below the 5 percent threshold he needed to remain on in subsequent seasons.

The travesty of that vote was addressed in 1985 when Santo and several other deserving players had their eligibility restored, but he never got more than 43 percent of the vote, far short of the 75 percent required for enshrinement. There was so much hope that Santo would get elected by the Veterans Committee in 2003 that television cameras were with him when the call arrived.

“Nobody got in?” was his stunned response.

Toward the end of the 2003 season, the Cubs surprised Santo again. They told him his No. 10 would be retired, joining Banks’ No. 14 and Williams’ No. 26 as the only Cubs to be given that honor. Ryne Sandberg’s No. 23 was retired in 2005.

“Now I really don’t care if I get into the Hall of Fame anymore,” Santo said in an emotional press conference after the announcement. “This is my Hall of Fame.”

Santo’s 20 years broadcasting Cubs baseball on WGN Radio introduced him to another generation of Cubs fans, who grew to admire his great courage and relentless good cheer after having part of both legs amputated due to complications from diabetes. He was finally elected to the Hall of Fame on December 5, 2011. But it came a year and two days to late for Santo to enjoy it.

On December 3, 2010, Santo passed away after a long battle with bladder cancer, an illness he kept hidden from the public. He died too young but at the height of his popularity as thousands mourned the loss of this old Cub.

So step back to get a running start, then click your heels for Ron Santo
and don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.

Oh, Nooooo!!!!!!!!!

The beauty of Ron Santo the radio announcer was that he was a fan first and a broadcaster second, and there really was nothing he or anyone could do about it.

Not that anyone ever wanted Santo to hide his undying love for the Cubs or his desire to see them win a World Series, that would be as foolish as asking a bird not to fly, a fish not to swim, or Ronnie Wickers not to “woo woo.”

It’s no surprise then that the defining moment of his broadcasting career—which began in 1990—came during one of the worst moments in Cubs history. Some people call it the “Brant Brown” game, but it’s really the “Oh, nooooo!” game. The background: In the final days of the 1998 regular season, Brown dropped a fly ball with the bases loaded and two out in the ninth inning that cleared the bases and gave Milwaukee an 8–7 victory.

It was an utterly shocking moment in every aspect that led to an iconic moment. Just as the ball bounced off the heel of Brown’s glove and it dawned on Santo what had happened, his instincts took over and he was no longer in the broadcast booth. After the game, Cubs manager Jim Riggleman was in the unusual position of having to console Santo.

“I had to laugh,” broadcast partner Pat Hughes said in his eulogy at Santo’s funeral. “Here was a manager cheering up a broadcaster. This has never happened in the history of American sports.... Do you think Mike Ditka ever cheered up Wayne Larrivee?”

Santo was a fan aghast at what he had just seen, and the guttural yawp that emerged from his mouth when Brown dropped the ball became the way generations of Cubs fans would affectionately mimic him.

Jack Brickhouse had his signature “Hey, Hey,” Harry Caray had his “Holy Cow,” and now Santo had his, “Oh, nooooo!”