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* I was raised a Chicago Cubs fan and Ron Santo was one of my childhood heroes from that 1969 team. Santo passed away yesterday. Bruce Levine at ESPN says it best…
As I was growing up in Chicago, Ron Santo was a hero to me before he was a friend. Like many Little Leaguers in the early ‘60s, I latched onto Santo as “my guy.” In my mind, I knew I’d be the guy to replace him when his baseball career was over.
But things often don’t turn out the way you envision. One thing stayed constant, though, Santo was always my guy. Especially after we became friends in the late ‘80s.
Ron Santo had the gift of making strangers feel like friends instantly. I watched him meet and greet thousands over the years, having the same impact on every person he met. Each person walked away feeling like they made a new friend.
I knew Ron Santo for over 30 years, and never once did I hear him complain about being sick or having diabetes or losing the bottom of both legs. Never once.
* The New York Times looks back at his baseball career…
Playing for the Chicago Cubs from 1960 to 1973, then for a final season with the Chicago White Sox, Santo hit 342 career home runs, won five Gold Glove awards for fielding and was named an All-Star nine times.
He was a key figure on the 1969 Cubs team that was leading the Mets by 13 games in August before collapsing. That team gained a particularly agonizing niche in the star-crossed history of the Cubs, who have not won a pennant since 1945. But Santo endeared himself to the Bleacher Bums in their hard hats at Wrigley Field that summer by clicking his heels with joy after victories.
That Santo was on a major league field, let alone starring alongside the future Hall of Famers Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ferguson Jenkins, seemed remarkable.
When he took a routine physical in 1959, on the brink of making his Cubs debut, Santo was found to have juvenile diabetes. He began taking insulin within two years, but kept his diabetes a secret from the Cubs until being named to his first All-Star team in 1963, fearing that management’s knowledge of his illness might have damaged his career. He did not allow the public to know of his diabetes until his final years with the Cubs.
* Stats…
* .277 BA, 342 HR, 1,331 RBI
* 4 career 30-HR seasons
* 9-time All-Star
* 5-time Gold Glove winner
* Finished top 5 in MVP voting twice (1967, ’69)
* Led NL with 13 triples in 1964
* More…
But here’s the thing: No matter what method you use, Santo was the dominant third baseman of his era — or at the very least in the top two. His contemporaries will tell you that. And so will the numbers. In the decade of the 1960s (admittedly an arbitrary period), he hit more homers, drove in more runs, drew more walks and had a higher slugging percentage than any other third baseman — including Hall-of-Famers Eddie Mathews and Brooks Robinson.
In fact, when you look at career OPS+, which adjusts for the differences in eras and ballparks, Santo ranks seventh all-time among third basemen (min. 5,000 plate appearances) — and of the six players ahead of him, five (Mike Schmidt, Mathews, George Brett, Home Run Baker and Wade Boggs) are already in the Hall of Fame, and the sixth (Chipper Jones) will be eventually.
And of those third basemen, only Mathews had a career that overlapped significantly with Santo (who was also the superior defensive player) — which means Santo was either the premier third baseman of his era, or a very close second. And in my estimation, that makes him a Hall-of-Famer.
* And, of course, there was his broadcasting career as the club’s greatest homer…
Former Cubs President John McDonough compared Santo to Harry Caray, the broadcasting legend who called games for both Chicago teams, noting neither had a filter, broadcast with unvarnished emotion and were enormously entertaining.
Santo mangled names, sometimes lost track of what was going on in a game and occasionally didn’t realize a player had been on the roster for months, but none of that mattered because people loved it, McDonough said. “We almost thought he was doing it on purpose,” he said. “It added so much entertainment value.”
One of the rare times he saw Santo visibly upset, McDonough recalled, was after Frank Sinatra Jr. sang during the seventh-inning stretch years ago. As Sinatra left the booth, he turned to Santo and told him he thought Santo was one of the best pitchers he had ever seen. “Ronny lost it,” McDonough said.
Santo was the quintessential Cubs fan and made no apologies for his on-air cheerleading or his utter frustration over a bad play.
On many occasions, when Santo was upset with the way things were going for the team, a simple grunt or moan sufficed.
Discuss.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:20 am
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One day in Milwaukee … “OH NOOO ….”
We will miss you Ron, you are going to be missed every time I turn on the radio and want to be entertained when the Cubs are not being entertaining …. God Bless you, Ron Santo …
Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:30 am
Santos may not have won the World Series, may never make it to the Hall of Fame, but he was a winner where it counts the most: in life.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:30 am
Sorry, SantO…nor relation to Maria.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:30 am
One of the funniest memories that I have of Ron Santo during his radio broadcast days was when Bruce Jenner was in the booth (I think the Cubs had him there for a 70s themed promotion). Santo clearly hated the egotistical Jenner and kept silent until he left the booth. Then he unloaded.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:32 am
Ronnie, Billy, Ernie, Fergie (not HER), Kenny, Duroucher in the dugout, Jack and Vince and Lou in the booths. The teams of my youth. 41 years since ‘69 and I STILL hate the Mets. Summer of 69,drunk in the cheap seats off left field line, we beat somebody 12-2, newspaper headline said “Fun Day!” Yep, it was. Greatest high and lowest low of my whole life watching sports–the quintessential happy/heartbreak experience of a Cub fan, although 2003 comes close.
Comment by cub fan since 62 Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:35 am
What a loss. I think his passing will help his Hall credentials with the Veterans Committee.
Comment by Team Sleep Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:37 am
Put him in the Hall you dag’gone sportswriters! He should have received the honor while he was alive.
Comment by bdogg Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:38 am
I grew up hearing his voice almost every day and not being able to hear him anymore is depressing. He’ll always be a Hall of Famer to me.
Comment by Steve Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:41 am
Ron Santo was a clutch player and deserved to be elected into the hall of fame. He had power, hit for average and along with Ken Boyer was the best fielding 3rd basemen in the national league. Better stats than many 3rd basemen in the Hall including Brooks Robinson. Problem was he irked many hall members with his heal clicking and most of all his tirade against Don Young when the Cubs were swooning in August and September of 69. Don Young was the young cubs center fielder and blew a game or two with poor fielding. Don Young was out of baseball the next season.
Politics did Santo in with regards to never getting into the Hall of Fame. The enshrined members never forgave him for those two things and he payed the price until the end of his life Too bad.
Comment by "Old Timer Dem" Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:41 am
RIP Ron. You’ll be missed. Your stats should include the millions of dollars you raised to find a cure for diabetes. You fought your disease with as much class as you played with on the field.
In the Good Guy Hall of Fame, you’re in on the first ballot.
Comment by 47th Ward Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:43 am
Don’t think I can tune in to WGN radio for my Cubs games this year…. Miss you Ron.
Comment by Cubs Fan Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:47 am
Ron’s from my home town (after Chicago) of Park Ridge. Everyone knew him, and always said wonderful things about him.
Loved by all–and will be sorely missed.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:48 am
I don’t think he’s a Hall of Famer, but he definitely was a terrific player and he had a lot of heart. It was cruelly ironic that a man who is probably best known for clicking his heels in midair lost both legs to disease, but like others have mentioned, it didn’t stop him from having a passion for life and a passion for something that is universally known to be a terminal and fatal disease: being a Cubs fan!
Comment by chiatty Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:48 am
This is one of those moments where Steve Goodman pops into my head.
“Give him a double header funeral on some sunny weekend day (no lights)…”
RIP Ron Santo, you’ll be missed. Say hi to Jack and Harry.
Comment by cermak_rd Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:49 am
No doubt, Santo’s numbers are HOF worthy. I think two factors have kept him out of Cooperstown: the sports writers are relunctant to put a 4th member of the 60’s era Cubs into the Hall because the team never won anything, and the old-timers won’t vote him in because they were put-off by his highly publicized campaigning for a spot in the Hall. The old-timers are also notorious for being overly strict — mainly because the more Hall-of-Famers there are, the less their autographs are worth.
Nellie Fox wasn’t elected to the Hall until after his death, maybe the same fate awaits Santo.
Comment by s.t. Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:52 am
I’m a die hard Sox fan and I loved the guy. Put him in the Hall already.
Comment by Scooby Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:53 am
There’s a bigger and better Hall of Fame where Ron is now. He is certainly in it.
Say “hello” to Jack Brickhouse and Harry Carey. We miss you all.
Comment by Aldyth Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 11:54 am
I had the number 10 on my Cub uniform that I wore everyday in the summer of 69. It was the coolest thing I ever got for my Birthday, and the number of the coolest guy (except Ernie) in the world! I even learned to click my heels. Thanks Ronnie you have been part of my whole life.
Comment by Nortsider Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:06 pm
Two, from many, broadcast memories:
–Bill Kurtis sings the 7th inning stretch to flog some project. In the chit-chat that follows, Ronny brings up a Kurtis cable program on the JFK assassination.
Ronny says, “Fascinating program. And I just want to go on the record: the assassination of Pres. Kennedy was not only bad for baseball, but bad for America, too. Say, Bill, what was that Oswald’s problem, anyway? Did he do that by himself?”
Dead air. Kurtis starts stammering about the number of theories and books on theories until Pat Hughes finally recovers and resumes the play by play.
–Aug. 10, 2002. With the aid of the thin Denver air and a strict regimen of Flinstone vitamins, Sammy Sosa has hit three home-runs with nine RBI in his first three at bats against the Rockies. As he steps to the plate for his fourth at bat and a chance to tie the MLB record, Pat Hughes dramatically intones, “And here steps in Sosa.”
Ronny, replies, “Yeah, Sosa’s due to get ahold of one.”
Hughes patiently explains that Sosa already has hit three. Santo is pleasantly surprised, cheerfully oblivious to the game he’s been calling.
Hughes deserves a spot in Cooperstown for his 15 years with Santo.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:06 pm
Old Timer Dem,
If what you write is true, that Santo was not forgiven for his tirade against Don Young, that is a shame. Michael Jordan once punched Steve Kerr in the face and had other tirades against teammates, yet that did nothing to stop him from getting enshrined in the hall. Many other players who are in the hall must have had tirades.
I loved Santo as a kid and a Cubs fan. I stopped being a Cubs fan after 2003. I can’t see financially supporting a team that has lost for the last 102 years. That to me is like going to a restaurant and getting bad food for a century, yet hoping that if I keep coming back, I’ll eventually get good food.
Being a fair-weather fan is underrated, to me. In the million/billion-dollar business of professional sports, why should I support a team unless it’s a good business? Loyalty, schmoyalty.
Comment by Grandson of Man Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:08 pm
From a lifelong White Sox partisan:
So long to a great ball player and a better human. Rest in peace.
Comment by Bill F Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:08 pm
I grew up in the heyday of his career…he was an inspiration to kids who were struggling with adversity, especially healthwise…he was a super nice guy and may God welcome him into his arms…
Comment by Loop Lady Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:10 pm
Ron Santo played baseball the way he broadcasted. He loved the game, gave it his all and it showed on the field. He was exhuberant in victory. Depressed in defeat.
He was their cleanup hitter for a decade, was a top RBI, homerun and clutch hitter, and was a great fielder, a true gold glover. The Williams, Santo, Banks 3-4-5 combo was one of baseball’s all time greats. He didn’t strike out as much as the modern player does, but he was always ticked off when he did, unlike the modern ones who matter of factly walk back to the dugout.
A far cry from most modern players who go through the motions and complain that the public fails to adore them. Like much of the overpaid Cubs of last year.
I still have my Ron Santo baseball bat from childhood. It was roughly the same dimensions of my Harmon Killebrew bat (my all-time favorite) but not as heavy. I would use it when I wanted to hit to the opposite field or hit a liner. Sometime in high school I cracked it. I then put a screw in it, taped it using electrical tape first, then regular tape above it (the crack was by the handle) and then used it for a while playing 16 inch softball.
Tonight I’ll dig it out of my garage and clean it up a bit in his memory. The tape looks pretty ratty now, so I’ll retape it. Not that I plan on ever using it again.
Thanks for the memories Ron. You were always a hall of famer in my eyes and now that your gone, I foresee your election to the hall in the near future. You posted hall of fame numbers. You were one of the premier 3rd basemen in the game. Your failure to be inducted is their shame, not yours.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:21 pm
Sorry. The taped baseball bat story came from me. For some reason it was posted as “anonymous.”
Comment by Louis G. Atsaves Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:25 pm
RIP Ron Santo! What a bad week.. Santo, Rep. Myers, and Leslie Nielsen.
((
Comment by Joe Blow Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:35 pm
As in life…so it goes in baseball…another page in history is turned. Goodbye ol’ friend. You are now playing for the best team in heaven!
Comment by siyotanka Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:42 pm
Ron Santo’s last and best act can be remembered from the pummeling he gave Governor Quinn in the Amendatory Veto over-ride of HB6065 CARE OF STUDENTS DIABETES ACT
Last Action Date
12/1/2010
House Amendatory Veto Overridden Both Houses
House Override Amendatory Veto -
House Passed 107-004-003
Senate Override Amendatory Veto -
Senate Passed 049-002-000
All that other stuff was just baseball.
RIP Ronny
P.S. Your best days in Chicago were always with the SOX, so wear the southside colors and the pearly gates will swing wide open for you.
Comment by Quinn T. Sential Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:43 pm
Seems to me that I remember reading that Santo was also a perennial leader in being hit by pitches because he would do anything to get on base. Do I have the right guy?
Comment by aufjunk Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:57 pm
Thanks for the kind words about Santo, Rich. Us Cub fans needed it after the years of relentless bashing we usually receive on CapFax. We probably would have elected him to the General Assembly had we known he was able to create such an atmosphere of bipartisanship between the north and south.
I met Ronny twice. Once in 2003 and again in 2009. He was always very pleasant. Of course, I really knew him through the radio like everyone else. I loved his and Pat’s banter. There was a particular one where Pat had just finished reading an advertisement for New Balance shoes. Ron says, “New Balance makes a great wide shoe. *pause* Of course, I don’t have any feet, so….”
We Cub fans put up with a lot. We get really involved in the game. I think one of the reasons Pat & Ron’s broadcasts were so popular was because we couldn’t stand watching the team without being at the ballpark. We are less frustrated without the visual component, but we knew exactly how to react because Ronny was there to be our spokesperson.
It’s a sad day to lose one of my childhood heroes.
But as we remember Ron today, there’s one other thing to keep in mind….
LONG LIVE PAT HUGHES!
Comment by Barton Lorimor Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 12:58 pm
Grandson of Man, the Hall of Fame members that were contemporaries of Santo held those things against him because they simply did not like him going back to their playing days. Ron was kind of a showboater and some would say overly cocky. He was largely misunderstood. The writers were not crazy about Santo either after the 69 swoon also due to the Don Young affair. My point is he deserved to be in the hall regardless. His numbers were hall worthy in light of the fact due to his illness, his career was probably a year or two shorter than it could have been if he did not play with diabetes.
If he is elected after his death, his relatives should tell the Hall to keep the award.
Comment by "Old Timer Dem" Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 1:10 pm
Great player
great guy (from what I hear) towards the fans
great fan
horrible announcer
Comment by Wumpus Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 1:21 pm
Ron kept the Cubs broadcasts entertaining even when the team couldn’t.
Touch ‘em all, Ronnie.
– MrJM
Comment by MrJM Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 1:24 pm
When making your estimate of the crowd in heaven for today’s attendance game, pad your guess by one. RIP Ron
Comment by Leave a light on George Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 1:28 pm
I was just a kid in ‘69, but I’ll never forget Santo running down the third baseline with a few jumps to click his heels after home wins. He’s probably the most enthusiastic player the team had in the forty+ years I’ve been watching. If they couldn’t accept him into the Hall of Fame while he was alive, then forget it. To put him in now as some sort of symbolic gesture is like spitting on his grave.
He’s also one of the bravest men I have ever known. In the face of much physical and emotional pain throughout his life, he always came back smiling, an inspiration to many young people with chronic and painful medical conditions.
Bye, Coach, you’ll be missed.
Comment by Wensicia Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 1:29 pm
–Seems to me that I remember reading that Santo was also a perennial leader in being hit by pitches because he would do anything to get on base–
Don’t think so. The great Minnie Minoso of the Sox certainly did that, leading the league many times. Don Baylor and Craig Biggio are in the conversation, but a quick check of the record book doesn’t turn up Santo.
Steve Stone was just on the radio with a hilarious story of when Santo accidentally set his gamer hairpiece on fire on an overhead heat lamp at Shea Stadium, pouring coffee on his head to put it out. Hilarious.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 1:33 pm
Of course, Santo belongs in the Hall. He had the misfortune to play in a pitcher-dominated decade so his offensive stats aren’t impressive when compared to other eras, but for his time he was very, very good, and his glove play was good, as well.
Comment by Marty Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 1:40 pm
I left Illinois 22 years ago. I still miss it. One of the joys of the last few years has been the availability of WGN radio feeds over the internet. After too many years away, I got to listen to Pat and Ron regularly. His fretting and moaning when the team was going down were great because they mirrored how the rest of us felt. Man, I’m going to miss that.
Comment by Muskrat Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 1:40 pm
I’ve long wondered what was the back story regarding Santo’s failure to be inducted into the HOF. So it’s been interesting to see some of the comments here this morning reflecting on that. If “kind of a showboater” as someone described Ron is what keeps great players out of Cooperstown, then a lot of today’s current crop of top baseball players are in BIG trouble.
RIP Mr. Santo. You loved Chicago and you were loved back.
Comment by Responsa Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 1:43 pm
For a guy with diabetes, Santo sure could party.
Back about 1988, I played in a charity 16-inch softball game in Moline against most of the ‘69 Cubs (no Banks or Williams) plus some ringers for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Santo’s charity.
It was Santo, Beckert, Kessinger, Holtzman, Jenkins, Hundley, Jim Hickman, Jose Cardenal, Larry Bittner, Soup Campbell and a few others I can’t recall. It was arranged by Gene Oliver, Hundley’s backup, who was selling cars in the Quads.
We had a cocktail party the night before in a private room at Governor’s up on the hill. I was in my 20s and no slouch, and some of those guys were pushing 50, but they drank me under the table. Not only that, but it being the 80s, a lot of folks had nasal conditions that required frequent, private attention. Some glaucoma sufferers, too.
There were Rock Island County Sheriff deputies partying with us there who didn’t know whether to fish or cut bait. Hilarious, as were the ribald, life-on-the-road stories. They didn’t make as much as today’s players, but the fringe benefits were excellent. The NFL was on strike at the time, and they were roaring with laughter about “big, dumb football players” and toasting their great union chief, Marvin Miller.
After the party, we all went down to the bar/dance floor and those guys were hustling the ladies like they were 25 and back on a road trip again.
The next morning on a freezing, rainy day, we’re all waiting, with pounding heads, for the players to show up at the ballfield in Moline. Finally, about an hour after the game was supposed to start, they pull up in two vans, and pour out of them in clouds of smoke like Spicoli and friends in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
What a blast. I got a hit off Fergie. I tell my kids that at least once a month.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 2:00 pm
I’m a Cardinals fan but I think Santo should be in the HOF not only because of his time playing third base, but his significance to the game over his entire life… which is an item that people get voted in for.
Comment by Ahoy Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 2:05 pm
Of all the things I’ll remember about Ron Santo, perhaps the one memory that means the most came several years ago, when during a period in which his health was particularly fragile, he still agreed to phone a handful of targeted Illinois Senate members asking them to vote for my landmark legislation expanding stem cell research in Illinois. Always a gamer, no matter which of life’s playing fields he was on.
Comment by Sen. Jeff Schoenberg Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 2:29 pm
The Gamer caught fire and he had to go to the backup toupee. Has to be one of the most hilarious stories ever.
I think I read in Phil Rogers’ column that Bill James has Santo rated as the sixth-best third baseman in major league history. That’s more than enough for me.
“OH NOOOOOOOOO!”
Bye Ronnie
Comment by Thoughts... Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 2:35 pm
As a White Sox fan I have to say that Ron Santo was not my favorite ballplayer of all time. That being said, you have to tip your cap to him for his enthusiasm for the Cubs and the adversity he endured as a result of diabetes. He is definitely a Chicago baseball icon.
Although Santo was a good player, I do not feel that he is a HOF level ballplayer. There are way too many good (not great) players already enshrined. The HOF should be more exclusive than it has become in recent years.
Comment by Stones Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 2:37 pm
It was not only Santo’s quarrel with Don Young that proved costly to his reputation. He had some altercations with Leo Durocher (another controversial figure who was denied membership in the HOF until after his death). During one argument, Durocher let it be known that Santo had a hand in requesting “Ron Santo Day” at Wrigley Field and Santo flipped out when the Cubs general manager did not deny it. The New York writers helped torpedo his HOF prospects.
On the whole, Santo seemed to be a good guy, but he was intensely emotional and he sometimes had a short fuse. This did not always help his team. Opposing teams sometimes would egg Santo on to try to rattle him. Sometimes, they succeeded.
Santo also had a shrewd business sense and he made lots of money from investnents outside of baseball. Some of his former Cubs team mates did not do half as well in retirement.
Players earned wages for baseball that were closer to reality then and many regulars stayed with their teams for longer periods of time than do today’s free agents. It is easy to understand why fans hold these players in high esteem decades after they retired.
Comment by Honest Abe Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 2:42 pm
He deserves to be in the Hall….but only after Ken Boyer
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 2:52 pm
RIP Ron. You will be so sorely missed. WGN and summer will not be the same.
Comment by Way Northsider Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 2:52 pm
Somewhat related, Adam Dunn is officially a White Sox. He might strike out a lot, but he also might launch 50 non-juice taters out of Cominskey.
Kenny Williams just said that both Dunn and AJ deferred money upfront to give the Sox wiggle room to re-sign Paulie. Splendid behavior.
Like him or not, Kenny is a riverboat gambler. He wins some and loses some, but the guy has guts. Only GM to win a World Series in nearly 200 years of Chicago baseball.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 2:54 pm
Honest Abe, it was not a quarrel with Don Young, it was an out and out public berating of Don Young. Don Young had nothing to say. Santo apologized soon thereafter but the damage was done and the season was pretty much over for the 69 cubs. I agree with you though that he had a short fuse, but always looked at him as a great player and am sad that he never made it to the hall.
Comment by "Old Timer Dem" Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 3:34 pm
And I agree with whoever said Ken Boyer should be in the Hall too. Another great 3rd basemen for the Cards. Problem is all the 3rd basemen of that era lived in Brooks Robinson’s shadow. Ken’s brother Clete Boyer played 3rd base for the Yanks also in the 60’s and I believe he was on their 64 World Series championship team.
Comment by "Old Timer Dem" Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 3:38 pm
Lol Rich. Have a good weekend.
Comment by 47th Ward Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 4:01 pm
==Ken’s brother Clete Boyer played 3rd base for the Yanks also in the 60’s and I believe he was on their 64 World Series championship team==
Clete was on the ‘64 Yankees, who lost to the Cardinals in the World Series…led by brother and ‘64 MVP Ken.
Comment by Anonymous Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 4:21 pm
@Old Timer Dem,
I knew about the berating of Don Young, but I was trying to be diplomatic. Young was really a minor league player promoted to the majors because the Cubs had no one else in their farm system ready. The New York papers made this into a major story.
A hat tip to the late Ron Santo in that when he contributed to a book about famous Cubs players, he stated that Stanley Hack, another Cubs 3B player, belonged in the HOF. Hack was a lead off hitter with a good on base percentage. He played in an era when 3B was more of a fielding than a slugging position.
Comment by Honest Abe Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 4:27 pm
Speaking of 1964, if you get a chance, read David Halbestram’s “October 1964,” recounting a seminal year in baseball when the breaking of the color line paid off in a World Series win by a Cardinals team dominated by black superstars over the great, slow-to-integrate Yankees.
Great cast of characters on both teams: Whitey Ford, Roger Maris, Joe Pepitone, Curt Flood, Lou Brock. The two who stand out are a declining, sad, but proud Mickey Mantle and a rising, angry, but proud Bob Gibson.
Halbestram was a great baseball writer. The “Summer of ‘49,” the story of when Dimaggio’s Yankee’s and Williams’ Red Sox decided the AL pennant in a one-game playoff is also a classic.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 4:38 pm
As a life long Sox fan I will miss Ron Santo.He was a true gentleman.God bless Ron’s family.
Comment by mokenavince Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 5:04 pm
There was no more dominating pitcher in the 60’s than Bob Gibson. Koufax was exceotional too but was done by 1966 or 67.
Which pitcher drilled Santo in the cheek-eye? He then started wearing that ear flap cheek protector. Santo was never quite the same after that.
Comment by "Old Timer Dem" Friday, Dec 3, 10 @ 5:06 pm