Thanks for sharing. Rec’d.

Because I’m a Cubs fan.

Thank you Ernie (and thank you NPR).

It’s work like this that makes me proud to work for Public Broadcasting.

I have a photo on my wall, a large art photo I bought in a gallery in California. He signed it, and was very interested when I told him the story of how I determined what game it was from.

He is exactly as you would imagine him to be — one of the nicest men I have ever met.

“The riches of the game are in the thrills, not the money.”

When it finished I went to play it and the Genre was listed as “Blues”.

Not sure what to make of that commentary…

He’s certainly been featured in many other documentaries, but I haven’t found one online that is just about HIM (a la “This Old Cub”/Ron Santo).

Seems like this should be a no-brainer to get green lit. (the movie, not the post)

Last night I heard an interview with I think Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson.

It was incredibly interesting to listen to them talk.

He came to enroll his daughter in my school and I was pulled out of class and introduced to him as the schools “biggest Cub fan”. I got an autograph and a great memory.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped1018pageoct18,0,6249150.column

I’ve told this story before on this board, but it bears retelling given this topic (hope I don’t bore anyone).

My little league team from Kankakee, Illinois took me to my first ballgame in the summer of 1965. I saw the Cubs play the relatively newly named Houston Astros (they had been called the Houston Colt ’45’s). I was sky high with excitement. The fact that the Cubs lost to the Astros 9-2 didn’t dampen my enthusiasm, since I was finally at Wrigley Field and got to see my heroes in person.

After the game, our coaches said we could go hang out by the door to the players’ locker room and try to get autographs (remember, back then there was no need for all the security they have today). We were wearing our little league uniforms, so it was obvious what we were doing there. Player after player came out and few signed autographs (I’ve always assumed they were ticked about how poorly they’d played that day). Finally, our coaches said “enough is enough” and said we had to start walking to the cars to drive home. We got half a block away when I heard someone yell “there’s Ernie!” I didn’t ask anyone, I didn’t tell anyone, but by the time the last syllable had died on that person’s lips, I was probably 20 feet away and moving fast towards Ernie (I was a catcher and normally, I ran like I was mad at the ground, ie, slow and heavy). Ernie was surrounded by about 50 kids, all of them clamoring for autographs. Unlike the other players, Ernie kept saying in a loud, happy voice “allll-right, allll=right!” He kept signing autographs as he walked to his car. I kept working my way through the crowd of kids but there were too many. He finally got to his car and got in (I’ll never forget the look on his family’s face as all the kids crowded up against the side of the car). He rolled down his window to sign a few more autographs. I was still two rows back, but was tall enough to reach over those rows and drop my scorecard in his lap. To my delight, he picked it up, signed it and dropped it back in his lap. I was able to reach over and pluck it out.

I walked back to where my coaches were waiting, dazed and happy. That scorecard, now 44 years old, is beautifully framed, and hangs in a place of honor in my special room in the basement. It is my most prized possession.

Thanks Ernie. Along with many others on this board, I will cry for him when he dies because a little something will have gone out of the world when he leaves it. But we’ll always be richer because of his having walked among us. And I’ll always have a slightly lighter step because he took time, one anonymous afternoon so long ago, to delight some little kids.

God Bless ya, Ernie.

I had the scorecard mounted and framed years ago, before you could look up any game on the internet, and had figured out the exact date by looking at the partial schedule printed in the program (all I could remember was that the day was a Saturday). The guy who mounted it put the date on the matte in caligraphy. It’s really a beautiful mounting of the score card.

I had forgotten that Robin Roberts was the opposing pitcher (since Ernie signed it on the outside, the scorecard is mounted with my 12 year old scrawled scorekeeping on the inside, where you can’t see it). You know, I was so sky high at finally getting to a game in Wrigley Field (my parents weren’t sports fans, so they never took me) that it wouldn’t have mattered who pitched, or who did what.

The HOF’ers in that game that I really care about were Banks, Williams, and yes, Santo (if there is a God, he makes it at some point).