Chicago Cubs’ title sparks editor’s memories from 1969
Think back to that first game.
Not Opening Day, when the Chicago Cubs blasted the Los Angeles Angels 9-0.
Not Game 1 of the NLDS, when crossed fingers caused knuckles to whiten in a 1-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants.
Not Game 1 of the NLCS, when the Cubs cleared their collective throats and hammered the Los Angeles Dodgers 8-4.
Not even Game 1 of the World Series, when expectations hit full boil and the Cubs were beaten down 6-0 by the Cleveland Indians.
Instead, remember your first day at the ballpark, whether it was the Polo Grounds or Crosley Field or Yankee Stadium or Dodger Stadium or Busch Stadium or Camden Yards or Fenway Park or Coors Field.
No matter the generation, no matter the moment, what happened on a magical Wednesday night at Progressive Field in Cleveland turned back the clock 108 years and might have made you feel young again and perhaps even filled with hope.
The Cubs, maybe more than any team, are communal property, and everybody basked in stories that spanned a century.
So imagine being 7 years old and at Wrigley Field, circa 1969 — a baseball glove, a shiny new batting helmet, a bag of peanuts, a hot dog and a seat several rows back of the third base dugout as the center of your universe.
Go Cubs Go!
Go Cubs Go!
Hey Chicago, what do ya say,
The Cubs are gonna win today
That ditty, of course, had yet to be written. But that game so many years ago was my introduction to sports, and as I somehow became lucky enough to cover hundreds of great tussles of the past quarter century, I still marvel at what it all can mean.
Juan Marichal was on the mound for the Giants that day, and I want to say Ferguson Jenkins was toeing the slab for the Cubbies. Ron Santo was at third base, and Billy Williams and Jimmy Hickman were in the outfield, and Randy Hundley was behind the plate. Even at that age, I already knew the double play combination of Don Kessinger to Glenn Beckert to Ernie Banks was legend.
I used to run home from school to catch the end of games on television — no night games at Wrigley back then — and hang on Jack Brickhouse’s or Lloyd Pettit’s call of every pitch. The Cubs would collapse spectaculary to the Miracle Mets in ‘69 and continue to be dubbed as baseball’s loveable losers for decades to come.
So as the series hit Game 7 on Wednesday night, it was all or nothing, complete joy or enduring anguish, Chicago or Cleveland ordained champions or crushed beyond belief.
Perhaps for another 108 years.
History hung in the balance for both cities. Hyperbole? Absolutely, but there’s an inexplicable emotional tie that binded fans through Cubs v. Indians even as seemingly everything else divides us as a country.
I still have the Cubs batting helmet my mother bought for me that day. I cherish the memory of dinner afterward, atop the Hancock Building, and recall looking down from our window-side table and wondering why so many ants were crawling around the streets.
Top of the Hancock. Back then, top of the world.
A mere 47 years later, I’ll never forget my first ballgame. And this morning, the night the Cubs won the World Series.
Tom Spousta is an assistant city editor at the Review-Journal. He previously covered sports for The New York Times, USA Today and The Dallas Morning News. Contact Spousta at tspousta@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5205. Follow @TheRealTSpou on Twitter.
