There is no joy in Wrigleyville. Mighty Ernie has checked out. At 83. Cub fans aren't the only ones in baseball's world who think that, for Ernie Banks, it's still too young to go. Posted on 01/27/2015 12:35:36 PM PST by BluesDuke
There is no joy in Wrigleyville. Mighty Ernie has checked out. At 83. Cub fans aren't the only ones in baseball's world who think that, for Ernie Banks, it's still too young to go.
Winning with class is easy compared to losing with grace, good humor, and the inner peace of knowing you did the best you could with what you had. But then there was Banks. The prototype of the power-hitting shortstop whose knees turned him into a first baseman who could still hit but had to prove himself every spring, anyway, his sunny nature couldn't be killed by the most calamitous of Cub collapses.
Sometimes you could be overwhelmed enough by Banks's personality that you could forget he was a genuinely great player. The first shortstop to hit 250+ home runs while playing that position is also the only man who ever had multiple-homer games against Warren Spahn and Sandy Koufax.
The first black player to start for the Cubs is also the first man in National League history to win back to back Most Valuable Player awards (1958, 1959). And he did it playing for teams that finished a combined 64 games out of first place over the two seasons. Not to mention that Banks is the first man to hit five grand slams in a single season.
The man who figured out almost by accident that a whip-handled, light bat was no detriment to hitting the long ball had four consecutive seasons hitting 40 or more home runs in each. Neither fellow wrists-first hitter Hank Aaron nor Willie Mays ever did that in three consecutive seasons. You might care to note as well that Banks is only one of three shortstops to cross the 40-bomb seasonal plateau even once. One was the seemingly tainted Alex Rodriguez, then a Texas Ranger. The other was Rico Petrocelli with the 1969 Red Sox.
Lest you think Banks was just another swatter aided and abetted by the park he first dubbed the Friendly Confines, be advised that he hit a mere 68 more home runs at home than on the road during his major league career. He also defied the traditional platoon splits: he retired with 2,584 hits, and two thirds of those came at the expense of right-handed pitchers, including about two thirds of his home runs.
Very impressive for a native Texan who didn't look terribly athletic or play baseball at all until he was a teenager and then in church leagues — because his high school didn't have a baseball team. He was tall for a shortstop, slender, almost delicately handsome, and his uniform looked about three sizes beyond him in the beginning.
Banks got his first taste of major league level baseball playing for the Kansas City Monarchs, the Negro Leagues team that also yielded forth Jackie Robinson a few years earlier. He was so happy just to play the game that it took his teammates' prodding to convince him to leave for the Cubs in 1953. It took an unexpected injury to the Cubs' other black player at the time, Glen Baker, to make Banks the first black man to wear a Cub uniform in a starting lineup.
Banks' talent was obvious enough to move Baker to second base, and the slightly older player simply accepted it and taught the eager kid everything he knew about playing shortstop. Their execution of double plays in hand with first baseman Steve Bilko impressed broadcaster Bert Wilson enough to dub the trio as Bingo to Bango to Bilko, which beats the living hell out of Tinker to Evers to Chance. Lyrical alliteration.
"Banks could have been a Cardinal," wrote lifelong Cub afflicted George F. Will in A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred last year.
In the spring of 1953, one of that team's scouts saw him playing shortstop for the ... Monarchs ... and sent a favourable report to St. Louis. The Cardinals sent out another scout for a second opinion, which was: "I don't think he is a major league prospect. He can't hit, he can't run, he has a pretty good arm but it's a scatter arm. I don't like him." In the annals of misjudgments, that ranks with the report on the screen test of a young Fred Astaire: "Can't act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little."
Banks' only known actual problem, other than having been a so-so baserunner, was a knee injury incurred during his early 1950s military service that finally flared up in earnest in 1961. It compelled his move to first base, where he played the rest of his career. It didn't do a thing to kill his genuine love for the game.
Teammates who loved Banks otherwise sometimes didn't know what to make of him. The late Jim Brosnan, whose pitching career began with the 1950s Cubs, thought it was "almost impossible" to get to know Banks. All Cub fans and anyone else knew was that, whatever else was going on in Banks's off-field life, in the clubhouse and on the field was where he felt most at home.
"Some people," he would say in his memoir Mr. Cub, "feel that because you are black you will never be treated fairly, and that you should voice your opinions, be militant about them. I don't feel this way. You can't convince a fool against his will."
Banks eventually had to work to convince Leo Durocher, just about every spring the Lip managed the Cubs, that he still had what it took despite assorted Durocher assertions otherwise. Until his knees, long since gone arthritic, finally told him to call it a career after 1971.
Entire books have been written about why the 1969 Cubs blew a National League East they once looked to run away with, including the theory (not implausible) that Durocher mishandled his bullpens, rode his regulars too hard leaving them exhausted by the depth of the stretch, and even fostered a culture of greed on a team so unaccustomed to winning they could barely come to terms with their unexpected celebrity.
Banks didn't need an entire book to know why. According to sports psychologist David Claerbaut, whose Durocher's Cubs: The Greatest Team That Didn't Win should be considered the definitive book about the 1969 Cubs, Banks saw the team's collapse coming long before anyone else did.
Claerbaut cited a conversation between Banks and pitcher Ken Holtzman over drinks in Pittsburgh. "Kenny," the veteran told the younger man, "we have a nine game lead and we're not going to win it because we have a manager and three or four players who are out there waiting to get beat."
He would also admit, decades later, that the incident in which Ron Santo tore apart rookie outfielder Don Young in the press over a pair of fielding miscues probably did as much as Durocher's capriciousness and strategic inability to manage his pitching staff to deflate the '69 Cubs.
Banks' criticisms came dressed in a marshmallow overcoat. He could never bear to rip a teammate or manager, preferring to criticize kindly. He couldn't even bear to confess his disappointment at never getting to play in a postseason in abrasive or even overtly painful words. He once told Tim Kurkjian, the ESPN writer, that it "has always left me with an empty feeling inside. I loved the game so much. To not ever play in the World Series, let alone win it, still hurts. It's the ultimate achievement for a player. I really thought we were going to get there in 1969."
When the Cubs crashed in September, losing 11 of 12 to go from five games ahead to four-and-a-half behind, it all happened so fast that it seemed more grotesque than dramatic and, by the end, darkly comic. Banks slumped, too. But after seven straight loses, he made a personal stand. Against the Phils he drove in a run in the first inning, then homered in the eighth to give the Cubs a 2-1 lead; they blew it, of course. The next day, in the only Cub win of the whole smashup, Banks drove in four of their five runs. That was the old man's statement; not nearly enough, but something.He was perhaps the least pretentious baseball superstar. Sometimes he couldn't seem to find a set place in the Cubs' organizational culture after his playing and subsequent coaching days ended. (The organization sometimes seemed to treat him like as one writer described, the crazy uncle with whom nobody in the family knows quite what to do.) Banks made his post baseball way in and out of a few businesses (smart investing made him wealthy during a playing career in a time when ballplayers were chattel) and never out of Cub Country's embrace.On the final day of the season, when ... Durocher, the grouch who said, "Nice guys finish last," was disengaged from his team and stuck with the disgrace of his defeat, Banks was still showing up — just to play baseball. On the season's last day, Banks, the oldest man in the lineup, played his 155th game of the year and had a triple, homer and drove in three runs to finish the season with 106 RBI, a total he hadn't topped since his 20s.
—Thomas Boswell, while introducing Phil Rogers's Ernie Banks: Mr. Cub and the Summer of '69.
"Banks is one nice guy who finished first," Durocher eventually said, setting aside his former testiness that he couldn't rid himself of the aging Banks because it would have meant his hanging in Chicago, "but he had the talent to go with it." Except, alas, in marriage, where it took him three tries before his fourth marriage, apparently, proved that practice makes perfect.
"We got the setting. We got the sunshine. We got the team behind us," Banks said to begin his induction speech at the Hall of Fame, where he was 1977′s only inductee voted in by the Baseball Writers Association of America, and where a small coterie of Hall of Famers sat on the same stage. "So let's play two."
Banks always wanted to play two. He also always believed the Cubs would snap out of it and get to the Promised Land in his two lifetimes, one on the field, and the second as the Cubs' unquestioned spirit.
"Without Banks," said Jimmy Dykes, then manager of the crosstown White Sox, in 1958, "the Cubs would finish in Albuquerque." With Banks now in direct position to urge the God of his fathers, this year's Cubs might finish some place other than Albuquerque. The Promised Land is not an indistinct possibility. Yet.
A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request - Steve Goodman
By the shore’s of old Lake Michigan
Where the “hawk wind” blows so cold
An old Cub fan lay dying
In his midnight hour that tolled
Round his bed, his friends had all gathered
They knew his time was short
And on his head they put this bright blue cap
From his all-time favorite sport
He told them, “Its late and its getting dark in here”
And I know its time to go
But before I leave the line-up
Boys, there’s just one thing I’d like to know
Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League
Told his friends “You know the law of averages says:
Anything will happen that can”
That’s what it says
“But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant
Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan”
The Cubs made me a criminal
Sent me down a wayward path
They stole my youth from me
(that’s the truth)
I’d forsake my teachers
To go sit in the bleachers
In flagrant truancy
and then one thing led to another
and soon I’d discovered alcohol, gambling, dope
football, hockey, lacrosse, tennis
But what do you expect,
When you raise up a young boy’s hopes
And then just crush ‘em like so many paper beer cups.
Year after year after year
after year, after year, after year, after year, after year
‘Til those hopes are just so much popcorn
for the pigeons beneath the ‘L’ tracks to eat
He said, “You know I’ll never see Wrigley Field, anymore before my eternal rest
So if you have your pencils and your score cards ready,
and I’ll read you my last request
He said, “Give me a double header funeral in Wrigley Field
On some sunny weekend day (no lights)
Have the organ play the “National Anthem”
and then a little ‘na, na, na, na, hey hey, hey, Goodbye’
Make six bullpen pitchers, carry my coffin
and six ground keepers clear my path
Have the umpires bark me out at every base
In all their holy wrath
Its a beautiful day for a funeral, Hey Ernie lets play two!
Somebody go get Jack Brickhouse to come back,
and conduct just one more interview
Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field,
Have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly
Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt
And I’ll be ready to die
Build a big fire on home plate out of your Louisville Sluggers baseball bats,
And toss my coffin in
Let my ashes blow in a beautiful snow
From the prevailing 30 mile an hour southwest wind
When my last remains go flying over the left-field wall
Will bid the bleacher bums ad?eu
And I will come to my final resting place, out on Waveland Avenue
The dying man’s friends told him to cut it out
They said stop it that’s an awful shame
He whispered, “Don’t Cry, we’ll meet by and by near the Heavenly Hall of Fame
He said, “I’ve got season’s tickets to watch the Angels now,
So its just what I’m going to do
He said, “but you the living, you’re stuck here with the Cubs,
So its me that feels sorry for you!”
And he said, “Ahh Play, play that lonesome losers tune,
That’s the one I like the best”
And he closed his eyes, and slipped away
What we got is the Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request
And here it is
Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League
He was a true Hall of Fame level player and, from what I hear, a very nice guy.
However, I'd like to quibble with the author of the posted article on a couple of statistical points:
Lest you think Banks was just another swatter aided and abetted by the park he first dubbed the Friendly Confines, be advised that he hit a mere 68 more home runs at home than on the road during his major league career. He also defied the traditional platoon splits: he retired with 2,584 hits, and two thirds of those came at the expense of right-handed pitchers, including about two thirds of his home runs.
A "mere" 68 more home runs more at home than on the road? Well, 68 is more HRs than Banks or anyone else ever hit in a single season without the aid of steroids, so it is a significant number.
Two thirds of his hits came against right-handed pitchers? Nothing strange about that, since I'd venture a guess that MORE THAN two thirds of his at-bats came against right-handed pitchers, simply because there are that many more right handers than left-handers and Banks played every day.
BTW, I didn't realize that Banks was the first black player ever to play for the Cubs. I was under the impression that Gene Baker held that honor, but I looked it up and Banks in fact made his first appearance three days before Baker. Banks and Baker went on to become the Cubs' "double play combination" for several years.
Required reading: Arnold Hano, A Day in the Bleachers, about that World Series game and the Mays play.
Something not much remembered: Warren Spahn was a practical joker. He and his Braves rotation running mate Lew Burdette loved to play pranks-—including sending limousines to pick up opponents against whom they pitched well. (Joe Garagiola was a frequent recipient.)
Let’s play two!
The Cubs should have a day in his honor early in the season — and schedule a doubleheader.
Kind of doubt that Negro League baseball was on the same level as the major leagues by 1953, because the best Negro League players had already gone to the majors by then. It was six years, almost seven, after Jackie Robinson came to the Dodgers when Banks arrived with the Cubs in September 1953. The Negro Leagues would soon fade into history because their best players were swallowed up by "organized baseball."
Also, the other black player with the Cubs at the time was GENE Baker, NOT Glen Baker. Gene Baker, though he did not have a Hall of Fame career by any standard, did one thing Banks never did: he played on a world championship team (1960 Pirates).
Maybe so, but scheduled doubleheaders in the last few decades in major league baseball have become as rare as hen's teeth. The main reason is that the owners have to squeeze every last nickel out of their customers in order to cover the insane salaries they pay their players.
I don't know if Banks would protest the lack of scheduled doubleheaders if he were playing today. It wouldn't be politically correct from either the players' union or the owners' point of view.
A +68 difference between home and road home run hitting is significant when your home park is as yummy to hit in as Wrigley Field has been. Home parks that friendly to hitters often (not necessarily always) produce a larger such differential; it tells you how good Ernie Banks was on the road and how little he actually let the road park affect him at the plate. Some power hitters have a larger split, some a smaller one; from the look of it I'd say Banks's split was pretty average but still surprising given his home park.
Banks retired with an average of 33 home runs per 162 games lifetime. The +68 would equal two seasons plus a couple of games in his case. Mel Ott's home/road home run split was +138; he averaged 30 home runs per 162 games lifetime, making his split equal to almost five seasons' worth of home runs.
I'm hardly an expert, of course, but I'd say that if you have two seasons or fewer worth of home bombs compared to road bombs, you're doing pretty damn good overall in the long ball department.
Lefthanded pitching came more into play in the 1960s, of course, but more came into the league that decade than in the 1950s. It's still rather striking that Banks continued to hit that well against righthanders, you don't find that kind of thing happening in today's game so often even allowing for how many more portsiders are in the game.
I watch now and wonder how many of today's non-switch hitters work at overcoming the platoon split and learn to work the pitchers who throw the same side as them the way they work the pitchers who throw opposite.
Gene Baker suffered an injury the season Banks made his debut so Banks got the honour. They were a solid double play combination for a good while; what film I've seen of the pair of them shows me two middle infielders with sharp instincts, good hands, and knew what they were doing out there almost before it had to be done.
When Banks came to the Monarchs in 1950 the Negro American League was still close enough to major league level play; the exodus really began in earnest around the time Banks went into military service. (The Negro National League folded around 1948.) What I read of the Negro American League tells me it became Pacific Coast League (the vintage PCL, that is) caliber by 1950 but began a decline around the time Banks went into the military and finally folded formally in 1958. The last Negro Leagues team still playing by the 1960s was the Indianapolis Clowns---about whom a good book could well be written.
Wouldn’t that be great!
Banks would probably love the idea. It’s highly unlikely anyone would act on it, but I think if the Cubs proposed it as a one-time thing in Ernie’s honor, the MLBPA and the MLB owners might just go for it.
Thank you!
The HOF has “The Catch” on a video loop, and I had to explain to my kids that “The Throw” afterward was almost as important. The Catch doesn’t do you much good if you allow the runners to advance, but Mays was able to fire a strike back to the infield to keep them from scoring.
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