By Mike Morsch, Executive editor
Growing up in central Illinois right between Chicago and St. Louis, one had to make a choice: The Cubs or the Cardinals?
I was a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates — the only one of those in my part of the world that I knew of — but that’s a story for another time.
No, this story is about growing up in a baseball family, one that was diehard for the Cubs, thanks to my dad. It wasn’t like the Cardinals weren’t represented. My mom was originally from southern Illinois about 90 minutes east of St. Louis, and my grandfather used to take her to see the Cards when she was a young girl in the 1940s.
But after marrying my father in the mid-1950s and moving further north in Illinois, she outwardly pulled for the Cubs, and even if her heart was secretly with the Cardinals, she never let on.
Dad, a two-sport letterman at Illinois State University in track and baseball, had a chance to play professionally. The Cubs offered him a contract — back in the early 1950s, the minors consisted of A, B, C and D leagues — but Dad didn’t want to linger in the low minor leagues and decided to get a master’s degree in elementary education and become a school superintendent.
When children starting coming along — me first, followed by my sister and brother, each of us three years apart — baseball continued to be a big part of my family.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, my dad was pals with many of the county law enforcement officials. As the superintendent of a small rural district that included one school, kindergarten through eighth grade, Dad relied on the county sheriff and deputies to keep an eye on the school grounds.
The sheriff and deputies were a mix of Cubs and Cardinals fans, and they became friends of my dad. Every summer, from around 1968 to 1973, they’d put together a group, pick a weekend during the season and either travel to Chicago or St. Louis for a Cubs-Cardinals series.
By this time, my dad was a magnet for baseballs when he was in the ballpark. At least that’s what it seemed like to me. One night on a family trip to a game in St. Louis in 1968, I saw him catch three baseballs during batting practice. Another night two years later at the then-new Three Rivers stadium in Pittsburgh (a baseball dad always tried to make his baseball son happy, even if it meant stopping for a game in Pittsburgh on a family vacation to the baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York), he and I were sitting behind home plate underneath the netting when a foul ball by Pirates third baseman Richie Hebner rolled up the screen, through a hole in the netting and landed in his lap.
So by 1971, the 12-year-old me expected that every time Dad went to a ballgame, he was going to bring home a souvenir baseball for me.
That summer, the law enforcement cronies trip was to St. Louis. The plan was for Dad and his pals to go to the Friday night game, then Dad would come home to get the rest of the family and drive back to St. Louis the next day for the Saturday night and Sunday day games.
Before he left on Friday, I asked him to catch a foul ball and bring it home for me. I thought it was that simple. I thought that was just what my dad did.
“Aw, buddy, our seats our down the left field line, in foul territory, in the third deck,” he said to me, trying to tamp down my expectations as lovingly as he could. “We won’t get close to any foul balls.”
This was in the days before cable television, but since we lived smack in the middle of Cubs-Cardinals country, the games were shown on our local TV channel. Hall of Fame Cubs broadcaster Jack Brickhouse made the call in 1971.
That Friday evening, I was watching the game on TV while my mom was packing for the ensuing trip the next day. I was the only one in the living room at the time.
At one point in the game, Cubs Hall of Fame third baseman Ron Santo came to the plate. I saw him swing, and then heard Brickhouse say, “There’s a long drive down the left field line, it’s hooking … foul ball. Hey, nice catch by a fan!”
The TV camera panned in on the crowd, and there was a guy holding the baseball up with his left hand. He had taken off his outer shirt and was wearing only his white T-shirt, with both the sleeves rolled up, a big cigar hanging out of his mouth.
My dad smoked an occasional cigar and rolled up the sleeves on his T-shirt, just like that guy on the TV screen for three or four seconds holding that baseball.“Mom! Mom! Dad just caught a ball on TV!” I screamed at my mom, who came rushing out of the bedroom to see what all the fuss was about. “I just saw Dad catch a foul ball on TV!”
“Oh honey,” she said. “Dad was way down the line in foul territory, and way up in the third deck. Nobody could hit one that far.”
“No, mom, I swear. That was Dad!” I insisted.
It was about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from St. Louis back to Peoria. I was determined to stay up until he got home because I was convinced that he had that baseball.
But at 12 years old, I eventually fell asleep before he made it home.The next morning, I woke up early and rushed into my parents’ bedroom. Both of them were still asleep.
“Dad,” I whispered as I shook him gently on the shoulder. “Dad, wake up. Did you catch a ball last night at the game?”
He opened one eye and squinted at me. And without saying a word, he reached under his pillow and pulled out the baseball and handed it to me.
“I knew it! I knew it!” I screamed throwing my arms around him. “I knew that was you on TV!”
Dad faithfully followed the Cubs through the 1970s and beyond. He never did catch another baseball at another game.
Flash ahead about 35 years. I had flown home for the Labor Day weekend in 2005, and Dad and I were going to a Cubs-Cardinals game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. I noticed that Dad was moving kind of slowly. He couldn’t walk more than about 50 feet without stopping to sit and rest. It didn’t look good to me. And it wasn’t. Cancer would take him from us 10 months later, in July 2006. On the day of his funeral, the Cubs were playing the Cardinals.
The Cubs never won the World Series in his lifetime. He never got to see that celebration. On Nov. 4, his grandson, my nephew, was at the World Series championship parade in Chicago, carrying the banner for our family.
They finally did it, Dad. And it was glorious. I wish you could have been here to see it.
Mike Morsch is executive editor and digital news director at Packet Media LLC. He can be reached by email at mmorsch@centraljersey.com.
