Back in 1969 I was a young boy living in a small townhome in Park Forest, Illinois. I knew little about the world beyond my immediate neighborhood. The vast free time that comes with a first-grade agenda always seemed to have something close by to help occupy it. There was Jerry Gossett a few doors down. He was fun to play Matchbox cars with. Jodie Detbarn was the girl next door long before I knew what a girl next door really was. She helped me waste many an afternoon as two seven year olds of the opposite gender could. If I was feeling very adventurous I would take the walk down to White's bridge. It seemed like halfway across the world but was more likely halfway across the block.
Much of my time, however, was spent in the back yard playing Wiffle Ball all by myself. Although I had two brothers I always seemed to want to play ball more than they did and waiting for them, or Jerry or even Jodie to join in seemed too much of a bother. It didn't matter. I had suitable imaginary friends to play with, the names of which sprang from my small collection of baseball cards. Roberto Clemente, Johnny Bench, Brooks Robinson. Each afternoon I would become them as I gingerly tossed the plastic ball into the air, quickly grabbed the end of the plastic bat with both hands and swung away, sending the ball skyward...for at least twenty feet.
But those names were the ones that simply filled out the roster in my mind. The Chicago Cubs. My home team. That was a select group of names that, when I embodied their persona, the plastic bat seemed to swing a bit harder and that ball seemed to soar just a bit farther. When it did, I swear I could hear Cubs announcer Jack Brickhouse exclaim "Hey, Hey!" as the ball cleared the ivy wall in my mind once more.
Randy Hundley, Fergie Jenkins, Don Kessinger, Ken Holtzman, Ron Santo. These names were as familiar as my first grade class mates. And for good reason. They were reintroduced to me every afternoon of my summer by the glorious black and white television that took up a great amount of our living room landscape. I would pretend I was Billy Williams, vainly twisting my body trying to bat as an unnatural lefty. Don Young was always worth a key hit. And of course there was the greatest of them all, Ernie Banks.
I idolized Ernie Banks. I wasn't sure why at the time. Maybe I just got the idea that I was supposed to. He was the best player on the team. Maybe one of the best in baseball they told me. And he was a Cub. I take that back. He wasn't "A" Cub, he was "Mr. Cub." When I heard that the local Jewel grocery store was giving away free pictures of Cubs players I begged my father to take me on his next shopping trip. Free pictures! How amazing was that. As we finally approached the cashier at checkout time I remember my father turning to me and saying "Tell her who your favorite player is." Without hesitation I said "Ernie Banks." That's all it took. She handed over a 5x7 sheet of paper with Mr. Cub smiling back at me. I was hooked
Every afternoon, right after the Bozo Show finished, I would make sure I stayed seated as the soon to be familiar chorus of "Hey, hey. Holy Makeral. No doubt about it. The Cubs are on their way" signaled the start of another Cubs game on television.
History would preserve what happened late that summer in Chicago. As I prepared myself for the lessons I would learn in second grade at Hickory Hills Elementary school, the lessons I would learn from my favorite baseball team would, in some fashion, help me for adulthood in ways I couldn't comprehend at the time.
Fast forward. Too fast, perhaps, to 1995.
I spent one afternoon looking through my collection of baseball cards. A collection that was now much bigger and now more inclined towards the card's value rather than names for imaginary Wiffle Ball games. That's when I found it. Torn and written on, but still very much as I remembered it. The Jewel Foods Ernie Banks picture. From a collector's point of view it had no value whatsoever. Too beat up. To a grown man being swept back into childhood, It didn't matter.
Even better news arrived soon after. Ernie Banks would be making an appearance at a baseball card show not far away. I made the trip with my wife and finally met the man. He was as sociable as I imagined he would would. He took time to talk to me and smiled. And he signed a picture for me. It would never replace that Jewel Foods picture, but now I had something personally signed by a player from the greatest team every to play Wiffle Ball in a Park Forest backyard.
That's when the idea came to me. I suddenly got the silly idea to get autographed photos from all the stars of that team. Williams, Santo, Jenkins, Hundley et al. With today's sports card shows popping up all over they should be accessible. It became a bit of an addiction for me.
But, like any good addiction, that wouldn't be enough. If I got the starting lineup I would have to get all the starting pitchers, right? And if I got the starting pitchers I'd have to get the relievers too, wouldn't I?
And what about guys like Jim Qualls or Paul Popovich. I loved Paul Popovich. I couldn't leave him out, could I?
That's when it became an all or nothing project. The entire team. I vowed to try and get an autographed picture from every single player who played in even a single game for the 1969 Chicago Cubs.
Thus was born my 1969 Cubs Project. Forty-one men. Forty-one autographs. Could it be done?
