100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (20 page)

59. The Shawon-O-Meter

The goal was simply to get on TV. Instead, three young Cubs fans made it all the way to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Or at least their creation did.

The Shawon-O-Meter, a measure of Cubs shortstop Shawon Dunston’s batting average, was the brainchild of Dave Cihla, Jim Cybul
, and Melinda Lehman, and it came to life during the joyful summer of 1989. With WGN-TV tracking its every move, the Shawon-O-Meter vied for television time, posed for photos with giddy fans and, in the surest sign of its celebrity status, once even got into a drunken brawl hundreds of miles from home, ending up face down in a ditch.

It all began in late May when Cihla attended a Cubs game in Atlanta and, after crafting a sign out of a sheet, was able to draw the attention of WGN-TV director Arne Harris, who gave the sign a few precious moments on television. Cihla was hooked. He returned to Chicago and summoned his roommates, Cybul and Lehman, and as they tried to come up with a way to lure the TV cameras toward them, Cybul hit on an idea. He called it the “Shawon-O-Meter.”

The 1989 season was shaping up to be a miserable one for the No. 1 overall pick of the 1982 draft who enthralled fans with his blistering throws to first base but also tortured them with horrible impatience at the plate. After hitting below .200 the entire season, he finally went over the Mendoza Line with three hits on June 4 while the Cubs closed out a road trip in St. Louis.

On June 5, Cihla, Cybul, and Lehman took their usual spots in the left-field bleachers as the Cubs began an important four-game series against the New York Mets. With them was the Shawon-O-Meter.

That week, WGN found time for the Shawon-O-Meter each game, and almost as if on cue Dunston’s average kept rising. He knocked out five hits in the series to move to .213, which the Shawon-O-Meter dutifully tracked. Sadly, the original flimsy version was ruined by a lethal combination of mustard, beer, and rain, and at the end of the series the trio left it behind in the bleachers.

But a star had been born. Another Shawon-O-Meter was quickly produced, this time out of a durable foam board and with the words, “We’re all behind you Shawon,” written on the back.

“When we came back for the next series, people would recognize us,” Cihla said. “It sort of caught on pretty quickly. We were kind of blown away at the airtime they were giving it.”

As the season went on the trio, who were then all in their mid-20s,
brought the Shawon-O-Meter to as many games as they could. When they couldn’t make it, they would give it to friends to take. Cihla even brought it to a series in Philadelphia, which is where it got into a tussle with four drunk Phillies fans. They snatched the Shawon-O-Meter and threw it out of the upper deck. With the help of an usher, Cihla was able to safely retrieve it after the game.

If there was a low point for Cihla, that episode in Philadelphia was it. The high point came when he went to San Francisco for Games 3–5 of the National League Championship Series and got a rousing ovation from everyone on the plane, which was full of Cubs fans. Then when he got off the plane, a tall, portly man approached him.

“[Giants pitcher and ex-Cub] Rick Reuschel had just gotten shelled [in Game 2] and he stops me and says, ‘Is that the Shawon-O-Meter?’” Cihla said. “He was a fan. That to me was really surreal.”

It’s hard to say who had a better season, the Shawon-O-Meter or Shawon Dunston, but at the end of the year they were both hitting .278. Cihla was so captivated by its success that he wondered if others might be, too. So in 1990 he wrote the Smithsonian Institution to see if they’d be interested in it. They were.

Another version was produced for the 1990 season, this time with an All-Star Game motif and the words, “The All-American Boy,” written on the back. Cihla later wondered if the Baseball Hall of Fame might be interested in it. They were. A third version was made and, well, you get the idea. The Chicago History Museum was interested. Cihla proudly hand-delivered each version to its final destination.

Cihla had a brief encounter with Dunston at the 1990 Cubs Convention, but it wasn’t until years later that they had a chance to talk. Dunston was at Wrigley Field to sing the seventh-inning stretch when a friend of Cihla’s hustled over to talk to him. The friend got Cihla on the phone and handed it to Dunston.

“I want to thank you,” Dunston told him. “You really made my career.”

60. Fill Your iPod with Cubs Songs

Dozens of songs have been written about the Cubs over the years, some of which aren’t awful.

Some are so bad you’d sooner go on a six-month submarine voyage with Ronnie “Woo Woo” Wickers than listen to even one of them.

And then there are the ones that make your heart soar, your eyes water, and help you realize spending your days and nights brooding over and loving the Cubs might actually be worth it.

The current standard played at Wrigley Field after a Cubs victory is “Go, Cubs, Go,” an uplifting celebratory song if there ever was one written by the late, great folk singer Steve Goodman, who grew up a huge Cubs fan in Rogers Park in the 1950s and 1960s and earned fame as the author of “City of New Orleans.”

The origins of “Go, Cubs, Go” are tied to another Goodman song, one that is far less celebratory but one every Cubs fans should know. “A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request” was written in 1981, about a dozen years into Goodman’s battle with leukemia. Here’s a sampling:

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

The lyrics are bleak and the folksy tune is slow, so it’s no surprise the song is best known for its title, which became all the more poignant when Goodman lost his fight with leukemia days before the Cubs clinched the 1984 National League East title.

But earlier that year, shortly before the 1984 season began, Goodman had been commissioned to write a song about the Cubs by former WGN Radio program direct Dan Fabian. He returned with “Go, Cubs, Go,” clearly designed to be as optimistic as “Dying Cubs Fan” was pessimistic, though that’s certainly open to interpretation. However you view them, they’re both classics.

The Cubs song you love the most probably has more to do with the era you grew up in than anything, and for those old enough to remember the 1969 Cubs it’s likely that Johnny Frigo’s “Hey, Hey Holy Mackerel” is your old standby. The upbeat tune used the home-run calls of Jack Brickhouse and Vince Lloyd to drive its lyrics and became a sensation, and ultimately a sad remembrance of the ’69 season.

Even though it seems like “It’s a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame” with its focus on day baseball and “taking the afternoon” off was specifically written for the Cubs, it actually wasn’t. The song was recorded in 1960 by the Harry Simeone Chorale and for many years introduced WGN telecasts. Some might even say one of the most memorable lyrics—“It’s a beautiful day for a home run, but even a triple’s okay”—is more concerned with being at the ballpark than winning, a stereotype Cubs fans still have to live with.

You can’t go wrong adding most renditions of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” sung during the 7
th
-inning stretch even the 22-second version butchered by Mike Ditka in 2008 is good for comic relief. But if you need just one version for your iPod, anything by Harry Caray will do just fine. The Cubs put out a CD in 2008 titled, “Take Me Out to a Cubs Game: Music For the Cubs Fan” that contains the September 21, 1997, version, which was sung during Harry’s last game at Wrigley Field. He died the following winter.

One of the biggest celebrity Cubs fans is Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, who grew up in Evanston and can still be found taking in games in the bleachers every now and then. In 2007, he was asked by Ernie Banks to record his own Cubs song and came up with the haunting “Go All the Way.”

“Go, Cubs, Go” might make you clap your hands, and “It’s a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame” might take you back to your childhood, but Vedder’s song is special. This is the one that will bring you to tears the night the Cubs win the World Series.

Don’t let anyone say that it’s just a game

For I’ve seen other teams and it’s never the same

When you’re born in Chicago you’re blessed and you’re healed

The first time you walk into Wrigley Field

Our heroes wear pinstripes

Heroes in blue

Give us the chance to feel like heroes too

Forever we’ll win and if we should lose

We know someday we’ll go all the way

Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way

We are one with the Cubs

With the Cubs we’re in love

Yeah, hold our head high as the underdogs

We are not fair-weather but foul-weather fans

We’re like brothers in arms in the streets and the stands

There’s magic in the ivy and the old scoreboard

The same one I stared at as a kid keeping score

In a world full of greed, I could never want more

Then someday we’ll go all the way

Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way

Someday we’ll go all the way

Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way

Someday we’ll go all the way

And here’s to the men and the legends we’ve known

Teaching us faith and giving us hope

United we stand and united we’ll fall

Down to our knees the day we win it all

Ernie Banks said “Oh, let’s play two”

Or did he mean 200 years

In the same ball park

Our diamond, our jewel

The home of our joy and our tears

Keeping traditions and wishes made new

A place where our grandfathers, fathers they grew

A spiritual feeling if I ever knew

And if you ain’t been I am sorry for you

And when the day comes with that last winning run

And I’m crying and covered in beer

I’ll look to the sky and know I was right

To think someday we’ll go all the way

Yeah, someday we’ll go all the way

An Oldie, But Is It a Goodie?

Good luck finding this one for your iPod.

In 1937, a tune called “Come on You Cubs, Play Ball” was written by Whitey Berquist, and on July 16, 1950, it was introduced as the Cubs new theme song, according to the June 30, 1950, edition of the
Chicago Tribune
.

The main verse, “Come on, get hot and drive across a run or two …. Oh! We want a home on Waveland Av-en-oo!

“We’re loyal, one and all, so come on you Cubs, play ball! O! We want a homer, we want a homer, in Sheffield Av-en-oo!

Berquist told
the
Tribune
it was written while he was in the bleachers during a Cubs rally. He quipped, “I think they got a man as far as third.”

61. One and Done: The Short MLB Career of Adam Greenberg

If the magical Bill Veeck were still around or if Hollywood screenwriters held sway over baseball lore, chances are Adam Greenberg would get another chance to hit in the big leagues.

And as long as he’s still toiling in ballparks across the country, there’s still an opportunity for Greenberg’s ending to be altered. But unless it does, his beginning as well as his ending will have taken place in precisely the same terrifying moment.

On July 9, 2005, the baby-faced Greenberg sat in the Cubs dugout at Dolphins Stadium in Florida, nervously adjusting his hitting glove and waiting to step to the plate for his first major league at-bat.

Greenberg, then 24, was an average prospect who the Cubs hoped could catch on as a utility outfielder when he got the call from Double-A West Tenn, where he was hitting .269. Greenberg’s parents, his sister, and two brothers were in the stands, hoping to see his major league debut.

Manager Dusty Baker didn’t start Greenberg but with the Cubs ahead 4–2 Baker called on him to pinch-hit the 9
th
inning against Florida left-hander Valerio de los Santos, who didn’t have pinpoint control but wasn’t exactly Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams on the mound.

Greenberg stepped toward the batter’s box and settled in to see his first pitch as a big leaguer. In a 2011 interview with
Baseball
Prospectus
, Greenberg describes what happened next:

“It’s not like I didn’t see the pitch—I knew it was coming up and in—and the rotation seemed like a fastball,” he said. “But at that level there are a lot of guys who throw hard sliders that start off looking like that and break over. At 92 [mph], it’s really… when you’re locked in it’s really hard to get out of the way, especially when you’re not expecting it. That’s kind of what happened, and it was lights out.”

The pitch hit Greenberg in the back of the helmet and he immediately crumpled to the ground. Cubs trainer Mark O’Neal rushed in to find Greenberg dazed and feeling like his head had been split open. Cubs fans tried to fathom how bizarre it was for a player to get beaned by the first pitch he ever saw, and so did Greenberg.

“To be honest, it wasn’t my family that I thought of first. When I sat up, I was thinking more about how crazy it was. I felt kind of dumb. I was going to get walked off the field after my first major-league at-bat, which was kind of a funny feeling.”

Greenberg walked off the field and never returned, at least not to the big leagues. He immediately went on the disabled list with a concussion and went back to West Tenn when he was healthy. The following season, he hit .118 at Triple-A Iowa and .179 at West Tenn before getting his release. He’s spent time with several organizations since 2006, mostly playing at the Double-A level.

The interest in Greenberg’s story has grown over the years, especially while he continues to play professional baseball. There’s a rooting interest for Greenberg, a relentlessly positive person who refuses to believe he got a raw deal.

“I’m a believer that things happen for a reason and that when things happen you have an opportunity to go one of two ways,” he said. “You can sulk about what might have been, or you can make the best of it. I actually look at it as an opportunity of a lifetime. As b.s as that might sound, I’ve had to push and persevere and work my butt off just to get back to having the feeling I did when I was 24 years old.

“Who knows what my career, or my life, would have been? I’m in a position where I’m happy with where my life is, and I feel that the experience I went through has made me a stronger person. I still have a jersey on my back.”

In early 2011, he got a little redemption. No, Greenberg didn’t make it back to The Show. But he did get to face Valerio de los Santos again while he was playing for the Atlantic League’s Bridgeport Bluefish.

He singled on a 1–2 pitch.

“Since I never got a hit in the
major leagues, that would have to be the greatest single of my career,” he told ESPN.com.