Ron Santo: Hall of Famer

I've been meaning to get the BH&PG blog up and running again, and today's announcement that Ron Santo will finally be inducted into Cooperstown seems as good a reason as any to dust off the keyboard and shake off the cobwebs.

Ron Santo: Hall of Famer. It feels good to write that.

It also feels like kind of a cruel joke. Ronnie wanted the Hall of Fame's validation so badly, and his legion of fans in (and outside of) Chicago wanted it for him just as much. Last year, shortly after his death, I wrote on my other blog that "...it would have been so gratifying to see his joy at finally getting into the Hall, or the Cubs finally winning the World Series (or even just friggin' making it in there for the first time since 1945), that him dying before either of those things could happen somehow seemed exceptionally, arbitrarily cruel — not to mention a stark reminder that most of us will die before ever seeing our fondest dreams come true."

And now, if anything, the Veterans Committee's (and earlier, the Baseball Writers' Association of America's) multiple decisions to keep him out of the HoF while he lived seems even more arbitrarily cruel. What, did his stats somehow improve in the past year? Yes, I know the "Golden Era Committee" that finally inducted him was formed as part of the HoF's attempts to rectify the mistakes of Veterans Committees past, but it's still too late. The GEC also whiffed at the opportunity to put the very deserving MInnie Minoso in the HoF; hopefully that'll be rectified before Minnie passes away...

I feel the same combination of joy and bitterness today that I felt in late 2009, when it was announced that The Stooges would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, less than a year after their protean guitarist Ron Asheton died a lonely death in his Michigan home. Ron Asheton wanted and deserved a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as much as Ron Santo wanted and deserved enshrinement in Cooperstown; and as with the Veterans Committee and Santo (and the great Negro Leaguer Buck O'Neil, who was also unconscionably snubbed during his lifetime), the RnR HoF voters had the chance to induct the Stooges while Ron Asheton was still alive, and they blew it. So to all those folks who couldn't or wouldn't acknowledge brilliance when it was living, breathing and staring them in the face, I'd hereby like to offer a resounding, reverb-caked FUCK YOU.

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system, let's talk for a little bit about Ron Santo in the 1970s, which must have been a difficult time for him. Though he made the NL All-Star team three times in the 70s, only one of his post-'69 seasons (1972, when he hit .302 with a .391 OBP, an .878 OPS, 17 homers and 74 RBI in 133 games) ranked at all close to the top performances of his career. In addition to dealing with the cumulative wear-and-tear of his diabetes, and of playing all those Wrigley day games for over a decade, he also had to deal with the painful aftermath of the Cubs' 1969 collapse; the team came close to winning the NL East in 1970 and again in 1973, but never close enough.

On top of that, there were Santo's "personality conflicts" with Cubs manager Leo Durocher, and later — after being traded to the White Sox in late '73 — teammate Dick Allen. Santo's lone season with the White Sox was a dismal one: He hit .221 with 5 homers and 41 RBI (all career lows) while splitting 117 games between second base, third base, first, short, and (the final indignity) the DH spot. It was, by his account, a pretty miserable experience.

What's interesting, however, is that he didn't actually have to go to the South Side; on this day in 1973, Santo became the first player to invoke the new "10 and 5" rule, vetoing a trade to the California Angels for two pitchers. He could have done the same six days later, when the Cubs put together the deal that sent him to the White Sox in exchange for Ken Frailing, Steve Stone, Steve Swisher and (eventually) Jim Kremmel, but chose not to — a decision which led to this "Bizarro World" card of Santo, a man who would forever be associated with the Cubs, sporting the reds and pale blues of the White Sox away uni.

There's no doubt about which cap he'll be wearing on his Hall of Fame plaque, of course. With the exception of "Mr. Cub," Ernie Banks, no one ever reveled as much in his place in Cubdom — or was as thoroughly adored by Cubs fans — as Ron Santo. And while most of said Cubs fans may never get to see the team win a World Series, at least we lived long enough to see Santo given his rightful Hall of Fame due. It's just a damn shame we won't get to hear what surely would have been a hilariously garbled acceptance speech...

In closing, here's a wonderfully goofy shot of Santo playing football on the beach in 1973 with fellow Hall of Famer Johnny Bench; somewhere up in baseball heaven, he's probably wearing a similar grin right now.

 

 

Comments

[Brandon]

Great post on Santo. Glad to hear you plan on keeping this site going. I love the candid shot of Santo and Bench. How ironic I just finished my blog post today on Bench.

B.

[Dave Grob]

If your a Santo fan, you will drink a toast to him from your circa 1973 7-11 plastic cup. The back of the cup propheticly reads "Ron, who will undoubtably will be classified one day as the greatest third baseman in the history of the Cubs...."

[flash game sites]

Great post on Santo. Glad to hear you plan on keeping this site going. I love the candid shot of Santo and Bench. How ironic I just finished my blog post today on Bench.

B.

+1

[Wayne Mitchell]

The writers didn't vote him in. The players didn't vote him in. They formed a "special" committee to sneak him in.
That the only way he could get in is by rigging a special committee with his pals on it. Santo being in the hall is a true joke. He didn't earn it.