Note—Pitchers
and catchers have already shown up for Major League Baseball spring training
and crossing fingers and toes it looks like a full regular season schedule may
be possible this year albeit with few fans in the seats. My beloved Chicago Cubs lost Hall of Fame
quality pitchers and a big long ball hitter.
Their core players Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Javier Báez, and Jason
Heyward are aging and/or playing out their last year before free agency. Jake Arietta
is returning but he is not the dominating pitcher of 2016. Lots of journeymen and youngsters. It will probably be a tough season. But hope is a Cub fan’s middle name and in
the second summer of the Coronavirus pandemic baseball is a welcome
diversion. Today we will celebrate the
game and the Cubs with a profile of the North Sider’s greatest hero.
Ernie
Banks was, bar none, the most beloved player in the long history of the Chicago National League franchise.
He was the only longtime Cub
player not to draw contempt and scorn from hard core White Sox fans. Beyond the playing field his gentle
demeanor and graciousness to fans and the press endeared him to the whole city. His status as an icon of a losing franchise
almost obscured his real accomplishments on the field.
But as an obituary in the New York Times, hardly a Second City boosting cheerleader, pointed out, Banks was,
“the greatest power-hitting shortstop
of the 20th century and an
unconquerable optimist…”
Banks was born on January 31, 1931,
in Dallas, Texas, the second oldest
of 11 children of a warehouse worker
and his wife. His father, Eddie Banks had played semi-pro ball and encouraged his athletically inclined son to take an
interest in the game. Ernie was not much
interested and at first had to be bribed
to play catch with the old
man. Part of it was that he had few
opportunities to play organized baseball. There was no Little League for Texas Black
boys in those days and Booker T.
Washington High School did not have a team.
Instead he lettered in track,
basketball, and football. The closest he could come to baseball was
playing softball in summer church leagues, and for a season with
the semi-pro Amarillo Colts.
Still after graduating he somehow
managed to catch the attention of
the Kansas City Monarchs, the most prestigious franchise in the Negro American League. Some accounts give credit to a scout who
was friendly with his father, others to legendary
player Cool Papa Bell. Maybe it was both. But in 1950 he was signed and playing for the Monarchs.
Bank’s fledgling baseball career was
cut short when he was drafted into the Army in 1951. He suffered a knee injury during basic training which would haunt
him later in his career. He was attached
to the 45th Anti-Aircraft Artillery
Battalion at Fort Bliss where he
was a sharp enough soldier to be
made the unit’s flag bearer. During his months at Bliss he was able to
sub occasionally with the Harlem Globetrotters operation, usually
appearing in the uniform of the perpetually loosing Washington Generals. After
that he was stationed in Germany.
Upon his discharge from active duty,
Banks rejoined the Monarchs. His time
with the team was his university of
baseball. He learned and mastered
quickly all of the fundamentals of
the game. In no time at all he was a star player. So good that he was attracting attention from
Major League scouts who finally ready to stock their teams with Black
talent. He finished the 1953 season batting for an impressive .347 average.
The Chicago Cubs snatched him up and he would wear the blue pinstripes for the final games of
that season.
Despite the opportunity, Banks was
loathe to leave the Monarchs which
he considered his home. He thought about asking the team not to sell his contract. That is the kind
of loyalty that in the end he
transferred to the Cubs.
The Cubs, badly in need of talent,
put Banks directly into the Big League
game without any time in the minors. His debut at Wrigley Field was on September 17, 1953 versus the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Before the game Jackie Robinson crossed the field to welcome the Cubs’ first Black
player and give him some support and
encouragement. Robinson had also played for the Monarchs and
was Banks’s idol. Banks later recalled that Robinson told him,
“Ernie, I’m glad to see you’re up here so now just listen and learn.” It was advice he took to heart, maybe too
much so. “For years, I didn’t talk and learned a lot about people.”
His reticence to speak up on racial
tensions and issues on and off the field would later draw accusations of being an Uncle Tom from some. But it was not in his nature to be confrontational
and he tried hard to make friends with
everybody. Robinson believed his early
reticence in responding to abuse on
the field when he first broke baseball’s color
line earned him the right to speak out and became Civil Rights movement spokesman.
Despite their differences over this Banks and Robinson remained close.
In his first full season with the Cubs as shortstop
he paired up with the team’s second Black player Gene Baker at second base
to form a bang-bang double play
combination. The two also roomed
together on the road. Banks hit a
respectable 19 home runs and had 71 runs batted in. It was good enough to finish second in National League Rookie of the Year voting.
Banks really took off as a dominant player in 1955, his second
full season, after he switched to a lighter
weight bat increasing his bat speed. Thanks to strong wrists and a sharp eye for
a fast ball, the tall, slender
(6’1”, 180 lbs.) shortstop became a genuine power hitter and slugger. That season he slammed 44 round trippers and drove in 117
runs. He earned the first of 14
consecutive All Star Game
appearances. His home run total was
a single-season record for shortstops and he set a thirty year record of five
single-season grand slam home runs.
It was the beginning of a parade of phenomenally successful seasons in
which he was a shining star on miserable teams. In 1956 despite missing 19 games with an infection
in one hand that took the edge
off of his power Banks still hit 28 home runs, had 85 RBIs, and a .297 batting
average. In 1957, he bounced back with 43 home runs, 102 RBIs, and a .285
batting average.
Then there were the back to back Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards—a first in National League
history—in ’58 and ’59. He hit over .300 each year, led the League in RBIs both years, and knocked 47 homers
the first year and 45 the next. In 1960
he led the League with 41 homers, earned a Gold
Glove at short stop and for the sixth time in his seven year full season
career led the league in most games played.
Banks was not only the star, but a
consistent work horse on terrible
teams. The Cubs currently have a
reputation for a fanatical fan base and
the ability to fill the seats of Wrigley Field no matter how miserable the
teams on the field. But it was not
always so. In the early ‘50’s years of
bad teams had slashed attendance. The North
Side ball park frequently resembled a ghost
town. Banks gave fans something to
plunk down money to see. As Ernie got
hot, the fans began to come back. Not
only that, he helped them bond with the team, especially with children for whom he always seemed to
have time. Banks was building a fan base for the team that would become
multi-generational.
Cubs owner P. K. Wrigley was meddlesome, eccentric, and most of all cheap.
Despite Bank’s value to the team, he was paid remarkably modestly. He
was paid only $27,000 for the ’58 season.
That did jump to $45,000 the next year and after that it rose by small increments annual so that by the time he retired in 1971 he
was making $50,000. While those were comfortable salaries in the days before
big time agents and skyrocketing pay, they lagged far
behind Banks’ peers in the top rung
of baseball talent by as much as 50%.
Yet the star slugger never publicly complained out of loyalty to the team
and because he enjoyed an unusually close personal relationship with
Wrigley. The two often had lunch together and in the off season
Wrigley entertained Banks and his wife at his California estate.
As if to make up for the low pay he
was handing out, the chewing gum heir advised
Banks on investments and encouraged
him to get involved in the business
world. Banks credited the advice for
encouraging him to take classes in bank
management and to enter in a variety of partnership deals in enterprises that included a car dealership. Some of the investments worked out. Some
didn’t. But Banks did make money. And he discovered he was a personal asset to companies who wanted
to polish their images and raise their public profiles. If he never became the great executive he yearned to be, he did
become a hugely successful public
relations asset and company spokesperson.
In 1961 Wrigley made the oddest decision of his ownership. Instead of hiring a new manager he put the team in the charge of his famous College of Coaches—management by a committee of 12 coaches who rotated
between them who to be field skipper
on game day. The system worked just
about as well as you would expect.
That spring the constant shifting from left to right, a
necessary at shortstop, aggravated Banks’ old Army knee injury. The College decided to rest him at short and
put him in left field, a position he
was totally unfamiliar and uncomfortable with.
“Only a duck out of water could have shared my loneliness in left
field,” he later said. But with the help
of center fielder Richie Ashburn he
quickly adapted and made only one error in 23 games out in the cow pasture.
The College then moved him to first base, the position he would keep
the rest of his career. By May 1963 he
was good enough at his new position to set a record for most put-outs in a game by a first
baseman.
But Bank’s power began to taper off,
as did his speed on the base paths. In ’62 he had been beaned by Moe Drabowsky and
was carried off the field unconscious
with a concussion. He missed three days and bounced back
with a three homer game. But there were
lingering effects. The following year he was weakened by the mumps, a very dangerous illness in adult
men, and finished the season with 18 home runs, 64 RBIs, and a .227 batting
average. But when he hit, it was timely hitting and the team posted its
first winning season since his
arrival.
The next year, however the team was
back in the toilet. Banks was settling into homer production in
the high 20’s and still good RBI numbers.
On September 2, 1965 Ernie thrilled fans by smacking his 400th career
homer.
The next year, 1965, Leo Durocher arrived from Los Angeles as solo manager with a mandate to turn the bottom dwelling, money hemorrhaging team around. Things did not go well. Banks was having the worst season of his
career. He hit only 15 homers and his
slowing on the base paths caused him to misjudge leads. The Cubs finished the season with a dismal
59-103 record.
Durocher, who spent his evenings night clubbing, let the press who
covered his colorful escapades know
that he was dissatisfied with Banks
who he considered washed up. In his memoirs Durocher complained that he wanted
to bench Banks but could not
because, “there would be rioting in the streets.” Since his past was checkered with racist comments and altercations, there was speculation, particularly in the Black owned Daily Defender that Durocher’s animosity was racially
motivated.
Banks denied it and soldiered
on. In his memoirs he wrote sympathetically of Durocher claiming he
wished he had a manager like that early in his career and maintaining that he
learned a lot from him. Despite the tense relations, Banks stayed at first
base and his numbers came back up. In
1967 Durocher even named him a player/coach. He hit 23 home runs, and drove in 95 runs
that year. The next year his home run numbers were back up to 32 and he was awarded
the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award for playing ability and personal character. And the Cubs were finally building a decent
team around him.
The following year the famous ’69
Cubs made their legendary run for
the National League pennant leading
through much of August until a long losing
streak and a hot New York Mets
ended their run. It was the team with
the most eventual Hall of Famers of
any that never made it to post season
play including Banks, his longtime best friend Billy Williams, pitchers Ferguson
Jenkins and Ken Holtzman, and Third Baseman Ron Santo. Banks chipped in 23 home runs, 106 RBIs,
and a batting average of .253 to the effort.
It was also the last year of Ernie’s 14 year run as an All Star.
Banks hit his 500th round tripper
before a home crowd at Wrigley on May 12, 1970.
But his career was winding down.
After the 1971 season he announced his retirement in December. He
remained on as a coach for three more seasons and then had turns as a scout and in the team front office. Durocher was fired midway through the
next season.
Banks’s life-time stats speak for themselves—512 home runs, 277 of them as
a shortstop, a career record at the time of his retirement; 2,583 hits; 1,636
RBIs; and a .274 batting average. In
addition he held the Major League record for most games played without a
postseason appearance—2,528. His Cub
records include games played; at-bats, 9,421; extra-base hits, 1,009; and total
bases, 4,706.
In his post playing days Banks
divided his time between the Cubs and his business affairs. He became a partner at the first Black owned Ford Dealership in the U.S. He worked in banking, insurance, and was an executive
at a moving company. His investments paid off and he was worth
an estimated $4 million when he retired.
But the Cubs were always closest to
his heart. In 1984 when the Tribune Company bought the team from
the Wrigley family, Banks had a desk in the Front Office and a title as a Vice
President for Corporate Sales. The
new management unceremoniously dumped
him, which was the most disappointing, even heartbreaking moment in his
life. When fan reaction was uniform outrage, the company charged that Banks
had missed some important Sales meetings and anonymously leaked comments to the press likening him to “your crazy uncle at
Thanksgiving.” That went over
worse. Within a couple of years the team
kissed and made up. Although Banks was
never again given a front office job, he was employed as a team ambassador.
After retirement honors just kept
piling up. In 1977 he was elected to the
Hall of Fame in his first year of
eligibility. In 1982 the Cubs
retired his number 14, the first
player so honored, and flew a flag with the number from the left field fowl poll. It was five years before another player was
so honored. In 1999 he was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team
and the Society for American Baseball
Research listed him 27th on a list of the 100 greatest baseball players.
In 2008 Banks became the first Cub player to be honored with a statue outside Wrigley Field.
In 2009 Banks was named a Library of Congress Living Legend, an
award in recognition of those “who have made significant contributions to
America’s diverse cultural, scientific and social heritage.” On August 8, 2014 President Barack Obama draped the Presidential Medal of Freedom around
Banks’ neck in a ceremony that also honored former President Bill Clinton, Oprah
Winfrey and 13 others.
Characteristically, Banks responded with a generous gesture that surprised and touched everyone. He presented the President with a bat given
to him by Jackie Robinson, Obama’s treasured boyhood hero. Experts speculated that a bat of that provenance—Robinson, Banks, to
Obama—instantly became probably the most
valuable piece of baseball memorabilia
in history.
All of these awards and honors paled
against the love and affection felt for Mr. Cub by former teammates and fans alike.
When word of his death on January 23, 2015 spread, fans flocked to
Wrigley Field which was blocked by chain
link fence for reconstruction,
leaving flowers, candles, baseball cards, and other tributes
in heaps and piles against the fence.
The Cubs had Bank’s statue, which had been removed during construction
for repainting and restoration, moved to Daily
Plaza where more came to pay their respects.
The public funeral was at Chicago’s historic Fourth Presbyterian Church. A memorial
service was broadcast live on WGN-TV and a processional carried
Ernie for the last time past Wrigley Field.
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