Notice: Trying to get property 'display_name' of non-object in /var/www/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/src/generators/schema/article.php on line 52
keyboard_arrow_uptop

It's funny how young minds work.

When I was 6 years old, I bought a plastic figurine of Cubs third baseman Ron Santo at the Newberry's in East Palestine, Ohio. I have no idea why I picked Santo or why I almost chose White Sox outfielder Carlos May instead. I didn't grow up in Chicago. I didn't have any relatives in Chicago. I didn't even know anybody from Chicago.

Yet, for whatever reason, I was drawn to the scale model of Santo crouched in a fielding position. From that point forward, he became my second-most favorite player after only Willie Stargell.

Twenty years later, I got the chance to meet Santo. He was in his first season as the analyst on Cubs' radio broadcasts and I was in my third year of covering the Pirates as a newspaper beat reporter.

At first, I was hesitant to approach him because he was such a larger than life figure to me as a kid. However, I swallowed hard, walked up to him and said hello. He couldn't have been nicer and before I knew it we had chit chatted for 15 minutes.

I felt comfortable enough to tell him the story of my figurine and he cracked up. In fact, it became a running joke between us for two decades. Whenever we would cross paths, he would ask if I had gotten rich yet by selling that figurine.

I never had the heart to tell him that the figurine had got lost in the shuffle somewhere over the last 40 years but it was the first thing I thought of Friday morning when I heard the sad news that Ronnie had died.  I have no idea how much that little piece of plastic would be worth but it gave me a chance to get to know one of my heroes and you can't put a price tag on that.

Thank you for reading

This is a free article. If you enjoyed it, consider subscribing to Baseball Prospectus. Subscriptions support ongoing public baseball research and analysis in an increasingly proprietary environment.

Subscribe now
You need to be logged in to comment. Login or Subscribe
brooksp
12/04
Santo always seemed like a genuinely sweet guy and a homer in the best sense.
montanabowers
12/05
I was a Santo admirer as well. As little kid growing up in the 60's in California (Sandlot was my life!), I idolized Roberto Clemente from afar and rooted for my home town Angels - Fregosi, Knoop, Alomar, Mincher, etc. But as a boy totally engrossed in baseball, I was also intrigued by Mr. Cub, Fergie, and Ron Santo. I thought they were great and couldn't understand their unfortunate plight playing for the Cubs. And, I remember Ron being one of the first athletes to endorse a product - Snickers candy bars! Remember?