Ernie Banks, RIP

When we lived in Chicago, my wife and I would occasionally go up to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play. I have long regarded Cubs’ fans as among the greatest in all of sports, not only for their decades-long tolerance in not seeing their team in the World Series, but for their pleasant dispositions in attending games.

The Cubs have had a number of good players over the years, but none any better than Ernie Banks, who spent his entire baseball career with this team because of his love for Chicago and the Cubs. I have heard some players from other teams demand extra-pay for playing in the World Series (i.e., for having accomplished what they were hired to achieve!). I suspect that Ernie Banks – who had expressed disappointment in never getting to play in a World Series – would have been willing to take a pay-cut in order to have this experience.

Ernie Banks was evidence that life is neither “fair” nor “just,” but just is. Were it otherwise, we might have seen the universe readjust its tumblers of chance and complexity to allow Ernie and the Cubs one trip to a World Series – with the championship thrown in. I am certain Cubs fans would have liked such an arrangement, but I have my doubts about Ernie. He had too much love for the game itself to have tolerated such a special arrangement.

Now might be an appropriate time for Hollywood to produce the sequel Field of Dreams II, to allow Ernie Banks to take the field with the other immortals of the game, particularly those from Chicago’s other team, the White Sox.

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1:16 pm on January 25, 2015