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Published at 5:20pm
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At 77, the man credited with spouting “Let’s play two” sounds like he’s still ready to bound onto the field and play a doubleheader. Ernie “Mr. Cub” Banks will be honored before the Cubs home opener on Monday 31, when a Rotblatt-Amrany–designed bronze statue of the Cubs’ first black player will be unveiled on the corner of Clark and Addison. Banks, who held it down at short (and later first) for the Cubs from 1953 to 1971, continues to own team records for home runs, RBIs and total bases, among others. Full of youthful exuberance, the man often referred to as “Mr. Sunshine” proved during our phone conversation to be just that.
Time Out Chicago: Do you still want to play two?
Ernie Banks: You play two forever. Everybody plays two forever. That’s physics. Love, hate; give, take. There’s always the yin and the yang—everything in life.
TOC: It’s almost 100 years since the Cubs last won a championship. Do you have any lingering feelings from your ’69 season, when the team squandered a 9_-game lead?
Ernie Banks: No. I was satisfied with just being there. And Mr. Wrigley got a letter from a mother that said she knew where her daughter was and it was a safe place, spending the summer at Wrigley Field. A lot of things were going on in ’69. There were riots and demonstrations and a lot of confusion in ’69. A lot happening in all the cities: Detroit, Chicago, L.A. Although we didn’t win, didn’t get in the World Series, we won with one lady, one child who came out with us in Wrigley Field.
TOC: What about your time with the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs? Were you ever mad that you guys didn’t get a shot at the bigs?
Ernie Banks: No, I don’t deal with anger. My life has just been satisfied. Satisfied, that’s the word, with where I was and what I was doing. And happy with it, and miracles happened. And it was a miracle that I came to the Cubs.
TOC: Was it tough to be the first black player to come up to the Cubs?
Ernie Banks: No. I was just satisfied to play for the Cubs, to be at Wrigley Field, to be with those guys. Just satisfied.
TOC: What do you think about selling the naming rights to Wrigley Field?
Ernie Banks: It is what it is. My life was playing the game at Wrigley Field. I didn’t know what the name of the ballpark was, many times. I didn’t know the name of the city that I was playing at. I was monomaniacal. I just thought of one thing; that was hitting the ball, catching it, running and throwing. That’s it.
TOC: Was there any steroid use going on when you were a player?
Ernie Banks: No.
TOC: Nothing that you saw firsthand or experienced in the clubhouse?
Ernie Banks: I’m kind of like the three blind mice: I don’t see nothing. Most of the time I didn’t know who was the manager, who was the coach.
TOC: Do you have any thoughts on Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s record for home runs?
Ernie Banks: All I know is that records are made to be broken. And it happened. A-Rod broke my record; I had a 33-year-old record of hitting more home runs as a shortstop, and he broke my record. It just helped promote the game.
TOC: Bonds has this air about him that maybe he cheated to get to that record. Any thoughts on that?
Ernie Banks: No I do not, ’cause I know his father and him and his wife, his mother. My thing is not what people do, I’m more interested in who they are. That’s my life. Who are you, what do you want to do, where do you want to go, what do you want to see, where do you want to be at? Not the records and things, the accomplishments that people have. I think sometimes we all get overwhelmed with that to a point where we just idolize them. And that’s one of the things that I learned from my daughter. Why are we making heroes out of people we don’t even know?
TOC: Are they going to get you to sing the seventh-inning stretch when they unveil the statue?
Ernie Banks: They’ve got a kid that’s going to play the violin; he’s eight years old. I’ve done that [song] 15 times. I don’t even know why they do that. I don’t.
TOC: So if we start a petition to have Ernie Banks permanently sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” you’re not going to accept?
Ernie Banks: No, I’m not. That’s not my thing. I like other people to do their thing and enjoy what they want to do.
For tickets to a VIP “Celebration for Ernie” following the Cubs’ home opener, visit 500hrc.com.
