100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

putting up numbers for a shortstop that were previously unthinkable.
    During a six-year run from 1955 –60, Banks averaged 41 homers and 116 RBIs, numbers every bit as dominant as those of Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, or Mickey Mantle, the other top sluggers of the era. He was named the National League’s MVP in 1958 and 1959 to become the first NL player to win the award in consecutive seasons.
    Banks played 424 straight games to start his career, a record that was only recently broken by the New York Yankees’ Hideki Matsui. From 1956–61 Banks had another streak—this time 717 consecutive games —until his knees forced him to start taking days off and necessitated a move to first base.
    Even though Banks is best known for being a shortstop, he played more games at first base (1,259) than at short (1,125) and didn’t play any at short during the final 10 seasons of his career. It didn’t really matter where Banks played; he never complained. In 1957, third baseman Gene Baker, Banks’ roommate and best friend on the team, was traded to Pittsburgh. The Cubs tried desperately to find a replacement, and they did: Ernie Banks.
    Banks played 58 games at third base that season, the most of any player on the team. He committed just three errors and despite moving all over the infield still hit .285 with 43 homers and 102 RBIs.
    As the Cubs became a contender in the late 1960s, their dependence on Banks decreased. Irascible Cubs manager Leo Durocher was, to say the least, not a fan of Banks. After Durocher took over the club in 1966 he tried to trade Banks several times and only played him because he felt he had no choice.
    In his autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Last , Durocher wrote of Banks, “He couldn’t run, he couldn’t field; toward the end, he couldn’t even hit. There are some players who instinctively do the right things on the base paths. Ernie had an unfailing instinct for doing the wrong thing. But I had to play him. Had to play the man or there would have been a revolution in the street.”
    Banks was not the same hitter he had been but during the failed campaign of 1969, when Durocher deserted the team on at least two occasions during the season, Banks showed up every day and hit 23 homers with 106 RBIs.
    There was never a time, not even when Durocher was riding him, that Banks became cynical about the Cubs or baseball. During the 1969 season, a couple months before the collapse, Banks wrote a column for the Chicago Tribune and professed his love for the game and Wrigley Field.
    “When I come to the ballpark, I leave all the world’s troubles and mine behind,” he wrote. “I enjoy baseball so much and the enthusiasm of the fans that I’d be happy to stay nights in Wrigley Field if they’d roll out a cot for me near first base.”
    The man just loved to play. In 1962 Banks was hit in the head by a Moe Drabowsky pitch and was hospitalized for two nights. Four days after the beaning, with a batting helmet on for the first time in his career and a throbbing headache, Bank returned to the Cubs’ lineup and went 4-for-5 with three homers and a double.
    By the time Banks retired in 1971, he was the Cubs’ all-time leader in games played (2,528), at-bats (9,421), total bases (4,706), and extra-base hits (1,009) , and he ranked second in hits (2,583) and RBIs (1,636). His 512 homers were also the most ever until Sammy Sosa, with 545 in a Cubs uniform, eclipsed him.
    After retiring, Banks briefly served as a Cubs coach and minor-league instructor. Since 1976 he has been a goodwill ambassador for the team, except for a brief period in 1984 during the Dallas Green regime when he was inexplicably fired. A public uproar ensured that Banks’ absence didn’t last long.
    The softball player who left Texas and grew up to become the greatest player in Cubs history turned 80 in 2011, still full of good cheer and still reeling off slogans—“Santo’s in heaven, so we’re going to win in ’11!” —that are as sure