For Ron Santo, playing against the New York Mets is still very serious business.
There seemed to be no malice intended in reviving some memories of the 1969 baseball season when organizers put together an exhibition game to raise money for Phoenix Memorial Hospital.
When aging, pot-bellied replicas of the `69 Cubs and Mets trotted onto the field at Phoenix Municipal Stadium for a seven-inning gasp session, it certainly wasn`t designed to conjure up ugly memories of that inglorious campaign for Cub players and followers, when the Mets usurped the Cubs`
seemingly gaudy lead and went on to win the World Series.
But as a graying Billy Williams shagged fly balls in left field and a step-slower Don Kessinger lunged for grounders at shortstop, many of the venerable Cubs noted the absence of Santo, the former stellar third baseman and emotional leader.
Santo, an integral member of the `69 Cubs and a Hall of Fame nominee, chose to sit out Sunday`s 11-3 loss in front of a sellout crowd of 8,291. Santo has participated in other exhibition games, but the first ”Dream Game” would have been a nightmare for him had he participated.
”The game would have brought back bad memories for me,” Santo said from his home in Chicago. ”I guess I took the game a little more personally than some of the other guys. I just felt that the game Sunday was not necessary. It seemed to me like a no-win situation. The game was for charity, I understand that. But why the `69 Cubs and why the `69 Mets?
”You know, the Mets were the winners and the Cubs were the losers. All the publicity I have seen about that year seems to try to humiliate the Cubs. I felt it would be best not to go there. I still have dreams about that season, and I still get mad about it. I`ve stayed in contact with my teammates, and I think they know how I feel.”
Santo went on to provide a more deep-rooted explanation for avoiding this well-intentioned exhibition.
”There was a lot of bad blood with New York. Not with individual players, but with New York in general. It was a bad feeling with New York, and I never really have gotten rid of it. A lot of fans don`t know it, and nobody else knows what I went through in 1969. My family and I had all kinds of death threats. I had police security for me and my family for one year because of those threats in New York.
”The death threats started that year when we had just left Montreal and Philadelphia and were heading for New York. John Holland, then the general manager, told me my life had been threatened. Then he showed me a letter that said I was going to be shot during a ballgame against the Mets. John told me he`d get some security for me, and I told him, `No, it just sounds like somebody who wants me out of the lineup.`
”When I got to Shea Stadium in New York, all the security wires had been cut, so the police thought this must be for real and the Cubs sent me home.
”When I got home, I got security for my family. My kids even had police security going with them to school. The police never did find the individual, even though I kept getting letters every Tuesday from this person who somehow knew everything I was doing and when I was doing them. It was very scary. All of this happened 17 years ago, but it still sticks in my mind. I just wouldn`t have felt good playing in the game Sunday with memories like that still in my mind.”
As former Mets Tommie Agee, Al Weis, Donn Clendenon, Cleon Jones, Don Cardwell and Duffy Dyer attempted to re-enact the swagger of their
championship season, former Cubs tried desperately to put this game into perspective.
”You have to look at it all in fun at this point,” said former Cub catcher Randy Hundley, who will host a baseball fantasy camp in late April in Mesa, Ariz. ”I had heard earlier that Ronnie wasn`t planning to play in this game, and I guess I can understand his reasoning. But there really is nothing to prove at this point. I`m not going to let it devastate my life.
Santo decided not to watch the game, which was televised on WGN, and tried to get his mind off the Mets.
”As far as general memories of the 1969 season, I knew we had the best team in the league that year. And if we had won in `69, I really do believe we would have won in `70 and `71,” said Santo. ”But whenever I was in New York, I had a lot of threats. I went through a very difficult time in my life because of the threats.”
The Cubs had a 9 1/2-game lead in mid-August before being overtaken by the Mets on Sept. 10. The Cubs wound up eight games behind the Mets at the end of the season.
”I remember we were on the West Coast and we lost seven of nine games and the Mets, every time we looked up at the scoreboard, were winning,” said Santo. ”I took it very tough. It`s not that they didn`t deserve to win. It`s what went on after they won.
”Thoughts of that year bring back memories of a lot of things that happened with the press–New York writers, Chicago writers.
”If you`ll remember that year, I would always click my heels after we won. I did that no matter who we played. It wasn`t hot-dogging, although it might have been taken that way in New York. It was like you could click your heels all you wanted as long as you were in first place.
”We didn`t blow it in `69, the Mets just came on and had momentum. They beat everybody, they didn`t just beat us.”
The momentum of 1969 continued Sunday when the Mets touched left-hander Ken Holtzman for seven runs on eight hits in the second inning. Ed Kranepool slugged two doubles, and Jones had three singles. Ferguson Jenkins, Bill Hands, Rich Nye, Phil Regan and Ted Abernathy also pitched for the Cubs.
Williams, Ernie Banks and Hundley each doubled in the Cubs` three-run first off Met starter Jerry Koosman. Williams went 3-for-4. Ken Rudolph, who shared third-base duties with Paul Popovich in the absence of Santo, was robbed of a two-run single in the fifth when right-fielder Ron Swoboda made a shoestring catch to end the inning.
Organizers of the game said they planned to make it an annual event. While Santo may be inclined to donate some of his money to the charity, don`t count on him donating his services.
