A couple friends of mine back in Chicago -- Evanston, actually, home of the beloved Northwestern -- started an interesting online project during the pandemic. Writers Steve and Sharon Fiffer came up with the idea to solicit stories about objects that were important to the person, which the individual kept or wishes they still had, and then they post those stories a few times a week, along with providing a forum for discussion.

Steve asked me to write something for the site, called Storied Stuff, and I sent him two articles.  He posted the first one today, which you can read here.  It's about baseball cards, though not the general idea of collecting them, but rather deals with two very special cards that I still have to this day which stand out in baseball history for a particular reason.  It's a story about an event that half a century later is still galling to Cubs fans, but no doubt gives the inveterate Chris Dunn great pleasure -- what is considered the worst trade in the history of baseball, known in baseball lore as "Brock-for-Broglio."  And I have cards for the players involved from before the trade,  This is that tale.

A week ago, I posted a piece here about a radio documentary from WBEZ in Chicago about the history behind the song "Go Cubs, Go" by Steve Goodman, which he wrote in 1984 for WGN radio to play before baseball broadcasts, but which got resurrected by the team 13 years ago and fans have been singing it at Wrigley Field after every Cubs win since then, when the team flies its big blue-and-white "W" flag.  This is a sort of companion to that.  But even if you don't like baseball, stick with it.

I think the new video here stands on its own, but it helps to have it in perspective.  It's not essential -- you can skip this and jump right to the second video below -- but having a full sense of the world at the time will make it much more fun and meaningful.

That "world at the time" is baseball, when in 2016 the Chicago Cubs won their first World Series in 108 years.  And this 3-1/2 minute gorgeous video does a really great job in re-creating that time.  And while, yes, it's about baseball at heart, there's almost no sports in it.  Mainly, it's wonderful home footage that people around the city took of themselves at home anticipating the moment when, hopefully, the Cubs would win -- and when hearts collapsed en masse as it looked like everything would fall apart.  Watching their intense roller-coaster emotions -- from young fans to people who look like they might have lived through that entire 108 year drought -- is real-life, gripping human reactions at their most fascinating.  So, while not necessary in order to enjoy the second video, it's awfully enjoyable on its own, being about people even more than sports.

And this is the point of it all.

The video above is about everything that happened that night on November 2, 2016.  The video below comes from the next night.

At the time of that Cubs World Series win, the musical Hamilton was playing in Chicago. Though the city was in mass celebration, the show must go on.  And, of course, it did.

​This is the curtain call.

Over the years, a lot of talk shows have sent "correspondents" to the Olympics as a running comedy bit.  But for my taste, the absolute best, the most charming, and the funniest have been when David Letterman sent his mom to cover them.  (Okay, in fairness, I feel that way about pretty much any of the segments the show would do with his mother.  But the Olympic one do stand out, if only because they're on a much bigger platform.)  This is a collection from the Don Giller archive of Dave’s mom at Lillehammer Winter Olympics in 1994.  And best of all, when I say it's a "collection," I don't mean a few minutes strung together, but she was on every night during the Games, so this is joyful hour's-worth. 

​(Actually, it's not a full-hour of Dave's mom.  The show did a bit of set up during the week before the pieces started to air, particularly since CBS was carrying the Olympics and this includes that, notably a bunch of Olympic-related Top Ten Lists.  Dorothy Letterman first shows up around the 14-minute mark, for those who want to jump forward.)

Maybe the Summer Games have been postponed, but this will have to fill in for the moment.

Almost 12 years to the day (August 2, 2008) I wrote an article for the Huffington Post about the history behind Cubs fans singing Steve Goodman's song, "Go Cubs, Go" after every home game that they win.  (I re-posted the piece here on this site a few years ago.)  It's definitely not even close the prime Steve Goodman, and in fact was just written as a jingle of sort for WGN radio to lead into Cubs broadcasts.  But it's lived on to carry Steve Goodman's fame to a a generation that didn't know his work but then went back to discover it, having won Grammys for his biggest hit, "The City of New Orleans," and more, like the country hit, "You Never Call Me By My Name," which he co-wrote with his close friend John Prine, though Prine didn't want any credit for it.

A few weeks back, I got a Direct Message on Twitter from Jesse Dukes, a radio producer for the well-regarded WBEZ in Chicago, one of the first charter stations for National Public Radio.  He was working on a sort of documentary story about the history of "Go Cubs, Go," and had come across my article.  We set up a time for a phone interview, and later spoke for about 15 minutes or so.

None of the interview got included in the finished product, but that's fine because he also spoke to people who knew a lot more of the story than I did, notably author Clay Eals, who wrote the definitive 778-page biography on Steve Goodman (that I wrote about here after he contacted me about my original article) and the producer at WGN radio who actually came up with the idea for Goodman to write the song for the baseball broadcasts, .  And the finished show has now aired.  It was made for WBEZ's podcast, Curious City, and is called "The Man and the Music Behind the Baseball Ballad  'Go Cubs, Go.'"

(Very thoughtfully, Jesse Dukes does give me a totally unnecessary, but appreciated acknowledgement at the end of the broadcast.)
​
I thought that Dukes did a very nice job with his entertaining and substantive report -- which runs for an enjoyable 20 minutes..  And as far as I can tell from what I know, he got the story pretty close to right.  (I think WGN ended up using the song before the game, not just as a bumper between innings, as the piece says.)  I do feel that it starts a bit unfocused and rambling as he talks with the Curious City host, who seems not to know much on the subject.  (That's not a criticism of her, just a description.)  But a few minutes in, the story kicks in, and it's flies by from then on.  The conversation between the two ends up adding a personal quality to it all.

Here are a few additional, albeit lengthy thoughts about the broadcast before we get to the show itself:

When Clay Eals mentions Steve Goodman in high school, what got cut from the report is that one of his Class of 1965 classmates was...Hillary Clinton!  She's said that they weren't friends but she definitely knew who he was.

One thing I don't agree with Clay Eals about is his theory on why Steven Goodman didn't break out like John Prine.  It's not because he was too nice.  He was nice -- as the legendary story Eals tells shows -- but a tough guy, very determined, very driven especially knowing the leukemia life-sentence he was facing. He didn't have time to screw around and just "be nice."  (All of which does comes across very clearly in Eals' book.)  From what I know working in the entertainment industry, executives like things that are simple, easy to grasp so you can identify who someone is in one quick look.  They like stories that can be described in "Give it to me in one sentence."  They like someone who is a country singer -- or a folk singer -- or a rock musician.  But Steve Goodman was none of those, he was spread all over the place: he has songs that are folk, country, comedy, standard ballads, jazz and rock.  I just think record producers and radio stations didn't have any idea what to do with him and how to market him.

I thought it was very touching that host/producer Dukes got emotional at the end -- because it is an emotional story.  But the reason why I think the story of "Go Cubs, Go" is a "happy" ending story to Steve Goodman's life, different from what was discussed.  Most entertainers, and perhaps especially singers, get forgotten once their time on the charts, writing and performing passes.  And by all rights, as great as Steve Goodman was, he was really on the verge of being forgotten by the general public (though not remotely his fans).  But "Go Cubs, Go," not only kept him remembered, but I think also ended up bringing up new fans who wanted to look up who this guy was.  And that's a joyous ending.

Again, it's a very nice piece and well-worth listening to.  The song has a wonderful story behind it, not to mention a wonderful singer-songwriter, and it's told me.  Unfortunately, I can't embed it here, but you can get to it by clicking this link.

And for those who don't know the song, especially how it's sung with home fans at Wrigley Field after a win, here it is after Game 5 of the World Series in 2016 which the Cubs won, sending the Series back to Cleveland -- where the Cubs won the final two games to win their first World Series in 108 years.  Which is why the 41,000+ plus fans singing along with the recording of Steve Goodman are so delirious.

​Longtime baseball card company Topps just released a special run of a card with Dr. Anthony Fauci throwing out the Opening Day first pitch. The pitch itself might not have been what he wanted -- but the card had the Biggest Run in Topps 82-year History!  51,512 cards.

No word on a Trump card.

I've written on these pages often (like here) why Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo is probably my favorite baseball play in the game today.  Something for which him being named in 2017 as MLB's Robert Clemente Award recipient -- presented to the player who "best represents the game of baseball through extraordinary character, community involvement, philanthropy and positive contributions, both on and off the field." -- is only just one of many explanations.

In yesterday's Opening Day game, here is Reason #87 why --

Though last night was the first game of the baseball season, today if Opening Day.  Huzzah!  The Chicago Cubs home opener is today, and ultimately that's joy enough.  And as a baseball bonus, we return you to Riccardo Muti, from 2012 when he threw out the first pitch at a Cubs game.

I find it adorable that Muti (who wore his personal "Muti" Cubs jersey in the video yesterday of him conducting "Take Me Out to the Ball Game")  seems to love the Cubs, particularly since he's from Italy and didn't grow up on baseball or perhaps ever played it at all.  But we know now that he's a lefty.  Not the same form on the mound (or front of the mound) as on the podium, but he did get it to the plate.

By the way, listen closely in the background as he walks to the mount.  The P.A. is playing Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

To start the baseball season, this afternoon we had the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," lead by Riccardo Muti.  But to bookend the day and make it all official, this is one of my favorite first-pitch videos.  Unlike most first-pitch videos, though, it's a favorite not so much for the pitch itself (though thumbs-up for that), but for what comes before.

This is actress Elle Fanning on the David Letterman Show back in 2014, being perhaps the definition of adorable as she tells the story of her throwing out the first pitch before a Dodgers game earlier in the year.  And if her giddy, teenage excitement -- even months after the fact -- doesn't make you a fan, you aren't trying.
 
And by the way, given that another way of describing a strikeout is "fanning the batter," that makes this all the more appropriate...

To help celebrate the first game of the baseball season, we'll start the year as we did last season -- with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Riccardo Muti (in a Cubs jersey) playing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”  I think it was done in honor of the Cubs 2016 World Series, their first in 108 years, since the video was posted on November 6, 2016.  And the musicians are in street clothes, but many are wearing Cubs paraphernalia or blue.
 
It's a wonderful and fun arrangement, too, not trying to overwhelm such a small, charming song with orchestral bombast, but arranged with an almost old-timey feel.  And Muti seems to be having a good time with it all.

Bear with me, this is about more than baseball.

After a three month delay, Major League Baseball finally starts its season tonight.  It's a drastically-shortened 60-game seasons, rather than the normal 162, but it's still baseball, and they still count.  Whether it's a good idea to play is another matter entirely -- I think it's foolish -- but even with fewer games, no fans in the ballparks and odd schedule, baseball is to me, first and foremost, as much as I love the Chicago Cubs, an entertainment, and so I look forward to the broadcasts.

Which brings us to this bit of absolutely wonderful political whimsy.

Before the first game of the season, Major League Baseball has always had a really big ceremony with the throwing out of the first pitch.  And this year, that huge ceremonial honor is going to -- Dr. Anthony Fauci!!!!

But wait, it's not just that he’s throwing out the first pitch of any old game, anywhere, at any time during the season which would be terrific enough, but we have to put this in full perspective of not just the first pitch itself but why it will have even more attention than usual.
 
1.  It’s the MLB high-profile opening game of the season.
 
2. Which will played at home with the high-profile defending World Series champions.
 
3. Who are located in, of all possible cities, Washington, D.C.
 
4. Playing the game against the highest-profile New York Yankees.
 
5. After a three-month delay with the public anxiously bursting, waiting for baseball to finally start again.
 
6.  Broadcast on national television.
 
7.  That the President of the United States historically throws out the first pitch for, ever since President William Taft did it initially in 1910.
 
All those points are biggees, and the audience for this will be huge, but it’s this last point that most leaps out to me.  I don’t know if Trump would even want to throw out the first pitch, or ever has since taking office.  I tend to doubt it.  But it’s still the tradition, for 109 years, and to have Trump replaced by Dr. Anthony Fauci must be galling to him
 
And we add to it a bonus point – the official announcement of the Washington Nationals…the most unkindest cut to Trump of all.  They wrote:
 
"Dr. Fauci has been a true champion for our country during the COVID-19 pandemic and throughout his distinguished career, so it is only fitting that we honor him as we kick off the 2020 season and defend our World Series Championship title." 
 
The broadcast begins on ESPN at 7 PM local time in the East, and 4 PM PDT, for those who want to watch.  I suspect it will be on the news.