As I write this the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians are tied at one game apiece in the World Series. It has been an unprecedented 176 combined years since either team won the championship of Major League Baseball. Who will win? As of right now, it’s anybody’s guess. I suppose that most of you had a childhood hero or two. Growing up in the fifties, on the north side of Chicago, my boyhood hero was Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub.
After playing in the Negro Leagues and then serving in the Army for two years Ernie joined the Cubs late in the season in 1953. His first year on the team, he earned a grand total of $2,000.00. That’s not a typo. Today there are players who earn about $2,000 a minute. There are actually pitchers, who usually only play every fourth game, who earn about $8,000 a minute! Ernie never earned more than $100,000 in salary from the Cubs, the only team that he ever played for throughout his entire 18-year career. He never made it to the postseason either.
In 1954 Banks came in second in National League Rookie of the Year balloting, two spots ahead of Hank Aaron! Beginning in 1955, Banks was a National League All-Star for 11 seasons, playing in 13 of the 15 All-Star Games held during those seasons (there was a time when there were two All-Star games per season). Incredibly Ernie was voted the National League MVP in 1958 and 1959, despite the fact that in both seasons the Cubs tied for fifth place, finishing 20 and 13 games out of first respectively. That’s something that never happened before or since. Ernie was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977, and was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. He was one of the greatest players of all time.
The term “For the love of the game” was popularized during the career of another Chicago icon, Michael Jordan. It was coined years after Ernie had retired and it was even written into Jordan’s contract with the Bulls. If ever a phrase applied to Ernie and his exuberance for the privilege of earning a living by playing the game that he loved it was that phrase. No one who ever played the game before, during, or since radiated the enthusiasm that Ernie displayed. How could it not affect my own attitude about life?
Unlike so many contemporary heroes who, during or after their careers, have a fall from grace, a scandal, or in some other way stopped living up to their legend, Ernie never, ever let me down. No performance enhancing drugs, substance problems, or infidelity issues. He remained on his pedestal for his entire lifetime. Throughout his playing days and for the rest of his life he was the perfect gentleman, the classiest ambassador that the Cubs and the City of Chicago ever had. His optimism was infectious. It was nearly impossible not to feel uplifted any time that you saw or heard from him.
This quote sums up Ernie’s approach to life. “My whole life, I've just wanted to make people better". And he did. And he was recognized beyond his prodigious accomplishments in the game. In 2013, at the age of 82 Ernie was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a civilian. Not too long after that Ernie passed away, just shy of his 84th birthday. I never stopped looking up to him to the day he died. When he died it made me feel like I was eight years old again, one of the saddest days of my life. When your boyhood hero dies it kind of closes a chapter that can’t be reopened.
So what lesson can we take away from the life of Ernie Banks? In major professional sports there are more than 200 teams throughout the United States. There are thousands of college and high school teams. At every level in every league there is only one champion at the end of the season. Does that make all of the other teams and players losers? The same holds true for business and academics. Only one number one company, only one valedictorian. The same goes for family and work life. Day to day living consists of a lot of losses and a few wins.
What did I learn from the life of the greatest Cub of all time? It’s that no matter what you do, if you do it with dedication, commitment, and integrity you’ll be a winner throughout your life. Even if you’re not playing on a major league stage…whether you deliver pizzas, work in an office, insurance brokerage, retail store, wait on tables, or toil as a professional, you can learn to love what you do no matter what that is as long as you have a positive outlook. You will even develop that overworked word, passion. That is the invaluable lesson that I learned from Mr. Sunshine, Ernie Banks and for which I am eternally grateful. Go Cubs!
Thanks for reading.
Alan Leafman,
Regardless, the people of Chicago and Cleveland are winners because they know that anything is possible.
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