Living Out Loud

by Craig Sager

  Banks was a star with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League when the Cubs, aided by Negro American League’s legend Buck O’Neil, signed Banks to a contract in 1953. The Texas native had already played two seasons with the Monarchs, interrupted by two years of military service during the Korean War. When he arrived in Chicago, Banks was the first black player to wear the blue and white. Once he cracked the starting lineup, he not only became a mainstay but was one of the Cubs’ most popular players. I was born in 1951, and in my most formative years, Ernie Banks was everything to me.

  When we would go to Wrigley, we would arrive early enough to watch Banks take batting practice, and I would marvel at his quick hands, his constantly moving fingers, his phenomenal balance, the way he loaded up his lower half and used his legs to drive the ball. I would admire his white jersey with blue pinstripes, the classic red-white-and-blue Cubs logo over the heart, the blue bear cub inside the red circle on the left sleeve, and the iconic number 14 on the back, as synonymous with Chicago as Michael Jordan’s number 23 would become a generation later.

  But I was in awe of something more than his hitting prowess. You see, Ernie Banks loved life, loved his job, saw each and every day as a new opportunity, and it showed in his smile, his laugh, his hustle, his desire. “Let’s play two!” was his motto, always wanting more out of every day. And he never complained, even when his team was consistently at the bottom of the standings or when he was in a slump.

  A life-size poster of Ernie was taped to my bedroom wall and he was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes every morning. I never once thought it was odd that a young white boy from the farmlands of Illinois worshipped a black man from Dallas, Texas, even though it was a time when segregation was still prevalent in American life.

  The highlight of my youth was, as an eleven-year-old, winning a Cubs-sponsored hitting contest and getting to shake the hand of Mr. Cub himself. The picture of the two of us from that occasion remains one of my most treasured sports relics.

  I didn’t just want to be Ernie Banks the Chicago Cubs All-Star; I wanted to be Ernie Banks the man, and that meant taking on his optimistic approach to life. I decided as a young boy to emulate my hero and look at each day as a gift.

  *

  Ernie was on my mind as I stood in the Cubs’ dugout waiting to be introduced to throw the first pitch some forty-four years after I had last touched the hallowed grass of Wrigley, and this time, my senses took in everything—the freshness of the grass, the evening breeze, the smell of hot dogs, the sunset rays enhanced by the lights installed in 1988. I thought about all that has happened in my life since I sprinted onto the field in 1972, especially as it relates to my family, all of whom were standing on the field behind home plate.

  There was my bride of fourteen years, Stacy, full of splendor and life and my heaven on earth. Next to her stood my oldest child, Kacy, thirty, an NBA blogger, and her sister, Krista, twenty-four, a Tampa resident and a budding golfer. To Krista’s right was my oldest son, Craig, twenty-seven, whom we call “Junior” and who is the reason I am still alive today. And there were my youngest children, Riley, eleven, and Ryan, ten, adorned in Cubs paraphernalia, looking on in amazement. It was incredible to have my entire family with me, in addition to the more than thirty cousins, friends, and classmates who had made their way to Wrigley to celebrate with me. After a difficult two years of battle, it was a celebration in many ways for all of us.

  And now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome NBA reporter and Chicagoland native Craig Sager.

  The crowd cheered as Joe Maddon insisted that I remove my suit jacket and pull over my head a Cubs jersey with my name sewn on the back, which I eagerly agreed to do. I began my walk to the pitcher’s mound. At another time in my life, I would have sprinted onto the field, full of Banks’s “Let’s play two!” spirit, but the weakness in my legs and my struggles with my balance kept me to a walk, so I made the most of the moment by waving to the crowd like a politician.

  Throwing out the first pitch at a Cubs game was a moment that I had never envisioned, but a moment that I had been preparing for, for four weeks, after I received the invitation. My preparation started with throwing a tennis ball with Ryan on the driveway, as my strength had been zapped by the rounds of chemotherapy. But every day, I focused on getting ready for that first pitch, and by the time I arrived in Chicago on May 31, I was ready.

  Some first-pitch honorees elect to throw to home plate from in front of the pitcher’s mound to ensure the ball gets there. Me? Sixty feet, six inches was the only way to do it. Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo, himself a cancer survivor, got down in a catcher’s stance, punched his mitt a few times, and gave me the nod. I put my right foot on the rubber on the mound and cocked my right arm back. The crowd seemed to go silent as the ball left my hand …

  Funny how life comes full circle when you aren’t looking. So much of my life has revolved around the world of sports, witnessing some of the greatest moments and players in the game. One of the great things about sports is that there is always tomorrow or next week or even next season. You gotta have hope. And for me, that hope started in a small town called Batavia.

  2

  NO FEAR

  “Traffic” in my hometown of Batavia, Illinois, was controlled by one stoplight. There were no hotels or motels, no McDonald’s. There was, however, Avenue Chevrolet, Hubbard’s Home Furnishings, Schott’s News, Schielke’s Grocery, and an assortment of other retail choices named after their proprietors. Since the big city of Chicago was only a forty-minute train ride away, we were not all that isolated from the real world, but it sure seemed like it some days. With a population of just 7,600 and a high school of five hundred, we literally all knew one another.

  Founded in 1833, Batavia was known as the “Windmill City,” because six of the largest American windmill factories used to be located within the town limits. Notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone and his gang had used the area as a quiet getaway from the jurisdiction of ATP agent Eliot Ness, and John Dillinger once lived on Batavia Avenue, across the street from where I would live one day.

  I was like most boys in Batavia and probably like millions around America, with a curiosity for the world and a passion for sports. Yet there was one major difference that set me apart from all the others: a genuine fearlessness, or, as some may accuse me of, a reckless approach to life.

  From my earliest memories, I cannot recall a time when I was afraid. I was never afraid of falling or breaking a bone or even losing my life; never afraid of bad grades in school or missing the game-winning shot; never afraid of my parents or teachers or the police; never afraid that I might not reach whatever dreams I set. That fearlessness could be confused with confidence or even vanity, I guess, but I simply relished thrills. Anything that got the heart racing and made me feel as if everything was happening in the moment.

  That’s why one night, when I was the fifth wheel with my buddies John Clark and Tom Cornwell and their girlfriends, I decided to climb out of the passenger window and get on the roof of John’s car, lie flat on my stomach, and hold on to the metal rim where it met the windshield as John gunned the car to 50 miles per hour on an empty country road. It’s why I would drive my own GTO at speeds in excess of 120 miles per hour on the roads outside of town, never fearful of crashing and certainly not afraid of getting pulled over. It’s why, when I was twelve, I convinced my buddies to strip down and run along Route 31, a major thoroughfare, in our birthday suits. It’s why I would hide behind curtains on the windowsill during roll call in class, before jumping out to throw a scare into Ms. Burly. It’s why I was the guy who, in the middle of the horse races at nearby Aurora Race Track, accepted a dare from my friends to climb to the top of Aurora’s water tower next to the track. Not only did I make it to the top, but I stood and watched the next race as hundreds of patrons turned their eyes toward me, instead of the finish line. And it is why in the summer of 1967, I decided to elevate the stakes.

  The
big news in town that year was that the Batavia Public Library had scored a photocopy machine, something most of us had never seen. We were used to the carbon paper handwritten copies, so the fact that for just one nickel you could make a copy of an image was a big deal.

  “I have an idea,” I distinctly remember telling my buddy Greg Issel.

  I could tell he had apprehensions, but I could be persuasive, so Greg and I walked down to the library and strolled up to the machine. Greg was nervous. “I’m not sure we should…”

  “It’s perfect,” I interrupted.

  I pulled a tattered $1 bill out of my pocket, placing it facedown on the copy machine glass, and dropped a nickel in the machine. A few seconds later, out came a copy of George Washington, serial numbers and all. We could make ninety-five cents’ profit on every copy if we could use the fake bills at a store! We were not copying the front and back of the dollar bill, mind you, and of course the serial number was the same on every copy. Even more than that, our one-sided, single-serial-numbered copies were in black-and-white. Still, I thought our plan could work, and we made a dozen copies. We cut the excess paper off of the copies so the fake dollars were the same size as real dollars.

  We left the library and headed right to Wilson Street, the hub of activity in Batavia (which meant not a lot of hub), and devised a plan as we entered Olmstead’s. Olmstead’s was a typical small-town store that sold everything from stereos to potato chips and even had a laundromat in the back. The plan was simple: I would distract the store manager by pretending to be interested in purchasing a stereo while Greg would feed the fake dollar bills into the laundromat’s change machine.

  I engaged the manager as well as a fifteen-year-old could—in retrospect, the scene probably looked like Michael J. Fox trying to buy a keg of beer from the old coot in Teen Wolf. (Only I didn’t have the ghoulish voice or freaky eye effects.) Greg took one of the fake bills, placed it into the metal slot, and pushed the slot into the machine. When the slot popped back out, there was no bill remaining and four quarters had clinked down. In a matter of minutes, Greg had more than $10 in coins. We made eye contact and then casually walked out of Olmstead’s and headed right across the street to the Huddle, a soda shop where most of the Batavia kids hung out. The grins on our faces were as wide as a Cadillac. We were rich, for sure, but in my eyes, the fact that we had pulled it off was more exciting than being in possession of a few bucks.

  We stayed at the Huddle for what must have been three hours, horsing around, scarfing down milkshakes and hamburgers, and teasing one another and our larger group of friends. Just as I went to put another french fry in my mouth, in walked what I can only describe as a platoon of Batavia and State Police officers and scowling FBI agents, who must have been brought in by the locals. Within seconds, both Greg and I were asked to stand up.

  “Gentlemen, you are accused of counterfeiting fraud,” one of the officers said. I couldn’t help but flash to images of Capone and Dillinger.

  Smartass that I was, I tried to talk our way out of it, proclaiming that we were just messing around, a couple of Batavia kids bored on a summer afternoon, and I promised that we would give the few bucks back.

  “This is not a local issue, young man,” an FBI agent responded. “This is a federal crime.”

  And with that, Greg and I were put in the back of a patrol car and taken down to the Batavia jail. I will admit, I was a bit concerned about what would happen next, but I figured I would find a way out of it; I always did.

  Greg’s father showed up at the jail first and launched right into a tirade.

  “This has to be Sager’s stupid idea,” his father blurted out. “Greg has never even been to the library.”

  “Mr. Issel,” one of the agents replied, “your son’s fingerprints are all over the laundromat and the coin machine.” He then went on to list the litany of state and federal statutes that we had violated.

  Next it was my parents’ turn. They talked with the agents and officers for quite a while—so long, in fact, that waiting for it to end felt like its own sentence.

  With the agreement of the Olmstead’s manager, no charges were brought, and the federal officials agreed to let the locals handle it. Greg and I agreed to create and oversee a bicycle registration program for the city and work every Saturday, as well as wash the Batavia police cars as punishment. And that was after my father tore into me.

  All in all, this “federal crime” business, the parental fury, and the punishment levied on Greg and me paled in comparison with feeling, at least for a little while, like a gangster.

  So is it fair to say that as a boy in Batavia, I was a pain in the ass to some, a class clown to others, a nuisance to society, and a detriment to those around me in the eyes of some of my friends’ parents? I suppose so. But I was always on the go, never wanting to miss a moment in life. To me, the fearlessness, combined with my Ernie Banks optimism, simply made for a kid with a thirst for life.

  Fear of failure was nonexistent for me. At the end of a basketball game with my team trailing by one, I wanted the ball in my hands for the last shot. Even now, when I am on the golf course and there is a ten-foot putt to win a tournament, I want to take the shot. Fear of failure is simply not part of my DNA. I always take the chance. You want to know the worst that could happen? You could forfeit the most memorable moment of your life and you’d never know.

  But when I look back over my sixty-five years while fighting to add more, I do sometimes wonder why I am so driven, why I never have regrets, why I never stop to consider the what-ifs, why I must be on the go, why I refuse to lose my battle with leukemia. And the answer, like many answers in life, starts with home.

  3

  HOME

  Coral Sager was my idol. Tall, athletic, good-looking, fun-loving, compassionate, and with an opinion on most things in America, my mother simply drew people to her. Never one to fit nicely into society’s norms—a needlepoint that read F—HOUSE WORK prominently hung in our hallway—she was a Barry Goldwater fanatic who drove a gold Cadillac with a blue convertible top, to signify “gold” and “water,” with a bumper sticker that read AUH2O, a reference to the chemical makeup of those two substances. She taught me how to play golf, throw a baseball, and shoot hoops and was an undeniable presence at all my games.

  Mom also loved to take me shopping, and, unlike many of my friends, I relished the chance to go with her. There is something so refreshing about having so many choices and about picking what you want. To this day, I love grocery shopping, shopping malls, and doing errands. I went everywhere with my mother when I was younger, and her words and actions shaped who I am today. Mom was fantastically curious. She noticed things that others didn’t and encouraged me to try new things, to take risks, to have confidence. She took flying lessons and earned her pilot’s license at the age of forty-five, taking to the skies just one time, above Florida, and then never flying again—she had only wanted to prove to my father that she could do it. And Mom, like Ernie Banks, never complained, never let the little stuff bother her.

  When her sagging breasts started to interfere with her golf game, she made a decision. While most women would choose femininity and appearance over a breast reduction, my mom figured her golf swing was more important at that point in her life than her breasts, and she improved her score by having them reduced. She also had surgery to replace her left shoulder and never complained about the pain. And rather than wait for her appointment to finally get her cast removed, she cut it off herself with a kitchen knife. She couldn’t wait to get more distance off the tee on her golf swings.

  When she faced a challenge, she simply found a way to overcome it. She didn’t mope and didn’t lament her circumstances. She was positive at dawn and dusk, and it rubbed off on me. My mother suffered a great deal of pain later in her life, after a hysterectomy and the shoulder replacement, as well as complications from a lifetime of smoking, yet she never complained, remaining stoic and stubborn and unconvinced that bad days were
ahead.

  My father, Al, was unlike my mother in some ways, and I always wondered how they had stayed married for so long. While I could do no wrong in the eyes of my mom, my dad always saw ways I could be better.

  Dad was a public relations and advertising man and did some speechwriting for the Republican Party and Richard Nixon. My memories of my father mostly revolve around him working. Up early, gone late, working at the dinner table, traveling, on the telephone, busy. He would work twenty-hour days when he ran his own agency, and never give much thought to missing dinner at home with his family for the fifth night in a row. And, unlike my free-spirited mother, my father focused on risk management and always worried about what might happen, stressing situational awareness to me and my older sister, Candy. Yet he also never complained about his workload or finances or even the next-door neighbor. That was the environment that I grew up in: never complain, never explain, just do it.

  His work ethic was passed down to me at an early age, as I filled in whenever I could for friends on the local paper route, mowed neighbors’ lawns, and worked on local golf courses. I even applied to be a trash collector in Batavia, but my small size at the time (five-four and 120 pounds) disqualified me according to the city. I will admit, I didn’t work that hard in school, as the subjects came relatively easy for me. And despite my lack of studying, I still managed to be a member of the National Honor Society, win achievement awards in mathematics, and score very well on the SAT and ACTs, on top of starring as Haemon in the school production of Antigone.

  When I was growing up, my father would share stories with me of his wartime experiences before I was born, when he was in the Army during World War II, serving as a reporter for Yank magazine and as a co-host, with Bert Parks, of The Army Hour radio show. He flew around war zones, interviewing everyone from Chiang Kai-shek to American generals. I remember it was the amount of enthusiasm he had when he shared these stories with me that made me want to be a storyteller like my father.