BEFORE IT WAS WRIGLEYVILLE
by Mike Fak
This is the conclusion of a story published in the August and September 2005 issues of U.S. Legacies magazine and reflects a dream Mike Fak had about his childhood. Next month, we will publish a story about his return to Wrigley Field, 40 years after he moved away. (Published in the October 2005 issue of US Legacies)
To read Wrigleyville Part 2, click here.
Part 3
I remembered coming back to Wrigley in 1963. I had been gone for over two years and the distance from the old neighborhood to where I lived now was akin to being in another state. At the age of 14, I had come to hang with the old gang and catch a doubleheader against the Mets who were one of the few teams the Cubs could beat back then.
Jimmy Piersall, primarily an inhabitant of the American league, had a brief stint with the Mets at that time. During batting practice we watched in our favorite front row right field seats as Jimmie made behind the back or between the legs catches of impossibly high fungo hits. Whenever he caught one, he would turn to the bleachers, wave the ball at the crowd and then fire it at the scoreboard or somewhere else where hands waved in the air like the beaks of newly born sparrows. I would bet that Piersall caught twenty balls that day during fielding practice. I don’t recall any of them making it back to the batters box. Lord, he would have made a great Cub. How the fans would have loved to have cheered for him. I didn’t know it at the time, but that would be the last time the gang would have Mike Fak hanging around with them.
Suddenly, I was back in the room, Ted said, Hurry, its almost time to wake up. Tell me your most memorable thoughts about Wrigley Field. I knew what the recollections were immediately, although I hadn’t thought of them in almost forty years.
Once, the gang was sitting in the front row of the bleachers in left field just off the catwalk. The Cubs were playing the Giants with Willie Mays at the plate. I watched as the Cub pitcher threw a slow curve or change up that had Willie completely fooled. Amazingly, Mays stopped his motion, re-cocked his bat, and nailed the pitch high and deep right at us in left field. I felt that great rush that anyone feels who has ever gotten near a ball in the stands. I recall pounding my glove (which I always brought to the games) and bending my head straight back as the ball soared over my head, onto Waveland and into the firehouse full of scurrying firemen. A home run on a near second swing of the bat! For weeks when we played ball, we tried to double hitch on a pitch. We couldn’t do it. Finally we had to resign ourselves to the fact that only Willie Mays could do what we had seen.
I also remembered sitting way up in the upper deck one Sunday with my dad. About twice a year dad didn’t work on a Sunday and it was a special treat to go to the game together. Koufax was on the mound for the Dodgers and I never saw anyone pitch as good as he did in my life. I remember, even way up in the upper deck, how his sweeping curveball had hitters bailing out of the batters box only to see the pitch curve back over the plate for a strike. Dad would laugh and tell me that I was watching the greatest pitcher in the history of the game that day. I still believe he was right forty years later.
My dream was ending. Ted’s voice in the background was saying goodbye. I quickly asked Ted what had been his greatest thrill in baseball. He said we could talk some more but first he wanted to give me his phone number before he had to leave. So we can keep in touch, he said. As he started to hand it to me, I woke up.
For several minutes I felt a deep depression as I lay in bed. I’m not sure if it was because of what I had experienced or because I was saddened that the dream had come to an abrupt end. I tried to go back to sleep, to see if this was one of those dreams you could get back into, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t because I couldn’t get back to sleep. It was because still more memories of those days went racing through my mind. The dream had been a key. A key that had opened the door to those days past and although the dream was over, the door remained wide open.
I remembered the Duncan yoyo champs coming to St. Marys. It was such a big event that the nuns gave us a double recess to watch these grown men do amazing things with a piece of wood and a string. I now remembered that for years I wore a mitt on my left hand and carried a yoyo in my front pocket. I remembered the hula-hoop block parties, and the haunted house on Kenmore. I remembered going to Cricket Hill with my dad to fly a kite or play croquet. I remembered playing football, first with my uncles old leather helmet that I could tuck in my back pocket, and later a great plastic Bears helmet that had the newest good idea, a facemask.
Most of all I remembered the freedom we had at such an early age. A freedom to play within several square miles of home without fear to either our parents, or ourselves that harm would befall us. I remembered though how slowly, almost imperceptibility, the neighborhood had changed for the worse. Changes that caused us to move to the Northwest side when I was twelve years old. It has now been nearly forty years since I have walked those old familiar streets. I wonder if my thoughts have been accurate. I will have to go back someday. I have to find out.
To be continued . . .
To read the Final Chapter, Click here.
Published in U S Legacies Magazine October 2005
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