Remembering ‘Old School’ Ron Santo
For years Cubs fans had heard from disgruntled sports fans about how supposedly unprofessional Chicago Cubs color commentator Ron Santo was. There was even a website dedicated to getting Santo fired if you can believe it.
Well last week, Ron Santo died. After battling so many illnesses for so long, his body finally gave out. But for those of us who had listened to him for years, we knew that had it not been for Cubs baseball, Ronny probably couldn’t have hung on for as long as he did.
So those naysayers that have been criticizing Santo for so many years can finally just be quiet now. You never ‘got it’ anyway. You never understood. The very best thing about Ron Santo was that he was old school. He didn’t view baseball or its players as commodities. He loved the game, even when it was bad (and Cubs fans know just how bad it can really be). Truth be told, he probably didn’t like just how commercial baseball had become since he himself had left the game in the seventies. But I think he put blinders on to all of that, and called the game as he saw it, good, bad, and certainly ugly. (more…)