A year too late, Santo gets his due
Ron Santo finally received Monday the honor that mattered most to him in life.
He is a baseball Hall of Famer.
And there's just one tiny problem with that: he's dead.
One year and two days after his passing, Santo has been handed the gift of a lifetime, a gift he can never enjoy.
More than anything else, Santo yearned to be counted among the greatest baseball players of all time. It hurt him to his bones that he didn't get that recognition, that he couldn't walk among the giants in Cooperstown.
Now he will never get that opportunity because — in case you missed the news — he is no longer among us.
And that makes this as hollow a victory for the great Cubs third baseman as any he could have ever imagined.
In August 2001, Santo told me, “I've always said I wouldn't want it to happen if I was dead, so I hope I live that long.''
In private, he said worse.
For himself, Ron Santo truly didn't care if some committee or another ever voted him in once he was gone. And while we laughed over the last few years of his life about the medical marvel he had become, and all he miraculously survived, he knew he was a ticking time bomb.
And just a year after his death, it took a new Veterans Committee of 16 only one election to get him the votes he needed.
He never said publicly what he really thought about a posthumous honor because he knew what it meant to his children, and he didn't want to rob them of the chance to celebrate.
On Monday they celebrated, and for that part of it Ron Santo would have been grateful.
“We're smiling here,'' Jeff Santo said Monday morning from his sister Linda's house in Arizona. “The forces have got it right finally and that's a good thing. For all the misery, it's finally right.
“That part of me is screaming with excitement. I didn't know how I'd react if it happened, but it's all joy. I felt my dad's sigh of relief today. I really think I felt it.''
I offer no apology today for feeling very little emotion about his election to the Hall of Fame without him here to enjoy it, knowing how desperately he needed it.
No, he didn't want it. He needed it.
He never got it while he was alive and Monday's result is thought by many to be a sympathy vote. While that may be true, I fail to see the sympathetic nature of selecting a man who's not here to celebrate the election.
Though happy for his family, I think mostly about the pain Santo endured over his exclusion and for it to happen now — in the first vote after his death — is beyond my ability to comprehend.
“The one thing I'm very sorry about,'' said Veterans Committee member Billy Williams, “is that he's not here to enjoy it.''
It's something of a cruel joke played on a man who suffered enough in life without the twists of fate working their mysterious ways postmortem.
“Sadly, he's not here to appreciate it,'' Vicki Santo said through the tears Monday. “But I'm sure he's smiling down on us.''
Still, that is the part that's impossible for some of us to reconcile.
“I'm just a believer in what's meant to be is meant to be, and he was meant to be in the Hall of Fame,'' Vicki said. “Unfortunately, it didn't happen during his lifetime, but this will help to continue his legacy.''
That legacy now includes a new chapter, and Jeff Santo hopes those of us who feel more disappointment than joy will eventually feel good about this election.
“I went through all of that, too, but the angry part of me is gone,'' Jeff Santo said. “I went through all of the anger and all of the heartbreak and it's taken me a long time to get over it.
“But now my dad has blazed another trail. He forced them to look at a system that was broken, that never voted in anyone, and because of him there's now a new committee that voted in one person with 15 of 16 votes.
“Baseball did a good thing today. They fixed something that was broken and you don't see that very often anywhere in life. I believe my dad is the reason for that and I think he'd be very happy about that.''
More than anyone, Vicki lived the heartache and sleepless nights with Ron over the Hall of Fame voting, so it was difficult Monday for her to maintain her composure.
“It's been such a long time coming,'' Vicki said. “When Billy Williams got on the phone and said, ‘We finally got it done,' I just cried.''
She was not alone.
“Yes, lot of tears shed,'' Jeff Santo said. “The way I look at it is people who never knew much about Ron Santo are going to take another look at his career. The numbers were always Hall of Fame caliber, but his story off the field is also important.
“People will see the fight he fought. Only good can come from that.''
True enough. It's just a shame it didn't happen a little bit sooner.
brozner@dailyherald.com
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