Constable: Ring eludes Kessinger's boardinghouse reach, and that's OK
Late Cubs legends Ron Santo and Ernie Banks got 2016 Chicago Cubs World Series rings. So did my favorite Cub, Glenn Beckert, and a few other members of that beloved 1969 Cubs team. So did a couple of 1980s-era Cubs who aren't all that memorable. So did Wrigley Field ushers and tour guides. And now, a fan forever linked with the most infamous play in Cubs history has a World Series ring.
It's just a piece of jewelry given by the Cubs' owners, but it doesn't seem right that a fan who misplayed one foul ball gets a ring while a Gold Glove-winning All-Star who played more games at shortstop than any other Cub does not.
"I'm really happy for him," counters Don Kessinger, the switch-hitting leadoff man who anchored the Cubs infield for more than a decade in the 1960s and '70s. "I don't feel slighted in any way."
(Columnist note: While that fan's name has become a household word, I left it out of my column on the night of that 2003 playoff game out of concern for his safety. A combination of my noble desire not to feed the frenzy and a twisted belief in superstition has kept that policy intact for the following 14 years.)
The Cubs have said that "alumni rings" were awarded, in part, based on the number of Cubs Conventions attended and "active post-career involvement," in which the popular old shortstop apparently came up short. Still, Kessinger, who turned 75 last month and works as president of Kessinger Real Estate in Oxford, Mississippi, has nothing but good feelings about the Cubs and the Chicago White Sox, where he played the last three years of his career and also served as the last player-manager in the American League. Kessinger's career ended on Aug. 2, 1979, when he invited Sox owner Bill Veeck to lunch and voluntarily stepped down as a player and manager so that minor league manager Tony LaRussa could take over.
"Chicago has kind of adopted this old Southern boy, and I'll never, ever forget it," Kessinger says with his lilting drawl during a telephone interview that seems more like a friendly chat. Kessinger apologizes for not returning my phone call sooner. He laughs at the memory of Cubs broadcaster Jack Brickhouse's description of the shortstop increasing his range with his "boardinghouse reach." He says lots of nice things about his former teammates.
"Beck and I still talk," he says of Beckert, his partner at second base for years in which the tandem led the league in turning double plays. Kessinger even says nice things about outfielder Don Young, whose dropped fly ball cost the Cubs a victory against the upstart New York Mets in the heat of the 1969 pennant race.
"And let me tell you something - that was not an easy play," Kessinger says in absolving his teammate of blame. Kessinger does acknowledge that there could be some truth to the opinion that the Cubs faded down the stretch during the 1969 season because Manager Leo Durocher refused to give his starting players any rest. But he doesn't blame his skipper.
"If Leo had come to me and said, 'Do you want a day off?' I would have said, 'Heck no. We're playing for a pennant,'" says Kessinger, for whom "heck" is about as blue as his vocabulary gets.
An All-American athlete in four sports in high school in Arkansas, Kessinger captured those same honors in baseball and basketball at the University of Mississippi, where he coached baseball after his pro career was finished. He played 12 years for the Cubs, and his 1,648 games are 111 more than played by the Cubs second-most prolific shortstop, Hall-of-Famer Joe Tinker. But Kessinger didn't use any of that good will to woo favors during the 2016 World Series run, which he watched on TV with his wife and three generations of Kessingers.
"I didn't have anything to do with it except yell and pray," Kessinger says. "I didn't get one hit last year, and I didn't make one play in the field. But I just about had a heart attack in Game 7."
So it doesn't bother Kessinger that he doesn't get a ring?
"Not at all. I'm just being very candid with you. I was blessed to play for the Cubs, and for the White Sox, too," Kessinger says. "It was fun. It was a lot of fun. I couldn't have had more fun - unless we won. I'd love to have a Cubs World Series ring, but I wish it could have been one we won."
The good feelings fans still have for Kessinger don't need a ring. But if the Cubs keep playing at the pace they are on, I'm hoping the franchise will find a way to give Kessinger one of the 2017 World Series rings.