Jim O'Donnell: One particular essay perfectly captures so many of Buffett's Chicago sports links
JIMMY BUFFETT CROSSED THE PARROTHEAD BRIDGE last weekend with three great sports passions - the Cubs, the New Orleans Saints and the Miami Heat.
By virtue of his Gulf Coast roots, the Saints came first. Buffett always claimed he was at their first regular-season game way back in September 1967. There was never any reason to doubt him.
Next up was the Cubs. He played his first gig - opening act, acoustic solo - at the old Quiet Knight on West Belmont in 1972. Steve Goodman became a fast pal. Goodman soon had Buffett sitting in the right-field bleachers at Wrigley Field.
(Months before his death from leukemia in 1984, Goodman wrote "Go Cubs Go" under the ear of WGN-AM (720) program ace Dan Fabian. The tune remains Clark Street genius in its singalong soul.)
The Heat completed the Buffett trifecta. As a fan, he even got tossed from a 2001 home game after loudly calling referee Joe Forte a word that one does not take home to mother.
ALL OF THIS LEADS TO THE FACT that since his death at age 76 last Friday, Buffett has been the object of millions of elegiac words. Some were excellent. A lot were just fishin'.
None have been better than a brilliant essay written by the Naperville-bred Dave Hoekstra. It's titled "The Sun Will Never Set on the Spirit of Jimmy Buffett" and can be accessed at davehoekstra.com.
It's appointment reading for anyone interested in an extraordinary texturizer on the Chicago background of the great tropical escape artist.
Hoekstra had a head start. In 1982 - near the outset of his 32 years at the Sun-Times - he nabbed an assignment for The Illinois Entertainer to profile Buffett before a concert at Poplar Creek. Buffett was still in ascent and hundreds of millions of dollars away from the carefree capitalist he would become.
"He appreciated the publicity," Hoekstra said. "We bonded over music and baseball. He later told me, rightly or not, that my writing back then helped him break out in Chicago. I don't know about that."
HOEKSTRA LATER ASSISTED BUFFETT with research on assorted projects. A major one was the megaselling DVD filmed when Buffett was becoming the first pop musician to headline at Wrigley Field. Those two shows were on Labor Day weekend 2005.
While at the Sun-Times, Hoekstra was one of the premier pop cultural writers in American newspapers. Unlike many others, he was the hard boots on the ground in his weekly "Dawn Patrol," whether it was backstage with Buffett or a 7 a.m. last call at the Stay Out Disco in Stone Park
HE EVEN SPENT A SINGLE SEASON as a Bulls beat writer - 1990-91, the year of Championship No. 1. He and Lacy Banks were an improbable team.
Phil Jackson loved his off-centricness. By his own admission, Hoekstra's fanciful digging did not always meet the deadline expectations of sports editors. So he went back to features.
"I tried to connect with a general audience and I think that drove the desk crazy," Hoekstra now admits.
Buffett - with his golden theme of an increasingly insightful, contented man making peace and chasing fun on his own ocean - connected forever with a global audience.
In Dave Hoekstra, he had a marvelously kindred first mate.
STREET-BEATIN':
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• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.