Sidetracked

When I was around 11, my dad told me to come to the front porch because he had something for me.

Now this was big because my dad wasn’t the sort of guy who brought things home for his kids. So I went to the porch eager but skeptical.

Once there, he pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to me. As I unfolded it, I noticed the letterhead. It was from a place called the Oyster, which was some bar in Chicago.

Below the letterhead I stared at a signature, written in ink. But I didn’t say anything.

“It’s from Ernie Banks,” my dad said, breaking the silence. “I saw him at a bar, and I went up to him and said, ‘Would you sign an autograph for my son?”

I looked at the paper again, now able to read the scrawl better: “To Pat, w/Love — Ernie Banks.”

Banks, the great Cubs shortstop, was a little before my time. But anyone who ever followed the Cubs knew who Ernie Banks was.

Mr. Cub, they call him.

So I welled up with pride. Because in my hand was an Ernie. Banks. Autograph.

My dad wasn’t the sort of guy who made me proud too often, so this was a great not just for the autograph but also for our relationship. Unfortunately, my sister would later deflate that moment, telling me the autograph was fake — that my dad had signed it himself.

“He told me he did it,” she said.

At first I didn’t believe her because, well, my sister said stuff like that. But then I thought: “Would Ernie Banks write ‘love’ on his autograph?”

Love?

I know what he would write. He’d write, “Let’s play two!” because that’s what Ernie said. All the time. In fact, you could hardly see or hear of Ernie Banks and not think: “Let’s play two!”

I’d never heard him say “love.” As in I love you, Fan I’ve Never Met.

So then I felt like a sucker. Like in the cartoons, I could see my head turn into a donkey’s as I brayed like a duped jackass. After all, I’d bragged to my friends about this autograph. I even put it in a little frame and displayed it in my room.

While I initially didn’t believe my sister, doubt crept in quickly. It definitely didn’t look like my dad’s handwriting. But what were the odds that my dad just happened to see Ernie Banks at a bar? It wasn’t a stretch for my dad to be there, but good ole wholesome Ernie Banks?

And would my dad actually approach Ernie Banks for an autograph? That just wasn’t like him. He wasn’t that guy.

Soon pride turned to resentment. Why would he try to trick me like that? He couldn’t take me to Cubs games, but he could give me a bogus autograph that didn’t even say, “Let’s play two!”

The “autograph” eventually went into a drawer somewhere, and I stopped bragging about it. As the years passed, I wanted to ask my dad or my sister about it again — to get to the bottom of it — but I never did.

Years later, I looked up other Ernie autographs online and, well . . . the signatures do look like the one my dad brought home. At least my memory of it.

Because while I never threw it away, I haven’t seen that Oyster letterhead in years. So there’s no comparing autographs.

Still, I think I’ll give my dad the benefit of the doubt on this one. Because sometimes — even if it’s healthy to be skeptical — you just gotta have a little faith.

But just in case — should you ever run into Ernie Banks, could you ask him if he’s ever been to the Oyster on Dearborn?

Posted on September 3rd, 2008 by Pat
Filed under: The World According to Pat