Sure, He’s Optimistic, He’s a Cub

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. —  Sitting in the den of his winter home, Ron Santo rolls up a trouser leg to document the extent of his attachment to the Chicago Cubs and illustrate -- if it isn’t already apparent in his ability to walk, drive his car, ride his horses, romp on the floor with 3 1/2-year-old grandson Sam, who lives next door -- that his spirit and determination are intact, if not his body.

There, a prosthesis has been partially painted in the colors of a blue-striped Cub uniform with a large No. 10, which Santo wore as the team’s distinguished third baseman for almost 13 years, a tenure starting in 1960, during which Santo celebrated wins with what became a signature move -- jumping and clicking his heels, much like Sammy Sosa now celebrates home runs by tapping his heart and blowing a kiss.

The ravages of diabetes -- the amputation of both legs, the 14 operations since 1999, the quadruple bypass, the cardiac arrest when he flat-lined while in the hospital awaiting surgery -- prevent Santo from clicking his heels, but he’s focused on what he can do, and does, only 2 1/2 months after his left leg was removed at the knee, only a year after he’d lost the right leg.

“People ask me how I’ve gotten through all this and I tell them, ‘You’d do the same,’ ” Santo said. “I mean, what’s the alternative? You have to be optimistic in life, generally, and I’ve always been optimistic, always tried to be positive.”

He gets feedback in letters, hundreds of them filling boxes in the corner of the den. People write in support, diabetics and others, baseball fans and others, telling Santo he has been an inspiration. Too many to respond to, he said, which doesn’t mean he isn’t touched and appreciative. He will express those emotions, he added, when he starts his 14th year in the Cubs’ radio booth at an exhibition opener Thursday.

What a week it could be.

Tonight, Santo and wife Vicki will entertain family and friends for a 63rd birthday celebration. The invitations included a note from Vicki that read, “Could be a doubleheader.”

That’s a reference to what happens on Wednesday, when the Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the results of voting by the veterans’ committee. The reconstructed committee now includes all living members of the Hall, Santo’s peers, and he is buoyantly optimistic -- based on his nature and a conviction that he is worthy -- they will provide him with the “best birthday present I could receive.”

There were 84 eligible voters, and a candidate had to be named on 75% of the ballots to be elected. Santo never received more than about 40% in the 15 years he was on the writers’ ballot, a response he said was “surprising and disappointing” given his justifiable belief that he was an “impact player” who averaged 27 home runs and 101 runs batted in during the 1960s, won five Gold Gloves, set several fielding records and totaled 342 home runs, fourth all-time among third basemen.

Santo’s son, Jeff, a Los Angeles writer, producer and director, is preparing a documentary on his father’s baseball career and battle with diabetes, titled “This Old Cub,” and hopes to culminate the filming with Ron’s July induction at Cooperstown. The younger Santo said actor Joe Mantegna would narrate the film, but that he had cautioned his dad about letting his hopes get too high in anticipation of the vote.

“He should have been in long ago, and that’s contributed to his expectation now,” Jeff Santo said. “I’m afraid of a big letdown if he’s disappointed again, but that’s Dad. He can’t be anything other than optimistic.”

Ron Santo doesn’t know how he will react if not elected -- “I’m pretty nervous about the whole thing,” he said -- but there have clearly been bigger obstacles to deal with. If disappointed, he will move on, just as he did when he was diagnosed with diabetes in 1959 when he was 18, having just signed with the Cubs.

“I didn’t even know what it was,” Santo said. “I asked the doctor if I could still play and he said that he had no idea.

“I remember going to the library to read up on it, and it scared me because the ramifications were things like blindness, kidney failure, hardening of the arteries and gangrene.”

Santo played his entire career dependent on insulin, coping with Type 1 juvenile diabetes.

“It wasn’t bad with all the day games in Chicago,” he said. “It was like having an 8-to-5 job. I’d get up, give myself a shot, have a big breakfast, then gulp a Coke and candy bar before the game to keep my blood sugar up. It was much tougher on the road. I estimate that it took me four years to adjust to the travel, time changes and eating habits.”

Nevertheless, Santo added: “I can’t say that the diabetes affected any part of my game because the numbers I put up were Hall of Fame numbers. God gave me the ability to play baseball, and it was easy for me. However, I know there were times I was out there when my blood sugar was low and I wasn’t using all of my faculties. I know I would have played a lot longer and my numbers would have been that much better.”

The diabetes has taken the heaviest toll in the last three years, and it’s as if the cardiac issues -- the bypass, the electric shock, the implanting of a defibrillator -- have been almost secondary. Santo said that between a dozen surgical procedures and the constant wrapping and re-wrapping of an infected heel, he went through such torture trying to save the right leg that he simply told the doctor to “take it” when he developed an infection in the left.

“They said there was a 65% chance they could save it, but it would take three months,” Santo said. “I said that I didn’t want to wait three months because it would take me into the baseball season and I didn’t want to have to first think about surgery then.

“Going to the park is my therapy, and I know that sounds silly with some of the seasons that the Cubs have had, but I didn’t want to miss this one. We have one of the best managers in baseball now [Dusty Baker], one of the best young rotations [with Kerry Wood, Mark Prior and Matt Clement] and we’ve really improved the bullpen and bench. It’s a cliche, but Cub fans go into every season believing this will be their year, and I’m a Cub fan.”

The Cubs may be improved, but there is still a vacancy at third, and that’s basically the way it has been since Santo left. Ninety-five players have appeared at the position in the last 28 years, and only ex-Dodger Ron Cey played more than 500 games at third, compared with Santo’s 2,102 as a Cub.

If the curse lives, it’s not in Santo’s heart. He has helped raise $50 million as a member of the Chicago board of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He is hopeful a cure can be found in his lifetime.

He reflected on the loss of his second leg and said:

“Look, golf was not a big priority for me and I don’t have to make a ballclub anymore. I had a wonderful career and I have a wonderful family. All I wanted was to come out of it and be able to walk, ride my horses, go to the park and play with my grandson. I can do those things. I’m where I want to be. You’re never out of the woods with diabetes, but I feel like I have a good life ahead of me.”

Maybe even an overdue trip to Cooperstown.