This is an ongoing story, meant to be read in order. If you’re just arriving here for the first time, please start at the beginning by following the index.
Whenever we take a few steps north or south on Broadway, the Puerto Rican kids chase us back—literally or figuratively. I say figuratively because I’m even sure there was anyone chasing us back most of the time. Once the idea of an angry Puerto Rican or two was firmly implanted in our minds, we would feel the threat, even if it never actually materialized. Such is the nature of paranoia and profiling.
But whether the force pushing my friends and me back is real or not, I’m aware of an equally strong force pushing us out. The universe expands reluctantly, always in a tug-of-war with the gravitational pull that returns us to the unity of home. But if it’s to avoid stasis, it has no choice but to move outward. In the grand scheme of things, we aren’t journeying out that far—we just want to go to some Cubs games. And we always make it back home.
I’m seven and already using public transportation to get to and from school. True, I’m not alone. I always have a chaperone—an older sibling, Amy or David. We take the 36 CTA bus down Broadway, merging onto Clark, then go a mile to Francis W. Parker.
I climb up the three stairs and drop a shiny bronze token in the receptacle as the bus driver nods his approval. A simple step, but it emboldens me with a confidence to push the boundaries further. There are all sorts of characters on the bus—regular people, adults going to and from work, black people, Hispanics, bag ladies, people who talk to themselves, people who occasionally talk to me.
If I can survive the eight-minute ride to and from school, I’d be ready to push north . . . to Wrigley Field.
My father would always play ball with us, but he wasn’t a huge baseball fan. He took us to a few games, but mostly we’d go ourselves—our little gang of seven- to ten-year-olds from Parker. Wrigley was less than a mile and a half north, closer than school, but the other way.
The other way. That was a place of the Other: Puerto Rican gangs, African-Americans, etc.—definitely not many little white boys in Cubs hats and jerseys uptown. The Wrigleyville of 1968 was far from becoming the gentrified, upscale neighborhood of trendy sports bars and rehabbed brownstones that it is today. Back then, it was a notably tough area. But the Cubs tickets were cheap, and all the games were day games.
We’d get decent general admission seats along the foul lines for $3 a piece or $1 if we were willing to sit in the bleachers. But we rarely did. Almost all of the regular inhabitants of those cheaper seats were shirtless, beer-guzzling, pot-bellied, unemployed white guys, who’d be a long way toward drunk well before the seventh-inning stretch.
We’d walk or take the bus to Clark and Addison, usually arriving early to watch batting practice and try to procure autographs from our heroes. Even though we didn’t sit in the box seats by the dugouts, the ushers would let us hang out there until just before game time, when they’d brush us back to our proper seats. We’d bring our mitts in hopes of catching a foul ball—mine was a Spalding Ernie Banks special, which I actually got Ernie to sign before one game.
It was relatively safe within the so-called friendly confines, but you had to be wary coming and going—especially going. It seems like we were chased or mugged on our way out almost every time.
“Fine, come see your little Cubbies in our hood. Just know we’re going to mess with you on your way back to yours. Price of admission, you little babies.” That’s what it felt like they were saying. Just laughing at us privileged, soft, little white boys.
Once we were chased back to my friend Philip’s apartment—thankfully, it was only half a mile away. We may have been soft, but we were pretty fast. Regardless, we kept going to the games.
A year later, in the summer of 1969, the Cubs were on the verge of their first pennant since 1945, dominating the National League East. That is until an epic September collapse occurred at the hands of the Amazing Mets, who went on to win their first World Series. The Cubs broke my heart that year and have been doing so ever since.
And as if to highlight the humiliation and heartbreak, a kid stole my autographed Ernie Banks mitt on the way out of another dismal loss that same summer. The actual theft, though, was an impressive athletic feat. An African-American kid—maybe twelve years old—came running up to me from behind, grabbed the mitt, and proceeded to weave through the exiting crowd like a brilliant running back. He stayed low, moving with speed and grace. I tried going after him, but between the crowd and his superior skill, he was out of sight within seconds. I appealed to some adults around me for help, but nobody saw anything. I remember being shocked and hurt, yet somewhat impressed with his skill. I was athletic, but not on his level. I kind of envied him that.
My friends—who did witness the whole thing—were just as shocked and amazed as I was. They would joke about it for years afterward.
It became the stuff of legend. Kids who weren’t even with us remembered being there. The kid who stole my mitt became something of a hallowed figure, whose moves were described as rivaling Gayle Sayers, the great Chicago Bears running back of the time.
“Yeah, Sayers was great in that game yesterday, but nothing like the kid who stole Peter’s mitt.”
I, of course, just wanted my autographed mitt back.
Next Week: 17. Basement Basketball—We move to a fancier neighborhood. Where are all the kids?