Over due.
The baseball community lost one of its real gentlemen when Ernie Banks passed away over the weekend.
Banks struck me like a Stan Musial type: a certified Hall of Famer who spent his entire career with one team that didn’t always play that well. He did well enough, though: two consecutive MVP awards (despite playing on the lowly Chicago Cubs), an 11-time All-Star, and runner-up for the Rookie of the Year Award in 1954.
Books about Banks aren’t that common (not including those meant for younger readers). In fact, the only one that immediately comes to mind is Ernie Banks: Mr. Cub and the Summer of ’69
Banks was ostensibly the author of his own story, Mr. Cub
And, of course, he is a key figure in just about every contemporary Cubs’ team history.
Richard Goldstein wrote Banks’ obituary for The New York Times. Here’s an appraisal by Barry Bearak, which also appeared in the Times.
It is especially sweet that Sports Illustrated (which recently fired the last of their staff photographers), put him on the cover, instead of a standard Super Bowl illustration, at least in the Midwest edition.
is available on Amazon.com,
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