Saturday, January 15, 2011

Santo get's a statue

According to the Tribune, the news going around at CubbieCon is that the Cubs will be erecting a statue of Ron Santo at Wrigley this summer.

The statue will be dedicated on August 10th before a night game against the Nationals.

Where will it be put?

Well, we can go ahead and enter our complementary joke about placing it next to third base where the statue will serve as a better defensive player than Aramis Ramirez. (Ha ha...giggle giggle...snort snort).

We all knew that this was likely going to happen even if Santo had not died in December. (Recall that Crane Kenney said after the Billy Williams statue dedication that more statues were likely going to be made.) So now we have to ask this question....where is the line as far as who gets a statue and who doesn't?

For so many, Cubs history begins with the Cubs of the 60's. But with the exception of Ernie Banks, the other greatest Cubs played in an era well before that. Mordecai Brown, Frank Chance, Charlie Root, Hack Wilson, Cap Anson...they all could arguably be said to have been greater Cubs than the other two players who, by the end of this year, will have statues outside of the ballpark. With a couple of small exceptions, there is virtually nothing in or around Wrigley to honor these players.

I supposed this is an argument for another time.

In the end, it's really cool that Santo is getting a statue. It's too bad he will not be here to see it.

As you all probably know, CubbieCon is open for business. Usually very little news of any significance comes out of it. I'm unable to attend again this year due to the fact, as most of you know, my wife and I are expecting a child any day now.

Speaking of which, it is very likely that I will be missing from here for the better part of a week when our baby does come...but once we get somewhat settled again, I'll be back here complaining about anything I can think of.