14 – The Dutchman – Steve Goodman – 1971

            The Dutchman - Steve Goodman

            This song reminds me of my grandfather, because my mom always called him a stubborn Dutchman, though he was not senile like the one in the song.

“When Amsterdam is golden in the summer,
Margaret brings him breakfast,
She believes him.
He thinks the tulips bloom beneath the snow.
He's mad as he can be, but Margaret only sees that sometimes,
Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes.”

I always mist up a little on that line. Obviously, my grandparents had a child, my mom,

but I always wondered whether they wanted more, my mother being born during the Depression and my grandfather having lost his job as an engraver with the Elgin Watch Case Factory. I know they struggled to make house payments.

In fact, Home Federal Savings of Elgin (long gone, having been absorbed by State Financial, who was absorbed by Associated Bank) allowed them to make interest-only payments for several years so they could keep their home, something unheard of in today’s banking system.

The song also reminds me of my first concert. In 1972, Gary K. and I (the same Gary K. of the straight razor in my previous post) drove in my 1968 Mustang fastback to a coffee house in Rockford, Illinois, called Charlotte’s Web, to see Steve Goodman.

I was surprised to see how short he was, with such a deep voice. He was 5’4” or so, I think. His first song was “The Dutchman” with its mellow guitar opening. I knew he played the guitar, but was surprised (again?) to see hear how well he played, on that song, and throughout the show. He did all his hits as well. “City of New Orleans” (I always liked his version more than Arlo Guthrie’s) and “Lincoln Park Pirates”, the song that first got me interested in him.

In recent years the Cubs used his “Go Cubs Go” after every home win, but it always reminds me that he died four days before the 1984 Cubs clinched their first post-season appearance since 1945. He was only 36, and he was a true fan.

I consider myself a true Cubs fan as well; take that for what it’s worth. However, I had my 14-year-old heart broken in 1969 and it never really has recovered, even with post-season appearances in 1984, 1989, 1999, and 2003.

In 1969 I attended my first and only opening day, and attended five more games that summer with a group of 4-5 other guys. I don’t think today’s parents (me Included) would let their kids go to a Cubs game by themselves like we did.

First, we would save up about $10 or so, mowing lawns, etc. Then, on the day chosen, we would wheedle a mom into driving us the 8 miles to Barrington to drop us off at the Chicago and Northwestern station for the $4 (round trip) train ride into the city. From the downtown Northwestern station, also long gone, we would walk 4-5 blocks up to the Loop and go down into the subway to catch a train to the Northside which dropped us off ½ block from Wrigley Field.

Back in the 50s-60s and 70s the Wrigley’s kept 22,000 tickets for sale on the day of the game. You could literally walk up to the gate, buy a ticket, and go in. There weren’t a lot of advanced sales.

In 1969, a ticket to the bleachers was $1. On opening day, we splurged and bought grandstand tickets, which were $1.50.  At this point we probably had $3-4 left from our $10, and since pop, or a Ron Santo pizza, or a hot dog was around 50 cents each, and a program was 25 cents, which would last the game. 

On that particular opening day, Cubs superstar Ernie Banks hit two home runs, but the Cubs were still losing in the bottom of the 10^th (I had crumpled my program up into a ball, you can see it now with the creases) when pinch-hitter Willie Smith came up with a man on and hit a home run to win the game. The Cubs that year led from game one until the middle of August, when they collapsed and the Amazin’ (god that still sticks in my craw to type that) Mets came form 9 games back to overtake them and eventually win the division by 8 games.

During that season I bought all four daily Chicago newspapers (Chicago Tribune, Chicago Today, Chicago Sun-Times, and Chicago Daily News) almost every day and cut out the articles relating to the Cubs and taped them into scrapbooks (I ended up with two, at least, I’ve never been able to look at them since I sealed them in plastic after the end of the season).

I lived and died with each win or loss. Two of the games we attended we sat in the bleachers with the Bleacher Bums, who wore yellow construction hats and had cheers for certain players or to get a rally going, or to celebrate a home run.

As July leaked into August and the once robust lead was dwindling away, I even went so far as to make a voodoo doll (it came with a MAD magazine) with a little “Mets” sign around his neck, and I pierced it daily with pins and needles. It didn’t help.

The worst was a game in August,  the Cubs played in New York and they blew a late

inning lead when the Cubs center fielder (and my personal hero, after Don Kessinger, that season) Don Young caught a fly ball, then ran into the outfield wall at Shea Stadium and the ball fell out, allowing the tying run to score. The Cubs went on to lose, and Ron Santo blasted Don Young in all the papers the next day. The pressure was getting to him and to the rest of the team, it appeared.

            1969 was the season when Ron Santo started to jump up and click his heels after home wins, as he ran to the clubhouse that was in the left field corner of Wrigley Field. Some people say that that was what kept him out of the Hall of Fame during his lifetime. If that is what stopped some Hall voter from voting for him during his lifetime (he finally got in 6 months after he died last year), I pray there is a special place in hell reserved for him. Statistically, he was as good a third baseman as Brooks Robinson, but Ronnie never appeared in a post-season game throughout his 15-year career.

            The next time I let the Cubs get to me was the 2003 “Bartman” game where with only 5 outs between them and their first World Series appearance since 1945, they totally collapsed after a fly ball that was arguably catchable, was touched in the stands by a poor kid named Steve Bartman.

As I watched the game at home I became apoplectic as well, I kept saying, “That’s it! Now it starts! They’re going to blow it again!”  Visions of 1969 and of the ball going through Leon Durham’s legs in 1984 ran through my head. Lynn tried to calm me down, but I left the house and sat in our car in the garage, occasionally turning on the car radio as the collapse unfolded. Lynn was a little worried because she didn’t know where I had stormed off to, not thinking to look in the garage.

When the game was over, I came back in the house and put it from my mind. Even though there would be another game, another chance to get to the World Series, I knew it wouldn’t happen and, of course, it didn’t.

Fatalism is part and parcel of the Cubs fan’s life.

I hope they make it to the World Series some day, because on that occasion I will open my scrapbooks on the 1969 season and show them to my son and daughter, should they care about baseball at that future date.