Jim Dantona and Ron Santo In The News

SPORTS

--------------------
Santo isn't the only one who's hurt by Baseball Hall of Fame snub
--------------------

Mike Downey
In the wake of the news

March 1, 2007

MESA, Ariz. -- Some people are sick about what just happened to Ron Santo.

Others are sick of this whole Baseball Hall of Fame subject. They do feel sorry for this old Cub--come on, who wouldn't?--but they also feel that's the way the ball bounces.

Jim Dantona is a part of that first group.

He considers himself Santo's No. 1 fan, or close to it. So he took Tuesday's news particularly hard.

"Ron was perturbed by it, I'm sure of that," the 58-year-old Chicago-born political consultant said Wednesday. "I was devastated."

As you know by now, Santo, 67, once again has been barred from admission into the Cooperstown pantheon of the immortals. He fell five votes shy of the 62 he needed from his peers on baseball's Veterans Committee.

Dantona anxiously checked the Internet all morning long Tuesday at his office in Simi Valley, Calif., anticipating good news about the old Cub he first met in 1969. He hoped when he went to Arizona this week to watch the Cubs in spring training, he could shake a new Hall of Famer's hand.

When the words "Santo Denied Again" flashed on his screen, Dantona might have been more upset than Chicago's saddest third sacker himself was.

"I was livid," he said.

"It's a sad day in baseball's history when a guy like Ron Santo once again doesn't get his due. Don't they get it? This man is the best thing to ever happen to baseball."

Dantona understands how it feels to lose a close call. In a runoff election for Ventura County supervisor last November, he lost to his opponent by 895 votes.

Sometimes you get a hit and sometimes you just miss.

At age 20, Dantona wasn't quite ready to give up on being a ballplayer after being one in high school and college. He wrote a letter in '69 to Santo, his favorite player, as the Cubs were going to spring camp.

Santo didn't write back. He picked up a phone and called. He had shown Dantona's letter to Leo Durocher, the manager, and said Leo liked it so much, Dantona could come to Cubs camp for a tryout.

In what he calls "the thrill of my life," Dantona spent a week there. Fergie Jenkins threw BP to him. Jim Marshall hit fungo grounders to him. Mike Royko happened to be at camp and did an interview with him.


"What kind of contract you looking for?" Royko asked him in jest.

"A dollar a day," Dantona replied in all earnestness.

Fairy tales come to an end and ultimately his did. But he remained grateful to Santo for the shot.

More than 20 years later, Dantona's teenaged son, Robert, was diagnosed with diabetes. He went into a diabetic coma at 14.

Santo has coped with diabetes for most of his adult life. A double amputee, he lost his legs to it.

As soon as he found out about Dantona's son's condition, Santo put in a phone call to the hospital.

"Bobby wasn't in the coma at that point. Ron told him, 'Everything's going to be OK, don't worry.'" Dantona recalled. "His was the first call my boy received in the hospital."

Santo is no saint, but stories like these explain why so many folks have strong feelings about his Hall of Fame slight. A guy can be a baseball hero in more ways than one.

It would be sweet if the Veterans Committee could take off-the-field contributions to the game into account, particularly considering the lack of character some athletes have become known for in this day and age.

A two-year waiting period is difficult for some, but for Santo it has to be excruciating.

His health is fragile. His psyche must be also, although he hides it with humor and a cheerleader's team spirit.

Baseball prolonged the agony in the great Buck O'Neil's case until it was too late. O'Neil accepted his Hall of Fame snub with grace. Now he is gone and no longer can receive baseball's greatest tribute in person.

Jim Dantona gets this. His diabetic son is in his 30s and doing fine, but a few weeks ago he lost his mother to leukemia.

"She and I spoke before she passed away about how sure we were Ron Santo would make it to the Hall this time," he said. "She knew what a huge fan of his I am."

Santo struck out again, unhappily. He went down looking.

A certain Hall of Famer once famously said that it ain't over till it's over. But with every error this Veterans Committee makes, time is running short to get it right.

mikedowney@tribune.com

Copyright (c) 2007, The Chicago Tribune

--------------------

This article originally appeared at:
http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/columnists/
cs-070228downey,1,3317295.column?coll=cs-home-headlines

Mike Downey
------------------------------------------------------------------
In the wake of the news

One of the most highly regarded sports journalists in the country, Mike Downey returned to Chicago in January 2003 to join the Tribune as a sports columnist.

Downey, who most recently wrote for the Los Angeles Times, shares the "In the Wake of the News" column with Rick Morrissey.

A native of south suburban Steger and a graduate of Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, Downey began writing for Star Publications in the south suburbs when he was 16. He covered sports for the Chicago Daily News until it ceased publication in 1978, whereupon he moved to the Chicago Sun-Times to write entertainment features as well as sports. He was a sports columnist at the Detroit Free Press from 1981 to 1985, then moved to the Los Angeles Times. While there he wrote a sports column and a Metro column and won dozens of local and national writing awards.

Downey has written for several magazines and has an extensive broadcasting background as well. He has covered sports in 30 countries, including 10 Olympics.