Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, and Me

In our first episode, we're taking a fun and nostalgic trip back to my childhood dreams of playing baseball for the Chicago Cubs. You'll get to hear my conversation with Chicago writer Vince Francone and relive the magic of Wrigley Field. Lori will explain the motivation behind this podcast and sharing stories about inspiring women athletes.

Unstoppable Podcast blends cinematic storytelling with immersive sound design and insightful interviews, celebrating women in sports — past and present.

Learn more and listen - Unstoppable Podcast - Website.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It was 1972. The bases were loaded when I, as a petite 12-year-old girl, came up to bat. Upon seeing me on the mostly boys team, the opposing coach called for his outfield to move in close to the infield. This was a time in history where girls were told they couldn't compete with the boys, or for that matter, probably shouldn't be playing at all. But I had prepared for this moment with countless hours of backyard play. I had my brothers pitch to me. I drew strike zones everywhere, the garage door, the basement wall. I grit my teeth and I swung for the fence. And to the surprise of everyone, I hit the ball out of the park for that greatest of moments in baseball, a grand slam. I rounded the bases with the third base coach, Greg By, jumping up and down, elated and yelling with joy. I was in the yearbook that year, listed with Darren Hewing and Mark Deutscher as the home run hitters. Welcome to Unstoppable, the podcast where passion meets purpose. I'm your host, Lori Lewis, and I'm excited to share stories of nostalgia, inspiration, and determination. Join me as we explore the power of perseverance and celebrate the unstoppable spirit that drives us to keep going no matter what. Oh,

SPEAKER_03 1:43

take me back to the dominant days where the organ plays and the sunlight stays.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

For years, I tried to shed the tomboy image of my Chicago childhood. I put distance between me and that little girl. I didn't want to look back. But as I approached my 65th birthday, I'm embracing that same fearless spirit to tackle a new challenge. I'd like to earn a black belt in martial arts. Now, it's a journey that's not just about physical growth, but also about tapping into that confidence and determination that defined me as a young girl. I'm calling on that unstoppable little tomboy to guide me. Now, I can barely describe the joy that it's bringing me to embrace that little tomboy and actually be proud of her. As I've prepared for this podcast, it's become a journey of self-discovery so much more than I had anticipated. It took me all this time to realize that I've been missing some aspects of my life. As a kid, I had two big dreams. One was running off to Broadway, and two was becoming a major league baseball player. I wanted to play third base for the Cubs like my hero, Ron Sano. Now, Broadway didn't quite work out, But I surprisingly found myself becoming a professional opera singer later in life after I did radio. I even sang with the San Diego Opera. I was 47 years old when I started. Though I didn't fulfill my baseball dreams, I'm now driven to pursue a new goal of martial arts. It's all making me analyze the view of women in sports that we have even until this day. So many famous women athletes are still hearing the same kind of discouraging things I heard as a little girl. So along with sharing about women's sports history, I'll be interviewing athletes, sportscasters, authors, and more. I'll also keep you updated on my own personal journey. As long as I can remember, baseball was in my veins. I don't think

SPEAKER_04 4:17

anybody showed you how to throw the ball or anything. You just picked it up and threw it

SPEAKER_01 4:24

as far as I could throw it. That's my big brother, Lou Campbell. Lou is a huge sports fan and a lifelong Chicagoan.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

I imagine you on our front lawn in Northlake practicing your pitching for the day you could play for the Chicago Cubs for hours.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

That's my niece, Leanne. She's a huge Cub fan. As I grew up in the 60s and 70s, the world was changing rapidly. The civil rights movement was gaining momentum, and the women's liberation movement was just beginning to take shape. The Vietnam War was raging, and protests were erupting across the country. The 1970s saw a surge in popularity for women's sports, thanks in part to the passage of Title IX in 1972. Now this landmark bill prohibited sex discrimination and it paved the way for future generations of female athletes. Billie Jean King, her tennis match against Bobby Riggs in 1973 was known as the Battle of the Sexes. Now that holds significant cultural and historic importance. She was pushing the boundaries and challenging stereotypes. This was a constant discussion both in grade school and high school. I had endless conversations with boys about girls. Supposedly girls were not as good as boys, not just in sports, but pretty much in everything. I was frequently given the message that it wasn't feminine to be obsessed with sports or to play sports. My parents bought their house in a blue collar north side suburb called North Lake, or as we like to use to say, Nort Lake. We were only minutes from my grade school and my high school was just down the street as well. Growing up, my life was built around my tiny Lutheran grade school in Melrose Park, Illinois. Well, we also like to say Illinois. We were just outside the city of Chicago. We had six kids in our family, and our dining table was always full. I mean, not only family members, but my mother was always ready to add more place settings for last-minute guests. She wanted them to eat her Italian food, which, by the way, was pretty terrific. There was an abundance of Italian families in our area, and having six kids was not uncommon. My aunt a couple blocks away had seven kids. Those were the days when you knew everyone on your block, and everyone I knew was a huge Cubs fan, including my family and my teachers, pretty much everyone on the block. Even in first and second grade, my teacher, Ms. Tinky, was a huge Cubs fan, and she would sometimes play the radio during class, and we could hear the spring games before school was let out.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

There's a base hit to right field by Sandler.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

I remember also carrying a transistor radio and listening to games in the car before we'd get home. I couldn't wait to get home to watch WGN and see the Cubs on TV. And then I would retreat to my bedroom. The walls were painted Chicago Cub blue. Every inch of the walls were covered with some kind of Cub paraphernalia. There were pennants, black and white photos, or even just photos that I tore out of the newspaper from the previous day's game. My brother Larry built a bed frame which sat on the floor and then he stapled Chicago Cub blue shag carpeting to the frame. My mom found an inflatable baseball lamp. It hung on a chain over the bed. This was my baseball sanctuary. I was a funny little blonde girl. I had quite the reputation for being a tomboy and being the biggest Cub fan. And that's in a city full of Cub fans. I took consulting the Cubs personally, and as fighting words, I'm going to tell you, there were a few little boys who went crying home to their mommies. I took every opportunity I could get to play baseball. I remember the feeling of sunshine on my face. And on an indescribable, beautiful summer day, sometimes just waiting in the outfield, even when the ball didn't come my way, it was still a perfect day. The smell of the grass and being far enough out in the outfield to only hear vague voices of people chattering. Those were the summers of long bike rides and trying to squeeze every moment out of the day before the sun went down. Those were the days when I thought I was Supergirl. I thought I was invincible. I have four brothers and I developed a sense of toughness. In fact, my mom would tell stories like one time when a friend was visiting and her Volkswagen was parked in the driveway. They were all visiting inside and soon heard a crowd of kids chanting, Lori, Lori. They looked out to find seven-year-old Lori pushing her Volkswagen out of the driveway into the street. Okay, maybe it was in neutral, but still, this memory makes me laugh. It reminds me of the determination and the competitiveness that has driven me all my life, and I don't want to give that up now entering into the, quote, senior citizen part of my life. The older I get, the more I realize that the city of Chicago and the Chicago Cubs have really shaped who I am and are at the very core of me. I followed my parents out west I actually turned 21 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but Chicago stayed with me, and now I'm embracing many of the things that I enjoyed as a small girl. In the 1960s and 70s, there was nothing like hearing Jack Brickhouse calling the game for the Cubs. Long before people became interested in Harry Carey, back when Brickhouse was in charge and he was old school, He loved the game. He was famous for his excited yell when one of the Cubs would hit a home run and we'd hear, hey, hey, holy mackerel. I was obsessed with the Cubs. Everyone knew of my love. Even some of my first crushes were on Cub players. Oh, there was Pete LeCocq, whose father, Peter Marshall, was the original host of Hollywood Squares. I disagree.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

11, circle gets the square. Pete

SPEAKER_01 11:27

was young and had long curly blonde hair. And in fact, some of the other players would give him a really hard time and tease him. They even called him Mr. Hollywood. But actually going to Wrigley Field, that was of course the best thing in the world. That moment when you finally pass through the gates You'd walk up the stairs and enter into that temple of baseball, Wrigley Field. Wow. As a little kid, entering that world was better than just about anything else. That wonderful vintage ballpark where you first were struck by the beauty of the famous green ivy outfield walls. Oh, then the smell of popcorn and beer would hit you, and then you'd start seeing signs back in the day for Ron Sando Pizza, which of course I had to have. One of my favorite memories, I was about 12, my neighbor Nancy, who was in her 20s, took me to a game. I got to ride the L train beforehand. We stopped and ate at the all-beef Vienna hot dog stand across from Wrigley Field. Wow. At the table next to us, I could not believe it. It was Ron Santo himself and second baseman and his roommate, Glenn Beckert. They actually invited us to sit with them, which I can't imagine happening today. But Ron Santo was all about Chicago and the fans. The only things I remember from the conversation was their kindness to us and my neighbor telling them that I was as talkative as Ron and that, like Ron, I had some Italian heritage. The truth is, most of the players in those days loved talking to the kids. They would come out for batting practice, and they would come up to the wall and sign our scorecards, and sometimes they'd bop our hats to say hello. Oh man, Ron Sano, Ernie Banks... They'll always be in my heart. They were just true heroes. Ernie Banks saying, it's a beautiful day. Let's play too. And phrases like the Cubs will shine in 69. Those stay in my heart. That's forever. Those guys, Santo, Banks, Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins, Glenn Beckert, Jim Hickman, so many others. They played for the love of the game. They were not yet in the category of millionaires, and that came later in the 1970s with Catfish Hunter. But Ernie Banks and Ron Sano, they were more than ballplayers. They were not only heroes, they were ambassadors for the city of Chicago. I'm talking to Chicago writer Vincent Franconi. And Lou, my brother, was on the podcast just a little earlier. You heard from him. And this is actually Lou's, I guess you would say, stepson, right? That would be exactly what you'd say, yeah. Yes. And you've been a writer in Chicago. Well, you've been writing probably since you were a young man. Yeah,

SPEAKER_04 14:46

not well, but I've been at it for a while. Yes. Well,

SPEAKER_01 14:50

you're humble, but you've edited some books and you have some of your own books out. Just give us a couple titles as we're starting.

SPEAKER_04 14:58

My first book is a memoir called Like a Dog. It's about working terrible jobs. And that came out in 2015 from Blue Heron Bookworks. And then my next book was kind of a collection of essays called The Soft Lunacy, which is a little bit about book collecting, a little bit about death, specifically my dog dying. It's a very weird book that I don't know how to classify. And then I did edit an anthology called Open Heart Chicago, which is an anthology of Chicago writers. And my last book came out in November is called A Book No One Wants, which is the closing of my trilogy about frustrations with being a writer. So it's a little bit of a niche. book just for struggling and failing artists. And all of these you could probably get at least on Amazon, right? Yep. Yep. If not, you can go to my website and always order through there as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

You are a real Chicago guy. I mean, you grew up, you were kind of more from the south side of Chicago. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_04 15:56

Yeah. Yeah. South suburbs growing up, which is where most of my family is still located near Midway Airport. right outside like bridgeview burbank oaklawn and now you're more a little further the other way right oh yeah 93 i moved to the north side to go to college at depaul and you Kind of dropped out of college, but stayed in that neighborhood. And I remember one of my uncles saying, you know, I think you're going to get that north side out of your system pretty soon. But I've been there since then. So I've spent officially more of my life as a north sider than a south sider now because I was 22 when I moved out here. So it's been that many years since I've stayed. Now I'm all the way up in Rogers Park, which is as far north as you can get, really.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Yeah, I think we were considered north side being North Lake or like we used to like to say North Lake. Some people said it on purpose. Some just said it that way. But that's a funny thing I was talking to my husband about is. In general, I've kind of lost a lot of the Chicago sound in my voice, except when I talk to Chicago people or when I get kind of worked up or excited, you know? So then that accent comes back out and that Chicago is always there. You know, it's kind of, I've been out West since I turned 21 and I'll be 65. So, you know, I've lived out West longer, but those are your formative years. And we've talked about this where that city of Chicago, and we all say we're from Chicago, of course, right? Of course. Because nobody will know what you mean if you say I'm from Northlake, right? But it's still, it's really still the center of your life, that city and all the workings. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_04 17:41

Yeah, absolutely. It is something where there's the Chicago land thing you can say, which encompasses to me, if you're in Cook County, you're pretty much, you're welcome. It's very much kind of different than if you go out to like Kane or Will or something like that. It does change. So if you get far enough away, it doesn't feel like Chicago anymore. But yeah, there is something very, I think, essential about growing up in the area that stays with you. And it is sort of, sometimes in these superficial things about how you might pronounce pop versus soda or something like that. But there's bigger, deeper things as well, I think, that do stay with you. So I'm glad that your accent comes back out a little bit, especially if you're in California, because I know people in California and they talk really slowly, I think. Sometimes they're all very mellow and it's all very laid back. And we're a little bit more frantic, I think.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Let's talk more about that unique city, because I'm a big history fan and I've read a lot about, of course, the Native American history. But then the start of Chicago officially, it was a really rough town. I mean, one of the things that I remember reading was that there were no streets and it was all mud everywhere. And there were no like defined streets and you'd get almost run over by horse carriages and all this. And trains, even the train tracks were crazy, even at the beginning. That to me is sort of symbolic of Chicago now and part of its character.

SPEAKER_04 19:09

Yeah, there's something about it that I've always found charming. But see, I've been to New York a few times and I know the great thing about Manhattan is it's a grid. And if you just understand how the grid works, you can get around, even though it's a pretty big Island. Chicago feels like roads were laid on top of other roads. We have a lot of diagonal running roads. So if you're going down like Lincoln or Milwaukee or Diversity or Ogden, these are like these roads that cut across. And if you know them well, it's great because you can take them and shave time off of a commute. But if you don't know them, it will absolutely confuse people who aren't from the area. It'll drive them a little crazy. And it is, I think, a lot of it. This is, again, armchair historian here. I can't really speak to the to the actual legitimacy of this claim. But I really think it is what you're saying. It's like roads were kind of made on top of roads. Like they intersected. It was a little bit of an accident and that's just how it is because it wasn't really as developed and planned to that same degree, at least not at first. And also the city kept spreading. It kept like where I live was its own town before it was part of Chicago and now it's part of Chicago. So the borders kind of got broader and then we did have to sort of, you know, connect railroads and connect roads and so forth. So I think a lot of the chaos comes from our early roots of being a small town that grew very, very big.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

But, you know, it's still, even with the millions upon millions of people that are there, it still keeps that small town character. That's one of the things that I love about it. Now, growing up, people always would joke that there was a blue line dividing the city. And if you were born on the north side more than you were born a Cub fan, is that still kind of the

SPEAKER_04 20:49

way

SPEAKER_01 20:49

people think about it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:50

My family is a little bit of the exception because my brother is the biggest Cubs fan I know. Besides my father. And he and I, of course, both grew up in the South Burbs. So he was kind of an anomaly. But it's because my father essentially like bred the kind of Lou as well. Like now that I'm thinking of it, like all these people who kind of lived more north and were raised with the Cubs as kids when they did move south. My dad, because that's where his parents moved him in Lou because he married my mom. They brought that Cubs love. And I think it was kind of, you know, an insistence that you will be a Cubs fan. It was just like a religion that you're raised in. But it is still very... And I wonder, I don't know if it's the same with the kids these days, but some of the guys that I know who are like lifelong Southsiders who are older than I am, sort of, you know, about maybe five to 10 years up, their Sox love is so strong that they really have that like chip on their shoulder to this day about this. Whereas, and I'm sure my brother will say this too in more detail, like Cubs fans, don't really feel that. It's just like, they know the Sox are there. Like Lou used to say, you know, I'm a Cubs fan year round. I'm a Sox fan if they're winning. Like I'll watch a game and get excited. And that was his sort of idea. Whereas like you will never see a diehard Sox fan go to a Cubs game, watch a Cubs game, care about a Cubs. Actively the other way where they really don't seem to like the team.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah. I think I only went to one Sox game. because my grandfather took me to a White Sox game and, you know, I just, I didn't have, of course, you know, that is like a cathedral to me, Wrigley Field. So I didn't have the same kind of an attachment to it. So I, I kind of just vaguely remember it, but yeah, he, and my grandfather loved the Cubs, even though he was, you know, living on the South side. I understand, you know, he came from Italy and he, where, I can't remember which college, used to be Little Italy, and then

SPEAKER_04 22:44

they tore it down. It's UIC, University of Illinois in Chicago, which is near Taylor Street, and Taylor Street still kind of retains a little bit of the Little Italy, but the real Little Italy he knew is kind of long gone. The school swallowed a lot of that up.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah. There's such a love for sports, and I think that's one of the things that I really attach to as a little girl. And most of the women I know, I know very few women from Chicago that don't know about sports or aren't into sports. And it made me competitive, too. That's kind of, if you look underneath, that's a lot of what Chicago did in me. Again, lots because of the Cubs, but also just there's something about that city. It's like, yeah, I'll be nice, nice, nice, nice, but don't push me too far. Because then

SPEAKER_04 23:37

the Chicago will come out. Oh, yeah. And speaking, I mean, the Cubs is a good example. I mean, I know we have two teams, but the Cubs tend to get a lot of the attention. I have to believe it's because I can't think of a team that's had such a hard run, maybe the Boston Red Sox from what I know, but just a long time before they had anything close to a World Series when a couple of little teases and yet never, I mean, they lost the fair weather, bandwagon jumping fans, but like, you know, you, my brother, my dad, my stepdad, like all these people, my uncles, like there's a diehard quality to it where you're never going to not be a Cubs fan even if they're doing terribly. And I think there's something about like a hard luck team That kind of like that endurance that is kind of very Chicago where it's just like we're never going to be in New York and that's okay. We're okay with it. We're not the second city because of that. We're the second city because we rebuilt after the fire. But we are still kind of the second city in that regard. And LA is obviously still the second biggest. We're sort of in third and there's a kind of like, yeah, we're number three quality to it that might create a little bit of tension, but at the same time, it's like we're never giving up. Chicago consistently gets voted very highly as far as places to live, despite this reputation that we have as being this crime-ridden place that's really bad, and there's that, and this political corruption, which we have, but it's like, hey, have you been to New Orleans? We haven't got the corruption market cornered here. The other towns do. We still seem to be a place that draws people. Our population is going up. I do know that much. I think it is because there's a kind of enduring, never give up quality that is, I find admirable and inspiring.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

And that's at the heart of the podcast that I'm doing, Unstoppable. And really, for me, the Cubs have become a symbol of that because, boy, if there's one team, and I think it's a little harder than Boston, the Red Sox. You know, it was more than 100 years before that series happened, right?

UNKNOWN 25:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

So that whole thing. But people, like you said, are diehard fans. I remember the Cubs could be in the cellar last place and you have a hard time getting tickets to the game. It'd be like standing room only tickets, you know. So, I mean, there's just something about that. I think that's all part of the character of Chicago. And in my humble opinion, I don't know. No, it isn't.

SPEAKER_04 26:03

And Wrigley Field's a great example of it in a way, because I mean, I know you haven't set foot there in a bit, but I went to games a lot as a kid because that's, you know, your parents would bring you in and so forth. And, you know, it's beautiful because it's ivy covered, but it's also very much a landmark in the sense that they're not going to play too much with like, you know, the men's bathrooms are still disgusting and it's still got this kind of gritty quality to it. But right now in Wrigleyville, the area surrounding it, it is built up. It's beautiful. It's not as kind of seedy as it used to be when I was a kid where like maybe my uncles would stop for a beer with you and then they'd get you out of there before sundown. But it's really kind of more, a lot more tourist friendly. And even like, attached to the park. You can just sit the beer guard outside the game and not actually necessarily be in the park. But they're not really playing with the park so much the actual infrastructure of the actual Wrigley Field. Whereas again, you know, like Kaminsky's long gone. It's now... Guaranteed Raid, I think it's called. It was U.S. Cellular, or as critics called it, U.S. Cellular Soul. But it's a completely different park, and it's beautiful, and it's nice, and you can get a veggie dog and all these other great things. But at the same time, they're going to play with that anytime because there's not the same tradition. Wrigley's never itself, I think, going to change that deeply. And there is a kind of interesting... We honor the history, but we're also progressing around it. I think that's very Chicago. We'll preserve our best landmarks, but we're also constantly remaking the look of this town a little bit too. Think of

SPEAKER_01 27:31

all the people who've come from Chicago, the writers and the artists and The business people, too, the people, you know, they're kind of included in that the men who built America kind of history. Right. I mean, you think of people like the Marshall Fields and McCormick and all these, you know, you start looking and you go, wow, that started in Chicago. You know, I'm always amazed. There's more things. I'm like, I guess I would have thought that had been New York, but it's

SPEAKER_04 28:02

Chicago, you know. Yeah, that is one of the things that is a little unfortunate is we tend to launch people and lose people in past and present. So, you know, you are naming some of the people who have Chicago roots who might've gone to East or West as a result of that. And like all the architects who came here, especially even like during the war where like Mies van der Rohe and people would come to Chicago and bring the Bauhaus style. But then a lot of those, a lot of the idea of architecture and skyscrapers, you know, you think of New York, you think of that Manhattan, but Chicago is sort of where it started. So it's just like, we start these things and we'll have a lot of actors, a lot of musicians, who cut their teeth in Second City or places like that and then you know like Second City for years was famously where people would go before they'd get on SNL as a writer or something like Tina Fey people like that who just all started here Chris Farley Bob Odenkirk like all these people that like you've heard of now or in the past kind of started with these here it's sort of I guess there's something about that that might be a little unfortunate where we can think of ourselves as like the farm team before you go play for the big leagues. But I mean, you know, it's a great place to, as a result of that, I think it's a great place to like try some things out here and then move them to the other places, the other venues. So I always kind of liked that about us.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Well, Vince, our time already went by, but it's so fun to talk to you. I'm going to have you on again, if that's okay. And one of the last things I want to say is thank One of my all-time favorite movies is Frank Sinatra and the whole Rat Pack. It was called Robin and the Seven Hoods. Did you ever see it? Yeah, yeah, it's a good one. And that's where Sinatra sings My Kind of Town, Chicago is. That's a classic. Always fun. Well, thank you so much, and we're going to hear from you again. No, thank you for having me on. I'm so grateful to have shared a piece of my story with you and I'm thrilled to have had Vince Franconi's insights on the culture of Chicago. He's a wonderful author and I hope you'll look up his website. As I look back on my love for the Cubs and the city of Chicago, I'm reminded that it's never too late to pursue our passions. At 65, I'm still chasing my dreams and the Cubs' unstoppable spirit continues to inspire me. Thanks for tuning in and I hope I hope you're looking forward to unstoppable stories of great women

SPEAKER_03 30:27

athletes. Billy's swing sang in the breeze. Fergie's fire brought teams to their knees. The bleachers roared like a timeless sea. Ron Santo,

SPEAKER_02 31:04

Ernie Banks,

SPEAKER_03 31:05

and me.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

Thanks for tuning in to Unstoppable. That's a wrap for this episode. Until next time, stay unstoppable. The

SPEAKER_03 31:46

years rolled on, the winds were few, but hope shone bright like the morning dew. The double plays and the sevens call, Wrigley's magic would outshine all. We weren't champions, but we stood tall in every pitch. We gave it our all. The city's pulse, the fans decree. Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, and me. Oh, light blues of A diamond glow under Chicago skies where the memories flow. A team, a dream, a legacy. Ron Santo, Ernie Banks and me.