In other news, the filmmakers behind This Old Cub have been working hard lately on their next feature film project called Jake’s Corner written by Jeff Santo. #10’s son, who also directed This Old Cub, came up with this story when he went to meet Wild Bill Holden, the man who walked 2000 miles from Prescott, Arizona to Wrigley Field in the name of our film, This Old Cub. Together with Bill, Jeff and the staff at This Old Cub we raised $250,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) - a charity for which Ron Santo has raised over $60 Million in the last 35 years. One of the first stops on Wild Bill’s journey was Jake’s Corner, a high desert town in Arizona (70 miles north of Phoenix). The good people at Jake’s Corner fed Bill that day and put him up in a trailer over night. Jeff was immediately taken with the charm of this unique place and decided to write a fictional story about the town and the people who reside there. Jake's Corner is an independent feature film about a former NFL football player, Johnny Dunn, who takes on the responsibility of caring for his young nephew immediately following the tragic death of the boy’s parents. Johnny owns this small town in the middle of the Arizona desert made up of an eclectic ensemble of hard working warmhearted people. With elements of humor, Jake's Corner is a family drama which deals with loss, healing and hope. For more information about Jake's Corner please visit www.jakescornerthemovie.com

A letter to Jeff Santo...

Jeff, I finally ordered This Old Cub, and watched it last night.  What a great story and tribute to a man who was loved by everyone in Chicago. I grew up in Chicago in the 50's and 60's and of course, I lived and died with the Cubs. My mom would write me a note excusing me from school every Thursday (Ladies Day) when the Cubs were in town.
She would wait patiently at the bus stop on Clark and Addison while I stood by the clubhouse door until every player had left. I have a big box of scorecards signed by your dad and dozens of other Cub players.

My personal story with your dad is a funny one. My sister worked for Dr. Suker at Wesley Memorial, and your dad was recuperating in her ward after being hit by the pitch from Jack Fisher. She called me after your dad's surgery, and said that I could come down and see him. Of course, I scraped up some change grabbed a bus and took the "L" to the hospital. My sister pointed to your dad's room and I went inside, where Johnny Morris was already visiting with him. Of course, I was excited, but I wasn't prepared for how your dad looked after the surgery. His face was so black and blue I could hardly recognize him.  On the verge of tears, I proceeded to sit down in a chair by the door.

Your dad couldn't talk very well at the time and he kept motioning for me to come to the bed. Johnny Morris was doing his best not to laugh. Feeling slightly foolish, I finally went over and your dad shook my hand, signed an autograph, and I wished him a speedy recovery. Johnny Morris also signed my sheet, and I left. Of course I still have
the autographs, and I'll never forget that day.

Thanks again for producing This Old Cub

Good luck with your future film ventures.

Mark Cohen

A Fisherman in a Sea of Blue

I felt like we were in a Martin Scorsese film being lead through a labyrinth of secret passageways in the Hilton Hotel in Chicago. It was the 23rd annual Cubs Convention where 15,000 die-hards dressed in blue raid the Hilton on Michigan Avenue as if they were all searching for the Holy Grail. My dad's prosthetic legs were hurting him, his legs need a tune-up every once in awhile and he was due for one. We just left one event and were on the way to the next, that's how it works at the convention, players and broadcasters are assigned to different rooms, it may be an autograph session or a Q&A, or a game of Jeopardy… it really doesn't matter, Cub fans would show up to watch their favorite player fish. We were on our way to the Grand Ball Room for a Q&A with a panel of the "Greatest Cub All-Stars"… and we were late, it started ten minutes ago and the room was packed with over 1400 Cub fans. Before we entered the room my dad said he had to go to the bathroom, the problem was the closest bathroom was a flight of stairs down to Kitty O'Sheas, a bar in the hotel.

This is where I come into play, when I travel with my dad I wear a lot of hats… driver, bell hop, nurse, go-get boy, butler and bodyguard (without gun or night stick), to name a few. I tried to clear a path through a sea of blue yelling out repeatedly, "Excuse me, no autographs at this time… excuse me, no autographs at this time." It didn't work; you see my dad has a hard time turning anyone down for an autograph, which made my job as bodyguard very difficult. I felt more stress in trying to get him to the bathroom at the Cubs Convention than I did at any moment in making "This Old Cub." Before you knew it, we had over 200 Cub fans surrounding us and we were all slowly moving toward the bathroom, in sync, like everyone knew where we were going. When we finally arrived, fans were already inside the bathroom positioning themselves for an autograph. This is my father, Ron Santo, a fisherman in a sea of blue.

Twenty minutes later we made it back to the Grand Ballroom where 1400 Cub fans gave my dad a standing ovation as he entered the room. The All-Stars on the panel stood and hugged my dad, one at a time, as he made his way on the stage… Ernie Banks, Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Billy Williams, Rick Sutcliff, and Lee Smith. I stood back in the crowd and just watched, marveling, at the respect each of those great players has for my father… and then I observed the people in blue that filled the room, bright smiles on their faces as if they all just saw a dear relative entering their home for the first time in years. If they could, each and every one of them would give him a hug, I could see the tears welling up in some of their eyes. It's an admiration that runs far deeper than my dad being a nine-time All-Star third baseman; this is a welcoming that only few every really receive… one that is awe-inspiring.

I remember when he got a little blister on the bottom of his right foot in the summer of 2001. At first we thought it was nothing, but it just wouldn't heal. You see, diabetes attacks the body from the inside out; it affects the vascular system where the arteries begin to dissipate from years of high and low blood sugars. For a person like my dad, a Type One Diabetic for more than 45 years at the time, this is the natural course the body takes. My dad found out that all his arteries from the knee down were basically dissolved and he had little or no blood flow to his right foot. I don't think my father was ready to accept losing a leg at that time, being a professional athlete it can't be easy, I don't care how old you are or how far past your prime you may be… you're an athlete. So he wound up doing everything he could to save it and almost died in the process. Nine surgeries later, his foot turned gangue green and his right leg below the knee had to be removed immediately. While he was recuperating from the amputation he formed a bruise on the heal of his left foot… a bruise that he would carry for the entire 2002 season… a season where he missed only six games broadcasting while adjusting to life with a prosthetic leg. Almost a year to the date his first leg was taken from him, he was back in the hospital with a deep infection on the heel of his left foot. The doctors said there was a 65% chance they could save the foot but it would require my dad to be on his back for three months, which means, he would miss Spring Training in 2003 and a portion of the regular season. My father was faced with a difficult decision when he asked, "What if you took my other leg, could I be walking on both prosthetic legs by Spring Training." The answer was "yes". His decision was a quick one, "take the leg".

He was walking with a cane by Spring Training and broadcasting the first Cactus League game with his partner in the booth, Pat Hughes. His battles weren't over though; at the end of the 2003 season my father was diagnosed with bladder cancer… just as the Cubs were about to win the division. He was unable to broadcast the playoff games and had to fly back to Arizona for a six-hour operation to remove his bladder. But the operation was delayed for a week and John McDonough (VP Broadcasting for Cubs) told us before Game Six of the National League Championship Series against the Marlins, that they were going to fly my dad back into Chicago to throw out the first pitch of the World Series. At a Q&A for "This Old Cub" the following year at The Castle Theater in Bloomington, IL a fan mentioned to me that if my dad was in the broadcast booth for the now infamous Game Six, Bartman would have never gone for the ball. I laughed, the fan had a point, if you remember, Steve Bartman was donning a headset listening to the game on the radio as he sat in that ill-fated seat… and if my dad was broadcasting that day I'm sure he would have been screaming from the top of his lungs and the depths of his gut for everyone to "STAY AWAY FROM THE BALL!" Perhaps Bartman would have heard him and the poor guy wouldn't be in the witness protection program.

This year we flew in a day before the Cubs Convention started so my dad could attend an awards banquet for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). He presented all the families their awards for raising money for his annual "Ron Santo Walk-a-thon" to find a cure for diabetes. In the last thirty some years my dad has raised over $60 million for the foundation. He spoke with the families and their children who have been afflicted with Type One Diabetes and signed autographs for everyone in the room. When he was diagnosed in 1958, my dad was eighteen years old and given a life expectancy of twenty five years. Back then they didn't have glucometers where you could check your sugars at any time. He always tells diabetics, "What has happened to me happened later in my life. When I was young, I didn't have the technology that's available today, so don't be afraid that I'm standing here with two prosthetic legs; the fact is I'm still standing and living my life to the fullest. I never let diabetes stop me from doing what I wanted to do." My father didn't tell the Cubs Organization he was a diabetic until he made his first All-Star team because he wanted to prove that he could make it in the major leagues. He didn't want people to blame the disease if he made the occasional error or struck out. He wanted to be judged for his ability just like everyone else.

Over the last three years I would periodically travel with the Cubs to help my dad on the road, it started when I was making the documentary, "This Old Cub." Jimmy Bank, the traveling secretary would get me a connecting room next to my father's. I remember in San Diego one night, I was sitting on my balcony after we got back from a night game at Petco Park and my dad's drapes were open in his room… and I could see him getting ready for bed… taking off one leg and placing it against the bed, then the next as if it were routine, like he did this his whole life. In the film, "This Old Cub" there's a shot I got of him getting ready in the morning to go broadcast a game. Instead of putting on his stir-ups, the way he did as a player before every game for fifteen years during the 1960s and 70s, he was putting on his legs. When my dad saw the film for the first time he said, "How did you get in my room?" He forgot that I was there which made the film all the more real. But when I was getting the shot I was focused as a filmmaker on getting the best shot possible so it was hard to take in what I was actually witnessing. So when I sat on that balcony in San Diego, I wasn't filming anything, I was watching my father as a son… taking it all in, feeling sad, but feeling more proud than sad, this was my dad, what a courageous man. Then he yelled for me, "Jeff!" I quickly moved away from the window, headed back inside, cleaned my eyes, and entered his room. He said, "I forgot to turn off the light can you turn it off for me?" I turned off the light for him and asked if he needed anything else". He said, "No." So I said like I always do when I'm traveling with him, "You got a candy bar in case your sugars go low?" Irritated by my coddling, he said… "All I wanted was for the light to be turned off… and now it's off, so you can go back to your room. Good night!"

As a kid I remember my dad taking shots of insulin every morning. That's what he did, took a shot of insulin and then went out and played baseball against guys named Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Johnny Bench and Bob Gibson, to name a few. I never thought much about it… and watching the games weren't a big deal either. When most kids would go to work with their fathers they'd visit an office building… my brother Ronnie and I got Wrigley Field. We didn't need press credentials; we were Ron Santo's boys. Nothing was off limits for us, not even the dugout, until the game started and then Leo Durocher would tell us to… "Scram!" That's when we took our misbehavior into the stands and made life miserable for the Andy Fran Ushers, the poor guys who wore those pseudo airline pilot outfits and got zero respect from nearly almost everyone.

Every year when Spring Training came around, we got to miss a month of school and go hang out in Scottsdale, Arizona. One year, my brother and I were shagging fly balls and Ron Jr. was hogging every ball that came our way. So I decided to move away from my selfish older brother and position myself just off the dirt at short, on the outfield grass. Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks was taking batting practice and hit an absolute torpedo my way. Now most adults would hit the ground for cover, and rightly so, but this seven year-old tried to emulate his dad and dove for the ball. I caught it smack in the palm of the glove and then screamed for help. The line drive broke two bones in my hand and we weren't allowed to shag fly balls anymore… I ruined it for all the player's kids.

What I took for granted as a kid… my dad playing for the Cubs, living with diabetes… I now have such an appreciation for what he has accomplished. Maybe it took me making "This Old Cub" or just the fact of how much time I've spent with my dad over the last four years, witnessing up close and personal, all the adversity he's had to overcome. And when you think about players taking shots of steroids to enhance their game, my father was taking shots of insulin to live. He played eighty-one day games a year at Wrigley… sometimes two a day. He missed twenty-three games over a ten-year period… about two games a year and it was never because of his diabetes. A broken cheek bone and wrist were the reasons.

This is the third straight Cubs Convention I've attended with my dad and each year the sea of blue grows even larger. I wonder how and why? The Chicago Cubs haven't won a World Series going on ninety-eight long years now. Most of the fans who attend the Cubs Convention are on their annual family vacation. When I think of a vacation, I think of blue seas in the Caribbean… not a sea of blue in the halls of a Chicago hotel in the dead of winter. That said, what I've learned over the years, being a son of Ron Santo, is that every year is a new one and with that… the search for the Holy Grail. This quest begins in January at the Hilton on Michigan Avenue… then moves west to Mesa, Arizona at Ho Ho Kam Park in March… then onto Wrigley in April. But for some reason, every year, for almost a century now the search has been put on hold from October through December. I guess Cub fans have to rest some time. But for my dad those three months is a restless rest. He's a Cub who hates to hibernate. So this 2006, as with every New Year, my dad is optimistic about his beloved Cubs and their chances to win it all. He is the fisherman leading the way, and like the millions in the sea of blue, I hope this is the year we finally discover the Holy Grail.

- Jeff Santo, Filmmaker

While playing 15 seasons, he secretly endured insulin-dependent type 1 juvenile diabetes that eventually led to the amputation of both legs. Even if you factor that out, Chicago Cubs All-Star third baseman Ron Santo has some of the best stats from his era of players who are not in Cooperstown (342 home runs, 1,331 runs batted in).

This killer documentary by son Jeff chronicles the senior Santo, then and now, which includes 1969's heartbreaking run for the National League pennant (when it was the Tom Seaver Mets' year) and Santo's popular tenure as a Cubs announcer. I put this on at midnight, when I had to get up early the next day, and watched it all the way through.

Hitting Chicago-bred movie stars where they live: Joe Mantegna narrates, Bill Murray recalls, and William L. Petersen is beyond splendid reliving 1969.