Randy Richardson

Five Minutes With Randy Richardson

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MY BRUSH WITH THE CUBS: It was during the 1974 baseball season, when I was 12. My mom's boyfriend was friends with umpire Tom Gorman and he used his clout to get me into the Cubs dugout before a game. I have faded pictures to prove it. There's me, braces glistening in the sunlight and long, stringy hair spilling out of a well-worn Cubs hat, on the dugout steps and next to me is manager Jim Marshall. In another faded picture it is third baseman Bill Madlock with his arm resting on my shoulder. And in another it is utility infielder Billy Grabarkewitz. I also got a baseball signed by all of them as well as by many other Cubs, including Oscar Zamora, Steve Stone, Carmen Fanzone, Andy Thornton, Rick Monday and Billy Williams. That was an abysmal year for the Cubs; they went 66-96 and finished dead last in the N.L. East. But that day in the dugout was – and still is – my favorite Cubs memory.

WHO WERE YOU?: Between 1970-1976, I was, in my backyard, any player who wore a Cubs uniform. Unlike the Cubs players that played at Wrigley Field, the ones that played in my backyard always won. I'd twitch my fingers like Ernie at the plate. Or take a practice swing at my spit like Billy. The one that I most liked being was Jose Cardenal. He had a style all his own, both at the plate and on the field, and I always fooled the other team with that swinging bunt.

WORKING ON: The same thing I've been working on for the last three years, which is my second novel and a departure from my first, Lost in the Ivy, a murder mystery set around Wrigley Field. The work-in-progress is a tragicomic coming-of-age road story set in Wisconsin about two teen boys who are trying to come to grips with the suicide of a friend.

DAY JOBS: I'm an attorney with the Social Security Administration's disability appeals branch. I also serve as president of the Chicago Writers Association, a nonprofit group that assists writers in achieving their goals while also promoting Chicago as a place of literary distinction.

LITERARY FIGURE I’D HIRE TO MANAGE THE CUBS: If he were still alive, it would be Mike Royko. He'd jokingly written about buying the Cubs but I would have liked to have seen him managing them. I see him as a cross between Leo Durocher and Billy Martin. He would have kicked up some dirt out there.

THE CUB I’D MOST WANT TO LIVE INDEFINITELY IN MY BASEMENT: Andre Dawson. He'd be polite and quiet. You probably wouldn't even know he was down there.

MOST CHERISHED CUBS MEMORIES: Well, there was the one I wrote of above, about being in the Cubs dugout. There was also the memory from Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS. I was at the game with three friends and we had someone snap a picture of us after the seventh inning when it looked like the Cubs were going to go to the World Series for the first time since 1945. I'm not sure if I've ever looked more happy in any picture. Of course that cherished memory turned into my most painful Cubs memory just a few minutes later.

BEST PIECE OF CUBS MEMORABILIA: It's still that baseball signed by many of the 1974 Cubs players.

THE CUBS WILL WIN IT ALL IN 2009 BECAUSE: The pressure of 100 years will be off of them. We have to believe in next year, don't we? That's what makes us Cubs fans.

THE CUBS WON’T WIN IT ALL IN 2009 BECAUSE: The pressure of 101 years will be on them and inevitably Derrek Lee will eat out at a tapas restaurant the night before the deciding Game 7 and get sick on goat cheese and then on the way to the ballpark Carlos Zambrano will trip over a black cat.

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