Jan. 27--Ernie Banks was a great athlete. He was an even better sport.
Whatever money Banks made on the field or off it, as a player and after, he should have made more. Lots more.
Banks, who died Friday at 83, built a tremendous brand as Mr. Cub, the forever optimistic, always effusive and energetic apostle for the Cubs, baseball, Wrigley Field, sunshine and sunny dispositions.
But Mr. Cub left cash on the table -- some by choice, some by circumstance and some because it may not have occurred to him or anyone else how to monetize what he did at the time.
The Cubs, baseball and so many of us who came in contact with him owe him a debt, some more literally than others.
That's worth considering as the Cubs' latest owner, the Ricketts family, slaps advertising and sponsors' names on so much in and around the ballpark whose standing as the Friendly Confines Banks did so much to popularize.
No one made baseball -- win or lose, often lose -- more appealing.
Whatever Mr. Cub did to sell himself, the franchise always came out better for it.
And Banks, even when he wore caps with his signature gaudily embroidered on the front panel, could have sold Mr. Cub so much harder than he did.
Go to Google. Type in: Derek Jeter retirement. Click on the Shopping link. Watch commemorative items with special logos fill the screen. You can buy anything from a signed bat for more than $2,000 to a picture or sticker for a few bucks.
Then there were the Jeter farewell ads from Gatorade and Nike. No stone was left unturned when it came to squeezing cash out of the moment.
Banks left the quarry untouched by comparison. Think of all the "Let's Play Two" products that don't exist.
When news of Banks' death broke, did you notice on social media how many of your friends had a picture alongside Banks to post? Did you see how many recalled meeting Banks and how patient, warm and engaging he was? He made people feel like they were doing him a favor talking to him.
No matter how much the Cubs may have paid Banks over the years as a player and ambassador, think of the return on investment. There was a time when Banks hoped to be part of a deal to buy the Cubs, but think how much equity he already deserved.
Banks came up in the majors when ballplayers were not supposed to consider baseball a full-time, year-round job, and he hustled as hard in fall and winter as in spring and summer.
Some of what Banks did cashed in on his celebrity status, lending his name to a Chicago Tribune column and doing the sports in WGN-Ch. 9 newscasts. There were ads for Camel cigarettes, Sunbeam electric razors and Carnation evaporated milk.
Banks once told me about working for the Teamsters, helping to recruit new members.
But he also cited an epiphany he had back in the days before money from luxury boxes and media poured into sport.
Banks said Gene Baker, who integrated the Cubs with him in 1953 and was his roommate, got an offseason job with a beer distributor.
"Gene didn't drink beer, but he would go in the clubs and make sure they had it," Banks said.
This didn't sit well with the Cubs, and Baker was told to quit.
"Gene was an outspoken guy," Banks said. "He said: 'When I'm playing, you'll have some control over me. When I'm not playing, I have to make a living on my own, so I'm going to keep my job.' The next year, they traded him to Pittsburgh."
The trade, 12 games into the 1957 season, made Baker the 15th player discarded from the 24-man roster with which the Cubs closed out the 1956 season, a 60-94 fiasco. But Banks, the best thing the Cubs had going for them, saw it as a message addressed to him.
"They traded him because they didn't want him to sell beer, and they thought he might influence me," he said.
Banks was influenced all right. Even in 1969 news accounts of his appointment to the Chicago Transit Authority board by Gov. Richard Ogilvie, Banks made a point to note he sought out Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley's permission to accept.
Never mind that Ogilvie, under pressure to finally put an African-American on the board, already had asked and received Wrigley's blessing for the political maneuver.
It was expected Banks would miss a lot of CTA meetings during the baseball season, at least until he retired as a player, yet the position paid him $15,000 per year, which translates to almost $100,000 today. Sources peg his base pay from the Cubs that season at $60,000, or less than $400,000 in 2014 dollars.
Banks was a bargain all the way around.
At least some ballplayers whose careers pre-date the financial boom that began in the mid-1970s have been able to cash in through an interest in memorabilia sales.
Retired stars are paid to come in and sign autographs for fans at events. Attendees queue up, and athletes sign as fast as politely possible, giving it an almost assembly-line feel.
Former ballplayer Dale Murphy, on Twitter, recalled working at a card show with Banks.
"He drove the promoter crazy!" Murphy tweeted. "Spent time/talked with every person. After an hour had signed maybe 15."
Would Banks have been as beloved as he was had he been more money-conscious? Baseball fans mourned Joe DiMaggio, though in later years there was little he did for them that didn't come with an invoice.
But DiMaggio didn't have to navigate the racial politics of the 1950s, '60s and '70s.
Banks felt it important to point out the training he had with Ford when discussing his Ford dealership, and his finance classes when talking about his work for Chicago-area banks.
He wanted people always to know he was grateful for the opportunities he had, but they were opportunities he had earned. That's worth remembering if you visit Banks' statue in Daley Plaza on Wednesday before funeral services this weekend.
The last time I saw Banks, we were seated across from one another at a barber shop, unlikely as that might seem for a couple of bald guys. I was there out of habit, and maybe self-denial.
I like to think he was there out of pure optimism, but I didn't ask. I just smiled, and he winked.
It made me feel that much better about spending my money.
philrosenthal@tribpub.com
Twitter @phil_rosenthal
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