Feb. 02--As a Chicago sports fan, William Petersen had some pretty good moments in January.
Two weeks ago, he was asked to narrate a documentary about Harry Caray -- no trivial request for a lifelong Cubs fan.
And when Petersen talked to the Tribune last week, he had just watched the Bulls dismantle the Lakers in Los Angeles.
So was the former "CSI" actor rooting for his hometown Bulls or his adoptive city's Lakers?
"Oh, no, no. No Lakers. Hate Lakers. Bulls," he said. "You can take the dog out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the dog -- or whatever that thing is."
Sounds like a Caray-ism, right? Petersen, an Evanston native, spent his formative years as a baseball fan listening to Caray long before Caray became the voice of the Cubs.
Petersen has narrated Cubs-related films before -- "5 Outs ..." about the 2003 NLCS collapse, "Beyond the Ivy" about Wrigley Field -- but he holds the latest project in special reverence.
"I'm just pleased that we can on some level honor him," said Petersen, who shared his thoughts about being a Cubs fan and working on "Holy Cow! The Story of Harry Caray" (8 p.m. Tuesday, MLB Network).
When and how did you get involved with this documentary?
One of the producers is Bob Costas' producer, and I met him years ago. ... They just called and said they were doing this thing and would I lend my voice to this. Yeah, of course. For Harry? Sure. We all miss Harry. I just said, "Where want do you want me to be, when do you want me to be there and can I see the script ahead of time?" And that was that.
Being a Cubs fan, were there any challenges to doing the documentary?
No, it was like ... Harry's part of the family, like you're talking about your brother or your father or something. And it's nostalgic to go back because you remember he left so many great memories of being at Wrigley or dealing with one season or another. But the thing that ties them all together as the players come and go is Harry.
In fact, we used to listen to Harry. I am not a (White) Sox fan, right, but we used to turn on the Sox games just because Harry and (Jimmy) Piersall were over there. That was hysterical. ... You never knew what they were going to say. ... It was always funny or offensive. Then (Jerry) Reinsdorf came in and took over the White Sox, and that was end of Harry. And the Cubs gobbled him up. Then he was a fixture at Wrigley Field forever.
Did you ever meet him?
Yeah, just briefly (in the late '80s). I had made a couple of movies, so I had some access there. And I had gotten to meet Ron Santo, who was my childhood hero, of course. But I didn't bother (Harry). ... He knew a lot of guys well, a lot of celebrities, a lot of guys from Chicago who would sit in the booth with him and all that. But I just kind of stayed at a distance.
I saw him once at his restaurant. He was always in there. Didn't matter what time of night, Harry would be in the corner with 15 people trying to talk to him. He was totally accessible to anybody.
What was it like singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"?
I started doing it in 2002, I think, (or) 2003. I used to do it every summer or every other summer. It was a riot. It was always great, just to uphold the tradition of it, which he established. ... And it's great when they just put Harry up on the board and have him sing it, you know, from the old tapes. The place goes nuts. He's beloved through generations. So standing up in his booth, you feel a little weird in a way, but you're doing it for him. You're doing it to honor a legend.
Did you go to any Cubs games last year?
I didn't go (to Wrigley) last year. I was shooting all summer. And I just wasn't in Chicago. ... I did see a game at Dodger Stadium. We lost. (Clayton) Kershaw pitched. But it was a fun summer watching them.
I will be there next summer. I think July we'll be there. ... I want to stay there for a while, be there for a month or more.
What about the day you skipped school to go to Wrigley?
I got a ball that (Cubs shortstop) Don Kessinger hit. It was opening day 1967. ... Me and my friend said we've got to skip school and go to the game. So we called in and pretended to be our dads and said (in a stern voice), "Uh, Billy Petersen will not be at that school today, he's very sick." "OK, thanks." (Laughs) We just got on the L and went down to the game.
We're walking around, bottom of the first, Kessinger comes up to lead off and he hits a foul ball, he's batting lefty, and it's a shot over the third-base dugout. ... My buddy was in front of me but he was looking for seats. ... And the ball came shooting at him, and I put my hand up, and it stopped it from hitting him, then it bounced up and it hit some railing and came right back to me, and I ended up with the ball. But I also ended up on TV, you know, WGN, so I was busted.
I got suspended from school. ... I had to spend from the beginning of April until end of May, every day, mopping the floors of my school (St. Athanasius) in Evanston, until 5 p.m. every day, as punishment. ... Yep. That sucked. All because of the Cubs.
Any other Cubs anecdotes?
Everybody who is a Cubs fan and has lived around the ballpark has a million stories of Wrigley. My first theater was across the street on Clark Street, Clark and Racine. We all lived right there where the theater was. We'd party all night long after we'd do a play and you'd be up until 3 or 4 in the morning. We'd wake up at noon -- this was like 1979 and '80 -- we'd just walk across to the bleachers and go in there in the third inning, sit down, have a beer and a hot dog, watch four or five innings and then go back to the theater. That was back in the day when you could just walk in and out of the park because nobody was going. It was before the lights, it was before (Ryne) Sandberg and (Bruce) Sutter and all those guys.
You mean without tickets?
We'd just walk in, and if you had to buy a ticket, it was like five bucks. Back then it was five bucks to get into the bleachers on a Wednesday afternoon. And I don't even recall ever paying. ... My cousin knew a guy that owned the top apartment on the roof in left field. Before anybody put all those roof things up there, we used to go up there, and we'd have to go through a guy's apartment and go up the back. He would let you in, send you out through the back door of his apartment. And you'd go up the ladder onto the roof and he had like a grill up there and a cooler, and we'd stay up there and watch games never knowing that it was going to turn into what it did, that all those roofs were going to become grandstands. We were like the first guys that were up there. I remember going up there and there would just be four or five of us up there watching games on a Wednesday.
