How much is enough, Ricketts?
One of my dearest childhood memories was in 5th or 6th grade, when my Dad said I could invite a friend to go with us to the Cubs game that he took me to annually. I immediately thought of one of the first friends I made when I transferred to public schools after fourth grade, John Felden, who had been disabled at birth due to spina bifida, which left him without use of his lower body.
John, who later got the moniker Wheels as an adult, got around on crutches through high school. His doctor, he joked to me, didn’t want him to get lazy. Upper body, strongest kid I ever knew.
I may or may not have informed my Dad of John’s disability before we picked him up at his house on the Homewood-Flossmoor line behind the lumberyard off Harwood/Western Avenue. But my Dad being who he was, it wouldn’t have mattered. He didn’t miss a beat as I went to the door to get John, and he helped John get in the car after conferring with his Mom. Off we went to Wrigley.
This was around 71 or 72, I think. Even then, Wrigley was falling apart. An Andy Frain usher, upon talking to my Dad, found us better seats closer to the field instead of in the upper deck, where we usually sat on our annual forays to see the Lovable Losers.
Still, I remember how challenging it was for Turtle (my pet nickname in grade school for John, which he accepted with aplomb when I first called him that because of how long it took us to come back from recess). It seemed to take forever to get from our car to our seats. Or maybe that was just my 12-year-old impatience kicking in.
Meanwhile, John just soaked in everything Wrigley and the Cubs had to offer — Ron Santo, Don Kessinger, Glenn Beckert, Ernie Banks, Randy Hundley, Fergie, Sweet Swinging Billy Williams, the sunshine, the ivy. Like anything else, the tougher life made it, the more determined he was to embrace the challenge. John had a smile on his face that entire day.
John passed away the day after my birthday in 2011, undoubtedly the saddest birthday of my life. He lived in Kalamazoo then, and was active in the Disability Network there, advocating to improve public transportation for the disabled.
As he was being loaded and locked into one of the vans on one of my visits there, I told the driver to take good care of my buddy. The driver laughed. He said everyone in Kalamazoo knew John and what he did for the disabled in that city, and he was always taken care of.
I’ll admit, I’m not a fan of the Ricketts. I reveled in the 2016 World Series champions, but over the past few years have paid more attention to the disgusting Trumpian politics of the family and recoiled in horror at how they have basically co-opted the surrounding neighborhood that used to make Wrigley such a great experience— all just to further line their already gilded deep pockets.
Now Wrigley is just Navy Pier North. But even Navy Pier is ADA-compliant. It’s almost enough to make me a White Sox fan. Almost. But I’m not a Cubs fan anymore.
My abandonment of the team, and more importantly this disgusting treatment of the disabled, would make John sad and angry at the same time.
Do the right thing, Ricketts. Do you have to shortchange the most unfortunate among us just to make even more riches than you already have from monetizing the team and the surrounding neighborhood?
How much is enough?
