Andy Pafko

             

I used to freelance features to the Chicago Tribune when Clare was small.  This made for some interesting situations along the lines of, Shh, Honey, keep it down.  Daddy’s on the phone with Arthur Schlesinger.  And Captain Kangaroo (really).

There were also a couple of times I interviewed former Cub outfielder Andy Pafko.  Talk about your dream source.  Pafko was generous with his time, humble in talking about his career (17 years, 1796 hits, .285 average and four World Series) and concerned about the health of sportswriter Jerome Holtzman.  Ballplayers weren’t necessarily better before the era of free agency, they were just more human.

Pafko died last week at the age of 92.  The Trib managed an obituary of 738 words.  A few days earlier, it ran a1898-word profile of a fan whose chief talent is the ability to  inject “woo” (at the top of his lungs) into the lives of others, as in Ron “Woo” Santo “Woo.”

There but for the love of God go I, so give the man his 1898 words, but why did Andy Pafko merit so much less?  And why does the New York Times do a better job on the life of a Chicago athlete?  Yes, Pafko was playing left field for the Brooklyn Dodgers when Bobby Thomson hit “the shot heard ‘round the world.”  But he also played on the last Cubs’ team to reach the World Series (1945) and was named to the team’s all-century team.

            It’s just woo not woo right woo.