Just when was the Cubs Hall of Famer signing these autographs?
Hey, it’s Ernie Banks autograph-signing weekend here at the sleuthing desk, so after yesterday’s photo of Ernie signing at Wrigley Field, here’s another one featuring the Cubs Hall of Famer.
That’s definitely Ernie Banks, and he’s definitely signing for fans. But when and where? (Where, because this is clearly not Wrigley Field and Ernie’s not wearing Cubs home pinstripes.)
To see how I sleuthed this (with some help from Mike Bojanowski), here’s the full photo:
All right, now we’ve got a better idea of when this happened. First of all, it’s definitely an away game. It’s an older face on Ernie, and the Cubs began wearing this style of road uniform, in Banks’ later years, in 1969.
Given that 1969 was Ernie’s last full season of 150 or more games, that’s a good place to begin. And in fact, we have proof that it’s 1969 — the scorecard.
It’s a Cardinals scorecard from 1969, so Ernie was signing in St. Louis. Here’s how we know that. It’s largely the top of the two scorecards visible that we’re concerned with, because 1) it’s got a roster list and some pitcher lists. It also has a page layout and car ad that was ONLY in the 1969 Cardinals scorecard. Here’s what we see in the photo, blown up, yes, a bit pixellated but you can see what’s there:
Here’s an image from a 1969 Cardinals scorecard from this eBay listing (it says the game was “at” Atlanta, but as you can see here, that game was definitely in St. Louis):
That layout on the Cardinals scorecard was used ONLY in 1969. There’s one Cardinals scorecards from a game vs. the Cubs that year that I’ll show you below, and that helps narrow this photo’s date down.
The Cubs played in St. Louis three times in 1969. This cannot be from the two-game set in April. Temperatures were only in the 50s for those two games and the people pictured are not dressed for weather like that.
This also cannot be from the four-game series played July 4-5-6 (doubleheader on the 6th). Why? Here is an image of the bottom of a scorecard from that series, from this eBay listing:
Now we are getting somewhere. Note that there are 12 pitchers listed for the Cubs in that image. In the sleuthing photo, the Cubs pitcher list (the first one that’s not covered by the girl’s hand) is much longer, and the lengths of the names, even though blurred, don’t match.
Thus this photo has to be from the last Cubs series in St. Louis in 1969, played Sept. 12-14. This cannot be from the 14th, that was a sunny 85-degree afternoon game and this isn’t that.
The other two games of the series were night games. On Friday, Sept. 12, it was 85 degrees and sunny in St. Louis, per the Tribune archive. Even for a night game, if Banks was around signing autographs it likely would have been right around the end of batting practice, and even in September you’d have seen some shadows somewhere at the end of a sunny day. We don’t see any shadows here.
Thus this photo was very likely taken Saturday, September 13, 1969, sometime before that 7 p.m. game began. The weather in St. Louis that day was reported in the Tribune as “cloudy,” which matches what we see. I will say I’m not 100 percent certain of this and it could be the Sept. 12 game, but it’s definitely from one of those two.
The Cubs blew a 4-3 eighth-inning lead and lost the Sept. 13 game 7-4. As was typical for Leo Durocher in those days, he worked Fergie Jenkins far too hard. Jenkins had thrown seven innings against the Mets just four days earlier, and at the end of a long season he’d probably just run out of gas. Jenkins left with runners on second and third and one out. Reliever Ken Johnson then intentionally walked Lou Brock to load the bases and got a force play at the plate for the second out. But then Johnson walked Vada Pinson to force in the tying run, and was relieved by Phil Regan, another overworked Cubs pitcher, who allowed singles to Joe Torre and Tim McCarver, and that was that, as the Cubs went down in order in the ninth.
It was a rough month. The Cardinals fans in the photo, though, had a nice night — they got a Hall of Famer’s autograph AND saw their team win the game.