The Day Ernie Banks Came to Deerfield

As Chicago and sports fans around the world mourn the loss of the beloved “Mr. Cub,” Ernie Banks, stories of Banks’ fun-loving attitude and caring personality have been remembered by those who adored him near and far.

Banks’ impact on the lives of people he knew was not lost on the North Shore as some folks from Deerfield may remember the time he came to the village to visit a friend, and on a whim, ended up coaching a Little League team that day.

It was 1995 and Banks was visiting his close friend, Yale Gordon, a Deerfield man who had served as the Chicago Cubs great’s business/communications agent for a period of time. While visiting with Yale and his family, Banks found out that Yale’s son, Brett, had to leave for a Little League game he had at Woodland Park that day.

“So Ernie said: ‘Let’s do it, let’s go and play ball.’,” Gordon recalls. “We didn’t tell anyone, but within a few minutes of showing up at Woodland Park, it became evident who he was. He was very gracious - signing autographs for people and asking them about their lives. Showing a true interest for people.”

Gordon, a coach for his son’s team, had to interrupt the autograph session to inform Banks he was there to coach.

“So he trotted over to first base and started coaching the team,” Gordon said. “The kids loved it. He also helped coach my son, who was pitching that day. He stayed the whole game and everyone - the parents, the kids - loved it.”

“None of us could tell you who won the game that day, but everyone in Deerfield who was at that game (or knew someone at that game) will still tell the story of when Ernie Banks coached a little league game in Deerfield,” said Yale’s daughter, Kelly Kaufman.

A few hours after the game, Yale remembers the phone ringing at home. It was Banks on the other line, not wishing to speak to him, but his son, who had a rough game on the mound.

“Having land lines at the time, I of course was listening from another phone,” Yale admitted. “What I heard was remarkable. Ernie told him he tried really hard and that he will have a great future in whatever he wants to do.”

Banks told Brett the story of how the Cubs season ended in 1969, and how after the final game was played and it was evident the Cubs would not be winning the division that Banks “sat down on home plate and cried.”

“I knew we did not have a chance anymore,” Yale remembers Banks telling his son. “But you do, and you will succeed.”

Two decades later, Brett works in sales and marketing for WCIU-TV.
When Brett got off the phone and his dad asked him what Ernie said, the boy gave the typical 10-year-old response.

“Oh, nothing.”

Yale, who became Banks’ business/communications agent in 1982 and created business opportunities and wrote several speeches for the Hall of Famer including the one he delivered at Wrigley Field in 1983 when his number was finally being retired by the club, has several fond memories of his good friend.

From surprising another friend of Yale’s who was ill in the hospital with an encouraging phone call to engaging with fans at trade shows and “having everyone - even CEOs on their feet doing calisthenics and jumping jacks” at such events to his impact on the kids who learned from him that day in Deerfield, it was never about fanfare for the late Cub great that is on the “Mount Rushmore” of every Chicago sports fan’s mountain (even the south siders).

“He touched so many different people in so many positive ways, and did so because he just enjoyed doing it,” Yale said.

But what a lot of people may not know about “Mr. Cub” is that he had a photographic memory, Yale said.

“He never forgot a person,” he laughed. “He would run into someone who’d say ‘Hey, I met you 25 years ago’ - and Ernie would say, ‘Yes, I know, you were wearing plaid pants.’”

Kelly, who moved back to Deerfield, had been assisting Banks with periodic public relations support for the last few years. She describes him as a “one-of-a-kind” person who “loved people more than his fame.”

What inspires her the most about him was his selflessness, remembering a gift Banks gave her brother following that 1995 little league game.

“He gave my brother a baseball,” she said. “But it wasn’t just any baseball, it was a ball from the 1994 World Series - the World Series that never was.”

“Ernie could have kept the ball, but he gave it selflessly to a 10-year-old little boy who still has it to this day.”

The ball came with a note… “Good luck in the playoffs. Don’t get picked off at first.”

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