Levine: No End Of Tributes To 'Mr. Cub'
(CBS) -- They have come from near and far to say goodbye to Mr Cub. Former teammates, owners, politicians and your regular Jill and Joe began filling and filing through the church were Ernie Banks lie in state on Friday.
Everyone 40 or older has an Ernie Banks meet-and-greet story. Nobody apparently ever came away disappointed. Banks loved to avoid talking about himself by asking the people he would meet for the first time questions about themselves. He relived the awkwardness of a first encounter with a disarming aggressive approach.
This happened to me at age 10. Ernie, coming off of his second straight National League MVP, was the guest of honor at the 1960 South Shore Little League banquet. As part of the event, each Little League kid got an autograph from the top player in game that day. As I approached Ernie with ballpoint and yellow scratch paper in hand (I still have that autograph ), he shook the other hand and asked me what position I play.
"First base, Mr. Banks," I said.
"We need good first basemen in the major leagues," he replied.
I was hooked and from that day on and knew I would be a teammate of Ernie's, Alvin Dark and Richie Ashburn sometime in the near future.
"He was always a total optimist," Hall of Fame teammate Fergie Jenkins on Friday. "he wanted to know things like, 'How's your mother or how's your wife ? How are your children?' That was the kind of individual he was. He was always asking a question. I called him AM-FM because he was always on."
"I never saw him angry," Jenkins added. "All the years we roomed together and did fantasy camps, I never saw him get mad. As an opposing player Ernie was a bit like Frank Robinson. You did not want to wake him up. At times a pitcher would make the mistake of knocking him off of the plate. He would tell us next at bat, 'I am going deep'. He would say to himself, 'I don't need to get angry, I will just prove it on the field.'"
Jenkins -- tongue in cheek -- said the only people who may not have liked Ernie were a few of his ex-wives.
"I miss him, and we all are going to miss Ernie," former Cubs second baseman Glenn Beckert said. "We wish the whole team was here. I have been going through these memories ever since he passed away. I remember having him at my parents' house in Pittsburgh and seeing my dad and him drink whiskey together.
"I did see him mad once in Cincinnati after they drilled him a couple of times. He pointed to their dugout and said, 'I can hit any of you guys with what's down there.' He was always on the good side of things."
Former Cub Jose Cardenal, a player when Banks was a coach, remembered meeting Mr. Cub's extended road family.
"We were in Montreal. He brought me over to this woman and introduced her as his sister. I soon found out Ernie had around 200 sisters throughout the league. He was a great friend and taught me how to treat the fans."
Hall of Fame outfielder Andre Dawson also paid his respects.
"We lost a big one. He was one of those individuals you thought would live forever," he said. "Life goes on, but we will always have Ernie on our minds."