'That mean a lot to the neighborhood': South Side Cubs fans remember a special player who called Chatham home
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It's a cliché: Cubs fans live on the North Side and White Sox fans are South Siders.
But that's not always true, especially in Chicago's African American community. In a lot of cases, geography has little to do with who you cheer for.
Back in 2015, when the Cubs were in the playoffs, CBS 2's Jim Williams went to the South Side in search of these Cubby fans and found some, along with the history of how they became such die-hard Cubs fans.
In Chicago's Chatham neighborhood, where pride in the community is reflected in these well-maintained homes, they take pride in the city's greatest baseball star and a former neighbor.
"People adored Ernie Banks. He's the legend in the city of Chicago, and lived here on the South Side in Chatham," said Linnie Bedenfeld of Mathers More than a Café.
For decades, Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub, worked at Addison and Clark, but lived right here in this home.
At a time of even greater racial segregation in Chicago, Black athletes, even stars like Ernie Banks, did not live downtown or on the North Side and certainly not the suburbs. They lived in neighborhoods like this one, on the South Side.
Back then fellow Cubs Hall of Famers Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins also called the South Side home, They were just guys down the street, remembers Ed Banks, no relation to Ernie.
"That meant a lot to the neighborhood and to the young people. To know that stars like that, those athletes that lived in the neighborhood," Banks said. "That was kind of just like them, and gave them incentive to play the sport."
And love the North Side Cubs, a love passed down to generations of South Siders.
"South Sider, Cub fan. Yes sir."
For Joseph Miller, it started with his grandmother.
"She loved Ernie Banks."
Wednesday night, this South Sider will cheer the Cubs, thinking of Mr. Cub and own his grandmother.
"She's passed away now, but trust me, she's up there rooting for them today," laughed Miller.
Before Ernie Banks' arrival here in 1953, African Americans did not travel in large numbers to Wrigley Field, except to see Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Ernie made a lot people Cubs fans everywhere, but we have to acknowledge there are many Black White Sox fans on the South Side, too.
