3/10 Salute to Santo

Cubs players will wear No. 10 caps on Thursday in honor of Ron Santo Day at HoHoKam Park. There’s a No. 10 painted on the field behind home plate and a plaque will be unveiled under the broadcast booth. Fans will get a No. 10 sticker and a baseball card with a black and white photo of Santo at Rendezvous Park in Mesa in Spring Training 1965.

“I didn’t know him near as well as Billy [Williams] and Lou [Piniella] and all the veterans and people around Chicago for years and years,” manager Mike Quade said. “When you interview with somebody, it becomes more of an intimate thing and for those six weeks, I did get to know him.”

Santo never hid his love for the Cubs.

“It was sincere,” Quade said of Santo’s passion. “It wasn’t manufactured for the booth or anything else. I never needed to hear the score when I was in Iowa. All those years, I would turn on the radio after my game and listen to three words out of Ronnie’s mouth — or three groans. [If it was groans], I wasn’t sure how bad we were losing but I knew it wasn’t good. If he and Pat [Hughes] were having fun, then I knew we were in good shape.”

– Carrie Muskat