By Michael G. Glab
He was born in the shadow of Sicks Stadium, home of the Seattle Rainiers, in a middle-class neighborhood known as Garlich Gulch for all the Italians who lived there. One was Louis Santo, who married a woman from Sweden named Vivian Danielsen. They had two children: a daughter, Adielene, and then Ron.
Not only was Vivian tough, she was serious about the task Louis had left her. “She supported us,” Santo says. “She worked in a drugstore at night and waitressed in the day.”
Only Dave Koscher, a bird dog, sensed early in Santo’s high school career that the kid might have what it takes to play professional baseball. Before the amateur draft, paid scouts covered whole regions of the country, but they depended on the reports of unpaid bird dogs who simply loved to watch young kids play ball.
“I was a nervous wreck,” he says. “Aw, I’ll never forget it! I was six feet, 165 pounds, and I had a 31-ounce bat. The first pitch I fouled off and the next pitch Newcombe broke my bat right in half. Ed Bailey, the catcher, throws me another bat, it must have been 36 ounces. It was a big bottle bat. I just said, ‘Thank you.’ But here I’m facing Newcombe, I got this heavy bat that I don’t think I can get around, and I didn’t do very well. After I was finished I handed Ed Bailey the bat back. He said, ‘That’s what separates the men from the boys.’
But in his heart, money didn’t matter most. “I used to watch the game of the week on national TV,” Santo says. “I’d always said, ‘There’s something about Wrigley Field.’ And they had Ernie Banks.”
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Santo performed so well that spring that manager Charlie Grimm told him he’d head north with the Cubs. But the day before the season started, Grimm and general manager John Holland called him in. The Cubs, they told him, had just traded for a veteran third baseman, a fellow named Don Zimmer. They were sorry, but they were sending him down to Houston. Santo begged, argued, and ultimately stormed out of the room swearing he was going to quit. Holland and Judy took turns trying to change his mind even as he packed his suitcases.
