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Tuesday night I endured a local school board meeting. It comes with the territory of my day job. I sat glassy-eyed in the gallery, my mind drifting ahead 48 hours at which point I would be sitting in the stands on Opening Night at Principal Park, cracking open peanut shells instead of stifling yawns.

Today is Santo Day. He would have been 72. Camp is open; so are the ticket windows, so I’m in the mood for some baseball flotsam. I thought I’d share a choice Santo anecdote that I discovered over the winter. Surely some of you know it.

For Christmas one of my sons gave me one of those “Baseball Voices” CD’s that Pat Hughes is always hawking. It’s the Santo edition. Have you heard the one about his pregame “interview” with Antonio Alfonseca?

Santo must have thought ol’ Tony Twelve was a descendant of Lew Fonseca, a good outfielder back in the depression era, because he addressed him as though his name was Al Fonseca, “the fine stopper for the Chicago Cubs.”

“Al,” he probes, “how do you feel about the trade that brought you over here to Chicago?”

Al responds with a stream of unintelligible pigeon English. Santo, as though maybe he’s just noticed that his guest has six fingers on each hand and is afraid he won’t be able to keep from asking if the extra one on his pitching hand makes Al twice as good as Mordecai (Three Finger) Brown, pulls the mic back and says, “Well, it’s good to have you with the club. Keep up the good work, Big Boy.”

And that’s it. As Hughes points out in the narration, a segment that typically ran five or so minutes was over and done in less than one.

A written account is a poor substitute for the real thing. I’m glad I have it at my disposal as a go-to laugher. I suspect I may have to cue it up more often than I’d like in the season to come as a fallback.

After listening to Ron and Al’s lively conversation one more time this morning while I had my bowl of shredded wheat I braced myself and intrepidly entered the virtual waiting room of the Minnesota Twins. Their single game tickets went on sale today. Normally there is a limit of 24 per game. For the Cub series in June the per game max was pegged at four. Within a reasonable amount of time I shouldered my way through the virtual throng to the window and was able to come away with three decent seats for the matinee on Sunday, June 10, close enough to Father’s Day that I expect I can guilt both sons into tagging along.

I wonder what the Cubs’ record will be by then. I don’t care.

Happy birthday, Big Boy. Good to have you with the club...

Amputation of the heels he so famously used to click wasn’t enough, not even on top of an assortment of other ailments that included the diabetes through which he played his entire career.

A long stint as the Cubs’ ambassador to a whole new generation of fans wasn’t enough either.

And clearly the impressive resume he amassed as a player wasn’t enough by itself.

No, Ron Santo finally had to pony up his very life to get what he deserved and so craved; induction at Cooperstown. After he paid that price too, the contrivance known as the Golden Era Committee finally, belatedly in my view, did the right thing and let the man in. Now, after almost exactly a year in purgatory since he died on December 2, 2010, Santo can move on to the HOF; proof positive, if you need it, that there is such a thing as life everlasting.

I knew it would happen this way if it was ever going to happen at all. I bet Santo couldn’t pronounce the word ‘posthumously’ any better as it’s written than Harry Caray could backwards. But he sure as hell knows what it means. It means that he won’t get to celebrate with his family until such time as they’re all ever in the same place at the same time again, by whatever mysterious means such a thing might ever be accomplished.

I listened to Santo play on the radio with my dad. My own kids got his autograph when I took them to Wrigley Field. I was there the day his #10 was retired and I was there the night they unveiled his statue outside the ballpark. I toyed with the idea of going to Chicago for his funeral, just as I’m toying now with the idea of making my first ever pilgrimage to the Valhalla of baseball for his induction next summer. By then I expect I’ll have come to my senses – probably.

Understand that I feel obliged to write this. And I appreciate a forum on which to post it. Please indulge me and do not engage in a statistical dissection of his worthiness or lack thereof - enough of that already. Just let it be.

Too bad he didn’t get in while he was still alive but at least he did while I still am. I can check that item off of my Cub bucket list. Let’s see; there’s only one thing left…

Yesterday’s tease piece in the Sun-Times that envisioned a reunion in Chicago next year of Walt Jocketty, Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols got me connecting some dots of my own.