Weeks before the Chicago Cubs made history by winning the World Series after 108 years Father Chuck Edwards wondered out loud, “Wouldn’t it be something if the Cubs played the Indians? It’s been so long since either of them has won.”
As it turned out Father Edwards, who is director of Stewardship and Discipleship and pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Ashland, was correct in his prediction. Moreover, as a Cubs fan for 50 years, he is one excited guy. He watched the final game of the World Series with some friends at the Knights of Columbus 364 Hall in Springfield. Since the game went into overtime and there was a rain delay, he got home late and admits he was “really tired” when he got up early Thursday to celebrate daily Mass that morning.
Tired but oh, so happy! “Oh yes, I’m incredibly happy,” he said, adding that he’s been a fan of the Chicago team for five decades. “As ‘Little Chucky’ I went to Wrigley with Jack Brown, and one look at the field and I was hooked. Now 50 years later, as I celebrated my ‘Golden Jubilee’ as a Cubs fan, we did it! World Series champs!”
Father Edwards says he has been to well over 200 Cubs games. “One of my great joys of life is taking friends to the Cubs home games for the first time. I’ve taken hundreds for sure. This year I watched the Cubs win six times to two losses, and was at a game at Wrigley the day the Cubs clinched the division title. They played Sweet Home Chicago for 15 to 20 minutes as I joined 43,000 others as we danced in the aisles.”
Father Edwards said his favorite place to sit is in the bleachers. “There is a lady in the concession stand out there who is in her late 70s and I will only buy from her and try to make her day with a nice tip,” he said. “All my friends do the same.”
Father Edwards has great memories of two fellow fans — good friends who have since passed away. “We often watched the games together. I share this joy with two great Cubs fans, Guy Michael of St. Paul Parish in Highland and Harry Novotnak of Little Flower Parish in Springfield, both who watched this series from heaven and shared in the joy with Harry Caray, Ron Santo and Ernie Banks.”
In fact, Father Edwards has personally met three of his baseball heroes. “I met Ron Santo when I was 10 at the Pontiac Prison parking lot. I met Harry Carey at his restaurant in the early 1990s,” he said.
However, perhaps the day he met Banks, was the most significant to Father Edwards, because of the kindness “Mr. Baseball” showed to him at a difficult time. “I met Ernie when I was in Quincy. He gave me an autographed photo, and he signed it, ‘Be Joyful, Father Chuck,” which he wrote because I had just returned from a death call of a teenage suicide.”
Father Edwards made one final trip to Chicago during the World Series, but it wasn’t to a game. “I went on the Monday before we won on the off day and just walked Wrigleyville and took it all in so I could be part of the history in the making,” he said and grins. “Cubs win! Cubs win!”