I lost a dear friend in Carlos Hernandez Gomez on January 17th. Some of the memorials mention his Edward R. Murrow Award for a story on the Billy Goat curse, and I remember how excited he was when he told me WBEZ would let him do it. He was a baseball fan, often wearing a jersey of fellow boriquen Roberto Clemente or a Ruth-era-style Yankees cap - I've heard the word "throwback" a lot this week - but above all he was a Cub fan, and we talked about them often.
One of the games we went to was Ryne Sandberg's last, in 1997. Carlos got a ticket in the lower deck behind first base, and after I shot the pre-game ceremony, we sat together to watch the game. I wanted to run a photo of Sandberg leaving the field for the last time, so I figured I had a good seven innings before I had to get back to the photographers' well by third base. We were in mid-conversation when he trotted off during the fifth. I stood up and snapped a shot anyway, though I knew it was hopeless.
I had several options to run with the story and for a front-page teaser, but the one I took from 150 feet away, which to the layman is a lousy photo, is a personal favorite among the thousands I took at Cub games. It's gone from a facepalm to a snicker to a cute story to a cherished memory over the years, not in what it is, but why it is. I was watching Cubs history with my buddy Carlos.
Carlos knew Sandberg was my favorite Cub, and when City Council honored Ryno's Hall of Fame election in 2005, he got me a personalized autograph. That's just the kind of guy he was.
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