Today is Leonard Mallen’s Birthday

Leonard Mallen was a boyhood friend from the Finnish Lutheran Church on Wilson Ave. in Chicago. His dad owned two multi-unit apartment houses at 814-816 W. Cuyler St., just a short distance from Wrigley Field (right, close to what it looked like then) .

I wonder if the then deep red-brick building rentals are still there, and I sort of marvel how I can remember that address from 60 years ago when I have difficulty remembering what I had for breakfast.

Leonard was fluently bi-lingual (Finnish and English), as were his parents (immigrants in those days learned our language first and consequently prospered), but Finnish was what was spoken in their home.

I would often try to get him to teach me some Finnish words (I learned a few) but I never became fully conversant.

Leonard always seemed to have discretionary money that our family didn’t. His kind father taught him to share his bounty, and Leonard would often invite me to go to Cubs games with him.

Through Leonard, I got my first exposure to Major League Baseball and the “love to lose” Cubbies.

In those days, we never paid to get in. I would talk to the attendant to distract him, and Leonard would jump the low fence into Wrigley Field just out of sight of the monitor. Then he would engage the guard from the inside, and I would go down and jump the fence.

As youths it didn’t occur to us that what we did was wrong; it was simply a prankish game we could always play and win. After all, Leonard had the money to pay. Those low fences, by the way, were replaced with 10-foot high cyclone ones not long afterward.

We always had (Leonard’s) money with which to enjoy the game. We both always got the same thing – a hot dog, a Pepsi, some peanuts and a malt cup. For sure, the “Wrigley Field experience” was a bedrock in helping to create my life-long love for the game of baseball.

I remember watching then Cubs players like Andy Pafko or Hank Sauer (LF), Frankie Baumholtz (CF & RF), lefty home run hitter Bill Nicholson (RF) Peanuts Lowry (3B), Roy Smalley (SS), Wayne Terwilliger (2B) and Phil Cavaretta (1B). My favorite Cub pitcher was Bob Rush. (Again, how those names come to mind 60 years after the fact must show the impact it had at my young age.)

Well, Happy Birthday, Len. Though you’re long gone, if the Lutheran tradition holds true, you’re now enjoying the game on a gorgeous new field.