Mondays with Mike: Vital organist

Years ago I had an idea for a Saturday Night Live skit: “The baseball organist at home.”

I imagined the mother, on her off day from the ballpark, sitting at the organ. The kids would leave for school and she’d play, “Na na na na, na na na nah, hey-hey, good-bye.” There’d be a walkup song for each member of the family as they arrived home from school or work. And as the family convened for dinner that evening, the organ would sing out “Hey, hey, the gang’s all here.”

And so on. Such is the brain of me.

All the gals in Nancy and Joe’s back yard.

The whole idea was inspired by Nancy Faust, about whom Beth has written more than once, most recently last weekwhen she learned that a StoryCorps piece she did with Nancy would air on public radio. (You can stream it online now.) The short of it is, Beth and Nancy struck up a friendship after Beth noticed the clever selections Nancy played during the White Sox games we attended — Nancy’s music helped Beth follow what was happening on the field.

Joe Jenkins, Nancy’s husband, and I have joined their party. The four of us don’t get together often, but it’s always a blast when we do.  Just as it was this past weekend when, well, we got to live “The baseball organist at home” in real life.

Nancy and Joe spend the winter at their home outside Phoenix with their dog Jack and their two … donkeys. Yep. More later. Nancy and Joe generously hosted Beth, Whitney and me at their Arizona home Friday and Saturday nights. We attended the White Sox-Cubs spring training game on Friday. The Sox had invited Nancy to do a one-day comeback and play that day.

Well, although Nancy did provide the soundtrack for decades of White Sox baseball, I can tell you that no, she does not provide a soundtrack for their daily lives. But … Beth and I were privy to the genius at work as Nancy ran ideas by all of us for what to play for whom and when. We chipped in ideas where we could, and Nancy kept updating her notes. We learned that after decades of playing for Sox games, Bulls games, Blackhawks games, even Minnesota North Stars games, old habits die hard. She said she still hears a song, thinks—“that’d work great on game day”—and scribbles down the title. The bad news is she can never find her notes!

We also got a window on how hard she works for a game—and how hard the game-day staff work to put on a show. Nancy had a voluminous script of sorts—it was basically a list of cues about when the PA announcer would be doing his thing, when the DJ would play, and when she should play. The whole time, someone would be in Nancy’s ear helping her stay on schedule.

We arrived early with Nancy, Joe, their son Eric and his fiancé Ann. We had time to lazily explore Camelback Ranch stadium—which the White Sox share with the LA Dodgers—and take in the radiant sun, which was mitigated by a delightfully cool breeze. It’s a lovely facility and especially accessible; we could make a lap of the whole place without climbing a step.

The food and drink offerings were surprisingly good—basically representative of what you’d find at Sox Park or Dodger Stadium. I had a Dodger Dog, just because, well, I don’t always get the chance. It was fine. It’s a foot long hot dog. No Chicago-style garden. But, you know, with a beer in the sun at a baseball game, all hot dogs are delicacies.

As we walked the concourse, Beth and I both experienced bittersweet nostalgia. Nancy chooses the pre-game music just as cleverly as she does in-game riffs, and she has a distinct style. It was an all-Chicago game, so she played Chicago favorites, from “My Kind of Town”to “Lake Shore Drive.”There were also fight songs from the University of Illinois, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Wisconsin. She knows her crowd.

The overall effect is breezy, upbeat, and relaxing. We used to take Gus to the park when he still lived with us, and he loved the music as much as we did. I’ve missed it.

Because we arrived early, I was afraid it might be a long day. But it kind of flew by. Crowd-watching was great—I played at guessing who might have traveled from Chicago, and who were Chicago transplants. Some fans made the guessing easy—one Cub fan wore a t-shirt that said “I live in Las Vegas but my origins are in Chicago.” Well, no comment.

There were really no bad seats at Camelback Ranch.

There were a lot of mixed couples (Sox fan/Cub fan) and a whole bunch of family/friend reunion outings, with good-natured South Side-North Side ribbing. The vibe was so laid back that there was none of the ugliness or tension that can bubble up at regular season games between the two. Beth struck up a conversation with a Sox fan on our right. Just a delightful guy. Turned out he’s a bricklayer who’s been working a lot recently on hi-rises not far from where we live in Chicago.

After the game, we waited outside Nancy’s booth while she was interviewed by Chuck Garfein of NBC Sports Chicago for a podcast. (That podcast turned out great, give it a listen here.)

After the game, Eric and Joe had the organ packed and loaded in the van in no time.

The reason we waited outside the booth is that Joe had to pack up Nancy’s organ—the park doesn’t have one, so he had delivered hers the day before. I chipped in somewhat feebly to help Joe and Eric collect Nancy’s organ and electronic keyboard, amplifier, speaker and various cables. It was a sort of ballet—Joe has done this a million times over Nancy’s career, and he ran a business that rented organs to clubs like the Jazz Showcase—the iconic venue down the street from Beth’s and my place. I think Eric has done it, oh, maybe a half a million times. It was amazing how quickly they had 400+ lbs of equipment packed safely in a rented van.

After celebratory pizza, we headed back to Joe and Nancy’s place, which is as much a small ranch as it is a house. The landscape is manicured, smoothly rolled stone peppered by a variety of cacti. No lawn mowing but hardly maintenance free.

Out back, a nifty barn that includes a nicely furnished tack room—where Nancy practices the organ. On the other side? A stall that opens to a penned in outdoor space for Nancy’s two donkeys. The miniature one is Gigi, the older full-size gal is Mandy. Every day, Nancy tends to them and shovels, well, you know what, twice a day.

She also trains them, and I got to see some tricks. One—which I didn’t capture on video—had Nancy asking Mandy whether she thought I was smarter than her. She shook her head no. Hmm.

There’s lots more, from a hot dog at Costco to Thursday night at the biker bar—I mean it was a jam-packed couple days, but I’ll just say if someone told me back in the day that  I’d be hanging out with Nancy Faust, her family, and her donkeys at spring training in Arizona, well, I don’t think I’d have believed it. Or certainly not all of it. But, there I was, sitting outside on a cool night beside a fire pit, doing just that.

And pinching myself.