For many years Jerry Pritikin, wearing a pith helmet with a propeller on top, went to almost every Cubs game and spent a lot of time encouraging other people to be fans. That’s why Harry Caray called him the world’s greatest Cubs fan. That’s why the Wall Street Journal dubbed him a “baseball missionary.” And that’s why he became a leading character in Lonnie Wheeler’s book Bleachers, about the 1987 season at Wrigley Field.
Part of Pritikin’s shtick is trying to turn opposing teams’ fans into Cubs fans. In a row of seats behind home plate he spotted a woman wearing a Cubs cap in the middle of a family full of Cardinals caps. “How’d you get mixed up with this crowd?” he asked, then told her to “convert them before the end of the game.”
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Baseball was a big part of Pritikin’s childhood. His father, a passionate Cubs fan, frequently took him and his siblings–he had two brothers and two sisters–to games. He says it was the way he and his father communicated, what they talked about most. His father could take the kids to games because he was home in the afternoon–he sold tomatoes on South Market Street, where he was known as the “Tomato King of Chicago,” and he had to get up at 2 AM to open his business on time.
Never a good student, Pritikin spent much of his time in school daydreaming. He suspects he had attention deficit disorder. When he dropped out at 16 his family told him he was on his own, so he went to work, first as a messenger for the Tribune, later as a salesman for Marshall Field’s.
Pritikin had played a lot of slow-pitch softball as a kid, and he could pitch a high-arcing ball with no spin that would flutter in the wind. That pitch had landed him on some of the best teams in the gay leagues. In September 1978 one of those teams made it to the Gay World Series in New York City, only to be kicked out for having too many straights on the team–he recalls that only 4 or 5 of the 15 players were gay. The national press covered the series, and both Walter Cronkite and Paul Harvey quoted Pritikin protesting his team’s disqualification. He knows that one of his cousins back in Chicago saw him on the news, and he suspects word got around that he was gay, but he wouldn’t bring up the subject with his family. They still never talk of it.
Meanwhile Pritikin had been getting a lot of attention at Candlestick Park for being a rabid Cubs fan. He says he started letting baseball consume him because it helped him cope with the deaths of his friends and his parents.
Pritikin had always liked the fan mascots at baseball games, including Slow-Motion Happy, who roamed the Wrigley Field stands in the 40s doing slow-motion reenactments of the action on the field. In the 80s Pritikin began putting together his Bleacher Preacher routine, and he had a lot more gimmicks than other mascots. He had a theme song. He had props. He made signs. He had “Ten Fanmandments,” one of which was “Thou shalt not wear ties in the bleachers, start or participate in the ‘wave,’ steal neighbors’ seat cushions, leave the game until the last man is out, or pay for autographs of current players.” He even had his own Topps baseball card–with a typo in it, he never tires of pointing out. And he had stamina and time on his hands. Some seasons he went to every home game, arriving two hours early to make sure he got his regular spot in the left-field bleachers. Not that he sat there much. Usually he roamed around in his crazy outfit, kibitzing with Cubs fans and trying to convert opponents.
