You’re looking at a blurry photo scanned onto a Web site. A boy is standing next to a tall, bearded man. The kid wears giant eyeglasses, like welder’s goggles, and a Pittsburgh Steelers jacket. He’s grinning like there’s no place else he’d rather be. The man is sitting, leaning toward the youngster, and smiling in a practiced way. He’s wearing a western-style plaid shirt with a wide collar and, just maybe, pearl-finish buttons. The caption lends some context but understates the enormity of the moment for the boy: “1979 Picture of John Kuczaj (age 10) and Dave Kingman.”
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Dave Kingman is part legend and part antihero in Chicago. He spent only three years with the Cubs–1978-’80. His defense was substandard, he struck out regularly (leading the National League in 1979, one of three times in his career he did so), and his relationship with the local media was often ugly. But his single attribute–power–was enough to excite Cubs fans and ruin the swings of a generation of Chicago Little Leaguers, who grew up wanting to kill baseballs, not merely hit them. Kingman was the first player to hit the roofs of the Houston Astrodome, the Metrodome in Minneapolis, and Montreal’s Olympic Stadium; during a 23-22 loss to the Phillies in 1979, he hit a ball that cleared Waveland Avenue and landed 100 feet down Kenmore. It was easy to fall for Kingman, and young John Kuczaj fell hard. In a section of his Web site titled “Why I Like Dave,” Kuczaj writes, “I always pretended I was Dave Kingman at the plate, striking fear into not only the opposing pitcher, but the pedestrians outside the stadium who might be hit by another mammoth dinger.”
Typical Web sites designed by fans to celebrate sports heroes offer minimal content and few revelations. Not so with davekingman.com. Kuczaj has meticulously created a layered time line of not merely the slugger’s baseball career but his life. The Web site is updated whenever Kuczaj encounters a heretofore undocumented Kingman detail. His access to such minutiae became practically unlimited after the intensely private Kingman, now retired and living quietly with his family near Lake Tahoe, encountered davekingman.com for the first time.
Apparently he can appreciate talking to a truly obsessed fan, though. Not long after the pair first communicated, Kuczaj and Kingman arranged a face-to-face meeting. “Dave E-mailed that he’d be in South Bend at a minor league game signing autographs. I met him at the game, then we went out to eat for about an hour. It was strange. It was really scary because I was afraid of him not living up to the expectations. Thankfully that wasn’t the case. He’s a real nice guy.” A picture documenting this meeting appears on davekingman.com just below the one of their first encounter. In both Kuczaj has the same ecstatic grin.
“Sweet website. I thought I was the only one crazy enough to have Dave Kingman as my favorite player…. Back in the 80’s, I even bought a pair of Dave’s game worn pants from the Sports Collectors Digest. They were Mets pants. I still wear them today to play softball in.” –Jeff, Greenwood, Indiana.
If he sounds like a man stuck in his youth, that’s fair. But he’s trying to extract himself. In November 2002, shortly after RedEye and Red Streak debuted, Kuczaj launched chicagoredface.com, a site that parodies the abbreviated style and desperate hipness of the Reds. As a Tribune Company employee, Kuczaj would seem to be in a difficult position. He’s critiqued Tribune properties in the past, however, and his Web publishing has been highlighted in the company newsletter, “Tribune News.”
