John Paul Stevens' devotion to Cubs recalled after former Supreme Court justice dies

Tom Gatto

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John Paul Stevens' devotion to Cubs recalled after former Supreme Court justice dies image

John Paul Stevens was a son of Chicago, and he remained attached to the city even after he became a national figure in Washington as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. One way he did that was through the city's National League baseball club.

Stevens, who died Tuesday at age 99, was a Cubs fan for about 90 of those years. His devotion to the North Siders (even though he was born on the South Side) was such that the Cubs tweeted an acknowledgement of Stevens' death:

Stevens lived long enough to witness the Cubs winning the 2016 World Series and ending a championship drought that predated him by more than a decade. He said he experienced October anguish up close as a child: in 1929, when he attended Game 1 of that Fall Classic at Wrigley Field, and in 1932, when he was on hand for Game 3, aka the day Babe Ruth called his shot. The Cubs lost both games. He recounted those visits in this Chicago Tribune article.

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In 2010, Stevens' memory of Ruth and the famous homer remained vivid (and accurate):

Eighty-four years after Ruth, Stevens was back at Wrigley, watching the Cubs try again to win it all. He attended Game 4.

The Cubs eventually won the Series in a classic Game 7 in Cleveland. Stevens, at long last, got to root for a winner.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.