It’s not every day a 95 year old millionaire dies and I’m sad about it, but forgive me for donning the Bob Greene/Rick Telander/Mitch Albom Maudlin Cap of Sentimentality today as I report with a heavy heart that Herman Franks passed away early yesterday.

As I had described to GROTA last September–right before these cockbags got swept out of the playoffs for the second year in a row– one of my earliest memories of rooting for the Cubs was the visage of this pear-shaped old man who made a spectacle while giving it to the umpires, and how much it enraptured me. You could say that Herman Franks is the reason I became a Cubs fan in late 1979. Sure, it could have been Dave Kingman, who was in the midst of a 48 home run season, or Billy Buckner who would, the following season, lead the National League in hitting, or Rick Reuschel, who’s deceptive athleticism made you forget that if you clipped his bill and put a twirly on his cap that he would look just like Tweedle Dee (or was Paul Reuschel Tweedle Dee, and Rick Tweedle Dum?). But none of those players made me appreciate what was at stake until I was struck by the scene of the overmatched and mediocre and eliminated Cubs team fighting like hell against the big, bad, black and gold Pirates of Pissburgh–with lethal Willie Stargell, big fat fucking bad motherfucker Dave Parker, and that weirdo creep pedophile-looking son of a bitch Kent Tekulve; the very bad-ass Pirates who would go on to win the World Series about a month later. And Herman Franks wasn’t gonna take that shit from no umpires and let his team get knocked down by nobody. No, sir.

I got hooked on a mediocre Cubs team, and I guess I have Herman Franks to thank for it.

Shit.

Should I be glad he’s dead?

Franks was preceded in death by Peanuts Lowery (died 1986), and is survived by Cookie Rojas, all members of that 1979 coaching staff. The night cashier of Yum Yum Donuts in 1979, who had apparently put together that staff, could not be reached for comment.