Baseball fans everywhere recognize Ron Santo's achievements as those of a consummate professional. During his 15-year career in the U.S. major leagues, the Chicago Cubs third baseman received five Gold Glove awards and played in nine All-Star Games. As captain of the 1969 Cubs, he led the team during one of their most dramatic seasons. A candidate for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, he has yet to receive the honor—a fact that has frustrated both Cubs fans and baseball experts, who have called him "the best player not in the Hall of Fame." The Cubs, beloved worldwide despite (or perhaps because of) their perpetual underdog status, retired Santo's number (10) at a ceremony in tradition-steeped Wrigley Field in 2003.

These days, however, Santo is known as much as an inspirational icon as a baseball legend. A 2003 documentary, This Old Cub, chronicled his battle with
Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes, and his determined recovery from the amputation of both legs below the knee due to complications of the disease. During the past 28 years, he's helped raise millions of dollars toward finding a cure by lending his name and support to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Walk to Cure Diabetes.

Now in his 17th season as color commentator for the Chicago Cubs, Santo can be heard broadcasting every Cubs game on WGN radio. His perseverance—as well as his impassioned interjections on the air—has endeared him to legions of Cubs fans, many of whom lined up for a chance to meet him during an interview with Hewitt on a game day at Wrigley Field. He shared some thoughts about his recovery, his philosophy, and what keeps him going.

Why did you get involved with diabetes research?
I was diagnosed as a diabetic at 18. I played my whole career, 15 years, with the disease. I made it public after 10 years in the major leagues because the Cubs held a day in my honor and I wanted all the proceeds to go to diabetes research. When I retired from baseball in 1975, I got a call from Sue Ellen Johnson, who was on the board for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation at that time. She asked me to participate, and I said I'd love to. She had a walkathon in mind, and that's how I got started.

How do you feel about the progress that's been made over the years in managing diabetes?
It's unbelievable, and it's all been due to the monies raised. When I was diagnosed at 18 years old, nobody knew what diabetes was all about. Doctors didn't even know much. I had to go to the library and read all there was about diabetes. At that time, in 1959, life expectancy for diabetics was 25 years, and here I was 18 years old. I read that it caused terrible things—blindness, hardening of the arteries, kidney failure, gangrene. I figured out right away that exercise and regulating your insulin are the real keys to managing diabetes, and that's why I was able to play baseball. There was no way I could easily check my blood sugar at that time. I didn't have a glucometer. I had to go by how I felt. I knew there were symptoms to let you know hypoglycemia is coming on, so I spent time in a gym with a buddy and ran up and down the court to test when I would start feeling the symptoms. I had everything timed—when I first started a cold sweat, then a very hungry feeling, then my nose got numb, my lips got numb, I started to get weak, and finally, seeing three basketball hoops where there was only one.

Today, of course, I'm able to check my blood sugar four times a day. What happened to me, losing my legs, having open-heart surgery, had a lot to do with my blood sugar fluctuating so much during my career. But since then, with the help of medicine today, I'm doing great.

You're now celebrated as much for your positive attitude as for your achievements on the ball field.
I am the only diabetic that's ever played a full career as a position player—and with the numbers I put up during my career, with diabetes, everybody says, how did you do it? I've always been a positive guy. I never worried much about the worst things that could happen. I always felt, I've got to do my best and be very positive about it. I think that has a lot to do with recovery. You can only go two ways, and you don't want to take that low road, that's for sure. I tell people that if something like this were to happen to you—and I believe this strongly—it's really up to you to be positive and do what you have to do.

Where did you get your positive attitude?
I've had a lot of tragedy in my life. My mother and stepfather were killed in an automobile accident coming to see me at spring training. I lost a stepbrother at age 38. My dad left us when I was six years old. You think celebrities don't have these kinds of problems, but they do. But you know, you're able to survive. My mother was a big part of my positive attitude. She had two jobs; she worked from eight o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night, and she'd come home to my sister and me always positive, smiling, and saying everything's going to be all right.

What else contributed to your success as a player?
I was gifted, and I knew it at an early age. But talent is what you make of it. I was always the first one on the field, and the last one to leave.

What can you tell us about teamwork? What motivates a team?
Motivation is chemistry. I've always said this as a ballplayer. It's what you have in that clubhouse, everybody pulling together. If you have two or three guys who aren't happy, it can make that clubhouse a difficult place to be. When you have a team that has chemistry, and stays together, it's wonderful. But then there are years when losing can take that away and put more pressure on the individual. A team effort means you go down together and you go up together. That's what it's all about.

What keeps you going?
Baseball has been the best therapy for me, there's no doubt about it—along with my family, of course. Family is number one. When these complications happened to me, my life couldn't have been any better. I didn't have to worry about making a baseball team. All I had to worry about was walking, staying alive, being with my grandchildren, and doing the games. And the fans—I can't tell you how many boxes of mail I got, and the love that these fans have for me. When I was going through what I was going through, I'd come to the ballpark and I wouldn't even think about the fact that I was going to be losing a leg. I just thought about the game, and it perked me up; it made me forget about everything else.

So baseball has given you a passion to focus on?
Not only do I have a passion for something I love, I have a passion for the Chicago Cubs. I've always loved them, and I always will.

JDRF: Focused on a Cure
Diabetes afflicts at least 194 million people worldwide, and the World Health Organization projects that this number will double by 2030. Since its founding in 1970, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) has raised more than $900 million, with the goal of finding a cure for diabetes by supporting leading-edge research.

"JDRF is widely recognized as one of the world's top charities in terms of fund-raising efficiency and focus," says Mike Lee, Hewitt's Global Leader for the Consulting Sales and Client Management Group, who is actively involved with JDRF Illinois and the International JDRF Board. In fact, Forbes named JDRF one of its best nonprofits in 2005 due to its 85% efficiency rating. "Working with Ron and the JDRF team has touched all of our Hewitt volunteers," says Lee.

JDRF raises money for research largely through its Walk to Cure Diabetes, held in more than 200 locations worldwide. In Illinois, the event is known as the Ron Santo Walk to Cure Diabetes and attracts more than 30,000 walkers each year. Hewitt Associates is a corporate sponsor.

"I'm so excited about my walk," Santo says. "I'm going on my 28th year. I've reached the $5 million mark, on one day each year, with walks in four different locations. It's wonderful because I know that 85 cents of every dollar is going toward diabetes research."

For more information, visit www.jdrf.org.

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