Meeting Mark Grace
On meeting your hero's heroes...
Meeting my Heroes is an occasional essay series from Matt Carmichael.
If you think meeting Dave Brubeck at a urinal was weird…
I met Cubs legend Mark Grace in a shower.
I mean, I guess I probably met him in the hall outside the shower, but still.
We were backstage at the Vic, which is technically under the stage, down stairs in a rather cramped basement. Poi Dog Pondering had just performed one of their legendary run of six sold-out nights in 1999. I shot all six, as you can imagine. More on all of that experience later.
Backstage, milling about in the hallway with a handful of my Poi heroes, I found Mark Grace chatting with Dag Juhlin, Poi’s guitarist. Of course I knew who Mark Grace was, too. I’d watched him play first base for years. He was there as a Poi fan. And he was signing Dag’s guitar because Dag is a big Cubs fan.
I’ve always been both a Tigers fan (where I grew up) and a Cubs fan. I inherited that fandom from my dad and his mom, who would go down to Wrigley on “Ladies’ day” when she could get discounted tickets. When she died, in the height of my baseball fandom, I was bequeathed her subscription to Vine Line, the Cubs fan club magazine. And my dad produced broadcasts for Jack Brickhouse on WGN. So meeting a Cub was a pretty big thrill for me, too.
My favorite Mark Grace moment was one I watched on TV but heard in real time. The Chicago Air show was in town and two of the jets buzzed Wrigley Field so close it seemed like they dipped below the light towers. I lived right near the ballpark and heard the roar as they went by.
But the game was in progress and the Cubs pitcher was mid-pitch and therefore sailed the ball as he was rightly distracted. Mark Grace just ran off the field. It was momentarily chaos and the only time I can remember an ump in a major league game calling a do-over. But I digress.
This meeting in the hall led to our group shower later, because the shower was about the only place backstage that could fit a group — take that as you will. All of this showed me something interesting.
It turns out your heroes have heroes, and sometimes they are mutually heroes for each other because they are both good at different, or even the same, things.
Over the years, I’ve watched my heroes perform together. Or cover each others’ songs. Or in a couple of amazing cases, both. I’ll get to those stories later.
I could also talk at length about that run of Vic shows. Somehow it’s been 25 years. But the fans that were at the front of the line and later at the front of the stage are still dear friends. Some I met in person the first time that week. Some I’d know online for years. Some have drifted. Some have left us too soon.
In my post about John Richards, I talked about how music can bring people together and the Poi community is one key example in my life. So many connections. Between the fans and even between the band and the fans. Poi is a really special group of people. You’ll get to know them more as this series progresses.
But I’ll keep coming back to this point. That music and stories bring us together as fans with a common interest and common stories. Meeting those that share in the community is, at the end of the day, even more important than meeting the heroes who sing the songs, or play the guitars, or play the game well.
Meeting both, however is the best of all.