Tell Us a Story, Grandpa: David Ross Penning a Book

Though it vexed some of the folks observing from the outside, Cubs fans’ love affair with David Ross was easily one of my favorite storylines of the 2016 season. I was lucky enough to have been at Wrigley for his 100th career home run, his final regular-season home game, and even that play on which he came chugging around third to score on a Jon Lester double. He was everything you could ask for in a backup catcher, plus a whole lot more.

It was only fitting, then, that Grandpa Rossy became the oldest man ever to homer in the World Series when he did so in Game 7 in Cleveland. In the last official at-bat of his career. Off of the nigh-untouchable Andrew Miller. After stumbling over as though one of the tennis balls on his walker had gotten caught on a seam in the sidewalk, allowing a pair of runs to score on a wild pitch in the previous inning.

Now the old man plans to take that storybook ending from figurative to literal as he teams with seasoned sports-bio author Don Yeager to commit the tale to paper. “Teammate: My Life in Baseball” is due out May 9, 2017, and will follow Ross’s journey through baseball and how it all led up to being carried off the field like Rudy.

“Besides the Cubs, (Yeager) just thought it was a good story — my career, and the good-teammate aspect of it — what makes a good teammate, whether it’s on the field or in a business aspect, any kind of team you might be on to help better people, get the most out of people,” Ross explained. “Just reminiscing, talking about it, it has been something has been really good for me, to go over my career, what has happened in my life and all the amazing people that have affected me.”

I gotta tell you, I’m a sucker for sports biographies. There was a period of time when I was on a real tear, just reading all I could on Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, and more. We have a lot more access to Ross and other players of this era than we did those from the past, but it’s no less fun to gain a new perspective and to have all the stories compiled in a definitive manner.

As cool as this is, though, I was really hoping for something a little more juicy, like a tell-all of Ross’s wild exploits away from the game. Sadly, it sounds like I’m going to have to put to bed my desire for “50 Shades of Graybeard.”