Ronnie Wickers was looking around his room for his get-well cards.
“Where are they?” he asked his daughter, Yolanda Linneman. “I know they’re around here somewhere.”
After a brief search of the room at The Pearl of Evanston nursing home, Linneman reached into a box and pulled out a couple dozen cards. Almost all of them were addressed to “Ronnie Woo Woo,” the nickname Wickers earned in the Wrigley Field bleachers for chanting the word “woo” after the names of Cubs players, becoming well-known in the 1980s: “Jody, Woo! Davis, Woo! Leon, Woo! Durham, Woo!”
To some he’s the sweet sound of a Wrigley summer, and to others he’s a car alarm that can’t be turned off.
“The best way to appreciate Ronnie,” Hall of Fame owner Bill Veeck told me in 1983, “is when he’s about 100 feet away and not in your ear.”
Now 83, Wickers is rehabbing from a lung disease at the Evanston facility. He has been there since shortly after making his annual appearance at the Cubs Convention in January, and he’s hooked up to an oxygen tank and monitored closely by staff.
Wickers said he hopes to get a portable oxygen concentrator when doctors allow him to go back to the ballpark. He was scheduled for an appointment Tuesday morning at Northwestern Memorial Hospital but said Monday he felt good and was aiming for a return to Wrigley sometime around the All-Star break.
Naturally, Wickers believes the Cubs will remain in first place by then.
“They’re playing such good ball, I’d like to get out there and see them play,” he said while looking at a magnet schedule and wearing one of his many Cubs uniforms. “I’ll get there.”
A friend brought a small Roku TV to Wickers’ room so he could stream the games on Marquee Sports Network, and Wickers was eager to see how they Cubs would fare Tuesday and Wednesday against the superstar-laden Los Angeles Dodgers.
Friends have stopped by with gifts from the park: the magnet schedule, Cubs shirts and hats.
“We’ve had so many people visiting, it’s hard to keep track of everyone,” Linneman said.
I’ve known Wickers for decades, having met him in the bleachers in my teens. He’s an acquired taste, for sure, because of his unique gift: the ability to yell, “Cubs, Woo!” at the top of his lungs for an entire three-hour game.
When I last saw him before Monday, he was in good spirits at the Cubs Convention and even conversed with Chairman Tom Ricketts, opening a door many thought was closed when Wickers was ejected from the bleachers in April 2017 after security asked him to produce a ticket.
“Throughout the years, Ronnie Wickers has attempted to enter Wrigley Field without a ticket and he is politely turned away by staff,” former Cubs spokesman Julian Green said that day. “Wickers, like any other fan or celebrity, must have a ticket to attend a game at Wrigley Field. No exceptions. We take ticket integrity seriously, so if you attempt to enter a section in the first or seventh inning, you must produce a ticket when asked.”
Wickers insisted a friend gave him an e-ticket and it was on the friend’s phone. The friend couldn’t produce it, so “Woo Woo” got the boot. He claimed he was being singled out and harassed, joking he would take his case to the Supreme Court. But he eventually was allowed back in and soon was wooing like the old days.
I’ve seen Wickers at his highest and lowest, from his loudest days in the bleachers to his recent struggles with health problems.
When Durham homered in San Diego to give the Cubs the lead in the fourth inning of Game 4 of the 1984 National League Championship Series, the team was one win from its first World Series in 39 years. Wickers hopped up on the bar at the Cubby Bear and began yelling, “Leon, Woo! Durham, Woo!” The entire bar chanted along.
Five innings later, Padres first baseman Steve Garvey hit a walk-off home run off Cubs closer Lee Smith, and Wickers trudged out of the bar like he’d lost his dog.
In 1987 he was missing from the ballpark early in the season, which led to a Sun-Times story headlined: “Cubs ‘Woo man’ vanishes. Misses first game in 17 yrs. amid murder rumor.” Radio personality Jonathan Brandmeier located Wickers working as a pizza delivery man, and the Tribune sports editor ordered a half-dozen pizzas with the stipulation that Wickers personally deliver them to Tribune Tower.
Wickers entered the fourth-floor newsroom holding the pizzas aloft and chanting: “I’m alive, Woo! I’m alive, Woo!”
Cubs players all knew him, or at least knew the voice. One day in ‘87, former Cubs great Billy Williams stood near the batting cage 2½ hours before a day game and heard Wickers chanting outside the ballpark. Williams noticed the shades of the rooftop buildings were drawn. “Those people won’t be sleeping much longer,” he said.
The next year Wickers came to Wrigley on opening day wearing a gorilla suit. He has been friends with players for decades, from Fergie Jenkins in the 1960s to Bill Madlock in the ’70s, from Davis and Gary “Sarge” Matthews in the ’80s to Ben Zobrist in the 2010s. Former New York Mets star Darryl Strawberry, whom Wickers razzed relentlessly at Wrigley, called him last year on his birthday.
Still, the outpouring of love since news of his latest health setback was posted on Facebook wasn’t something Wickers expected.
Andre Dawson called and told Wickers he would stop by the facility. Zobrist sent well wishes, and on Monday Wickers read a card from former pitcher Glendon Rusch telling him to get back to chanting “Cubs, Woo!” soon. (For those interested in sending a message, Wickers can be reached at The Pearl of Evanston Skilled Nursing Facility, 820 Foster St., Evanston, IL 60601.)
Over the years, players, including Durham, sometimes gave Wickers money to supplement his income from washing windows, shoveling snow and other odd jobs. It was payback, Durham said, for supporting them year after year.
“It was a blessing to know that he was not just there for the game but also to inspire the team, to cheer us on,” Durham told the Tribune in 2004. “Some fans might have thought he was annoying, but you come out to the ballpark to cheer. If you don’t want cheering, you stay home.”
One fan who sent Wickers a card enclosed a copy of a photo of him posing with Wickers when the fan was a little boy. Wickers might be one of the most photographed people at Wrigley over the last 60 years.
Players come and go, but Ronnie Woo Woo has been around forever.
“They can’t trade me and they can’t fire me,” he said, laughing.
