Mourners have fond Brickhouse memories

Wearing a Cubs T-shirt and shorts, Doug Ryan stood in the linethat passed by Jack Brickhouse's open coffin.

"I was a fan," Ryan said at the wake Monday at Blake-LambFuneral Home, 1035 N. Dearborn.

"I heard Jack Brickhouse's voice just as much as my father'swhen I was growing up," said Ryan, 37. His father was president ofthe Chicago Transportation Club, and when Brickhouse spoke to thegroup, 11-year-old Ryan got to sit next to him.

"I'm glad he's with Harry (Caray)," Ryan said. "They're playingcards at the bar and fighting over who's going to pay the tab."

Brickhouse's widow, Pat, sat in a row of chairs just in front ofthe coffin, greeting mourners, many of whom knew Brickhousepersonally.

As Herb Kraus, a public relations man who met Brickhouse in1947, said, "I can't think of anybody else, with the possibleexception of (Chicago Sun-Times columnist) Kup, who knew so manypeople. And he always remembered everybody's name."

Fellow broadcaster Jack Taylor worked at WGN-Channel 9 withBrickhouse for 26 years, until 1984. "He was my mentor and bigbrother there," he said.

When Brickhouse was doing a baseball game, "I used to enjoy therain delays," Taylor said. "For two or three hours, he was rivetingand galvanizing with the stories he would tell."

Brickhouse's death Thursday "brought my happy childhood back"with memories of Cubs games she enjoyed with her mother even beforeBrickhouse's career began, said Norma Wood, 77.

"The Cubs had ladies' day, and my mother would take me - I wasabout 8 or 9," she said.

When she signed the register in the funeral home, Wood said, "Ididn't sign my name. I signed my mother's name."

Reginald Bishop, 53, was grateful to Brickhouse for helpingattract him to baseball, which "kept me off the streets and out ofgangs. He made baseball warm and bright with his enthusiasm."

Rich Dibbern also grew up with Brickhouse. When he was 14, heand his friends took a tape recorder and made up sports broadcasts."I was Jack Brickhouse," Dibbern, 49, said proudly.

Visitation continues from 3 to 9 p.m. today. The funeral willbe open to the public at 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. James EpiscopalCathedral, 65 E. Huron.

There will be no procession to the church, and burial will beprivate. Donations may be made to the Jack Brickhouse Memorial Fund,Midwest Bank and Trust Co., 300 S. Michigan, Chicago 60604.