Lin's Been . . .
Coaching Little League With Your Best Friend in the Whole World
Back in January, my wife, Barb, observed how the death of a beloved person, no matter how sad or unexpected, can stimulate the collective memory of a community and elevate its spirit. The person whose death prompted her to make the observation was a dear friend of ours, an even dearer friend to some, and a very good friend to many, even to those who lived in Chicago and somehow managed to never actually meet him.
On a gloomy Sunday morning, nearly a month before pitchers and catchers reported, Lin Brehmer laid down a sacrifice bunt that lifted the entire spirit of the city. Being a serious baseball fan, Lin would have been the first -- or maybe the second, after his wife, Sara, or third, after their son, Wilson -- to tell you that it shouldn’t be scored as a sacrifice, that he should be charged with an at-bat. But it sure felt like a sacrifice.
Lin’s death forced thousands of people to take a long pause and savor the memories he had made possible for them, whether it was being moved by a song he played or a comment he made on the air, chatting with him at a concert, approaching him for a photo in a restaurant after overhearing his golden voice, or actually knowing him and having the opportunity to relish his deadpan, irony-laced sense of humor, marvel at his intellect and knowledge of seemingly everything, or just bask in the warmth of his company.
In the days immediately after Lin died, people I hadn’t heard from in years, people from distant parts of the country, contacted me to offer their condolences, so moved were they by his death that they just had to get in touch with someone they knew who knew him. I had the great fortune to be friends with Lin for more than 20 years. I had listened to his radio show a fair amount and even chatted with him after he masterfully handled a sullen and bizarre John Fahey at the Guinness Fleadh in 1999. But the way Lin and I really got to know each other was by coaching local little league baseball together.
Lin and I agreed to become coaching partners during a chaotic first season in which our kids landed on the same team. The coaches were well-intentioned but over-extended and time-challenged, and Lin and I ended up unofficially taking charge, trying to coax a squad of seven-year-olds into pre-game warm-ups when they would rather be diving into the post-game snack than bending over to snag ground balls.
The first game that we officially coached was a damp, dreary, cold Saturday morning -- what we came to call ESAA weather. ESAA stands for Edgebrook-Sauganash Athletic Association, a far northwest side volunteer outfit whose motto is fun, fundamentals and friendship, though you might not know that on draft night -- that’s right, draft night, an occasion on which local dads cosplayed GMs -- or at playoff time, when you would be competing to play for the championship at Wildwood Park on a July day when there would be free hot dogs and snow cones for everyone.
I think the reason Lin and I connected smoothly was because we both grew up with similar childhood reference points from the same media influences -- basically top-40 AM radio in New York -- he in Forest Hills, Queens, me in Wayne, New Jersey (yes, that Wayne, with the store that Fountains of Wayne took their name from).
Lin called when the schedule came out: “Fuck! We’ve got the 9AM game.” This was not as big a problem for me as it was for him. On a Friday evening in Chicago, rarely was Lin Brehmer not emceeing a concert or charity event long into the night.
As soon as we got to the field, we realized that the coffee in our travel mugs wouldn’t suffice and we needed to divide and conquer -- one to the Dunkin’ Donuts on Touhy, one to pitch batting practice to sleepy, shivering children. Not sure why, but I got the DD assignment. When I asked Lin how he liked his coffee, he answered with one word -- one that I expect would put a smile on the face of New Yorker Norm Winer, the longtime station manager of XRT and one of Lin’s close friends: “Regular!” He knew I would know exactly what that meant.
* * *
Lin was the most patient person I have ever seen around a group of kids. He wasn’t shy about raising his voice, but only to dish out boisterous encouragement. As an alternative to the typical pre-game team cheer, he taught the kids to chant “Toga! Toga! Toga!” One day when Lin announced batting practice, a loud lad, standing inches from him, shouted “Who’s up first?” Lin came right back at him: “You are!”
We did not make it to the championship game our first year, but we came close. Naturally, Lin did a Lin’s Bin about coaching the team, answering a question posed by our daughter, who was too young for the team and had to watch from the sidelines: “Lin, why do most parents take little league baseball more seriously than the kids?” Naturally, it was wry and poignant. We had a pair of non-identical twin brothers on the team -- and I do mean non-identical. One was large and laid-back, the other small and spry.
“You’re in right field,” Lin once told the big guy.
“Which one’s that?”
Lin pointed, and the kid groaned. “Aw, that far?”
Lin shrugged. “Okay, why don’t you try left.”
A few years ago, the Lin’s Bin about the team was replayed on XRT. I heard from a friend that the twins’ father, a gruff fellow if I’ve ever known one, was listening on his car radio and had to pull over to the side of road and cry. I have no doubt that among the many who mourned Lin in January were kids now grown up nostalgically recalling him bellowing, “OK, slugger, give that ball a ride!”
Lin used to say that all it took to erase the sting of a little league loss for a kid was a chocolate milk shake and a cheeseburger. For adults, that sometimes wasn’t enough, and the only answer was two margaritas, three fried oysters and a selection off the specials menu at Don Juan’s restaurant in Edison Park (now Don Juan’s Cantina in Park Ridge).
In the final ESAA game that Lin coached, one that haunted him like a bad song -- say “We Built This City” by Starship -- our 12- and 13-year-old team got knocked out of the playoffs, losing 18-17 after blowing a 15-1 lead. Just for the record, there may be no more helpless feeling in life than watching in utter disbelief as the little league team you’re supposed to be coaching is in total meltdown mode. (Also for the record: Our team did win the championship one year.)
Adding to the misery was the discovery that our closer, who Lin once described as having “the heart of a lion,” had pitched three innings the day before for a travel team managed by the opposing coach, a CPD detective, who was beaming in the other dugout. Lin managed to maintain his even temper and helped me maintain mine. When our lead was down to one run, he whispered to me, “I just made reservations at Don Juan’s.”
Over the third round of margaritas, Lin offered some summer reading advice to our son Joe: The Dark Night of the Soul, by St. John the Divine. (For our daughter, Lucie, Lin recommended William Blake.)
* * *
Lin’s patience and good humor were ever-present. Rarely could he go to a public event without someone slipping him a cassette or CD of some band he just HAD to listen to. Lin would graciously endure the challenges of those who felt compelled to stump him by asking about a particular band. In private, Lin could mimic these encounters with the same animated panache that he performed the infamous Lee Elia tirade: ARE YOU KIDDING? ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF SNOT VOMIT?
I once pointed out to Lin that countless people likely thought he had the best job in the world. “Well,” he riffed in a wounded tone, “they don’t have to listen to Dave Matthews every morning.” Lin did believe that he personally had a great deal, mindful that so many people have a raw one. It was an awareness that he acted on by volunteering his talents and time, like serving in the dunk tank and as live auctioneer for Misericordia’s annual fundraiser.
Lin was a remarkable storyteller, as any listener to Lin’s Bin could tell you. He also enjoyed listening to a story as much as he enjoyed telling one. He was an amazingly attentive listener, especially for someone who spent much of his waking time in a sleep-deprived fog. One evening when Barb and I were out to dinner with Lin and Sara, Barb casually mentioned an upcoming fundraising event that she was organizing for the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance. Lin asked for the date, scrawled a note on a cocktail napkin and stuffed it in his pocket. A month later, I was listening to XRT and what do I hear but Lin, in his gold-plated promo tone, plugging this curious fashion show, Fleurotica, in which models wore outfits made of flowers.
A month later! No telling how many requests he had fielded, gigs he had emceed, or Bari subs he had ordered; no telling how many times he had misplaced his phone or his keys -- no reminder needed. Lin had an incredible capacity for keeping many people in his thoughts all at once. He could get away with saying he was your best friend in the whole world because he cared about all his friends and somehow managed to keep track of them.
* * *
Everyone knows that Lin was a devoted Cubs fan, but I doubt many people know why. It has everything to do with his neighbor and best friend from childhood, David Keehn, whose family relocated temporarily from Forest Hills to Oak Park for a few years. Lin adopted the Cubs as his team out of a sense of loyalty to the pal he missed dearly during his absence.
When Lin would wax nostalgic about childhood pickup games played at a schoolyard in Queens, he always included a dramatic, harrowing tale about watching in disbelief as his adventurous friend would retrieve stray balls. Last year, Lin had occasion to relate the tale all too briefly in a text. This doesn’t begin to do justice to his usual retelling, but it comes directly from Lin: “DK, as he was known, would climb a drainpipe four stories to get on the roof of the school to fetch softballs that were hit up there. Scariest thing I ever saw.”
In one of those small world moments that can cement a friendship, Lin and I eventually came to realize that I too knew DK, from Beloit College. At a party at our house, a college friend of mine, upon learning that Lin grew up in Forest Hills, asked if he knew David Keehn. Lin wheeled and shouted at me: “Engleman, why the hell did you never tell me you know David Keehn? I’ve told you that story 50 times!”
I could only shrug. “You never told me the kid’s name.”
As good fortune would have it, I’ve since become good friends with DK. Regrettably, due to the pandemic and Lin’s terminal illness, the three of us never got a moment together. We tried last October when DK came through Chicago, but it wasn’t in the cards Lin was holding.
DK wasn’t the only person from the past whom Lin and I had in common, though the discovery wasn’t quite as dramatic. Lin liked to reminisce about a summer job in high school on Cape Cod when he got into sailing, and one evening mentioned a friend from his work crew.
“I know Tom Schmitt,” I said.
“No you don’t!”
“Twenty-three Beechwood Drive, Packanack Lake, Wayne, New Jersey.”
Lin grinned and shook his head, ordered another round, and proposed a toast. When I got home, I promptly reconnected with Tom on social media. Discovering that Lin Brehmer was a mutual friend mandated it. Last fall, Lin thought to tweet me a photo of a faded photo that he had found of himself and the group -- four skinny long-haired teens, lounging on the hood of a beat-up sedan, with nothing but time on their hands. You couldn’t help but smile, but I took it as a warning that Lin felt his time was running out. (Another warning came when he took to playing the Godfathers: “Birth, School, Work, Death.”)
The last time Lin and I talked was on a long phone call a few weeks before he went back on the air last fall. He was reading Richard Ben Cramer’s biography of Joe DiMaggio, and we talked about the 1961 Yankees, the first season that either of us began paying attention to baseball. (He turned seven and I turned eight that summer; our birthdays were two days apart.) As we collaborated to recall the lineup and most of the roster, we both were surprised and amused that we had never covered that turf before. Not even when Lin gifted me a cover blurb -- “A grand slam!” -- for the reissue of a baseball mystery novel set in 1961 New York.
* * *
I once started to ask Lin about the XRT opening-day live broadcast that he hosted with Mary Dixon, Terry Hemmert and Marty Lennartz, but he interrupted before I could pose the question (Lin rarely interrupted): “You don’t want to go.”
I went anyway. It was probably the world’s best party with a 6AM start, like Times Square on New Year’s Eve, only more crowded. Once was enough. But listening to the broadcast was reliably one of the best mornings of the year -- the kind of morning when it feels great to be alive.
Opening day at Wrigley Field is coming soon. It won’t feel like opening day without Lin, but it could be the most memorable one ever, because we all will get a second chance to pause and treasure the moments and memories he made for us. You know that Lin’s colleagues at XRT will try and try harder than Mick Jagger to get the most satisfaction from the occasion. The Waco Brothers will be rattling the walls at the G-Man Tavern, and you can be sure Jon Langford, another poet who adopted Chicago as his home, will have something great to say. He and the estimable Tony Fitzpatrick are staging a tribute to Lin at the Hideout next month that could easily become a recurring gig, if they have the time.
Opening day is certain to resurrect the pain from Lin’s loss, but with the passage of time to soften the edge a bit, it should be more sweet than bitter this time around. Lin deserves to be, and likely will be, the leadoff batter on every media outlet’s coverage. He’ll certainly be the first person that many people think of.
* * *
A dozen or so years ago, I turned to Lin for some grist for a story about the benefits of napping. He didn’t disappoint: “You read about some people who have a gift for the art of napping. I have a gift for the art of sleeping. I rarely have the opportunity to perfect my art. But when it comes, I can sleep like Hendrix after Woodstock. There are few sensations as wonderful as the knowledge that you are about to go to sleep and not have to wake up for a while.”
It’s comforting to know that Lin got to make his exit in the company of the two people he loved most. I like to think he also was able to summon that wonderful sensation one final time and take some satisfaction knowing that he was about to embark on his last artistic endeavor.
Take a bow, Lin. And grab a bat. You’re up first.
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Well done Paul! Another deceased Edgebrook Sauganash legend (Jim Podgers) used to host a monthly poker game at his house. It was at one of those friendly games where I met Lin. You captured the guy I met that night in your article. He was funny, charming and self deprecating. Can't remember if he was any good at poker... Thanks for sharing your article.