By Bob Markus

Time out! This will be my last posting for awhile. Like the swallows that return to Capistrano, we (my wife Leslie and I) are making our annual return home, leaving our computer behind to do whatever computers do when nobody's looking. We plan to be back in time for me to resume my weekly ruminations Aug. 26.

Having spent the majority of my first 65 years in the Chicago area, I'm looking forward to seeing old friends like Roy Damer, Cooper Rollow, and Neil Milbert, former colleagues at the Chicago Tribune, not to mention our old neighbors from Winnetka. But that's not the only reason we're going home.

Every year, on the Monday before the All-Star baseball game, an organization called Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities, holds a celebrity golf tournament, with the proceeds--all of them--going to fund cancer research, with a heavy emphasis on the young victims at Children's Memorial Hospital. Everyone involved is a volunteer. Although I donate modest amounts to a number of charities, this is the one with which my heart lies.

I've been a member of the CBCC board since 1982 and I believe I've missed the tournament only once since then. The CBCC was started by Marv Samuel, a former minor league pitcher, and dedicated to the memories of Nellie Fox and Sherm Lollar, two former White Sox stars, who succumbed to the dread disease. Samuel recruited a cadre of retired athletes with ties to Chicago and CBCC was in business. The day before the All-Star game was chosen on the theory that Cubs and White Sox players would be available to participate as celebrity guests during their three-day break.

For awhile it worked that way and it was not unusual for a dozen or so active players to show up for the daylong outing. In recent years that has changed. Fewer players are willing to give up even a day of their family time during the season. Still, every year there are a few active players who show up. Todd Hundley was one of them during the brief, painful period he spent with the Cubs. He brought his dad, Randy, with him, and I got to play with the former Cubs catcher that day.

For the most part, however, the celebrity players are icons of the past from all sports. Billy Pierce, the stylish left hander for the Go Go White Sox of the '50s, has been president of the organization since Samuel's untimely death and that is not an honorary position. Billy works tirelessly all year long for this one day in the sun. Gene Hiser, who played the outfield for both Chicago teams, arranges the foursomes and assigns celebrity golfers to each group, also almost a fulltime commitment. Bob Miller, former Mets' reliever, spends many hours arranging travel packages for auction.

Other old time players who can be counted on to play almost every year include Andy Pafko, Bill Skowron, Al Weis, Paul Popovich, Steve Trout, Carlton Fisk, Ron Kittle and Jim Rivera. I've played with Skowron and Rich Nye, a former Cubs' starting pitcher who is now a veterinarian. I can tell you that on a golf course, Nye is the better slugger of the two.

From basketball, there are Bob Love, Johnny Kerr, and Norm Van Lier, all ex-Bulls (in Kerr's case only as coach) and Dick Schramm, former coach of the New Jersey Nets. Dick travels to Chicago from his home in Boca Raton, Fl. every year just to emcee the live auction. Several former Bears, including Ronnie Bull, Mike Pyle, and George Blanda are yearly participants and, since he moved to the Chicago area a few years ago, Hall-of-Famer Ted Hendricks has played every year.

I've had a nodding acquaintance with Hendricks ever since his rookie year with the Baltimore Colts. In those days I used to cover the first two weeks of the NFL champions' training camp as they prepared to play the College All-Stars in the annual preseason opener that was sponsored by The Tribune. Also at that training camp in Westminster, Md., was author George Plimpton, who was attempting to reprise his Paper Lion success. Unfortunately for Plimpton he was running the infamous Oklahoma drill on the first day of practice when he was nearly dismembered by a ferocious linebacker who apparently wasn't in on the joke.

Before breaking camp each year the Colts, like most teams, had a "rookie show," where the rookies were called on to embarrass themselves in various ways, usually by singing their school fight song. But with Plimpton on board, this rookie show was a bit different, as I was to discover. At some point during the show I was startled to hear my name called out, as being a rookie writer, at least as far as the Colts were concerned. I was summoned to the stage and instructed to lie down. I had no idea what was going to happen, but did as I was told. Presently I saw, shambling toward me, two men disguised as a horse. As this strange creature passed over me, Hendricks, who was the hind end of the horse, unscrewed the cap of a long tape carton, sending a stream of water all over me. The symbolism was unmistakeable. The Colts were using the rookie writer as a urinal. I managed to laugh and take it with apparent good grace, despite my inner embarrassment.

I had interviewed Hendricks a few times during the intervening years and the first time he played in the CBCC tournament we met at the bar after finishing our rounds and had a long conversation. So long that, when everyone else went into the dining room to eat, we stayed at the bar. It was then that Hendricks astounded me by asking me for MY autograph! I have signed a few--very few--autographs from fans over the years, but this was the first and only time an athlete ever requested one. I signed on a bar napkin and heaven knows what Ted did with it.