Rick Monday, American hero circa 1976, still has the flag. It’s fastened to a staff Mayor Richard J. Daley gave him.
“It’s in my den with a lot of baseball memorabilia,” Monday said from his San Diego home. “I’m proud to have it.”
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote in 1990, ruled it is legal to desecrate the American flag. The decision continues to distress Monday, who spent six years in the Marine Corps Reserve.
“I’ve been to too many veterans hospitals and seen too many broken bodies of guys who were protecting the flag,” he observed. “What the Supreme Court did discounts and diminishes all the lives that have been given in defense of their country.”
It was 20 years ago last Thursday when the nation was cheering Monday, a ballplayer-patriot who prevented the burning of a flag in shallow left-center field at Dodger Stadium.
Monday, then the Cubs’ star center-fielder–he hit 32 home runs leading off–was returning to his position for the fourth inning.
“I saw the creeps run on the field from somewhere down the left-field line,” he said. “One of them had something rolled up in his arm. It was a flag. They unfurled it on the grass, like a picnic blanket.
“One of the idiots took a shiny can out of his pocket. I thought he was dousing it with a flammable liquid, which was the case. The other person whipped out a book of matches. The wind blew the first match out.”
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By the time the second match was struck, Monday was at the scene of the outrage. He snatched the flag on the run.
“The guy threw the can of lighter fluid at me,” Monday recalled. “It missed. I took the flag into foul territory. Doug Rau, a left-handed pitcher with the Dodgers, came out of the dugout and I gave the flag to him.”
The Dodgers’ message board flashed “Rick Monday . . . You made a great play.”
The crowd responded by singing “God Bless America.”
“I don’t remember if we won or lost the game,” Monday said. “But I’ll never forget the people singing.”
In the clubhouse after the game, reporters were three and four deep at his locker.
“I was kind of embarrassed,” Monday recalled. “A lot of people would have done that. I didn’t realize how it would be magnified.”
The Tribune’s Dick Dozer, in his report for The Sporting News, wrote: “Rick Monday was Francis Scott Key, Betsy Ross, Verdun and Iwo Jima–all wrapped in one fleeting moment of patriotism.”
At the request of Mayor Daley, Monday carried the flag down State Street in Chicago’s Flag Day celebration. During the parade, Daley asked him if he had any political ambitions.
“I told him, `No, sir, I don’t.’
“And he said, `Why not?’
“I told him, `Your honor, I’m a ballplayer.’ “
President Ford wired a message of congratulations. The Illinois Legislature approved a commendation. Bowie Kuhn, then the baseball commissioner, described Monday as a “great American.” The Cubs scheduled a “Rick Monday Day.”
And, of course, after the season ended, Monday was traded to the Dodgers. He played with them for eight years, got into three World Series and retired after the 1984 season,
He has worked since as a television analyst, and for the last seven years he has been with the Dodgers. When the Dodgers are not on the road, he and his wife, Heather, spend four days a week at their San Diego home, the other three on their boat, Strike Three, anchored in the Pacific Ocean, adjacent to Marina del Rey.
WGN-Ch. 9, which does the Cubs games home and away, didn’t telecast Monday’s patriotic dash because producer Arne Harris generally prefers not to televise anyone running on the field.
But some years later, Monday discovered that a fan, a professional in the film industry, had captured the event with a movie camera. Monday now has it on tape, combined with the radio commentary of Vin Scully, the longtime voice of the Dodgers.
“I’ve never replayed it, but my mother has seen it,” Monday said.
As for the would-be flag-burners, William Thomas of Eldon, Mo., and his 11-year-old son, each were fined $800 and put on two years’ probation. If it happened today, they probably would get a medal.
Monday was asked if it was his biggest thrill in baseball.
“No,” he replied. “My biggest thrill was being in the locker room after (the Dodgers) beat the Yankees in the 1981 World Series.”
Monday batted only .231 in the Series, but it was his homer off Montreal’s Steve Rogers in the final playoff game that carried the Dodgers to the pennant.