Politics, clout, Cubs converge

In 1975, Bruce Ladd was sitting in his D.C. lobbying firm thinking of ways to get ahead of the competition when an idea hit him like a screaming line drive.

He would create a Chicago Cubs fan club called the Emil Verban Memorial Society, a dry tribute to an obscure Cubs second baseman. The club would let him schmooze with political insiders, and more importantly, bring together all the sufferers who stick with the Cubs year after year, loss after loss.

At first, the club had just six members, including Dick Cheney, then chief of staff for President Ford.

Thirty-two years later, there are 700, including a who's who of politicians, pundits and presidential candidates. Ladd, 71, now retired and living in the Governors Club in Chapel Hill, runs the society from his library with its walls covered in Cubs memorabilia.

Ladd was 10 when he hopped in the brand new, four-door Mercury of his best friend's mom, and she drove from their neighborhood on the south side of Chicago to Wrigley Field on the north side.

Ladd remembers every detail of that day at the Friendly Confines. There was the famous ivy on the outfield wall and the hot dog with pickles, tomatoes and onions that his friend's mom bought him outside the ball park.

The Cubs lost. But it didn't matter. Ladd was hooked.

Ladd later worked for U.S. Rep. Donald Rumsfeld and then for President Nixon.

The club

After leaving government service, he started his own lobbying firm and jotted down several possible names for his Cubs club. For some reason, the name Emil Verban popped in his head.

Verban played for the Cubs between 1948 and 1950. He had decent stats but hit just one home run in his seven-year career. Ladd liked the ring of Emil Verban Memorial Society. "I didn't care if the guy was dead or alive," he said.

Once word got out about the group, folks clambered to join, Ladd said. Ladd capped membership at 700. Each member gets a quarterly newspaper Ladd types on a typewriter in his library.

"It's like the Wizard of Oz," he said. "They go up the Yellow Brick Road and find a little, wizened, old guy. That's me."

Barack Obama, Illinois senator and presidential candidate, is a member, Ladd said, though Obama's spokesman was unaware and said his boss is a White Sox fan.

Presidential candidates John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton are on the roster, too, Ladd said. Their people did not return calls.

But Ladd has proof of Clinton's membership. Clinton, who grew up in Chicago, attended a society lunch in 1994 when she was first lady. Photos of Ladd and Clinton hang in his library.

Washington Post columnist George Will is also in the club and calls Ladd "a lovely man."

"Cubs fans are a large sorrowful diaspora, and every once in a while we gather," said Will, who plans to be a member for a long time.

"I'm determined to live until [the Cubs] win a World Series."

Verban comes to visit

The club meets for lunch every other year. Just before its second gathering in 1984, a member looked up Emil Verban in Lincoln, Ill. Despite the club's name, he was still alive.

Verban had not heard of the group and acted as if the club had just brushed him off the plate with a high fastball.

Not wanting Verban upset, Ladd invited him to Washington.

"I offered to fly him and his wife out here, put him up in a hotel," Ladd said. "Then he says, 'Yeah, but what about my two kids?' "

The Verban family landed, and Ladd whisked them to the White House to meet President Reagan a day before Verban was the featured guest at the club's lunch.

Verban died in 1989, but Emil Verban Jr. said the society became very dear to his father.

"When you're out of the limelight for 30 years and your name is back in the sports pages, it's kind of nice," said the younger Verban, a dentist in Illinois.

The club's next meeting, a big bash in Chicago in 2008, will coincide with the 100th anniversary since the Cubs won their last World Series.

That's of course if they don't win this year, said the fan club's founder.

(Staff writer Luciana Chavez contributed to this report.)