It was straight out of “Without a Trace.”
Cubs’ superfan Ronnie “Woo-Woo” Wickers had been reported missing–by his wife, cops said–and the news spurred dozens of Chicagoans to call police, radio stations, RedEye and the Chicago Tribune to say they’d seen him.
At a concert.
At ballgames.
At the Jewel.
But Wednesday found “Woo-Woo” safe, sound–and single, according to him.
“That’s amazing,” Wickers told RedEye on Wednesday afternoon after all the hubbub about his disappearance reached him.
Wickers–the voice behind the infamous “Cubs, woo!” chant heard outside Wrigley Field–said he had “no idea” who reported him missing as of June 29 and said he is not married.
“I’m just a good Cubs fan,” Wickers said.
“Thank you for being concerned,” he said. “I’m just trying to spread the love, the love of the Cubs.”
“I’ve been around, trying to catch up with Dusty Baker and talk to him about pitching and why we’re 14 games back,” Wickers said Wednesday. “I was just on an All-Star break, like the players. I’ve just been spreading love.”
As for his appearances at U.S. Cellular on July 6 and 10? He was there to scope out the competition. “I thought maybe I could give Dusty Baker some pointers about these hitters,” he said.
Sgt. Robert Cargie said Wednesday that the case on Wickers was closed and he could not comment on it.
The process of reporting a missing person, he said, is “an open-ended opportunity for people to report people who are missing.”
“There’s not a rigid protocol for people to report a missing person,” Cargie said.
He said police routinely contact family and friends of missing persons once they are reported, and they get information about the person who reports the disappearance.
While walking through Wrigleyville on Wednesday afternoon, Wickers could not go far without hearing a honk from a passing car or a “Cubs, woo!” from people walking by him on the street.
A few asked where he had been, to which he often responded “Woo, I’m alive, woo!”
One cabdriver pulled up waving a cell phone and said a radio station wanted to hear Wickers’ voice. Wickers went straight for the phone and belted out his chant.
People who called in Wickers sightings said they saw him all over the Chicago area–from Evanston to The Cell.
Perhaps the most off-the-wall confirmation of his whereabouts came from Wickers himself.
After the missing persons report was discussed on WLS-AM on Tuesday during the “Roe Conn Show,” workers at a Chicago sports bar that had hired Wickers to clean its windows called the show.
Within seconds, Wickers was on the air proclaiming, in his inimitable fashion, “I’m alive, woo, I’m alive, woo.”
Ron Magers, a show contributor and WLS-TV anchorman, advised Wickers to call home to clear up any confusion. Donald Wickers, Ronnie’s twin brother, said one of Wickers’ friends was still so concerned Wednesday morning that she was with her preacher before hearing the good news.
“We weren’t worried,” Donald Wickers said. “He’s just been out and about doing his thing.”
Wickers was doing just that last Sunday in full Cubs regalia when Mark Sharp, a Sox fan from Indiana, approached “Woo-Woo” at The Cell and invited him to sit with a group of friends. With Sox fans heckling him throughout the game, Wickers still posed for pictures and talked baseball.
“When the scoreboard showed the Cubs had [beaten the Marlins], he stood up, turned and smiled,” Sharp said. “Then about the eighth inning, he said he had to go to the bathroom, got up, left and never came back.”
Wickers, who has been reported missing before and was rumored to be murdered in 1987 after skipping some early-season games, said he was not upset about the incident.
“That’s just the way life is,” he said. “Sometimes you have a bad inning. You have good innings and you have bad innings. I’m still Ronnie ‘Woo-Woo.’ “
The life of Woo
Wickers and his twin brother, Donald, were born on Halloween in 1941 and grew up on the South Side. Wickers’ childhood was difficult–he was abused, and he had learning difficulties that prevented him from getting past grade school.
His grandmother stepped in and gave the boy what he would need to survive.
“My grandmother took me to my first ballgame [at Wrigley Field] when I was 8 or 9,” Wickers said. “When I got older, I used to come to Wrigley Field. They had that little [Cub] mascot on their uniforms.
“It reminded me of a teddy bear I had at home.”
THE CHANT: Wickers started the now-famous “Cubs, woo!” chant in the late ’50s.
“I started wooing in ’58 or ’59,” he said. “It just came to be. I had fun with it. And now, with WGN a superstation, CNN, ESPN, it’s gotten a lot of exposure.”
Wickers, however, has not always had the smoothest of relationships with Cubs management.
At one time the team wanted to ban him from the ballpark after he was blamed for a disturbance in the bleachers, but things have been patched up.
A STAR IS BORN: Through the late ’80s and early ’90s, the media spotlight shined increasingly on Wickers. He appeared onstage with Chicago radio personality Jonathan Brandmeier. He became a frequent sight on Chicago TV and radio stations, as well as on ESPN and TBS.
MYSTERY MAN: In May 1987, rumors surfaced that Wickers was missing or murdered after he failed to show up at any of the early-season Cubs games. Wickers was eventually located working as a pizza deliveryman.
OUCH: Wickers was slightly injured in April when he was hit by a car backing out of a parking space near Wrigley Field. Wickers was treated for minor injuries and then released, police said.
COMING BACK: Wickers’ love of baseball saw him through nearly a decade–from the mid-’80s to the early-’90s–of homelessness and drinking problems. He turned his life around mostly by sheer will; he just decided he didn’t want to live on the streets any longer.
GETTING BY: Most of his income comes from a couple of dozen neighborhood businesses for which he washes windows. “I make $25 or $30 a day,” he says. “Some days, maybe $50 or $60.”
— Tribune
– – –
Man about town
Reports of Ronnie “Woo-Woo” Wickers’ disappearance sparked dozens of “Woo-Woo” sightings called into police, radio stations, RedEye and the Tribune. Wickers confirmed to RedEye that he was at all of these places.
Place: O’Hare
Int’l. Airport
Date: July 5
Place: Byron’s Hot Dogs, 1701 W. Lawrence Ave.
Date: Tuesday
Place: The Hangge-Uppe, 14 W. Elm St.
Date: Saturday
Place: P.S. Chicago, 1009-1011 N. Rush St. Date: Saturday
Place: Long John Silvers,
4715 W. Fullerton Ave.
Date: July 2
Place: Cafe Luciano, 871 N. Rush St.
Date: Monday
Place: Steve Winwood Concert, Grant Park
Date: July 1
Place: Jewel, Roosevelt and Wabash
Date: Monday
Place: U.S.
Cellular Field
Date: July 6, 10
Other sightings
Place: Arlington Park race track
Date: July 3
Place: Parade through Evanston
Date: July 4
Place: On-air via phone with Roe Conn, WLS-AM 890
Date: Tuesday
Place: Outside Wrigley Field, Waveland Avenue wall
Date: Wednesday
—REDEYE GRAPHIC; PHOTOS BY CHASE AGNELLO-
DEAN/REDEYE.
