A Chicago Tribune headline writer calls longtime Wrigley fixture Ronnie “Woo Woo” Wickers (above, right), “a more polarizing figure than recently deposed manager (Dale Sveum)”. With Wickers, 71, in poor health, the Tribune’s Paul Sullivan attempted to recap some of the Cubs uberfan’s career highlights ;
•Wickers appeared at the 1988 home opener wearing a gorilla suit, showed up at Oprah Winfrey’s last show in 2011 and also was wooing during Donny and Marie Osmond’s Christmas show at the Oriental Theatre that year. Tribune critic Chris Jones wrote that Marie Osmond reduced “Woo Woo to Jell-O.” Wickers also wore his Cubs uniform in July at the funeral of actor Dennis Farina, who starred in “Bleacher Bums.”
•In 1999, Wickers was arrested on a noise complaint in Schaumburg when he attended a party and began “wooing” late at night. The police report stated Wickers’ name and alias — “Ronnie Woo Woo” — and stated he “yelled names of Chicago Cubs baseball players followed by a ‘Woo Woo’ sound from the balcony” of an apartment complex.
“Yeah,” Wickers recalled. “It was a Sox fan who called the police.”
•Every Cub knows him well. Every Cub knows him well. In 2002, Wickers’ photograph appeared in papers when he chased after Dusty Baker’s car when the Cubs manager was hired. Former general manager Jim Hendry once offered him a ball in spring training to shut him up. Wickers greeted club President Theo Epstein with an awkward hug near the Wrigley marquee after Epstein’s introductory news conference in 2011. On Monday, Wickers was trying to scream “Girardi, Girardi …” while Dale Sveum was trying to answer questions about his firing.
•Wickers wants to be an official Cubs mascot, but a source said that is not in the cards. He said he had spoken with team Chairman Tom Ricketts in passing about some ideas he had on helping promote the Cubs during the 100th anniversary of Wrigley next year but can’t get past Ricketts’ secretary to actually talk with him.
“I’d like to sit down and talk to Ricketts for maybe a half-hour,” he said. “I’ve left several messages. When I see him, he says he’s busy.”