Texan In Right Place, Right Time For Commercial

COLLEGE STATION, TX. (AP) – College Station resident Ron Schorn is the quintessential Cubs fan – he’s been there for the bad, the worse and the downright ugly – and yet through it all he remains true to Wrigley Field.

So true that Schorn is serving as the face of Cubs fans around the world in a Mastercard commercial shot in June in Chicago. It’s running through the end of the Major League Baseball World Series. While luck and opportunity shrank away from the Chicago Cubs on that fateful June day, the transplanted Texan just happened to be in the right bar at the right time with the right hat on his head to make him a Chicago Cubs star.

No more than eight seconds into the commercial Schorn appears sitting in the famous Wise Guys corner of the Billy Goat Tavern in downtown Chicago with a triple cheeseburger, lamenting over the Cubs loss that afternoon. “They totally blew the game that day – Piniella got thrown out and we made some boneheaded mistakes, and I actually didn’t get to eat any of the burger,” a smiling Schorn said. “My wife and I were about to meet some friends for dinner, and if you know anything about those burgers, there is no way I could have eaten that thing and made it to dinner.”

Also, the beer wasn’t free. But you can’t see us drinking any because the director said no.” Schorn and his wife Marcia, both 72, attended Loyola University in Chicago, where Schorn spent his childhood. They were in Chicago on that hot summer day to attend Marcia’s 50th college reunion. “We flew in on Friday, and the party wasn’t until Sunday so we had all of Saturday to kill,” Schorn said. “So we walked around by Wrigley Field a bit, and then decided to go down to the underground part of Chicago and have a beer in the Billy Goat Tavern.”

The tavern is one of Chicago’s most recognizable watering holes, made nationally famous as the premise for many of Dan Akroyd and John Belushi’s old “Saturday Night Live” skits (Think: Cheezeborger, cheezeborger, cheezeborger. Pepsi. No Coke.). Schorn said a bunch of “young guys” came in with a producer and director, who saw him in his Cubs hat and asked if he would want to be in a commercial. “We had been having a great time with some of the guys at the bar, laughing back and forth, telling old Cubs lies,” Schorn said.

“The director came up to me and asked if I could look sad or downtrodden – a typical long-suffering Cubs fan. I said: ‘Like this?’ and he loved it! So we shot the commercial in the back – took like 45 minutes. It was great. Plus, now whenever it comes on, I get paid!” Schorn, a retired Texas A&M University astronomy professor, says he eats, sleeps and breathes baseball. His bookcase is full of materials about the Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field and the city. Henry Mayo, one of his friends, says he’s intrigued by Schorn’s fascination with the team.

“He has always been a big Cubs fan and often changed a conversation to the subject of baseball to mention them,” Mayo said. Along with books on the Cubs, models of boats line his bookshelves, along with sports memorabilia from teams such as the Boston Red Sox. “You’ve got to have protective coloration,” Schorn said, again smiling. “Depending on if I’m in north or south Chicago I’ll either wear a Cubs or White Sox hat. If I’m in Boston, it’s Red Sox all the way. I will not, however, wear a Yankees hat. Never.”

What’s really grabbed Schorn’s passion since retiring from teaching in 1999 is writing. He’s written two books on the history of various space explorations and missions and is working on a third. “I’m working on trying to get a contract with NASA to do some research and write about the Cassini-Huygens Space Mission to Saturn and its satellite Titan,” Schron said. “Hopefully, that will work out here soon.” Schorn is an expert in the field of astrophysics; he has an undergraduate and master’s degree in physics and a doctorate in astronomy.

As for his moment of fame here on Earth, Schorn said the irony of it all was one of the best parts. “It was a MasterCard commercial, and we had paid for our plane tickets and hotel stuff with a MasterCard, and now they are paying us,” Schorn said. “We are basically paying off our card bill with money from them.”

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)