Photo of Banks taken by Jim Graff 60 years ago.

The news of the past week was dominated by the brilliant scoundrel, Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, and the death of beloved Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks. Could there be two men at the top of their professions more different?

Today I’ll focus on Ernie because I feel like he’s almost been a member of the family. When I was a kid I learned early that I was a member of various tribes that helped define my identity. I learned I was Jewish, white, and Cub. I was a member of an offshoot of the main Tribe, because I was in the South Side sect that rooted for the Cubs, a small minority among millions of Chicago White Sox fans. We did not face pogroms like my brethren in Russia, but we felt like a beleaguered minority in my neighborhood.

In 1953 the Chicago Cubs bought Ernie Bank’s contract for $20,000 from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues. Soon after, they picked up Gene Baker a black Triple A player from the Pacific Coast League who definitely should have been playing in the Majors five years earlier, but teams were slow to break the color barrier even though Jackie Robinson had been in the Big Leagues for six years. Players had roommates on the road and the Cubs felt white players would resent bunking with black players, so they had to have a pair of Negroes on the team.

Ernie Banks was an immediate success at shortstop, as was Baker at second. Everybody got a nickname then and Banks got “Bingle,” and Baker got “Bangle.” The Cubs had a fat first baseman named Steve Bilko, so the new Cubs double play combination was the euphonious, Bingle to Bangle to Bilko. The Cubs were almost always a lousy team, but with Banks and Baker and home run hitter Hank Sauer in left, they were fun to watch on early TV and listen to on radio with the great play by play announcer, Jack Quinlan.

I read the sports pages religiously, even The Sporting News, the Baseball Bible, to keep up with my team. And I studied Ernie Banks assiduously. Ernie had a batting stance like nobody else in the game. He cocked his right elbow awkwardly so his bat was sticking straight up. As he eyed the pitcher his hands were moving constantly on the bat handle, like he was massaging it. I copied Ernie’s stance meticulously and practiced my swing for hours trying to build my bat speed. If it was working for Ernie I figured it would work for me. Banks won back to back Most Valuable Player Awards in 1958 and 1959.

Ernie Banks weighed only 170 pounds but he generated terrific bat speed with his great timing and powerful hands and wrists, which had developed from picking cotton as a kid in Dallas. Banks was one of 12 children. His father had a third grade education, but Ernie had a gift for baseball, an outgoing personality and endless curiosity, which set him apart from his baseball peers. Banks was always smiling and expressing his love for the game. He became synonymous with the phrase, “Let’s play two.” I loved the game like Ernie loved the game. I just couldn’t play it anywhere close to how he did.

I kept following the Cubs through bad times and worse times, dying with them in 1969 when they looked like they were going to win the pennant and then collapsed in September. Ernie was old then, 38 and playing first base, but still a dangerous hitter.

For me baseball wasn’t just a sport. It was a language and a link to talk to people, especially my grandfather and mother. Grandpa Kassel, my mom’s dad, was a taciturn lawyer for a railroad. We really had nothing to talk about except baseball, specifically the Chicago Cubs. We both loved it. He told me about “Jolly Charlie” Grimm and Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown. He went back to the days of “Tinkers to Evers to Chance,” the double play combo of the last Cubs World Series winner in 1908. He actually knew those players because they stopped at his family’s little grocery.

My mom used to excuse me form school and take me to Ladies Day games. I remember seeing Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella play in one. It may have been the most special thing we ever did together just me and her at Wrigley Field in the grandstand talking baseball.

When she got older and sadder we still had the Cubs to talk about and that special bond baseball fans cherish when they are sharing knowledge.

So when I got the news Saturday morning that Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub, had died, I shed many tears. Ernie was family. Ernie was what I shared with my Mom and passed on to Noah. All three of my kids adopted the Banks batting stance. It’s part of my legacy – and his.

Thank you, Ernie. You’ve been a part of my life for over 60 years. I keep your picture hanging up in my house and look it almost every day. And I’m not stopping now.

Question: Who will win the Super Bowl? Do you care?

Company Owners left to right: Tricia Morris, Perry Wiltsie, Jeff Wiltsie, Jim Wiltsie Jr.

The latest statistics show confidence building steadily for small businesses while Wall Street staggers over plunging oil and copper prices. The oily bankers and hedge funds bet big on the frackers in West Texas and North Dakota, and some of those leveraged loans look as solid as Venezuelan bonds today.

But for most of the folks we deal with on a daily basis, business looks rosy. The Detroit Auto Show has its mojo back. Cobo Hall has the pizzazz of the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show held last week. It’s amazing what 17 million cars can do for American machining.

A family business we’ve known for four decades, Vanamatic Company of Delphos, Ohio, is celebrating 60 years in business. The Wiltsie family has figured out a way to manage 70 people, including nine family members, into a prospering continuing company. Through turbulent times, the challenges of changing technology and an evolution in attitudes about work, Vanamatic has made it work. Four siblings share the authority of leadership with three brothers holding the title of President. To an outsider it may seem like a model for managerial chaos, but when family members respect each other’s talents, it can work.

A family business that works is a beautiful thing. As we watch the daily malfunction of government amidst the contentiousness of hardball politics, a functional family business seems almost magical.

The funny thing is that in the competitive machining world it really does work surprisingly often.

In the small microcosm of Graff-Pinkert & Co. my brother Jim and I worked with our father Leonard for 25 years. We argued frequently about the direction and tactics of the business, but the relationships were respectful. After our father died, leaving me with a slightly larger ownership in the business, it became harder to maintain balance and satisfaction. Ultimately my brother and I could not maintain the joy and momentum, and I bought out his interest in the company. But we still stay in touch and sometimes we do deals together.

Now my son Noah and I work at the art of balancing family and business while keeping the father-son relationship a happy one. Noah’s buoyant attitude sops up my incipient pessimism, making the situation generally viable and fun. I thought I understood the ethos of a successful family business when my Dad, Jim and I worked together, but there is no magic to it. It takes enduring respect and a daily subjugation of ego.

At Vanamatic four members of the third generation currently work in the firm. They are preparing for long careers. Employees average 17 years with the company.

Congratulations to the Wiltsie family and Vanamatic for 60 years of success, finessing ornery 8-spindle Conomatic screw machines and modern CNC equipment to produce beautiful fittings, along with automotive and aerospace components. Mastering screw machining is no easy task, but integrating nine family members into the fabric of Vanamatic over three generations is truly the art of the family business.

Vanamatic launches their new Website today. www.vanamatic.com.

Question: Should a spouse or in-law work in a family business?

Henry Kissinger’s recently published World Order, is an extremely thoughtful meditation on international harmony and disorder. He validates the truism that wisdom comes with age. (He’s currently 91.) I doubt that he could have written this book at age 50.

Kissinger relies on his great knowledge of history and his years of foreign service experience. The book is peppered with subtle, yet diplomatic digs at Obama’s foreign policy. He faults Obama’s inconsistency towards both allies (such as Saudi Arabia and Israel) and enemies (Putin, Assad and Iran), as well as the U.S.’s recent alternating engagements and withdrawals (Libya, Iraq/Syria).

Kissinger notes that there never has been a true world order. Previous empires at their height of power defined the world in their own image — be it China, Rome, Europe or Islam, but they were not necessarily inclusive or collaborating with those they ruled.

In defining America’s view of itself as a world power, he begins by quoting Harry Truman on what made him most proud. “We totally defeated our enemies, then brought them back to the community of nations.” Truman wanted to be remembered not so much for America’s victories, but for its conciliations. All of Truman’s successors have followed some version of this narrative. We see ourselves as a “benevolent superpower,” even if we don’t always live up to our ideals.

Kissinger then discusses varieties of world orders, specifically the European Westphalian arrangement: a multiplicity of political units (some with contradictory politics) where none was powerful enough to defeat all the others. They checked each other’s ambitions through a general equilibrium of power. Later, as the U.S. entered this system, there was a shift from a strict balance of power to the “achievement of peace through the spread of democratic principles.” This system now encompasses many regions and cultures.

Yet there are challenges on all sides. The European Union itself is shifting from independent states to a pooled sovereignty, and not without some significant inter-state conflict. In the Middle East, jihadists from both sides of the Sunni-Shiite divide are dismantling states in quest of a “global revolution” based on their own fundamentalist versions of their religion. In Asia, conflicts are arising, reflecting historical claims and borders of individual countries

Meanwhile, America struggles to define its relationship between its power and principles. We have a strong urge to withdraw from a confusing world. Yet in business and economics, right now the world is coming together. Globalization is complex and messy, but progressing. However, in politics, the progress is slower. Forces of anarchy have grown with potential to do great harm. Today, much of the Islamic world (defined as the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan) struggles between joining the world community and fighting against it.

Historically, Islam grew by conquest, beginning in 622 A.D. and continuing until about 1700 A.D. As Islam grew, the faithful believed that the religion, the government and the land were all to be Islamic forever. The joining of state and religion is the official doctrine of Iran and other Islamic states, and is the rallying cry of armed militias throughout the Middle East from Palestine to Afghanistan. Western states, on the other hand, have maintained a separation between “things that were Caesar’s and things that are God’s.”

Kissinger discusses the general failure of the Arab Spring and the Syrian Cataclysm as the inability to develop pluralistic institutions and leaders. Syria, in particular, has become a battleground between rival regional players manipulating militias. It is not about democratic government, but merely about prevailing or just surviving.

Most Moslem Palestinians see the doctrinal commitment never to give up territory to non-Moslems as a tenet of their faith. This makes a two-state solution with a Jewish entity an intractable proposition, and is why every time that firm proposals such as Clinton’s Camp David negotiations or Olmert’s 2008 offer become formalized, the Palestinians reject them. It’s worse than politics, it’s religion.

In his conclusion Kissinger warns that, “In an era of suicide terrorism and proliferating weapons of mass destruction, pan-regional sectarian wars must be deemed a threat to world stability, warranting cooperative effort by all responsible powers.” “The affirmation of America’s exceptional nature must be sustained. America, the modern world’s articulation of the human quest for freedom, and the geopolitical force for the vindication of humane values, must retain its sense of direction.” It is obvious that Kissinger worries about our future.

Question: Do you agree with Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan?