Goodman may have loved one thing more than music: baseball, and particularly, the forlorn Chicago Cubs. After the Sanders concert, he was delighted to talk about the Cubs’ chances for the ’84 season (“Forty years of saying ‘This is it,” but ‘this is it!”), and about the Cubs beautiful Wrigley Field. Discovering an arts’ writer was an avid Red Sox fan, he gushed, “Baseball is only really baseball when it’s played in a great park – and Fenway and Wrigley are the two greatest. And of course,” he commented, “the Cubbies and the Sox seem to share a common heritage now, don’t they!” One of his most requested songs was “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request,” and, in a small but deeply poignant irony, Goodman died before his Cubs could win what would be their first pennant in 39 years.

His ashes were buried under Home plate at Wrigley field.