Rock History: Saturday in the Park … What Year WAS It?

As you may already know, I can’t listen to songs without skeptically questioning the stories behind them. I dunno, maybe I should’ve been a police detective or something. One story I’ve always wondered about is “Saturday in the Park,” by Chicago. Robert Lamm, the song’s author, was born on October 13, 1944. So when he wrote “Saturday in the park …. I think it was the Fourth of July” in or before the year 1972, he could have been recalling how many Saturdays? And was he even old enough to remember each? I asked Mr. Database:

CREATE TABLE #saturday_in_the_park (
 WhatYearWasIt varchar(4) NOT NULL,
 HowOldWasRobert varchar(3))
 DECLARE @theyear varchar(4);
 SET @theyear = '1945';
 WHILE ((SELECT @theyear) != '1973')
 BEGIN
 IF (DATENAME(dw,'07/04/' + @theyear) = 'Saturday')
 INSERT #saturday_in_the_park VALUES (@theyear, (@theyear - 1945))
 SET @theyear = @theyear + 1;
 END
 SELECT * FROM #saturday_in_the_park;
 DROP TABLE #saturday_in_the_park;

Query result:
WhatYearWasIt, HowOldWasRobert
1953, 8
1959, 14
1964, 19
1970, 25

The Fourth of July fell on four Saturdays between 1944 and 1972, and Robert was probably old enough to remember them all. But were they noteworthy? According to popular music lore, the “park” in question was Wrigley Field, and Robert was watching the Cubs play. What happened? I asked Mr. Google, who tells me that the Cubs played the Braves at Miluakee on July 4th 1964, lost at home to the Dodgers on July 4th 1959, and lost at home to Pittsburgh in 1970. Since it’s unlikely for Lamm to have fondly remembered a home game that the Cubs lost, we can therefore safely conclude that the song recalls Saturday, July 4, 1953, when Robert Lamm was eight, and the Cubs beat the Cardinals 5-4.