There’s much to be jealous of Sam Bernabe’s baseball life.
As president and general manager of the Iowa Cubs of the Triple-A International League, whether during business hours at the ballpark on game day or when the club is on the road in far-off cities as Syracuse, N.Y., or Toledo, Ohio, Bernabe is at the ready.
Joining the club some 42 seasons back after college graduation, little did the Iowan know at that time that a lifetime employment decision had already been made.
From his first year with the Cubs in 1983 to this week’s six-game homestand at Principal Park, beginning on Tuesday with the visiting Buffalo Bisons, Bernabe is hard at work ensuring baseball memories will be made. Minor league ballparks are beacons of summertime entertainment. The game and promotions are lined up for between innings, as well as after the last out has been caught; fireworks are the gold standard from Class-A to Triple-A, and connecting with the fan base is paramount.
Here’s your bumper sticker message, not only befitting the magic created in Iowa, but what drives all minor league clubs in their quest to be tops in a community-minded world: “Minor League Baseball Equals Fun.”
From Des Moines, and loving the game since attending his first professional game of any kind with his grandpa at Sportsman’s Park in 1966, to watching the St. Louis Cardinals host the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bernabe and the Cubs were a match waiting to meet.
Before the Cubs landed their top affiliate in Des Moines, Bernabe would watch the best of the Oakland Athletics’ prospects at Sec Taylor Stadium developing into an organization that would soon have them the talk of the sport by winning back-to-back-to-back World Series in the early 1970s.
“It was Little League Night at the ballpark,” Bernabe told The Epoch Times on Monday. “It’s one of my best memories, getting to see Vida Blue pitch. These were the teams that featured Joe Rudi, Gene Tenace, and many of the great A’s.”
Bernabe is keeping put in his hometown by choice. The awards racked up over the decades: Baseball America MiLB Executive of the Year, American Association Executive of the Year, and the John H. Johnson President’s Award winner from Minor League Baseball in 2002, all proof that the Iowan has the chops to move up the ladder with big league clubs. Being civic-minded, Bernabe had the best of both worlds right, smack in front of him. There have been no regrets about not changing baseball addresses.
In his younger days, Bernabe earned a Master’s degree in sports management at Western Illinois University.
“After grad school, I’m in my hometown dating a girl, who later became my wife, and the Cubs were there. I was in the right place at the right time. I got lucky. Being able to come back and work in Des Moines has worked out.”
Growing professionally and learning all the positions required to get the ballpark up and running for when the gates opened on game day has molded Bernabe into the overseer of the Cubs that he is today. Driving the freeway to his office at Principal Park each day, still, after four decades-plus, excites the leader of the organization. It’s the noise at a game that stimulates Bernabe. The sound of a crowd’s eruption after a walk-off victory, followed by fireworks exploding from beyond the outfield wall, is nirvana to him. The fan in Bernabe, thankfully, has never weaned.
During Bernabe’s tenure, the Iowa Cubs won the American Association championship in 1993. When the parent club Chicago Cubs finally reversed the Billy Goat Curse in 2016 and won their first World Series championship since 1908, the fine work put in Iowa wasn’t forgotten. Cubs’ owner Thomas Ricketts paid Bernabe the ultimate baseball-workplace compliment by presenting him a World Series ring.
“It’s the best,” says Bernabe of the ring made from 14-karat white gold. “Mr. Ricketts was kind enough to give one to me. If I’m sitting in a restaurant and I see someone with a Cubs shirt, I'll take the ring out. I show it to them, then strike up a conversation.”
Armed with his wealth of experience, Bernabe talks of still learning while on the job. There isn’t a day that goes by that he doesn’t pick up on something new. He makes it a point to learn much about his staff members.
“I teach them to give them options. It’s a democracy until it’s a dictatorship,” explains Bernabe of empowering his staff. We’re all about learning lessons. There are no making mistakes.”
With the Iowa Cubs currently in third place in the International League’s West, Bernabe does take interest in the West’s Gwinnett Stripers. The Atlanta Braves’ Triple-A affiliate, planted nearly 1,000 miles southeast of downtown Des Moines, has a familiar-sounding last name in their company directory. Baseball Diamond Holdings, Inc., owner of both the Iowa Cubs and Stripers, has two Bernabes at the helms of their properties. Nick Bernabe, now in his ninth year in pro ball and his first as assistant general manager with Gwinnett, is Sam’s son. As one could imagine, having Nick follow in his father’s footsteps has his family back home proud.
“In baseball, we work for the people,” Bernabe states of the motto in Iowa.
Maybe, just maybe, when actor Kevin Costner in his role as Ray Kinsella in “Field of Dreams” was trying to figure out why he plowed over a corn field on his Iowa farm to build a ball field, the Academy Award winner was channeling a young Sam Bernabe. Beginning with the Iowa Cubs from the ground up, first as an intern, the organization’s growth and sustainability through its history has had one constant through all the years: Sam Bernabe.
