Did Tom Dreesen ever tell you the one about Frank Sinatra?

There was a time back when the Desipio Message Board was still a thing and we were doing Gamecasts for most Cubs' games that our running jokes had running jokes.

The butt of one of those passed away on Wednesday morning at the ripe old age of 86. Younger readers might not know who comedian Tom Dreesen was, but he was born in Chicago and raised in Harvey and he was a comedian and actor best known for two things. He and Tim Reid (Venus Flytrap from WKRP in Cincinnati) were one of, if not the, first interracial comedy duos, but he was best known (because he never stopped talking about it) for the 13 or 14 years he was Frank Sinatra's opening act. I say 13 or 14 because Tom pretty much always interchanged the two numbers.

Tom was a constant, at some points incessant, visitor to the Cubs' TV and radio booths both at Wrigley Field and Dodger Stadium. And every time he was on he told the same story about how he got the job opening for Sinatra.

"Would you need more than $50,000 for a week's worth of shows?"
"Would you need me to pay you more than $50,000 for a week's worth of shows?"

And he then would tell stories about Frank on the road, and many of them had Frank good naturedly making fun of Tom as the punchline. All of them carried just a hint of the truth, where the only part that was exaggerated was Frank not meaning to be mean to Tom.

And that's where our jokes about Tom started. In most of them Frank would make Tom either get in the closet or the trunk of the limo while he was banging some broad.

"I never knew Ava Gardner could act that well."
"That's 20 more minutes in the trunk for you, Dreesen."

But as long-running Cubs fan guests on broadcasts go, Dreesen was more fun, funnier and a lot less icky than some creep like Jeff Garlin is these days.

Nothing captures just how big of a fan Tom actually was better than the footage he posted a few years ago on YouTube of the four-game series at Dodger Stadium where Dreesen served as the Cubs 45-year-old bat boy.

Tom looks like he could be Matt Shaw's dad.

But we probably do need to relive some of Tom's Sinatra stories, and nobody enjoyed them more than David Lettterman, who had Dreesen on dozens of time. They were friends from doing standup in LA in the '70s, and Dave always got the best stuff out of Tom. And I think he made him tell the Shecky Greene story at least 4,000 times.