‘Mr. Cub’ earns right to dream

Just like clockwork, Ernie Banks has this recurring dream, and he just can’t shake it. The 76-year-old “Mr. Cub” never played in a World Series, but that’s not what his subconscious tells him.

“I follow the World Series, I really miss the Cubs not being in it and most of all me playing in it at Wrigley Field,” Banks said. “I still dream about it. I don’t know why.

“Somehow, I’m playing against Willie Mays. Remember, it’s a dream. And it’s the seventh game of the World Series at Wrigley.”

Banks doesn’t have a final score.

“I always wake up,” he said. “In a cold sweat.”

Banks, who has a home in Marina del Rey, spent his 19-year career with the Cubs, and even though he was a superstar the Cubs were something less. Banks hit 512 home runs, was an 11-time All-Star and was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1977.

Banks speaks regularly with former Cubs Billy Williams and Ron Santo, and he threw out the first pitch when the Cubs played host to the Diamondbacks at Wrigley Field in Game 3 of Arizona’s first-round playoff sweep. Banks said he wished he could have done more.

“One of the owners told me to get a bat and get in the lineup,” Banks said. “I started jumping around and said I sure would like to.

“Next year, my goal is to be in Wrigley Field and become the oldest player to play in the World Series. I’m just kind of tied into that. It’s my life.”

Hey, he can still dream, right?

World serious

Next season marks the 100th anniversary of the Cubs’ last World Series victory, in 1908. The last time the Cubs played in the World Series was 1945.

Banks says he’s gotten over not playing in the World Series.

“Does it hurt more every year, every time the playoffs start, every time the World Series comes up? No, it doesn’t bother me,” he said. “But I do think about it for the Cubs a lot. I follow the game, from spring training and as we move through the year, tip-toeing through the tulips and see if we’ll win the division.”

Trivia time

How much does Fox charge for a 30-second spot that would be shown during Game 6 and Game 7 of the World Series?

Overhead smash

Someone is finally taking a stand on tennis gambling. Tennis Australia, which runs the Australian Open, will impose a lifetime ban from the Open for any player, coach or official found guilty of illegal tennis gambling.

What are the odds they’ll nab somebody?

Ticket time?

You can be sure that the Rockies’ ownership will keep a trained eye on expanded revenue streams next season, specifically whether the team’s unexpected trip to the World Series pays off.

In 1998, the Rockies reached a high of about 34,000 season tickets. This season, the season-ticket numbers were about 14,000.

Pitch out

Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolff said this week the team won’t stay in Oakland even if it can’t build a new stadium in Fremont. But sports columnist Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle isn’t buying it. He said Wolff has no leverage.

Wolff has “the concept of Fremont, the reality of Oakland, and. . . well, nothing. No other city, no other plan, no other scheme.”

Fremont is the “totality of Wolff’s plan and if the voters or civic leaders balk, he has Oakland. Period.”

Oh baby!

The website Introfee.com is offering a $1,000 reward for clear footage of a live baby birth to use in a 30-second spot for Super Bowl XLII.

Consider yourself warned.

Trivia answer

Fox expects to get $425,000 per spot, a 10% increase over last year.

And finally

Atlanta Journal Constitution sports columnist Furman Bisher didn’t like that the Colorado Rockies went eight days without playing a playoff game, but he said he knows why. It’s because of television.

“The networks schedule games to fit in between the nut-house shows they book.”

thomas.bonk@latimes.com