Frank Hernandez was a White Sox fan who had just watched the Cubs win with his buddies Thursday afternoon when he was gunned down in the street in front of Wrigley Field after striking an SUV driver with a souvenir miniature baseball bat, police and witnesses said.
Hernandez, 26, was crossing Clark Street about 6 p.m. when a Chevy Suburban cut him off and he hit the side of the sport-utility vehicle with the bat, a police official said.
The driver of the SUV got out and tried to attack Hernandez, who then broke the souvenir bat over the driver's head, the police official said. A passenger in the SUV got out with a handgun and shot Hernandez in the upper abdomen, police and witnesses said.
Hernandez collapsed on the sidewalk in front of a shuttered storefront just south of the Cubby Bear, a popular Wrigleyville watering hole. Paramedics performed CPR on the sidewalk, and Hernandez was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m.
Two Chicago Police officers who were parked in a squad car half a block away saw the fight break out and were watching in their rearview mirror as the passenger of the SUV allegedly shot Hernandez.
Witnesses said police took several men into custody almost immediately after the shooting.
Late Thursday, police were questioning "a person of interest" in connection with the shooting, but no charges had been filed, according to spokesmen for the police and the Cook County state's attorney's office.
Hernandez was shot about 90 minutes after the Cubs beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 11-3.
"He went to the Cubs game, and he was just waiting, got out and right there he got shot," a friend of the Hernandez family said as he sat sobbing outside the Illinois Masonic emergency room. "He told me, 'I'm gonna see the Cubs today. I'll go and see my buddies.'"
Hernandez's best friend, Brad Wallace Jr., who was with him at the game, had recently bought a cellular telephone with a built-in camera and had e-mailed his mother pictures from inside Wrigley, said Wallace's mother, Margaret Wallace.
Hernandez attended Chicago's Curie High School with her son, and both men worked downtown in office jobs, she said. Together with Hernandez's younger brother and another friend, the two best friends watched the Cubs trounce Arizona, she said.
"They loved to go to ballgames," Margaret Wallace said. "They try to get in a game every month, at least. They love sports.
"From what I've heard, they were crossing the street. There was a fight behind them. My son got to the curb and turned around. He heard two pops and went to talk to Frankie, and he was on the ground."
Silvio Stepancic, 23, a security guard at Bar Louie, 3545 N. Clark, said he heard the gunshot sometime after 6:15 p.m. and ran to try to resuscitate Hernandez.
"I heard a shot. I heard some people running. And I ran to keep him alive as soon as I could," Stepancic said.
Ald. Tom Tunney (44th), who was in his office several blocks away on Belmont Avenue when the shooting happened, said he was on the scene at Clark and Addison within minutes.
"We have to applaud the police; they were right there," Tunney said. "The response was immediate. It's unfortunate that somebody lost their life over anger and temperament."
Lorie Olszak, a friend of the owner of the SUV, said she spoke to a girlfriend of the owner Thursday. The girlfriend said he had called in the afternoon from Sluggers, a bar just south of the Cubby Bear on Clark.
The owner of the SUV, who had been working at a construction site near Wrigley Field, said he was heading to Sluggers after work with several co-workers, Olszak said.
The SUV owner made plans to meet the girlfriend after Sluggers on Thursday evening, but he never showed up, Olszak said.
Another witness, who asked to be named only as "Dan A." from Hanover Park, said he was standing on the corner of Addison and Clark shortly after 6 p.m., listening to kids play the buckets, when he heard gunfire.
"I turned around and I saw people running toward the sidewalk. Then I saw a crowd of people around some kid on the ground. His eyes were rolled back and ... he was spitting blood from his mouth."
Dan A. had watched the Cubs game from a private rooftop on Sheffield. He decided to hang around after the game to see if he could get an autograph from Cubs centerfielder Corey Patterson but didn't have any luck.
"I'm a suburban guy," he said. "I came to watch the game and have a nice day. And then this s--- happened."
Contributing: Frank Main, Fran Speilman, Ana Mendieta, Cathleen Falsani, Art Golab, Cheryl V. Jackson, Annie Sweeney