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Cubs honor late filmmaker by drafting his son: ‘It’s something that will stick with me forever’

When Skokie resident Itamar Steiner fielded a call from his local newspaper last week, it was just the latest media request for the recent Niles North graduate.

Steiner, whose friends call him ET, is balancing his newfound celebrity with his duties as a first-year counselor at Camp Tavor in Michigan.

His claim to fame? Being a 40th-round draft pick of the Chicago Cubs, who selected him June 6 near the end of the MLB draft.

The starting left fielder on a Niles North team that finished 3-28 this spring, Steiner was very much a ballplayer. However, the pick was essentially an honorary selection to recognize Steiner and his late father.

David Steiner, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, activist and passionate Cubs fan, was killed in a bus crash in Uganda in December 2016.

ET Steiner also was on the charter bus and suffered minor injuries. He had accompanied his father to Africa to shoot a documentary about two Sudanese boys whom they had befriended while living in Israel several years earlier.

“It’s really cool that different newspapers and even a TV station have tracked me down to get the story,” ET Steiner said. “I like that the Cubs were able to honor me and my dad. It’s super cool that his story has gotten around, and specifically to Cubs fans, because (the Cubs were a) big part of him and my relationship with him.”

Steiner said he also hopes the notoriety might shed a light on his father’s work, and perhaps even revive interest in the documentary left unfinished after the accident. The project in Uganda came on the heels of David Steiner’s critically acclaimed 2016 documentary “Saving Barbara Sizemore,” which chronicles community attempts to save a charter school in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.

“The attention I get is less important than if we could get attention to the (Uganda) project, raising money for the project and for the issue in general. That’s so much more important,” ET Steiner said.

Niles North first-year baseball coach Dan Casey said he was not surprised that ET Steiner’s focus remains on his father’s work, even after being drafted by his beloved Cubs. Casey said that Steiner hopes to follow in his father’s footsteps and fight for social justice while maintaining his commitment to community service, which includes volunteering regularly at a local soup kitchen.

“He’s an incredible human being,” Casey said of Steiner. “To be his age, and act the way he does, present himself the way he does, to have those life goals and his view of the world at his age, is just incredible. It was incredible to coach a kid like that.”

David Rugendorf, a California lawyer and lifelong friend of David Steiner, put ET Steiner on the Cubs’ radar. He sent a letter to Jason McLeod, the Cubs’ senior vice president of scouting and player development, with the idea to honor the Steiner family through a draft pick.

ET Steiner, who lives with his mother in Skokie, is not the first honorary MLB draft pick for a Chicago team. The White Sox drafted Carey Schueler, daughter of then-general manager Ron Schueler, in 1993 to make her the first woman ever selected in the MLB draft. Like ET Steiner, she was the 1,208th overall pick.

New Trier alumnus Joseph Reinsdorf, grandson of White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, was a 40th-round pick in 2015.

ET Steiner first got wind of the draft-pick plan when Cubs scout John Pedrotty contacted him earlier in the spring. Pedrotty requested medical records because he was a potential draft pick. Initially, Steiner thought it was some kind of cruel hoax.

“I wondered, why (is this person) trying to scam me with one of the closest things to my heart?” he recalled.

Eventually, Rugendorf informed Steiner that he was in fact being considered for a draft pick.

However, on the final day of the draft, an apologetic McLeod called Steiner to say circumstances likely would force the Cubs to go in another direction with the final pick.

“I was upset, but I wished him luck and all the best for the Cubs and said (the organization) should keep doing what they are doing because it seems to be working,” said Steiner, who was already at Camp Tavor in Michigan. “I thought that was the end of it.”

But a few hours later, Rugendorf called Steiner, who was in his cabin, and told him to listen to the closing rounds of the draft.

Despite a bad Wi-Fi connection, Steiner was able to get the end of the draft on his phone, and in the 40th and final round, his name was called.

“They may have (mispronounced Itamar) and said I was an infielder. They might have messed that up,” Steiner said. “But they said my name. They drafted me, and it was pretty cool.”

Steiner said he hopes to study business management at Illinois in the fall. His goal is to start a real estate development company and eventually use those skills to work on affordable housing projects in Chicago.

Wherever life takes him, Steiner will go with the distinction of having been a Chicago Cubs draft pick.

“It’s crazy. I could imagine in 50, or 60, or hopefully 70 years, telling my grandkids about (getting drafted),” Steiner said. “It’s something that will stick with me forever.

“And I’ll be a Cubs fan forever, so I have that on my side.”