Do you believe?
“Kris Kringle,” Tribe fan Dan Sutter said, answering his phone Wednesday like any other business person might.
“I’m looking for Dan Sutter,” a reporter asked hesitantly, trying to track down a Fairlawn man with the long white beard who unintentionally grabbed the national spotlight Tuesday when he showed up at Game I of the World Series dressed as Santa.
“That’s me,” said Sutter, the longtime manager of Loyal Oak Golf Course.
Sutter has had season tickets to the Indians for 23 years. He bought them when Progressive Field was nothing more than a gaping chasm of mud in the heart of Cleveland.
He always dreamed of the Tribe winning a World Series even though he never dreamed of playing Santa until his father died.
Every Christmas for 36 years, Sutter watched his 6-foot-5, 280-pound dad John Sutter trudge out into the snow in a plush red suit to volunteer ho-ho-ho for families at his union hall, his Catholic parish, and other Greater Cleveland places.
But Dan Sutter said he never appreciated what that meant until his dad’s funeral in 2012, and John Sutter’s best friend told the story about how the elder Sutter earned the nickname “Hook.”
John Sutter worked for Otis Elevator, and one of his regular duties was fixing a lift that sometimes broke at a nursing home. Every time he visited, an old woman who lived there groused and blamed John Sutter for the malfunction.
One year, John Sutter — a church deacon who believed in helping others — volunteered to play Santa at the nursing home. Nothing brought joy to the residents like their grandchildren. And, he believed, the grandchildren didn’t visit often enough to establish a good bond with the residents.
If the elder Sutter could “hook” the grandchildren into an extra visit, even if it was only to see the jolly old elf, he could help both.
No one at the nursing home recognized the elevator repairman in his Santa suit. Months passed, and the next time the elevator broke, the woman who always blamed John Sutter began to complain.
This time, John Sutter asked about her granddaughter. The woman looked confused. How would the repairman know about her granddaughter?
“Ho-ho-ho,” John Sutter said, using the booming voice he used as Santa. “You must not recognize me in my [elevator] uniform.”
It clicked. The woman walked away without a word, but reappeared a few moment later offering John Sutter candy she brought him from her room.
Until he died, Sutter visited the nursing home every year as Santa. And whenever he came to fix the elevator, the woman who once blamed him for the elevator problems invited him into her room for something to eat.
Dan Sutter said he never knew this story about his father and worried that the nursing home residents might not see children if Santa didn’t visit. The younger decided to fill in for his dad.
“You don’t know, you couldn’t understand how the kids feed the energy in you when you’re wearing that Santa suit,” said Dan Sutter, who now continues his father’s legacy as what his calls a “real-beard philanthropic” Santa, working mostly with Akron-area nonprofits.
“Doing something really charitable affects you, impacts you deeply,” he said.
And bringing that magic into the World Series was a no-brainer.
Sutter’s dad sold beer in the stands at the Indians’ 1948 World Series when he was only 16, he said. He and his father were in the stands together cheering on the Tribe in both the 1995 and 1997 World Series.
This year, Dan Sutter, dressed as Santa, went with his wife, Deb, to Game 1.
About an hour into the game, after pitcher Corey Kluber struck out his seventh batter, the pop-culture arm of Sports Illustrated — SI Extra Mustard — tweeted out a picture of Sutter as Santa.
“Corey Kluber’s on the nice list,” the tweet said.
Sutter, who wore the fancier of his two Santa suits, posed for pictures and selfies with hundreds of people that night, including some especially nice children whose mother said they were Coco Crisp’s family.
Whenever anyone asked me how much he charged to pose with them, Sutter told them he didn’t want their money.
“I wanted a promise,” he said. “Do something generous or kind for someone in the next 24 to 48 hours, something you wouldn’t have done otherwise, something special for Santa.”
Sutter, who attended Game 2 with one of his two sons, said he hopes to tip over the first domino in a chain leading to scores of good deeds erupting across Northeast Ohio.
Santa, Sutter said, is all about believing.
The Indians winning the World Series is all about believing, too, he said.
“This is, after all, Believeland,” Sutter said, “where dreams do come true.”
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.