EXTRA: A “role model” at something

The baseball season in Chicago is over for the year, and many of us would just as soon forget the godawful (but not surprising) Chicago Cubs performance, or the tantalizing, but ultimately annoying, time that the Chicago White Sox gave us.

PRECKWINKLE: Soon on a bubble-gum card?

Perhaps we should have been paying our attention to a different kind of bat-on-ball game this past year.

I’M REFERRING TO that local thing known as 16-inch softball, where it seems that one of the many leagues that played this past year is one that involves government  officials.

And in that athletic world, it seems that Cook County government rules in a way that White Sox fans can only dream of (and Cubs fans can’t even get that close).

The Cook County Board on Tuesday spent quite  a bit of time praising its softball team, which consisted of staffers who work for President Toni Preckwinkle, the county commissioners and other county government agencies.

They played in a league organized by the Chicago Sport and Social Club – one that consists of teams made up of government officials (although I wouldn’t put it past someone to suddenly offer Gordon Beckham a job on a government payroll – just to get him to play).

COUNTY BOARD MEMBERS spent quite a bit of time at their meeting Tuesday passing a self-congratulatory resolution, receiving a cup from the social club and even getting t-shirts made up for themselves to boast of their “accomplishment.”

For the record, the county government team won all eight of its games – including three victories over teams representing Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (by scores of 19-3, 17-0 and 14-2) and a championship game against a team representing Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

QUINN: Outscored a collective 50-5



Teams representing the City Council, city Treasurer Stephanie Neely and Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., were among the others that fell to the county this year.

County commissioner John Fritchey, D-Chicago, said that board Secretary Matthew DeLeon was the guy who did the grunt work of putting together a county softball team – one that even saw Preckwinkle herself get a few at-bats.

DELEON ALLEGEDLY IS looking into putting together a flag football team of county officials, although Preckwinkle said there’s no way she would take the field in that event.

“I know my limits,” she said.

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