Times change and attractions of the past don’t carry the same weight w/ public

The United Center in Chicago may well be the House That Michael Jordan Built, but the reality of the operators of that West Side structure is that the Bulls got kicked out of their home every November to make room for the circus.

Who knew back in November that Ringling Brothers wouldn't be coming back to Chicago?

The Ringling Brother, Barnum & Bailey Circus to be exact. Which is in the news these days because the so-called Greatest Show on Earth that can trace its origins back 146 years is soon to become defunct.

THEY’RE GOING TO finish out their show schedule through mid-May before becoming no more. As things turn out, their last Chicago appearance were the ones back in November when they staged their show at the United Center.

For those of us Chicagoans who feel one more need to go see the circus with the Ringling Brothers brand name, you’ll have to check out one of the performances come March in Cincinnati – which is about as close to the Second City as they will come in the rest of their lives.

Now I know some of us are getting nostalgic while others are expressing anger.

Some are going out of their way to make politically partisan statements against liberals, whom they want to believe are responsible for the circus’ demise.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, circus officials in their statement announcing their closing did say that attendance had declined significantly since changes were made in the program to downplay the elephant displays – whom the animal rights activists had always complained were potentially being mistreated.

Although they also conceded that attendance had been on the decline even before that.

The fact is that it wouldn’t shock me to learn that many young people just don’t feel the same attraction to a show that could trace its origins back so far. It wouldn’t shock me to learn that they’d rather play the latest video game (or perhaps take part in a virtual circus in which they could simulate the participation of an actual event) rather than seeing the real thing in person.

After all, the animals smell, and sometimes they poop right in front of you. Yuck!

PERSONALLY, I CAN remember that being the gut reaction I had the one time I went to a circus – back when I was about 5 years old. It wasn’t something I ever felt compelled to do again. And for those people who will claim that a circus gives people exposure to nature and animals, I’d argue that it shows us animals under very unnatural circumstances.

United Center won't need this configuration any longer

Unless you really want to believe that an elephant wears a tutu and dances, or that horses perform tricks for our amusement.

The baseball fan in me is reminded of when the New York Giants left Gotham to relocate in San Francisco, with then-team owner apologizing to the children of New York, but adding, “We didn’t see many of their parents out there at the Polo Grounds in recent years.”

I suspect many of the people who are complaining the loudest about no more circus are the same people who didn’t bother to buy tickets.

THEN AGAIN, THE idea of no more circus makes the baseball fan me think of those people who complain about World Series games being played at night, because supposedly we’re depriving kids a chance to see the ballgames. If they’re playing late into the night, after all, they can’t listen to the broadcasts of day games on the transistor radios they sneak into school.

Except when was the last time a kid ever listened to a transistor radio? And if they are looking at the Internet on a computer during school time, I suspect a ball game is the last thing they’d care to watch!

Nostalgic image? Or everything that was wrong with the circus?

Besides, I’m sure Chicago Bulls fans will enjoy their team getting control of its home arena back. Although I almost feel the extended road trip of a few weeks long every November is something of a team tradition.

Just what will the Bulls do with themselves with all that extra time they’re going to spend in Chicago come November?

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Bulls can keep their glory, not that they were ever in danger of losing it

It has been some 20 years since that season when the Chicago Bulls managed to set a record 72 victories in the regular season – a record that finally fell this year with the Golden State Warriors (that’s the Oakland, Calif.-area) managing to win 73 games.

 

Fell one win short of ultimate goal

Is it possible that these Warriors are better than the high-and-mighty Bulls teams that we had back in the 1990s – the one time that Chicago sports got to experience a taste of the kind of athletic glamour that New York Yankees fans expect routinely?

NAH!!!

It certainly isn’t going to be remembered as big as those teams led by the duo of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, and also had characters like Dennis Rodman (what color would he wear his hair on any given night?) playing regularly.

The Warriors led by Stephen Curry (I have to confess, when I hear the name “Curry” it brings to my mind Eddy, the high school sensation from Thornwood High in South Holland who didn’t quite become the next Bulls superstar) may be able to claim to have won one more game than did those 1995-96 Bulls.

But those Bulls went on to be National Basketball Association champions for that season – and five others within that 1990s decade.

IN THE END, the Warriors fell Sunday night to the Cleveland Cavaliers. History will record these 73-win Warriors as merely a second-best team and NOT champions like the Cavaliers – led by LeBron James, the other high school sensation who turned out to be the elite player that sports fans thought Eddy Curry would be for the Bulls.

 

Still on top of the ultimate champion category

I don’t doubt that Golden State fans feel something special about this season that is now finished. Although I doubt anyone else will get all worked up over it.

For all I know, they will be quickly forgotten while basketball fans will debate for decades to come whether those 1990s Bulls were THE elite team of professional basketball.

That, and they’ll remember how Jordan himself was a Saturday Night Live guest (remember the sight of him in a grass skirt doing the hula dance with the Superfans cheering on his merits (Jordan was almost as sensational as Mike Ditka himself, to listen to those old comedy sketches).

 

Nobody would confuse him with Stephen

ALL OF THIS has come to a wrap-up, and I have to admit to feeling glad – in part because I think the professional basketball season stretches on far too long. It’s even more ridiculous playing NBA Finals games in late June than it is playing the World Series in the days leading up to Halloween.

We can now relegate the Curry Warriors vs. the Jordan Bulls debates to semi-drunken bar quarrels, and wonder how many times in the future the issue will lead to an outburst sensational enough that the cops will have to come in and break things up.

Because it just wasn’t a quarrel I cared to have all that often, and not just because I’m not much of a basketball fan.

Of course, the Chicagoan in me is going to find it difficult to ever have anyone challenge the significance of the Bulls back in that era.

SIX CHAMPIONSHIPS IN an eight-year time span is historic no matter what the sport.

 

One of Chicago's true sports characters

Although others will go on and on about the historic significance of Cleveland managing to come from as far behind as they were in the final round of the NBA Finals to actually win the whole thing.

Some will cry about Stephen Curry’s dream season falling one game short. While those people who think LeBron James is some snotty, arrogant punk will be upset to see him on yet another championship team.

And those of us with a Chicago rooting interest will wind up crying the loudest – wondering why the Bulls stink so much and when it will be their turn to win yet again.

  -30-

One down, three to go!

The Chicago Blackhawks gave us that come-from-behind victory earlier this week against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game One of the Stanley Cup finals.

Will this pennant become more obsolete?

Three more victories, and Chicago gets its third pro hockey championship in six years.

WHICH WOULD BE something of significance for Chicago sports fans. Considering that the Blackhawks have only five championships in their 80-something years of existence.

And before that 2010 title, the last Stanley Cup victory for the Blackhawks was back in 1961.

The point being that while the Blackhawks might be an “Original Six” franchise, they’re not exactly one with a significant winning tradition. Taking another championship title this year would make this era’s Blackhawks franchise the highlight of the franchise history.

Enough for us to forget Bobby Hull or Stan Mikita (and I don’t want to read any e-mailed gags about doughnut shops) or anyone else who played all those years ago.

CONSIDERING THAT CHICAGO sports don’t exactly have histories of winning (our sports franchises usually require fans to endure some pretty sucky ball teams), this is an era that will not be forgotten.

It’s not exactly on the same level as those Chicago Bulls teams that won two strings of three-straight-championships during the 1990s.

But they are teams that will make our sports fans think about ice and skating – even the fair-weather fans (I have to confess that none of the pro hockey teams I have seen include the Blackhawks; I’ve never seen a match of theirs in my life) who probably don’t comprehend much of what is happening on the ice.

Who's thinking about doughnuts?!?

Except that fights occasionally break out. And the Blackhawks seem to get whiny opponents from the south to play against – it makes me wish this year’s Stanley Cup final could have been a Chicago-New York Rangers match-up instead of the one we got!

SUCH AS NASHVILLE trying to restrict sales of tickets in their arena to local residents and Tampa Bay wanting to forbid anyone from wearing a Blackhawks jersey in their arena anywhere where it would be seen by a television camera.

Strangely enough, that hang-up seems to be common for a lot of sports teams based in cities that weren’t major league a half-century or so ago.

Which is something rather lame, if you think about it. What kind of place is so insecure that they have to create a phony image that the whole world revolves around themselves?

How will this cover be topped!?!

If the Lightning were really into the hang of things, they’d want to have Blackhawks faithful sitting in their stands, buying their beer and other overpriced concessions, then looking rather gloomy when their team lost.

WHICH MIGHT BE the reason I’m hoping there’s a Blackhawks victory Saturday night in Game Two.

That would set up a possibility for the Stanley Cup to be a four-game sweep, with victories Three and Four coming next week at the United Center.

Let a couple of Lightning fans show up in Chicago and find themselves to be an insignificant minority. So much so that Blackhawks fans won’t be bothered by what they choose to wear.

Although I have to admit to being curious t see how we’ll behave if we get a championship-winner in Chicago proper.

WILL OUR FANS wind up acting stupid and rioting to express our glee, as has happened in certain other cities across the country when their professional (or collegiate) teams came through on the athletic field (or turf or ice or wood, or whatever substance they happen to be playing on).

For those "fans" who can't comprehend what happens on the ice

Then, we can move on to trying to figure out just how far removed from championship quality our baseball and football franchises will be in ’15.

  -30-

Why should we care if Rose does not care? He is not the Bulls’ savior!

We are of a society that places so much value on the abilities of its top athletes that it’s no wonder more don’t turn out to be like Derrick Rose.

He’s the point guard for the Chicago Bulls who once again has turned up injured. It’s a knee problem, and he had surgery last month.

BUT AS THE Chicago Sun-Times reported, the ball player whom many believe the key to whether or not the Bulls will ever be a significant basketball team in coming seasons doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to recover.

While team officials say they’d like to think he will be healed in just over a month, Rose said he’s not about to rush himself to play again this season. “Whenever I feel well, that’s when I’ll step back on the court,” he told the newspaper.

On the one hand, I have no doubt that Rose thinks he’s being particularly honest in assessing his recovery. He’ll play when he plays, and not a moment sooner. Maybe he thinks he’s saving himself for future glory to be performed on the basketball court.

Maybe he envisions this as an isolated incident that will be long forgotten by that future date many years from now when he is inducted into the professional basketball Hall of Fame.

BESIDES, HE’S AN athlete, someone who is used to being coddled because he’s special. He’s Derrick Rose. His knee is more important than any body part of a mere mortal.

But let’s be honest.

Sports fans are willing to mollycoddle the athletes who on a certain level perform. In the case of Rose, this is the third time in seven seasons playing in the National Basketball Association that he has suffered a severe injury that disrupted his playing time significantly.

Learning that he doesn’t care enough to want to return to play makes him come across like some sort of wimp. I can’t help but wonder if the Rose legacy is now set in Chicago as some sort of flake who wasn’t tough enough to endure on the court.

IF THAT’S THE case, then the biggest joke in this commentary was that line five paragraphs ago that hinted Rose will become a basketball Hall of Famer. He could wind up as the most disappointing athlete to ever wear the jersey of a Chicago professional sports team.

He definitely has surpassed Eddy Curry as the most disappointing hometown boy who was drafted Number 1 and expected to lead the Chicago Bulls to championship success for years to come.

Perhaps Rose still mentally thinks he’s the Simeon Career Academy athlete who will be coddled because, in his mind, “I’m Derrick Rose.” The guy who once faced allegations that he had someone else take his SAT college entrance exams and had his high school boost his grades to keep him academically eligible to play ball.

Sadly for him, Rose probably won’t realize how much his attitude stinks until he has washed out with the Bulls. He may wind up latching on to another NBA team, like the one-time Thornwood High School star Curry did. He may even be better off away from the pressure of playing in Chicago.

BECAUSE THE EXPECTATIONS here are turning out to be something that Rose doesn’t seem capable of living up to. Unfortunately, the Bulls’ roster these days seems based around the idea that Derrick is the team leader.

Without him, there is little chance of the Bulls accomplishing much of anything resembling success. While those years of athletic glory in the 1990s drift further and further into our city’s memory.

To the point where the Luv-a-Bulls’ routines could wind up being the only thing worth checking out at the United Center these days.

  -30-

Freedom of expression? Or should Derrick Rose keep his trap shut?!?

A t-shirt is going to show us just how much Chicago sports fans “love” Bulls point guard Derrick Rose.

Bulls fans have become critical of the fact that Rose has suffered so many injuries during his professional athletic career and gives the impression that he’s in no hurry to recover from his various maladies.

THE DEBATE OVER Rose is whether he’s merely being careful and taking care of himself; or if he’s got a lazy streak within him.

But now, we’re going to have another issue – following the Saturday night incident where Rose publicly wore a t-shirt with the slogan “I can’t breathe” printed on its front.

That slogan refers to what were among the “last words” spoken by Eric Garner in New York while being held in a choke hold by police. Garner later died, and his words are being used by protesters angry that the officer in the incident evaded criminal indictment for his actions that caused the death.

Rose became merely the latest professional athlete to show sympathy toward someone who died recently because of a police officer’s actions.

LET’S NOT FORGET the St. Louis Rams football players who last month took the field prior to a game against the Oakland Raiders with their hands held in the air, symbolically letting police know that just because they were black men, they weren’t about to commit any violent acts.

As though the assumption was that black people are naturally violent and pose a threat that law enforcement should react harshly towards.

The St. Louis Police Officers Association led a verbal attack on the football players, saying it was disrespectful for them to side with the people who believe the death of Michael Brown in suburban Ferguson, Mo., was caused by police and who are angry that an officer there also managed to avoid being indicted for his actions.

Now, we’re going to see how the sports world comes out against Rose, although it should be noted that the Chicago Tribune reported most of Rose’s Bulls teammates are supportive of his right to express his views.

THEN AGAIN, ROSE is the supposed star of the Bulls team and is the man whose fitness is key to whether the Bulls have a chance to be in the NBA playoffs come spring.

If he does play well this season, he “buys” himself the right to say what he thinks.

Those Rams football players (Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Gevans and Kenny Britt) are not NFL stars. In fact, there’s a good chance that when they die, their obituaries will lede with the fact that they were the guys who protested Brown’s death – instead of anything they did during a game.

As for Rose’s gesture of protest, I think it is rather mild. If you weren’t paying attention during pre-game warm-ups, you didn’t see it. It’s not like he’s going around elaborating on his attitude these days.

SO I THINK anybody who gets too upset about Rose taking such a stance is probably saying more about themselves than anything Rose (or Garner) said or did!

It reminds me of the book “Ball Four,” in which former pitcher Jim Bouton addressed the attitude of baseball people toward those of their colleagues who expressed views on social issues.

Ballplayers could say anything they want if they expressed a socially conservative viewpoint because they were “right.” But if they said something construed as not supportive of the conservative establishment, then they were criticized for being “wrong.”

Unless the player in question was a big-enough star, in which case they’d get a simmering silence directed toward them. Is that bound to be Rose’s fate for daring to wear a t-shirt Saturday night?

  -30-

EXTRA: Bulls/Magic beats Quinn/Rauner? So says local TV

For those people who might think that election results were everywhere and were unescapable, the reality was significantly different Tuesday.


WGN-TV was the only local broadcast outlet that pre-empted their usual evening programming to have news reports. Everybody else carried on with their usual prime-time shows, and waited until the late-night newscasts to tell people what was happening.


PERSONALLY, I FOUND CLTV, the Tribune Co.-owned local cable news station that likes to think it is around the clock local news to be most intriguing.


They stood with their pre- and post-game shows, along with a live broadcast of the Chicago Bulls' 98-90 victory over the Orlando Magic.


Somehow, I suspect few people will find objection to that decision.


  -30-

Rose, Ventra tops 1st gay marriage

I’m not surprised by the news judgment used by Chicago’s two metro newspapers on Tuesday.

Rose tops marriage, ...

The fact that the first legitimate marriage of a gay couple will take place sometime this week – about seven months prior to the date the new law goes into effect – made Page One of both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.

BUT IT WASN’T the lede story. In fact, if one didn’t pay close enough attention, you’d have missed the marriage story altogether.

For the record, the Sun-Times on Tuesday thought that the BIG DEAL of the news lineup came from the world of sports – specifically the fact that Derrick Rose has suffered an injury so severe that he’s going to miss the entire season.

As in again. It’s starting to appear as though the man that Chicago Bulls fans were counting on to be the big star of teams that would win a slew of championships will be nothing more than a “never was” – as in we’ll forevermore speculate about what could have been IF ONLY he hadn’t gotten hurt.

As for the Tribune, they gave a banner headline to the latest story about how messed up the Ventra card system is. Which appeals to the people who use the Chicago Transit Authority trains and buses on a regular basis.

BECAUSE IT WOULD seriously stink if one couldn’t get to work because their fare card didn’t function properly.

Yet the occurrence this week related to gay marriage is one of those bizarre moments that it is something we all ought to be interested in – particularly if you’re one of those people who wants to wish that the issue would just go away!

... as does Ventra

For the record, the General Assembly passed a bill making marriage a legitimate option for gay couples in such a way that it can’t take effect immediately.

There was no way that 60 percent of legislators were going to agree on this issue so as to allow it to take effect immediately. It had to settle for the bare majority (60 of 118 votes), which means the new law will take effect June 1, 2014.

EXCEPT THAT A federal judge (U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin, to be exact) issued a ruling Monday that requires the Cook County clerk’s office to issue a marriage license to a pair of women who wish to marry immediately.

Derrick Rose may be gone for good

The women are not a youthful couple, and it seems they have been together for five years and got a civil union in 2011. But one of them has breast cancer severe enough that they’re not sure she will survive long enough for the couple to have a June wedding.

County Clerk David Orr has always said he supports the idea of marriage being available for all; so much so that he didn’t even fight the lawsuit the couple filed last week.

He seemed to be pleased that Judge Durkin issued the order that forced him to issue the marriage license that took effect Tuesday (the couple says they’ll marry this week).

NOT THAT I’M really bothered by the fact that the couple will marry now, rather than later. I’m sure the fact that the law didn’t take effect immediately was one of the few “victories” the conservative ideologues were feeling these days.

But it does make me wonder about the long-term effect on the provisions of state law that require a higher level of support for bills passed after the General Assembly completes its spring session.

Some wish these cards would go away instead

I recall one time that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, specifically thwarted the interests of firearms advocates by requiring one of their bills to get a 60 percent majority – a vote total they could not possibly achieve.

Officials say the ruling by Durkin is so narrow that it shouldn’t impact other cases – or other couples wanting to get married before June 1. But have we managed to undo some sense of our legal procedure? Yet another reason we’ll be confused in the future!

  -30-

LeBron can take his 2nd title and stuff it; he’ll never top the Jordan image

Personally, I find the whole Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James argument to be silly.

Anybody who seriously follows professional athletics (not those who paint themselves all kinds of funky colors to try to get themselves on television) knows there is no definitive way to compare ballplayers of different eras.

IN FACT, ONLY a fool would try to make such an argument seriously. Then again, we have a lot of fools amongst us.

So I’m sure we’re going to hear many people claim that LeBron (whose Miami Heat team won its second-straight NBA title this week, beating the San Antonio Spurs 4 games to 3 in the championship series) is the greatest. We can forget about anything “MJ” accomplished.

We’ll even get those people who will start screaming “six” over and over until they keel over dead from a heart attack. As in the fact that Chicago Bulls teams with Jordan managed to win 6 NBA titles.

Does this mean that if James-led Miami teams manage to come up with five more titles before the kid hangs up his sneakers, he will be the undisputed greatest dribbler ever??!?

IT’S A BATCH of nonsense to think either way. Because there’s nothing James could ever do to detract from the overall image that Jordan created – which went well beyond anything he ever did on the basketball court.

LeBron James is an athlete. Jordan took his skills into creating an image that for many will forever define professional basketball – often taking it to extremes where it seems like we couldn’t escape his image.

His restaurants. His shoes. His cologne. It was everywhere.

The closest one can find to Jordan in terms of celebrity professional athletes is baseball’s Babe Ruth. It doesn’t matter what “numbers” James puts up – his image doesn’t come close. Shaquille O'Neal was more of a celebrity than LeBron. Anybody who tries to get worked up is being ridiculous.

I BRING THIS issue up because I’m trying to anticipate many verbal brawls that could get way too physical (leave it to sports fans to think that their favorite team creates “life or death” issues).

I’m not arguing here that Jordan is better. Although if Jordan were just a ballplayer, I doubt Bulls fans would remember him any more fondly than Bob Love or Horace Grant, or basketball fans remembering Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul Jabbar!

They certainly wouldn’t have felt compelled to let him have his own NBA franchise – one that shows any skills he has about basketball are limited purely to what he once could do on the court. Nobody expects the Charlotte Hornets to match the Bulls anytime soon. One wonders if the Hornets will ever be as good as the Charlotte Knights -- the underachieving Chicago White Sox minor league affiliate?

In fact, in my mind, the thing for which LeBron James will be most remembered is that he seemed to trigger the modern trend of top-notch high school athletes skipping out on college altogether to jump to the NBA.

IT WORKED OUT for him, although most of them wash out. Anybody remember Eddy Curry – the onetime star of suburban Thornwood High School who didn’t lead the Bulls to anything significant and – the last I heard – was playing professionally in China?

I’m willing to concede that Jordan was the top ballplayer of his era, and James the best of what we see now. Although it’s bound to happen that in a couple of decades there will be somebody on the basketball court whom everybody will want to believe is THE BEST!!! because that’s all they’ve seen in person.

And a whole generation of kids of the future will think of LeBron as some old fool, the way that kids of today are too eager to think of Jordan as just another old fogy.

Besides, those of us in Chicago know full well that the sports team that “matters” these days is the Blackhawks – who could on Saturday put themselves only one win away from a second Stanley Cup hockey championship in four seasons.

  -30-

We’re on the verge of something freakish in world of Chicago sports

Beginning Wednesday, just three seasons after winning a Stanley Cup championship, the Chicago Blackhawks will take on the Boston Bruins in a chance at winning another National Hockey League championship.

Saturday's "hero"

There might be some sports fans who say, “So what?”

YET THOSE OF us who follow the Chicago sports scene who have any sense of history know just how incredible it is that the Blackhawks are in the running. There is a core of players to both of those teams who will be able to say they brought multiple championships to the Second City.

That just doesn’t happen here!

The Chicago White Sox managed to make a playoff appearance just three seasons after winning a World Series title in 2005 – but managed to get knocked out in the first round in 2008 with only one victory. Which only looks good compared to the Chicago Cubs team that qualified for the playoffs that same season and got swept out in three straight losses.

For all the love that local sports fans show to the Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl champion for the 1985 season (played in early ’86), the reality is they only won that one title. They didn’t repeat anytime soon, or ever!

IF ANYTHING, THE White Sox are typical of the Chicago sports mentality – their league champion of 1959 and the World Series of eight years ago seem to be lone hits that a generation of fans will love because they were so rare.

Typical one-and-done local hero

The last time that Chicago sports teams repeated as a champion as quickly as the Blackhawks might were the Chicago Bears, who won NFL titles in 1941, ’43 and ’46. Or there’s the Chicago Sting, who won North American Soccer League titles in 1981 and '84.

 

Although the fact that the 1984 championship game (the “Soccer Bowl”) was also the last match ever played in that league’s history makes it seem like a lesser feat.

There’s also the Chicago Cubs, who used to be respectable back in the days of my great-grandfathers. Take the Depression era, when the Cubs were contenders every season – and actually won the National League championship every third (1929, ’32, ’35 and ’38) year.

The base thief with the memorable homer

THAT’S HOW LONG it has been since something along the lines of what the Blackhawks (who until a few years ago hadn’t won a championship since 1961) might accomplish has taken place in Chicago.

Now I know there is the exception. Somebody out there is reading this and screeching and screaming about the Chicago Bulls.


Yes, it counts!!!

Back in the 1990s, they had those two streaks (1991-93 and 1996-98) of three National Basketball Association championships each. Michael Jordan, paired with Scottie Pippen. Chicago’s answer to the “Murderers Row” version of the New York Yankees led by Babe Ruth, paired with Lou Gehrig.

But that era only goes to prove my point – it was the ultimate aberration. Chicago’s little bit of a taste of Yankees-style domination; and they haven’t been able to come close to a title since then.

ANYBODY WHO THINKS that the Bulls are the character of Chicago sports doesn’t have a clue. If anything, that game Jordan had back in 1987 when he scored 61 points in a 117-114 loss to the Atlanta Hawks is SO in character with Chicago sports.

Six titles? Or 61 points in a loss?

As is the mediocrity we’re seeing this year; both at U.S. Cellular and Wrigley fields.

So as we go into the Stanley Cup finals this week, we should appreciate the fact that it already is an accomplishment that the Blackhawks didn’t just fade away after their 2010 championship. We may get another title, and another excuse for a parade or rally of sorts come the end of June.

Although those overtime victories against the Detroit Redwings and Los Angeles Kings that allowed the Blackhawks to advance to the championship round have created enough sporting memories to be remembered for decades to come.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Chicago vs. Boston matchup – the first hockey “Original Six” championship since 1979 – is way more “old school” than the NBA championship round now taking place. San Antonio, Texas vs. Miami sounds like it ought to be the matchup for the Dixie Series – the old minor league baseball championship played by the AA-level Texas League and Southern Association champions.

Why can’t DePaul play in Lincoln Park?

I find it amusing to learn of the negotiations taking place about where the men’s basketball program at DePaul University will play its games for the long-term.



Blue Demons basketball hasn 't felt the same since they left Alumni Hall. Photograph provided by DePaul University



Because I always thought it short-sighted and stupid when DePaul, back in their late-1970s moment of glory when they actually were among the elite basketball programs in the nation, moved their games from the campus in the Lincoln Park neighborhood out to that generic-looking stadium in suburban Rosemont.

I STILL THINK of it as the Horizon – even though I’m aware it has some corporate name attached to it. And I can’t blame the Blue Demons officials for wanting to get out of there and back to a location in the city proper.

Yet I wish it were possible for the university to come up with a plot of land that actually would fit in with the campus. Isn’t part of the reason for having athletic programs that they’re supposed to bring the student body together – unifying them behind something?

What good does it do if the basketball team plays at a stadium that doesn’t have easy access to the students living on campus? And before you argue that DePaul reached out to a bigger market, how many basketball fans in the Chicago-area care that much about DePaul?

We’re either alums of another university and follow their programs (Personally, I say, "Go Illinois Wesleyan Titans!!!"), or some of us could care less about the collegiate game and prefer to follow the Chicago Bulls (no matter how dreadful they play) during the months between baseball seasons!

SO I JUST can’t see why city officials should be getting all worked up over the idea that the Blue Demons want to have a new stadium built in which their men’s programs could play.

They’re not Chicago’s team. They’re DePaul’s team, and those students and alumni ought to have easy access to them.

All this comes to my mind because of the reports Friday by Crain’s Chicago Business that the Bulls have worked out a deal with the city to make it financially viable to build a practice facility on land adjacent to the United Center.

No longer will the Bulls be the team that trains in far north suburban Deerfield (although I’m sure there are some season ticket holders who prefer that location).

THE CHICAGO BULLS will train in Chicago, which likely pleases the spirit of Richard J. Daley – who once told the Chicago Bears they’d have to give up the city identity if they really dared move to a stadium in suburban Arlington Heights (in the end, they didn’t go).

But it has some people believing that the training facility could also serve as an arena with some 10,000 seats (far less than the 22,000-plus that the United Center has) that would be perfect for a DePaul basketball program.

There also are those who believe that a new arena for DePaul could be constructed near the McCormick Place convention center on the fringe of the Bronzeville neighborhood.

I have heard Rosemont officials insist that DePaul isn’t going anywhere – they have a contract to play there through 2015. Which probably is just enough time to construct an arena and have it ready for the Blue Demons’ use come 2016.

YET WOULD IT really make much of a difference to the current student body if their school’s team is playing in Rosemont, the West Side or Bronzeville?

None of them are locations on campus. While I understand why DePaul would like to have an arena like the UI-C Pavilion (with its 6,958 seats), you have to note that arena is actually located in proximity to the University of Illinois-Chicago campus.

If anything, DePaul officials ought to be thinking in terms of how they can construct the New Alumni Hall (the building where the men’s team played from its construction in 1956 until their move to Rosemont, and where other school teams played until its demolition in 2000).

I know the site of the old building is now the newly-built student union. And real estate in Lincoln Park is excessively pricey – which would make a campus-based arena a more costly option.

BUT THE SPIRIT of that building may well be what is needed to give those Blue Demons teams a jolt back to the days when Ray Meyer’s teams were actually the highlight of the Chicago sports scene.

Instead of lagging behind the Northwestern Wildcats, the UI-C Flames, the Loyola Ramblers (with that NCAA title in 1963) and even on occasion the Chicago Maroons for the city’s winter athletic attention.

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Pipe down, ya Miami moron!

“This ticket doesn’t just give me a seat. It gives me the right, NO, the DUTY, to make a complete ass of myself” – Homer Simpson, on the subject of sports fan behavior.

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It seems way too many people who go to ballgames are taking the words of “wisdom” of Homer Simpson to heart these days. And not all of them are sitting in the stands.

How else should we regard the latest controversial incident to occur at a sports event – that of Joakim Noah’s behavior toward some loser from Miami who decided that he wanted to spend his evening at Game 3 of the NBA eastern conference finals by heckling the uniquely coiffed center for the Chicago Bulls.

WHICH IS NOT at all surprising. Some people seem to think that their attendance at a ballgame isn’t complete if they aren’t shooting their mouths off at a ballplayer. Perhaps it is their way of feeling like they participated in the event.

Because those overly-baggy jerseys they tend to wear don’t even come close to covering up the fact that they usually are way out of shape and incapable of playing the games that they’re watching – and likely think they’re experts in.

The only thing that makes Sunday’s game unique is that Noah felt compelled to respond to the nitwit who passes himself off as a sports fan.

Noah now faces a $50,000 fine from the National Basketball Association (imposed on Monday) along with some public denigration, all because he felt compelled to shout back an insult – and one that implied the  fan in question was homosexual.

FOR ALL I know, it is likely that every time somebody feels compelled to recount the Joakim Noah record as an athlete, this incident WILL be recalled.

No matter how apologetic or contrite he will be (and he did offer up an apology to the “fan” right after the game), Noah likely is going to have to deal with the perception that on some level, he hates gay people.

Which is a shame. Because in all likelihood, the “fan” in question deserved to be put in his place.

Based on the reports I have read of the incident, the fan crossed over the line from legitimate criticism to crude behavior and was going at it for hours on end. This was an idiot who likely used his connections enabling him to get a seat so close to the basketball court for a playoff game, JUST so he could behave like a boob.

OR, AS HOMER Simpson would put it, “a complete ass.”

A little bit of self-control on Noah’s part and this incident would never have happened.

Then again, perhaps that is what happens when professional athletes start thinking of themselves as an elite class – rather than just some guys who have enough of a particular sporting skill that they’ll be able to make some huge money for a few years of their lives before sinking back into anonymity like the rest of us.

Everybody is going to think the “ass” comes from Chicago, rather than from Miami or somewhere in south Florida (unless this particular “fan” made a special trip to be in Miami just for the purpose of crudely hecking Noah, in which case he’s an even more pathetic individual).

AS YOU CAN tell, I don’t think much of people who can’t figure out how to sit back and shut up at some sort of public event. Not that I expect a sports arena to be as quiet as a library should be (but often these days isn’t).

The roar of a crowd at some particularly spectacular moment, or a loud, harsh ring of “boo!!” is just as much a part of a stadium atmosphere as the “crack!” of a bat at a baseball game or the sight of the Luvabulls jiggling about at the United Center.

But whenever I go to a sports event and wind up finding myself seated near the nitwit who persists in doing his own round of heckling always makes me wonder why I have to sit near the idiots.

Because that is what such people truly are. I always figure that it’s a waste of time to be trying to get a ballplayer’s attention while he (or she) is on the playing field. If the athlete truly has a clue, they’re so focused in on what they’re doing that they don’t know we exist.

IF THEY ARE aware of our presence, then we’re interfering with the game on the field.

Which likely was the intent of the Miami meathead who took it upon himself to distract Noah. He probably is going about these days telling everybody who will listen about how HE singlehandedly influenced the outcome of Sunday’s game.

Which, by the way, Miami won, 96-85. More people are talking these days about what punishment they think Noah should receive, rather than the fact that Miami now has a two games to one lead in the best-of-seven playoffs.

Any time a nitwit provokes more attention than the athletes themselves, then that is the sad commentary on our society.

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