EXTRA: No Hawaii trip for Fielders?

On the surface, it sounds absurd. Somebody does not want to take a trip to Hawaii.

We also have a professional sports team that doesn’t want to play out its regularly-scheduled season.

IT’S HARD TO think of logical reasons to be sympathetic to the plight of the Lake County Fielders, one of those independent minor league ballclubs (no direct affiliation to a major league team) that is playing this season in the North American League.

I write this commentary in response to my quip earlier Monday about how the Fielders are the team that didn’t know what league they play in – implying they’re confused.

Although until late Sunday (just after I wrote the commentary in question), the Fielders didn’t know. They were the team that was threatening to quit their league because they didn’t want to have to make a trip to Hawaii to play the Maui Na Koa Ikaika.

The Fielders (the ballclub that claims its niche of celebrity because actor Kevin Costner is among its owners) say they can’t afford the trip. In fact, it seems that many of the teams in the North American League are having financial problems and can’t cover their expenses.

THE FIELDERS ISSUED a statement late Sunday saying that they will be playing part of the remainder of their season (which is scheduled to end Sept. 5) by playing a Kenosha-based team. Much of the ballclub’s schedule says the games are “to be determined.”

Which makes me wonder if officials have given up on the idea of playing a real season schedule in 2011 – and are merely playing ballgames so that people will come out and buy stuff at the concessions stands.

Baseball for the purpose of selling hot dogs and beer, and possibly a souvenir cap. Definitely not an ideal situation.

But it is a situation that seems all too inevitable for the North American League – which actually is playing its first season this year from the remnants of the old (and independent) Golden, United and Northern leagues.

THE LATTER WAS the league that used to have Chicago-area ballclubs in Joliet, Schaumburg and Gary, Ind., but which had half the league (including the Gary South Shore Railcats) split away to join another league – the American Association, which is playing its season this year without anything resembling the drama of the North American League.

Originally, it was thought that all four of the abandoned Northern League teams would join the North American League. Except that officials in Joliet and Rockford jumped for the chance to play in an alternate league (the Frontier League, along with the Crestwood-based Windy City Thunderbolts) and the baseball people in Schaumburg decided that playing nowhere this season (with dreams of resuming in 2012) would be a better option.

So the Lake County Fielders of Zion (which is in the process of building them a stadium) wound up all alone in a league with teams in places like Maui, Hawaii; Chico, Calif.; and Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada.

The team says it will be back, and stronger than ever, in 2012. Then again, I’m sure there are Chicago Cubs fans who will claim their ballclub isn’t out of the running this year.

BASEBALL HAS A way of making people eternally optimistic.

Although perhaps the Fielders’ plight ought to make us realize that the Chicago Cubs condition these days with Carlos Zambrano is rather tame and the White Sox’ .500 record seems like excellence by comparison.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Will Hawaii reclaim Obama from 2nd City?

A part of me always wondered if Barack Obama and first lady Michelle would spend their retiring years living in Honolulu – deciding like many other people to live in a warm-weather climate for those Golden Years.

It would seem I’m not alone, as there already are people in Hawaii who are trying to get the Barack H. Obama Presidential Library of the future built on that Pacific Ocean island, instead of where many of us would have figured it to be located – in the Hyde Park neighborhood, possibly as part of the University of Chicago.

IT IS EARLY, so it should not be a shock that nobody in Chicago has taken much in the way of action to try to get the library located here. Which is why Hawaii officials are hoping that getting an early start will allow them to one-up Chicago.

The state Legislature earlier this year approved a resolution saying it thinks the Obama library should be in Hawaii – on account of the fact he was born and (largely) raised in Honolulu, and up until two years ago still had a grandmother who lived there.

Officials with the University of Hawaii, the alma mater of both of his parents, are creating study groups to pick a site for such a library/museum that would glorify the four (or eight) years of an Obama Administration.

Hawaii officials also will meet next week with officials of both the National Archives in Washington the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., in hopes they can get advice about what they need to do in order to develop a proper presidential library.

ALL OF WHICH makes me wonder if Hawaii will get such a jump on Chicago that the city won’t have much of a chance to play catch-up when the time does come to give serious thought to where the Obama years are best remembered.

Personally, I think any Chicago site can hold its own to anything in Honolulu, particularly since I would think a site on the mainland in the city that is the transportation hub of the United States would be more easily accessible.

But when one considers that the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum is in an isolated place like Grand Rapids, Mich., Honolulu comes off as looking downright attractive. I would think the number of kooks who come forward to picket an Obama library/museum of the future in Hawaii would be fewer than in most places.

What other events were floating through the air along the shores of the southeastern corner of Lake Michigan?

HIZZONER JR. TELLS WEIS CRITICS TO PIPE DOWN: Mayor Richard M. Daley said he wishes people who are trying to make an issue out of Police Superintendent Jody Weis meeting with streetgang leaders would lighten up on their criticism.

Weis had a meeting last month at the conservatory at Garfield Park, in hopes of letting gang leaders know just how miserable federal prosecutors could make their lives if violence continues to be committed by gang members.

Aldermen Bob Fioretti and Joe Moore said earlier this week they think it is inappropriate to do anything that could be perceived as granting recognition to the gangs, with Fioretti saying it amounts to, “negotiating with urban terrorists.”

But Daley said Tuesday he is willing to have his police chief try anything if it can help reduce violence. “If you can save one life, you’ll sit down with anyone,” he told reporters.

NUMERO NOVENTA Y NUEVE: For the next month (or two, if the Chicago White Sox actually make it into the playoff picture), uniform number 99 will sit his dreadlocked buttocks on benches around the American League, and will hit an occasional home run on behalf of the South Side.

That will be Manny Ramirez, the man whom some baseball fans once thought would be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame (along with one-time Boston Red Sox teammate David Ortiz), who officially joined the White Sox on Tuesday in Cleveland.

I doubt the Ramirez presence will make much of a difference when it comes to the lines of statistics, although his presence for the month of September will make what could be an otherwise dreadful month a little more entertaining. At age 38, Ramirez just isn’t what he once was with the bat.

Then, when Ramirez leaves for whatever cellar-dwelling ballclub is willing to give him a big-money contract for 2011 and beyond, we will be able to add Ramirez to the list of one-time star ballplayers (Steve Carlton and Ken Griffey, Jr., to name a couple of recent cases) who extended their careers on the South Side. And uniform number 99 will likely wind up being retired by default (since I don’t know who else would want to wear it).

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Obama wants Hawaii to end goofy theory

We like to think of Barack Obama as “one of us” when it comes to the strong Chicago ties he and his White House staff have these days. Yet Obama is trying to put to rest the conspiracy theories peddled by his most stringent critics by reminding us all of how he’s a native Hawaiian.

Officials in the 50th State made public documentation that purports to claim beyond a doubt that Obama was born in Hawaii. Checking out the Chicago Tribune website will (http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/07/obama_hawaiianborn_hawaii_insi.html) give one a glimpse of the document that purports to be a birth certificate for Obama.

WITH THAT DOCUMENTATION comes a statement from Hawaii officials claiming that this shows once and for all that Obama was born in Hawaii, which makes him a U.S. citizen (Hawaii had been a full-fledged state for nearly two years by the time of Obama’s birth in 1961).

Of course, those of us with common sense realize two things about this so-called controversy (which is peddled by the types of people who think G. Gordon Liddy is a rational human being).

1 – This “issue” will never go away. No documentation will ever convince those people that Obama is a U.S. citizen. In fact, even if you could convince them, the argument would then change to how the laws are flawed so that someone like Obama could be a U.S. citizen.

2 – It was a mistake to even try. Because now, we’re going to be burdened with rants from the right about how this documentation is irrelevant, if not forged.

FOR THE RECORD, the document released by Hawaii officials contends that our president is the son of Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack H. Obama, who is identified racially as an “African.”

What this shows us is that the records in the computers of Hawaii state government confirm what we have been told all along. But by feeling the need to dignify this issue, one only ensures that it will live on – regardless of the lack of “evidence” to support an argument against it.

Of course, if it weren’t for this issue, there would be those who would find another “critical” problem to obsess over – what kind of beer will Obama serve at the White House when he meets later this week with Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the Cambridge, Mass., cop who arrested him outside the professor’s own home.

What other issues were of interest on the shores of Lake Michigan between Gary, Ind. and Waukegan?

WILL STROGER WIN BY DEFAULT?: Leave it to the Daily Herald newspaper of Arlington Heights to come to the conclusion that should have been obvious – Todd Stroger may be the big winner by Mayor Richard M. Daley’s choice to serve on the City Council.

Daley picked Robert Maldonado to replace Billy Ocasio, who gave up an aldermanic post to be a top adviser to Gov. Pat Quinn. Maldonado now gives up his Cook County commissioner post to become an alderman.

Stroger benefits in the ongoing political fight to force him to back away from the sales tax increase he pushed for last year to help fund county government. He vetoed that measure next week, and the County Board will consider whether to override him when they meet again in early September (the board takes August off).

The problem (for those who want a repeal of the tax increase)? There were barely enough votes (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=309759&src=1) to override. Without Maldonado, an override of the veto will fail, which means Stroger will prevail. That is, unless William Beavers, Jerry Butler or Joseph Moreno were to change their mind. Fat chance.

FURLOUGHS AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO LAYOFFS: It seems to be the favorite cost-cutting tactic for government officials. Force workers to take some days off without pay.

If they complain, let them know they ought to be thankful (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/07/daley-outlines-unpaid-days-off-for-top-schools-park-district-and-cta-officials.html#more) to have jobs at all.

Daley on Tuesday said he wants employees of six agencies – the Chicago Transit Authority, the park district and housing authority, the Chicago Public Schools and City Colleges of Chicago, and the Public Building Commission – to take the unpaid days off similar to how non-union city employees were asked a few weeks ago to take up to 15 days per year without salary.

Getting those 2,000 employees at the six agencies to take the days off is expected to save the city about $18 million, which officials say is necessary if this year’s municipal budget is to remain balanced.

WILL FOOTBALL RETURN TO THE HUMBLE ABODE OF ONE ELWOOD J. BLUES: Excuse me for not getting the fascination with teams being able to play games in the 95-year-old building at 1060 W. Addison St.

It appears there has been talk of having Big 10 football played at Wrigley Field – specifically, the all-Illinois game (http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/chi-28-big-ten-wrigley-field-jul28,0,2115854.story) between the University of Illinois and Northwestern University. This comes after the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team managed to stage a game there back in January. Could football return to Wrigley Field after a nearly four-decade hiatus?

It doesn’t shock me that some would rather stage the game in Chicago, and I also understand that the Chicago Park District isn’t exactly the most understanding landlord when it comes to teams other than the Chicago Bears using Soldier Field.

But back in the days when the Chicago Bears played their games at Wrigley Field, the place was known for having a field that was too small to accommodate a regulation football field. With changes made in recent years to bring even more seats closer to field level, there definitely isn’t room now. Or does the sight of a Wildcat football player stumbling into the dugout (or a Fighting Illini crashing into the outfield wall) really amuse that many people?

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (as seen from Chicago): To the Right, Oh Be Quiet!

A part of me would like to think that the “Festivus Pole” erected at the Statehouse in Springpatch is just a stupid idea concocted by someone who watches too much television.

After all, the whole gag of the “Seinfeld” episode in which Frank Costanza tells us of his Festivus holiday was that it reinforced the notion that he was a blowhard who got worked up over stupid things. The idea that anybody took seriously such a parody of a holiday is a sad sign.

BUT I CAN’T just dismiss this stunt because of the way in which at least one conservative activist is taking it so seriously, while also reinforcing the concept that what some religious types are really interested in is not promoting their own beliefs for public debate, but ramming them down the throats of everybody else.

For those of you who are wondering what I’m talking about, it is the “Festivus Pole” erected at the Statehouse, at the request of a Springfield teenager who thought it ridiculous that a nativity scene, a giant menorah and a display promoting atheism all were set up inside the rotunda of the state capitol for this holiday season.

So he went ahead and got a pole, then got permission from the Illinois Secretary of State’s office (which manages the capitol grounds) to erect it.

His stunt got national attention when it became known that the group of religious activists who fought for permission to set up their nativity scene were offended, saying it was disrespectful to their own project, and also promoted a holiday that “is nothing.”

THOSE WERE THE words as reported by the Chicago Tribune and St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspapers of Daniel Zanoza, an activist who used to live in the Chicago area, but has since moved to rural Illinois because he feels his conservative beliefs on many social issues fit in more comfortably there.

He’s probably right, and it wouldn’t shock me to learn many of the locals like the idea of a nativity scene erected in the capitol. But I still have a problem with many of these public displays of religious beliefs, just because I think many of them are tacky looking and wind up being disrespectful to the religious beliefs that are supposed to be acknowledged.

I’m not just talking about the Statehouse. Who really thinks the giant menorah outside of Daley Center serves a purpose, other than to provide the impression of religious “balance’ to the Christmas tree, while really doing nothing more than cluttering the Daley Plaza grounds?

What other news nuggets are worthy of public attention on this Day After Christmas/sixth night of Hanukkah/first Day of Kwanzaa?

GEORGE RYAN IS TOO HOT FOR GEORGE BUSH TO HANDLE: Anybody who thinks I’m exaggerating the unlikelihood that President George W. Bush will do nothing to help former Gov. George Ryan ought to look at the way the outgoing president handled the case of Isaac Toussie.

He was a real estate developer prosecuted by “the feds” for a real estate scam. Bush granted him a pardon on Tuesday, then rescinded it on Wednesday. Officially, presidential aides claim Bush was not given a proper understanding of what it was Toussie had done, thereby making any form of presidential forgiveness inappropriate.

Political cynics would say it is Bush trying to eliminate the taint his legacy would suffer by giving a pardon to a man whose father donated just over $28,000 to the Republican National Committee, thereby creating the perception that Toussie’s pardon was purchased.

If Bush wouldn’t take some political heat in this case, why should anyone think he would be willing to do much of anything to help Ryan get out of serving five more years at the federal facility in Terre Haute, Ind.? Ryan will likely have to wait until Independence Day 2013 before he can get out of prison.

GETTING AWAY FROM THE WEATHER: Many people are getting all worked up these days over the photographs emanating from Honolulu – the ones that show President-elect Barack Obama to be in good physical shape for a man two decades younger than himself, let alone his real age (48).

But what intrigues me is the idea that this country now has a president who can legitimately vacation in Hawaii. If any past chief executive had tried to do so, it would have been used as evidence of a trivial mentality.

But the Honolulu-born Obama can claim he’s merely visiting his sister, although being able to stake a claim to a portion of the beachfront as his own (and have the Secret Service enforce that claim) shows that this is no mere Hawaii vacation.

If anything, this trip shows that Obama has a certain amount of sense. I’d be more concerned if he had insisted on spending his Christmas holidays at the “homestead” in Hyde Park. As much as I enjoy the area in and around Chicago, I wish I could be some other place right now – somewhere where the temperatures aren’t being driven below 0 degrees by wind chill and where ice on the roads doesn’t cause my car to go slip, slidin’ away (with apologies to Paul Simon the singer) off the road and into a bank of snow.

SULTRY, AND NOW SAD: “Santa Baby” (the song, not the made-for-cable-TV film starring one-time Sout’ Sider Jenny McCarthy as Santa Claus' daughter) always had that sexy, sultry sound to it, making the idea of a fat guy in a bright red suit sound downright erotic.

But now, it’s going to take on a sad tone. For Eartha Kitt, the singer whose version of the song will always be THE version, died on Christmas Day. She was 81, and had been treated for colon cancer.

In fact, in my mind, the coincidence of her death date will cause the song to erase what many people want to believe was Kitt’s greatest entertainment accomplishment – being one of several women to play “the Catwoman” opposite Adam West in the 1960s campy (but still classic)version of “Batman.”

But what the woman named for a prime cotton harvest in the year of her berth (the Earth was fertile that year, her parents thought) really ought to be remembered for was rising from what could have been a life working the fields or in factories to instead being an actress in several films who could be in a position to upset then-first lady Lady Bird Johnson by saying the youth of America had a legitimate gripe in opposing U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.

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Trivial pursuit, political style

The 2008 presidential election will either be the campaign that gives this country its first president from Hawaii, or its first vice president from Alaska. Either way, the parts of the United States that are not part of the mainland will experience a boost.

Now all we need is to get a serious political candidate from Puerto Rico or Guam to run for office. Or perhaps Bill Richardson (born in California, his mother is Mexican and he was raised as a child south of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande) has learned from his mistakes of 2008 and could run a more serious campaign for president in the future?

FOR WHAT IT is worth, the Alaska governor’s office gives us its view of the future of electoral politics. Sarah Palin’s official government website (at www.gov.state.ak.us/bio.php/) includes an official biography for gubernatorial spouse Todd Palin – her high school sweetheart.

The link to his portion of the site refers to him as the, “First Gentleman.”

And on a final (if somewhat disgusting) note, how much would one of Oprah’s eyelashes be worth on eBay? You know, one of the tear-soaked ones she wore at Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s acceptance speech?

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Wasilla, Alaska, has managed to more than double its population during the past two decades (http://www.cityofwasilla.com/index.aspx) since local woman Sarah Palin got involved in politics, both as its two-term mayor and for the past 20 months as governor. Of course, the number of people who call Wasilla home still remains below 10,000.