Trump-types at Wrigley; so apropos

The Republicans, particularly that faction of the Grand Old Party that actually believes in the ideals of Donald Trump and is willing to spend their own money to try to get him re-elected in 2020, will be convening in Chicago this weekend. 

Will Trump-ites invade Wrigley? Or will it feel like usual touristy crowd?

They’ll be at the Four Seasons Hotel, where they’ll be partaking in sessions where they’re supposed to plot just how they go about trying to get a majority of the electorate to cast ballots for Trump.

AND LIKE ANY other batch of tourists, they’re planning on taking a trip to Wrigley Field. They’re taking a chartered bus on Saturday, where they’ll attend a reception at the ball club’s offices across the street from the ball park.

Then, they’ll catch the game against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Not that it should be a surprise. The excessively-wealthy Ricketts family owns the ball club, and also has been prominent Republican backers who have made it clear they don’t have any objections to Donald Trump during his term as president – and certainly wouldn’t object if he manages to get re-elected next year.

Although news reports indicate it’s not exactly like it will be a takeover of Trump-ites at Wrigley Field.

Trump used to claim Yankees-fandom, … 

THEY’LL BE SEATED together in a separate section, which the team is refusing to identify. Perhaps they think it’s possible for the Trump-ites to blend in with the Cubbie crowd.

Although I won’t be surprised to learn that the bulk of the fan base attending Saturday’s game won’t actually be able to identify which of the people there are attending because of Trump – and which actually care about the ball game!

Then again, the stereotype of the Wrigley denizens is of a batch of people who are there to be seen, and probably care less about the activity on the playing field.

So maybe the only way we’ll be able to tell them apart is if the Trump crowd takes it upon themselves to wear those ridiculous red “Making America Great Again” caps – while everybody else will be anxious to wear Cubbie blue.

… just like Hillary Clinton used to do

EXCEPT FOR THOSE fans of the Cardinals who make the trip up to St. Louis. They’ll be in Cardinal red, identified most clearly by the “birds on the bat” logo that St. Louis has worn for decades.

Seriously, what always has struck me about the character of the crowds that attend Chicago Cubs ballgames is how touristy they are.

It’s like people who come in from out-of-town make a point of checking out the Willis Tower, Navy Pier and shopping on Michigan Avenue – and if they really feel like doing something “nitty-gritty,” they take in a ballgame.

In that sense, all the political out-of-towners coming to Chicago this weekend will be able to blend in with the Wrigley Field faithful. No real Chicagoan will be seen anywhere near 1060 W Addison St. (which cinematic fans automatically know is the alleged humble abode of one Elwood J. Blues).

SO I FIND it humorous to know that some people are getting all outraged about the ballpark presence of Trump-type people at Wrigley this weekend. Personally, I find it quite fitting. The Wrigley scene is exactly where I’d expect them to show up on those rare occasions they’re in Chicago.

As for the rest of us who’d rather not think of anything political when we venture out to the ballpark, perhaps we’ll find a reason to check out the Chicago White Sox. They’re in Kansas City on Saturday, playing a weekend series against the Royals.

Odd how many different outlets mis-IDed this 'Disco Demolition' photo as 1974's 'Dime Beer Night' in Cleveland

But the Washington Nationals will make an appearance this week, followed up by a four-game series against the New York Yankees. Personally, I’m considering making a trip to Thursday’s game – when the White Sox are holding a promotion remembering the 40-years-ago “Disco Demolition Night.”

Free t-shirts to those fans who want to remember the night when Steve Dahl developed a national reputation, and the White Sox game that night is still remembered – not bad for a promotion of a game between the American League’s two fifth-place ballclubs that season and will be remembered long after Saturday’s Cubbie affair is forgotten.

  -30-

Ban the boorish boob from the ballpark -- or perhaps just his ballpark beer?

I’m not sure how feasible it is for the Chicago Cubs to say they’re banning from the ballpark for life a man who is alleged to have been making racist hand gestures when he was in the presence of Doug Glanville – who once played for the Cubs but has turned to broadcasting for a living.

Outfielder-turned-broadcaster is focus

I could see where someone like Glanville would offend the sensibilities of racists – he’s a black man who also happens to be rather articulate, I’ve read thoughtful pieces about baseball that he’s written for the New York Times. In short, his existence dumps all over every stupid theory that the bigots would spew.

SO TO LEARN that Glanville, working for NBC Sports Chicago in broadcasting a Cubs game earlier this month, had a fan (in reality, just a nitwit who happened to be wearing a sweatshirt being the Cubs’ logo) flashing gestures typically associated by white supremacists? It’s not surprising!

I don’t doubt the man in question thinks he’s a tough guy who was putting Glanville in his place. Or maybe there’s some truth to the fans who are saying this is the kind of stupid stuff that happens when you serve alcohol in public.

It is good to know that Chicago Cubs management is taking this incident seriously, and not just dismissing it as a bit of naughty behavior that happens in public. As though we’re just supposed to accept that this is the way the world works.

But seriously, how do we know that fan won’t be able to slip in with the rest of the crowds that cram their way into Wrigley for Cubbie baseball?

Does Ernie's spirit still attract to Wrigley?

THE HONEST TRUTH is that there are some Chicagoans whose baseball preference for the Cubs over the White Sox is based on the notion that the Wrigley scene is one meant for white people. Some prefer going there because they think the White Sox scene is one where you’d find some black fans whom they'd rather not bother with.

And to be honest, white fans and black fans at the ballpark have the potential to act as poorly as they do in other scenarios.

So the idea that somebody with white supremacist leanings would be part of the crowd at Wrigley Field? It’s very possible, just like bigots exist just about everywhere. The way they ought to be dealt with is to let them know their rancid rhetoric and terrible thoughts will not be tolerated – that they are the outsiders in our society.

Who remembers East-West games at Comiskey?

As for whether I regard the Cubbie crowd as inherently racist? I’d say that’s an extreme. Cubs fans may be an insipid batch (“Cubnoxious,” except that the “feds” recently found that term to be inappropriate), but not all-around evil.

IN FACT, I’M aware there’s a certain generation of black Chicago that, to the degree they pay any attention to baseball, are inclined to follow the Cubs.

Memories of when Ernie Banks, Billie Williams and Fergie Jenkins were the base of the ballclub in the late 1960’s still linger. That and the fact that many of the white Sout’ Siders of old were White Sox fans – which meant rejecting the Sox was an act of protest by those black people, just like wearing a dashiki or having one's hair in an Afro.

But then again, there’s an even older generation who remember the days when there was Negro League baseball in Chicago, and the American Giants of old would use Comiskey Park for their home games – whereas Wrigley Field was a place where black baseball fans were supposed to regard as unwelcoming toward them.

Some may think it’s ridiculous to associate the almost annual presence of the old East-West Game (the Negro League version of an all-star game) with the modern-day White Sox. Although even Ernie Banks is now deceased – and not surely still bringing people into Wrigley Field with his sunshiny (in public) demeanor.

IN SHORT, IT’S probably no wonder that many black sporting fans are inclined to look to athletic endeavors other than baseball when deciding to spend the big bucks on going to a game.

Is Robinson baseball's act of penance?

Baseball, all too often, acts as though the fact that Jackie Robinson was permitted to play for the old Brooklyn Dodgers somehow indemnifies the game from all past, present and future flaws.

Although there may be some truth to the fact that this latest Wrigley Field incident was more a matter of a buffoon drinking himself into a stupor that caused him to act stupid.

But the notion of one getting intoxicated at the ol’ ball game strikes me as an impossibility. I know that when I went to a ballgame just last week, I had one beer – which cost $10.25!!! Who can afford to wind up blowing a 0.08 or higher at that price?

  -30-

It seems kind of quaint that Wrigley Field once didn’t have light towers

I’m old enough to remember the days when Wrigley Field didn’t have light towers and the Chicago Cubs tried to claim a sense of superiority out of the fact they didn’t play baseball at night in their home ballpark.

A very popular poster of the past

Which means I must really be getting old if it has now been 30 full years since the date the Cubs were able to get in a full ballgame under the lights.

NOTE THE SIGNIFICANCE of the phrasing of that last sentence. For many news organizations have published stories that focused on Wednesday being the 30^th anniversary of the first night game. When actually, it was Thursday.

Yes, the Cubs tried playing baseball under their then-newly-installed light fixtures on Aug. 8, 1988 (the marketing people liked the idea of the first night game ever being played on 8/8/88). I also remember all the hoo-hah that arose once it became apparent the people determined to keep lights out of Wrigley Field were going to lose.

It was regarded as a significant moment in city history – almost as though they think the Chicago city flag ought to get its fifth star to celebrate the lights being erected at Wrigley Field!

But it rained that night. They barely got in a full inning before heavy rain came down and (more than two hours later) the game had to be called. Since baseball rules say five innings must be played for a game to be considered official, the happenings of 8/8/88 officially didn’t mean a thing.

The light-less Wrigley Field, compared to … 

IT WAS THE following night that the Cubs got in a full game, and started the fight that continues to this day – the one about just now many night games can be played in any given season.

For the simple fact is that more people are capable of going to ballgames if they’re scheduled around the standard-issue work day. Even the Cubs realize that, and likely wish they could be like all the other ballclubs that typically have about 60 of their 81 home games played in the evening hours.

As one who back then, and still to this day, is more inclined to check out Chicago White Sox games (personally, I could care less about anything related to the National League), the whole idea of thinking anything special about day baseball was always strange.

… the brightly-lit environs of Comiskey Park

If anything, the idea of going to a game following a day of work seemed to make the event all the more a treat. Because all too often, being able to go to a weekday day game means you’re skipping work or school – or else you’re unemployed and one-time Cubs manager Lee Elia wasn’t exaggerating that long-ago day of his obscenity-laced rant about Cubs fans.

AND EVEN IF you’re not old-enough to remember pre-lights Wrigley, you’ve heard enough about the “85 percent of the world that works” compared to the rest of the people who have time to go to daytime Cubs games on a regular basis.

For what it’s worth, I wasn’t at that “first” Cubs night game. That particular year was the one during which I worked an overnight shift for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago.

Meaning I remember covering the overblown outcry over trying to play night baseball, but was actually asleep when they attempted a ballgame.

Elia had own thoughts about day game crowds

When I came in the following early night, it seemed almost humorous to learn the marketing efforts fell to naught, and that the Cubs had to come crawling into the 20^th Century some 53 years after the Cincinnati Red brought night baseball to the major leagues (May 24, 1935 – the night that then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a Western Union telegram message to the Reds, giving team President Larry MacPhail (whose grandson, Andy, became Cubs team president many years later) the go-ahead to turn on the lights.

SO FOR THE record, the first successful attempt at playing night baseball at Wrigley Field was 30 years ago Thursday.

The Cubs played the New York Mets and actually managed to win 6-4, with Cubs pitcher Frank DiPino getting credit for the victory and Hall of Fame pitcher Rich Gossage getting a “save.”

Somehow, I doubt there will be any similar remembrances next week – which technically would be the 79^th anniversary of the first night game played in Chicago overall. The White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns 5-2 on Aug. 14, 1939.

I suspect more people next year will point out the 40th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night (or maybe even the 100th anniversary since the 1919 World Series) than the 80th anniversary of night baseball in this city.

  -30-

School proximity restrictions about politics more than public safety

The political reporter-type person in me always found humorous the laws that were meant to restrict proximity to a school or church – usually based on the concept that certain individuals or businesses have no business locating hear the youthful or the overly-holy amongst us.

BERRIOS: Name in news despite himself

No strip clubs or dive taverns across the street from a church or convent (remember that bar in west suburban Stone Park that ultimately lost its liquor license because the nuns nearby didn’t appreciate the drunken neighbors?).

THEY ALWAYS STRUCK me as something overly simplistic, and not always easy to enforce. Particularly if they come down to issues of “How close is too close?”

So I was intrigued by a pair of stories I stumbled across Friday.

One involved Gov. Bruce Rauner signing off on a long-standing change to state law that requires the General Assembly to approve amendments to the state’s Liquor Control Law for every instance for every instance where alcohol is served within 100 feet of a church or school.

Now, municipal officials will have the authority to issue exemptions. No more having to get the legislative types who, theoretically, ought to be preoccupied with bigger issues instead of worrying about where taverns are located in the neighborhoods.

THERE ALSO WAS a Chicago Sun-Times report about the company that oversees parking of cars for various public events at privately-owned lots.

In the instance that has the newspaper all worked up, people attending ballgames at Wrigley Field are parking their cars in, amongst other places, a lot that is part of the Inter-American School property two blocks away on Waveland Avenue.

The “controversial” part is that the Blk & Wht Valet LLC employed an individual to work at that lot who has a criminal record for sex offenses – and part of his penalty is that he is required to list himself as a sex offender, which limits the places where he can be.

RAUNER: Giving local officials more control

And as the Sun-Times chose to phrase it, their reporters found the employee in question at work, “with kids swinging on the monkey bars behind him.”

FOR THE RECORD, that employee has since been fired from his job, although it seems the company may wind up losing its contract for claims they didn’t do an adequate background check on their employee.

Although the Sun-Times reports the company saying the worker in question didn’t indicate his criminal record on his job application. Which would put this incident in the category of a person with a record hoping it wouldn’t catch up with him.

In short, an incident where such restrictions aren’t the easiest thing to enforce. I suspect, however, this particular worker is going to think he’s the victim – yet another incident of “the system” working to keep him unemployed.

One thing that caught my attention is the political connections of the company that, basically, is using other peoples’ property to park cars near Wrigley, along with Guaranteed Rate Field and the United Center.

ONE OWNER IS the son-in-law of soon-to-be former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios (he’s married to former state Rep. Toni Berrios) and also is a grandson of a former Chicago Public Schools official with ties to the 11^th Ward Democratic Organization (a.k.a., the Daley family).

How tame is parking nearby?

By comparison, Rauner indicated his support of the state law change is meant to create greater local control, since he told the Chicago Tribune that many state legislators used the law to maintain a sense of local influence in their home neighborhoods.

After all, getting the legislator to support your measure would require a campaign contribution to the appropriate authority, with other legislators across the state sticking up for their colleagues even though they often knew nothing of the local situation.

So no matter how much people spew rhetoric about these laws somehow benefitting children and the public safety, in the end, they all come down to political concerns.

  -30-

Wrigley’s week of infamy?

The image of Wrigley Field as “the Friendly Confines” took a hit this week, what with the sexual assault that occurred during a concert held at the stadium, and the fact that the Cubs feel compelled to re-assure people they’ll be safe if they try to come out to Thursday’s game.

How long until Wrigley Scene becomes just about baseball again?

Not that there’s anything about the game against the San Diego Padres that is interesting or threatening.

BUT THAT’S THE day protesters upset about the amount of urban violence in Chicago say they’re going to do some serious disruption.

As in they’re going to march along Lake Shore Drive north to the Lake View neighborhood – hoping to disrupt traffic. Then, they say they’ll march to the ball park.

Whether they plan to picket outside in the hours prior to the ball game’s 7:20 p.m. starting time, or plan to try to force their way past ballpark security to get into the game? We’ll have to wait and see just how raucous the scene will be.

And whether a group of people claiming to be high-minded and concerned about violence devolves into a group of gate crashers – we’ll have to see how ugly the scene becomes on Thursday.

WHICH WILL BE just four days following the sexual assault – which involved a woman who got groped while waiting in line for concessions. Then, when she went to a portable toilet to try to get away from the guy, he followed her into the port-a-potty and before she could lock the door, he grabbed her by the neck and made his “moves,” so to speak.

Personally, what I find most repulsive about this incident is that there’s a guy out there (police on Tuesday made public a picture of the suspect taken by ballpark security cameras) who thinks that a portable toilet is a place to have thoughts of intimacy with another human being.

Eww!

Suspect being sought by Chgo police in Sunday Wrigley incident

I suppose something like that could happen anywhere there’s a public event that requires mass amounts of toilets being added on to accommodate crowds.

IN THE OVERALL scheme of things, these incidents don’t really make Wrigley Field some sort of hell hole that ought to be avoided at all costs.

But you just know some people are going to feel irrational enough to want to connect them, and most likely will have horrid thoughts in their heads about going anywhere near Clark and Addison streets as a result.

My own thoughts are the only reason people should feel a negative aura about Wrigley is the generations of bad baseball that were played there. The past few seasons of sort-of-respectable ball don’t erase memories of guys like Karl Pagel taking to the field all those years ago.

But on a serious note, one can’t help but wonder about the timing of this week’s activity, and how long people will remember what occurred this week. Similar to the way some want to think Chicago White Sox games are risky because of that night some 39 years ago when the rock ‘n’ rollers took over the ballpark to blow up the disco records.

OR MORE INTERESTING, to speculate on how well the Cubs’ security can handle the situation around the ballpark come Thursday.

Because I don’t doubt the protesting types want to make a scene – thinking that too many people who go to Cubs games are inclined to ignore the portions of the city where violent outbursts are likely to occur.

What the Cubbie talent pool was once like

They will want to spin anything that happens is that irrational Cubbie fans are showing disrespect to the protesters. While I also expect Cubs fans will claim the protest’s point is irrelevant at the ballpark and that the protesters are merely trying to cause trouble.

I’d like to think that Thursday ultimately will be a forgettable moment in our city’s history. A large part of that is going to be determined by just how rational the Wrigley Scene is capable of being in the face of people who could care less about Cubs baseball.

  -30-

Is most obnoxious tactic also the most effective when it comes to protest?

It has not yet been a full month since that day when Rev. Michael Pfleger led a band of protesters to march for a mile-and-a-half right on the Dan Ryan Expressway – with the stunt meant to call attention to problems of urban violence.

HARDIMAN: Wants to 'redistribute' pain

Now, another activist group (this one including political dreamer Tio Hardiman) wants to do a similar stunt – although for what it’s worth, they have said they resent anyone who tries comparing their event to that of Father Pfleger.

THIS GROUP WANTS to march in the middle of Lake Shore Drive, and not just any old portion of the road.

They want to cause traffic congestion from Diversey to Belmont avenues, then walk over to Wrigley Field. Which on the day they plan to do their event is one in which the Chicago Cubs will be playing, and it also is the first day of the Lollapalooza music festival.

Meaning it’s likely there will be many white people out trying to enjoy their lives but will find their recreational plans interfered with by these activists – who by the way are also claiming they want to see Rahm Emanuel resign his mayoral post in shame.

Who’d have thought that Michael Pfleger, with his decades of history of outlandish tactics, would come across as the calm, rational guy.

PFLEGER: Tried drawing attention to So. Side

NOW I DON’T mean to try to undermine the problems Chicago has with regards to urban violence. There are parts of this city where it is risky to venture into. For the people who, by circumstance, wind up having to live their lives in those communities, life can be fairly miserable.

And for the rest of us, it is shallow to think we can ignore those people and those communities just because we don’t live there.

So in that sense, I comprehend the intent of what Hardiman and his allies are trying to accomplish. We, the masses, do need to be made more aware of what is happening. And perhaps we do, occasionally, need to have our noses rubbed in reality because we don’t pay sufficient attention.

But I can’t help but think this proposed event could turn out much worse.

Will these kinds of people want to bother with problem/

BECAUSE WHAT WAS key to the event that Pfleger staged was that he focused on a stretch of the Dan Ryan Expressway right in the heart of one of the neighborhoods where the urban violence is at its worse.

A segment where many people merely pass by as they drive along the Dan Ryan and never even think of stopping for anything. Their attention, however briefly, was forced to focus on the South Side.

Whereas this proposed protest is such that it is focusing on a portion of the North Side where it is possible for people to think that talk of a violent Chicago is just another one of those lies spewed by President Donald Trump to appease the whack jobs who still think highly of the man. They, after all, will believe anything – no matter how absurd it sounds!

As the Chicago Tribune points out, the police district for that area has one of the lowest totals (11) of people being shot this year, with 36 shootings all of last year. And some of those were people who were shot by police for causing trouble.

THE IDEA OF activists come next Thursday is to get in the way – to make sure that some concern-goers get there late and perhaps some of the Cubs fans be massively inconvenienced.

EMANUEL: He's not going anywhere anytime soon

In fact, some of the activists organizing this event say they think Pfleger’s event was flawed because it did nothing to “redistribute the pain” they say is felt by black Chicago residents.

Personally, I thought Pfleger’s event succeeded because it managed to tie up traffic without anyone getting killed by a motorist trying to get through. It made its point without getting distracted by fatalities.

I could easily see this one failing because someone driving along (and not on) LSD strikes a protester – and the masses of Chicago will think that protester got what he (or she) deserved for trying to walk in the middle of a major thoroughfare!

  -30-

Whole slew of kids show off potential to be Chicago Cubs infielders of future

I have been to enough baseball games during the course of my life that I have seen similar scenes many times – a ball gets hit into the stands, a kid or kids attempt to catch it to gain themselves a souvenir.

'Kid' who got 2 baseballs at Sunday's game. Photo provided by Chicago Cubs

And one may get his (or her) fingers on it briefly, but somehow can’t hold onto it.

MEANING THAT SOMEONE else wound up going home with the baseball. Some kid gets a memory of how he “almost” got a souvenir. Or else maybe they interpret it as “evidence” that “baseball sucks!” (and they’d rather play video games in the future).

So I can’t say I was surprised by the incident at the Sunday ballgame between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals – one that has managed to gain national attention and shows the general intelligence level (not very high) of the kind of people who take to Twitter to rant about anything and everything.

In that incident, a Cubs’ coach picked up a stray ball on the playing field, saw a cutesy little kid sitting in the front row and tried flipping a soft toss of the ball to the kid.

But the kid was a klutz, couldn’t hold on to the ball, it fell to the floor under the seats, and the guy sitting behind him managed to grab the stray ball.

VIDEO OF THE incident quickly got posted to the Internet, and under headlines such as, “When going to a baseball game, DON’T be this guy,” the story quickly circulated about the over-bearish oaf who deprived a cutesy little kid of a baseball.

The Cubs, not wanting to have negative publicity stemming from a ballpark incident (even one that they were in no way to blame), found the kid and arranged for the kid to get a baseball autographed by Cubs infielder Javy Baez.

Provided moment of goodwill

They also arranged for photographs of the cutesy kid wearing a too-big Cubs cap showing off his baseballs. Yes, baseballs. For it seems that the kid already managed to gain a ball earlier in the game.

Despite the nonsense Tweets from twits who raged about the bully of a fan, it seems the guy had managed to gain several baseballs throughout the game and had given them to kids sitting in the stands surrounding him.

INCLUDING THE CUTESY kid whom he supposedly deprived of a ball on live television.

Now one can argue that there might be something overly aggressive about a fan who manages to get so many stray baseballs (personally, I have never come close to getting a ball, even though I have gone to ballgames live for more than four decades).

But what I took from this particular incident is that we probably shouldn’t pay much attention to anything anyone says through Twitter. It is too often the means for saying meaningless things.

While I myself have a Twitter account (@tejeda_gregory), I’m not about to say there’s much significance to anything said in 140 characters – and often feel like I’m surrounded by those with nothing better to do with themselves. While I’m usually the first to find something snotty to say about Chicago Cubs fans, we certainly don’t have the bully or oaf that Twitter twits claimed.

AND AS FOR people snagging baseballs at games, the usual rule of thumb is that you have to hold onto the ball in order to stake a claim to it. Otherwise, tough luck.

It reminds me of an incident years ago I saw at a Chicago White Sox game. A ball hit foul into the stands. It bounced around a bit. A kid tried to grab it but couldn’t hold on. It wound up in the next section, where a semi-drunken adult finally snagged it.

What sticks in my mind is that the guy was white, the kid was black and several adults sitting near the kid who also were black tried to shame the “white” guy into giving up the ball. He wouldn’t, and I’m sure there’s at least one individual out there with unpleasant memories about baseball as a result.

It makes me wonder if we had the Twitter twits back then if a racial incident could have been created out of what happened. Particularly if one of the kind of people who feed religiously off every word President Donald Trump spews were to have gotten ahold of the moment.

  -30-

Is Wrigley’s right field video board the equal of ‘spite fence’ of old in Philly?

Wrigley, from back in the days when fans … 

A part of me doesn’t know what to think of the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling allowing Ohio to strike would-be voters from the registration. But I must admit; the high court simultaneously restored my faith in it with its decision on how to handle a lawsuit against the Chicago Cubs.

The Supreme Court on Monday decided not to take up the case, which means the lower levels of courts who previously ruled in favor of the Cubs will have their legal judgment upheld.

… could catch a glimpse inside, just like at Shibe Park

AS IN THE Cubs no longer have to worry that someone will require them to take down that huge video board they erected behind the right field bleachers at Wrigley Field – the one that blocks the views of people who live in many of those apartment buildings on Sheffield Street.

You know, the people who used to regard one of the perks of their lodging that they could see into the ballpark and watch views of the Cubs’ ballgames.

Or in more recent years, the apartment owners who erected seats on their roofs and charged people prime rates for the right to watch the games from outside the ballpark.

Are the Wrigley video boards … 

Those owners filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Cubs back in 2015, claiming the scoreboard blocked the ballgame views they were making money off of. They claimed they reached an agreement with the Cubs back in 2004 that gave them the right to do so.

A FEDERAL JUDGE in Chicago disagreed and tossed the lawsuit, and an appeals court panel upheld that ruling.

The Supreme Court on Monday let it be known they had no intention of taking up the case. So there won’t be any argument by the high-and-mighty Supreme Court as to the merits of who can make money off of Cubs games.

Personally, I always thought those video boards the Cubs had erected in recent years decimated a large part of the ballpark’s appeal – one being that it was a ballpark in a residential neighborhood. But then again, I thought that in recent years, many of those neighborhood residents and businesses were taking actions that helped make the ballpark experience less special.

… the 21st Century equal of the Philly 'spite fence?

So the idea that anybody thinks they have a morally-superior attitude on this issue is one that is appalling. It is one that makes me grateful the nation’s high court feels no need to get itself involved.

I’D HATE TO think the court doesn’t have more important issues to address. Particularly since many will be bothered by the way it handled the Ohio case – one in which state election officials will be able to drop people from the voter registration rolls if they miss a few election cycles without actually casting ballots.

As much as I can see that people who don’t vote aren’t exactly being victimized, I am skeptical about the motives of people who are eager to reduce the voter rolls. Too much temptation for partisan politics to take over the process.

It may be what happens when people are too free to file lawsuits to try to get the courts to push everybody else around into submitting to their will. Because the baseball fan in me thinks of Philadelphia and Shibe Park when I think of the obstructions the Cubs placed up at Wrigley Field.

Baseball can take our minds off the inanities of elections

Shibe (later known as Connie Mack Stadium) had the infamous “spite fence” in right field. The ballpark built in 1909 (one year prior to Chicago's Comiskey Park) originally had a 12-foot-high wall in right field, with a residential street and apartments beyond it.

BUT WHEN THE Philadelphia Athletics got offended at the number of people not paying to watch ballgames, they added height in 1935 – turning the wall into a 34-foot-high barricade.

Which Philly fans argued was done purely out of spite – as though they had a right to view games for free. Just think if this issue was something that someone had felt compelled to file a lawsuit about. What if the courts had felt compelled to get involved?

Are the Wrigley video boards a 21^st Century equivalent of the spite fence? Are they a part of the ballpark’s new character?

And should we be more concerned about the court feeling compelled to give power to political people who may be too eager to erase from the voter rolls people who might not vote the “right” way on Election Day?

  -30-

How do disabled watch Chicago baseball? Should they switch ballclubs?

It will be interesting to see what becomes of a lawsuit filed recently that says the Chicago Cubs are now in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act – the federal law that governs how accessible buildings must be to people with physical disabilities.

Were wheelchairs at ballpark even contemplated in so-called good ol' days?

In this case, a 20-year-old Cubs fan whose father is a prominent attorney is suing the ball club because he doesn’t like the way renovations of Wrigley Field in recent years have altered the seating made available to people who must use wheelchairs to get around.

THIS PARTICULAR FAN used to like to sit in the space out beyond the right-field fence between the bleachers and the foul pole – on the Sheffield Avenue side of the building, to be exact.

The Cubs used to use that space to allow wheelchair-bound fans to park themselves during ball games and watch from their own seats. The fan says in his lawsuit that he enjoyed being able to sit out in the sunshine (of a day game, presumably) while watching a ballgame.

But with the renovations of recent years, that space has now been filled in with an outdoor bar that’s supposed to add to the ambiance of the ball park – while making it easier for bleacher fanatics to get themselves an over-priced drink (everything associated with ball parks these days is overpriced, so that’s not a slander aimed only at the Cubs).

Wrigley portion focus of lawsuit. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

His lawsuit also points out that the Cubs used to have a space in the grandstand behind home plate where wheelchair-bound fans could park themselves. It actually put them in front of many other fans, which meant the disabled got a particularly-prime location within the Wrigley Field seating.

NOW, THE LAWSUIT contends, wheelchair-bound people must park themselves in a spot several rows further up – and when the bulk of Cubbie fandom chooses to stand and cheer, it becomes impossible for the wheelchair-bound to see anything!

What an outrage!!!!!

How do disabled maneuver the crowds?

Although I couldn’t help but notice many people using the Internet and the Chicago Tribune to comment (anonymously, of course) about the lawsuit in negative ways; trying to claim that this particular wheelchair-bound fan (he’s coped with muscular dystrophy for half his life) is merely upset he can’t get a prime spot in the ballpark.

Doesn’t he realize life ain’t fair? Which is a rather cold-hearted approach to take toward life.

MY OWN REACTION is to wonder just how far this particular lawsuit will go in the courts. Since it seems based on the premise that the Cubs ought to have to undo many of the changes made in the structure in recent years – whose purpose was to add private clubs in the ball park and also some prime seating that could go for top dollar.

Are the Cubs really trying to bolster their financial bottom line by reducing the number of disabled who can enter the ball park?

The Sout' Side's wheelchair view of the playing field

I’d almost suggest those fans dump the Cubs and start attending Chicago White Sox games, where the existing stadium puts disabled people in the lower deck concourse (the space where all the concessions stands are located). People can park their wheelchairs right up against the existing seats.

When I’ve noticed them at ballgames, it’s almost like they’re part of the existing crowd – only they brought their own chairs. Which means I’d hope those fans would get some sort of financial break on ticket prices – although I’m not naïve enough to think that’s so.

BUT THEN AGAIN, I’ve heard Cubs fans dump on the White Sox because the ball club puts those with wheelchairs behind the grandstand seats, rather than amidst them.

Although personally, I’d think that the heavy presence of elevators at Guaranteed Rate Field (unlike the century-old Wrigley Field) would make it much easier to maneuver around.

But as I wrote easier, we’ll see how seriously the courts take this lawsuit. Because I’m sure the Cubs will argue they’re playing ballgames in a century-old building that, if you truly maintained its historic character, was never intended to accommodate wheelchairs.

Frivolous lawsuit? Or discrimination against the disabled? We’ll wait and see.

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Does it boost City Hall's ego too much to order about the Chicago Cubs?

Reading the reports Wednesday about how the Chicago City Council spent significant amounts of time throughout the day debating the merits of the Chicago Cubs’ scheduling practices really makes me wonder why our aldermen feel like they have nothing better to do with their time.

Do the people of this downtown building gain too much ...

Seriously, you’d think that council members would be too busy to spend the amount of time they did contemplating exactly when the Cubs should play their ballgame Friday against the Milwaukee Brewers.

BUT THAT WAS the situation on Wednesday, when the council’s license committee discussed the issue, in advance of the full council taking up the issue for a final vote later in the day.

But then again, I’m sure there are some aldermen who get an emotional kick out of being able to dictate scheduling policy to the Cubs – whereas if any other alderman tried to do such a thing with their local ballclub (or even if the Chicago aldermen tried to tell the White Sox what to do), the response would be the ball club telling the politicos up what orifice they could shove their concerns.

At stake is the Cubs/Brewers weekend series that is scheduled to begin with a 1:20 p.m. ballgame on Friday. But the Cubs, seeing they’re in a pennant race with particular interest in fans in attending this particular ballgame, want it rescheduled as a night game.

As in starting time 7:05 p.m. People work for the day, and there probably could be an even bigger crowd for a Friday night game.

 

.... pleasure by telling these people what they can do?

THE PROBLEM IS that city ordinances that were crafted back when the Cubs gave up their “day game only” tradition at home back in the 1980s strictly limit how many night games can be played at Wrigley Field.

Not only that, the restrictions were put together to make the concept of Friday night and Saturday night ballgames at Clark and Addison streets a non-starter. Alderman Tom Tunney told the Chicago Tribune that the restriction is about giving non-Cub-related business in the Lake View neighborhood (all the bars) a chance to operate on weekend evenings without having to compete with the Cubbie fan crowds that otherwise take over the area 81 game days per year.

Some still seem to think Wrigley Field is lacking in light towers

Now I can appreciate how the Lake View residents living near the century-old ballpark can feel like the Cubs crowds are an annoyance that must have restrictions placed on them to prevent them from becoming the reason the neighborhood gets flushed down the societal toilet.

But I also get that if these people enjoy it as a perk that they live in close proximity to a stadium used by a major league ball club, they also have to accept some inconvenience.

THE REALITY IS that sporting events are scheduled mostly during the evening hours because that is when most people are capable of devoting time to actually attend them.

I don’t doubt other teams are wondering why city officials have any say in when a ballgame is scheduled, or whether it is played in sunshine or by moonlight.

This is one of those occasions when our aldermen get to order around Major League Baseball – as opposed to the times when baseball gets to push around the local government officials in the form of figuring out how to pay for building and maintaining the stadia that are used by these ball clubs.

Of course, the alternative for the Cubs to avoid such political nuisance would be to find a new site to build the stadium with full amenities that they could use to max out the revenues they take in from their fan base.

ALTHOUGH I’M SURE even the Cubs realize that a significant part of their popularity is tied to playing their ballgames in the one-time home of the Federal League’s Chicago Whales and even the excess of day ballgames they play.

They’re baseball’s aberration, caused mostly by our aldermen acting in ways I’m sure they’ll claim are meant to benefit their constituents but also have the heavy hand of feeding their own political egos.

This Hall of Famer will be highlight for some

So the Wrigley Field faithful will turn out Friday night for their game against the Brewers, who still have their own chances to overcome the Cubs in the division title standings and could also gain a Wild Card slot into the National League playoffs.

Or, other baseball fans in the city may choose to see the last place-in-their-division Chicago White Sox take on the even-worse-in-their-division San Francisco Giants in a weekend series at Guaranteed Rate Field. For them, the Tim Raines bobblehead figurine being given away Saturday night may be the ultimate attraction.

  -30-