EXTRA: Will Disco Demolition really sell Buona Beef more sandwiches?

Thursday is the day (the night, specifically) that the Chicago White Sox will be using 40-year-old memories of exploding records and running amok on the Comiskey Park turn to try to attract fans to the old ball game.

The game against the New York Yankees is having a t-shirt giveaway -- 10,000 shirts remembering the events of July 12, 1979 when the White Sox bolstered their attendance for a double-header with the Detroit Tigers by letting people into the ballpark for 98 cents IF they brought a disco record to be blown to smithereens.

THE PROMOTION WOUND up being too successful. The anticipated crowd of some 20,000 turned out to be in excess of stadium capacity, with another 20,000 or so people stuck outside trying to figure out a way to sneak in.

And as we all remember, all the burn-outs who wanted to rock 'n' roll all night and rage against the evils of disco music (mostly because they couldn't dance) wound up losing control, storming the field, causing significant damage to the playing field, and have many people to this day ranting and raging about how "stoned" all those kids must have been.

The event is considered something significant in White Sox history -- which is why the team says it went ahead with using the 40-year-old event as a reason to celebrate.

The giveaway

Although I wonder just how many sandwiches Buona Beef (the sponsor of Thursday's event who paid for all the t-shirts being given away) will actually wind up selling as a result of the event?

  -30-

EDITOR'S NOTE: Included is a YouTube recording of that ballgame, The 2-hour, 34-minute mark is the key point where the records blow up, while 2-hours, 39 minutes is where the "fans" take over, and where broadcaster Jimmy Piersall starts denouncing the crowd as a batch of followers.

EXTRA: Would you rather have Bobby Bonds 'bat,' or a Sox soccer jersey?

I couldn't help but get my chuckles from an old Chicago White Sox promotional announcement preserved on YouTube. It was Bat Day for the White Sox as they played the Boston Red Sox at Comiskey Park. The first few thousand kids who showed up for the game with a paying parent got a baseball bat engraved with the signature of Sox "star" Bobby Bonds.

I use "star" in parentheses because by the time Bobby came to Chicago's South Side, his best years were behind him. In fact, Bonds' White Sox stint lasted only 26 games in 1978, before he was traded to the Texas Rangers, which was one of many ballclubs he bounced around to (including the Chicago Cubs) the last half of his ballplaying career.

BONDS, WHO USED to have the baseball rep of being a guy who could hit 30 or more home runs and steal 30 or more bases in a season, only managed two home runs and six stolen bases, along with eight runs batted in, during his White Sox stint.

If anything, his most significant contribution to Chicago sports was being traded to Texas for, amongst others, outfielder Claudell Washington, whose defensive play was such that he was the subject matter of the famed fan banner that read, "Washington Slept Here."

I wonder if anyone who showed up for that ballgame some 41 seasons ago actually still has the Bobby Bonds model bat they were given that day. Or have they all been reduced to pieces of scrap long ago?

It should be noted that Bat Day is a long-ago concept. I can't think of the last time a baseball team gave out replica bats to try to get kids (and their parents) to come to a ballgame. Although I remember as a kid having Bat Day bats bearing the "signatures" of Sox pseudo-stars "Beltin'" Bill Melton and Walt "No Neck" Williams -- both of which I recall my brother and I shattering into pieces while actually playing ball with them.

NOWADAYS, WE GET off-beat trinkets as ballpark giveaways for promotional stunts. Take this coming weekend, when the Boston Red Sox make their one trip to Chicago for 2019.

Would you rather have a bat?

Saturday's ballgame at Guaranteed Rate Field will see bobblehead figures of "Star Wars" character R2-D2 (the sassy, sarcastic robot, rather than the prissy C-3PO) given out, while Sunday will see distribution of soccer-style jerseys in the black-and-white colors and Old English-style logo of the White Sox.

In short, the appeal is to get the Star Wars fans into the ballpark (it's May 4, which unofficially is Star Wars Day) on Saturday, along with the many Mexicanos who like soccer and would think it worth it to go to a beisbol game on Sunday, which is Cinco de Mayo.

Whereas if you tried to do a Bat Day these days, you'd have to offer up Tim Anderson models, and many of the kids might think the point is to flip it aside like a javelin -- rather than try to develop a solid swing that makes contact and achieves many, many base hits..

  -30-

White Sox to be on visiting end of Oakland Athletics’ 50-year celebration

It will be interesting to see just how many people show up for the Oakland Athletics ballgame April 17 against the Chicago White Sox.

A half-century of Oakland baseball

This season will mark the 50-year anniversary of the date when the one-time Philadelphia Athletics left their later home in Kansas City, Mo., to find a new residence in the less-glamorous part of the San Francisco Bay Area.

THEIR FIRST BALLGAME in California was played April 17, 1968 against the Baltimore Orioles – Baltimore beat Oakland 4-1, with an attendance of just over 50,000 fans to see their new ball club.

To mark that date, the Athletics plan to play their April 17 ballgame this season, against the White Sox, in front of a crowd that doesn’t have to pay its way into the one-time Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (I can’t keep track of what the corporate identity of the stadium is now).

Seriously, tickets are being given away for free. Athletics season ticket holders will get their seats up front. Anybody else interested in going to the game can get free tickets from the ball club beginning Wednesday at 10 a.m. (Chicago-time, that is).

Can the Athletics mark the beginning of their most recent chapter in team history (the ball club, like the White Sox, date back to the American League’s founding as a second major league for the 1901 season) with a capacity crowd of free-loaders?

WILL THEY LITERALLY find fans wishing to experience a ballgame without having to pay the often-exorbitant prices that tickets now cost these days?

The first major league ball club to consider Oakland home

I actually wonder if any White Sox fans would think of taking a northern California sojourn that day just to catch a ballgame for free. Some might figure if they can get airfare at a dirt-cheap rate, it could be worth the trip to Oakland in order to see the team.

Or just have a California adventure – although I suspect many will prefer to think of it as a San Francisco-area trip rather than a journey to Oakland; a city that has many people speculating whether they will lose their ball club what with the ongoing quarrels over the need for a new stadium and an inability to find a northern California community capable (or even willing) of financing such a deal.

The game nobody saw -- April 29, 2015

I do find one oddity in this situation – that it would manage to include the White Sox in a second fluke ballgame involving odd attendance.

THE WHITE SOX would get to be the visiting team in a game with no cash receipts (although I’m sure Athletics’ concessions will be pushed extra heavy to produce some sort of revenue from that date).

Just like on April 29, 2015. That date was when the White Sox were in Baltimore to play the Orioles and the attendance that date was zero. As in nobody was in the stands. The regulation game was played before nobody.

Now before we get any lame gags about White Sox attendance, keep in mind that game was played at a time when there was racial unrest in Baltimore and officials restricted movement from place to place.

Which caused the Orioles to decide to not even let fans into the ballpark, so that they wouldn’t have to worry about trying to travel there and get back home safely.

IT WOULD PUT the White Sox in a second so-called historic situation while playing games on the road.

I do find a couple of things interesting about that “first ballgame” in Oakland some five decades ago. Although the Athletics had finished in 10^th (and last) place in the American League their last year in Kansas City, Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris and Reggie Jackson (stars of the Fightin’ A’s teams of the early-to-mid 1970s) were already with the team for that first Oakland game.

Future Hall of Fame mgr. was pinch-hitter

Further evidence that a rebuild that develops future stars such as what the White Sox are trying to pull off these days could work? Let’s hope so.

There was even a pinch-hitting appearance in that first game by none other than Tony LaRussa, who was a totally forgettable ballplayer but went on to begin a Hall of Fame managerial career with the White Sox.

  -30-

No sale for Sale, even though many Sox fans liked the jersey giveaway

I find it ironic that the Chicago White Sox got themselves into a funk concerning their promotional giveaway from Saturday night.

 

The 'controversial' jersey

The ballclub had as its ballpark giveaway meant to attract fans to the game replica jerseys such as the team wore in the late 1970s. The ones of dark blue and white with the funky collars that were a ‘70’s take on what the team wore back when they were first created in the early 20^th Century.

I WAS AMONG the people who went to the ballgame (although I didn’t put up with the heavy rain that caused the game to be halted three times before ultimately being postponed until Sunday).

I saw for myself how there were several fans who were there specifically for the jersey giveaway (although to tell you the truth the jerseys being given away were cheap knockoffs of what the team actually wore in those days some four decades ago).

There were many people who, upon being handed the package containing the jersey couldn’t wait to open it and wear it – stripping themselves as quickly as possible of whatever shirt they were really wearing so they could change into their new freebie giveaway jersey.

 

This uniform has some interesting detail,...

For a team that perennially faces attendance issues (although the reality is that no team has a right to think they’re entitled to capacity crowds for every ballgame), the mood was a plus.

DESPITE THE HEAVY rains that came off and on, and the presence of Detroit Tigers fans who made sure to wear their own gear while working their own way around the ballpark.

 

...unlike this garish predecessor...

There just seems to be one person who couldn’t get with the program, so to speak. And that was White Sox starting pitcher Chris Sale – who probably was the other big reason that some fans chose the Saturday night game to show up at U.S. Cellular Field.

For he is arguably the best pitcher in the American League these days, and is one of the few assets the White Sox can claim as their own, and a reason to not totally count out their chances of competing for something resembling a championship this season.

 

...or this truly tacky successor

The plan was that the White Sox were going to wear the late ‘70s uniforms as well during the Saturday game – bringing to memory for those of us old enough to have see it such ballplayers as Francisco Barrios, Bill Nahorodny and Harry Chappas.

BUT DEPENDING ON whose report one reads, Sale either didn’t like the look or the feel of the uniform. He didn’t want to wear it.

And when team officials responded to his tantrum by telling him to just take the ball and pitch, he sliced up the special promotion uniforms with a knife. Meaning nobody was able to wear them.

The White Sox wound up wearing their uniforms they usually use for Sunday ballgames – the ones copied from the 1980s with the big red-white-and-blue stripe across the chest reading “SOX” that some have sarcastically dubbed as the “license plate” uniforms.

 

Maybe he didn't want to pitch in rain?

Now I know some White Sox fans don’t think much of the uniforms from the second coming of Bill Veeck (his wife, Mary Frances, designed them). They may well be willing to brand Sale as a hero for preventing the ball club from making a horrendous fashion statement.

WHILE OTHERS ARE quick to denounce him as a whiny baby – yet another ballplayer who thinks that what he does has some inherent value to society, rather than just serving as entertainment for the masses.

Personally, I always thought the lettering across the jerseys had some interest. The fact that the uniform has the White Sox wearing white socks also is a plus.

It will be interesting to see what kind of fan reaction he gets when he returns to play. Suspended for five days, he won’t be available to pitch again until Thursday which is the final game to be played in this week’s “city series” against the Chicago Cubs.

It could be more intriguing than the actual games – what with the way the Sox are struggling for that .500 winning percentage and would consider it a plus if they could be the team that knocked the Cubs off-stride in their own drive for a first National League pennant in 71 years.

  -30-

We really are lagging behind Indiana – when it comes to Bicentennial events

I have to admit to being somewhat impressed by the amount of activity that is taking place across Indiana this year with regards to celebrating that state’s Bicentennial – as in 200 years since it became a part of the United States.

 

There doesn't seem to be much of an Illinois counterpart

Taking a look at the state’s official travel guide, I see lengthy lists of places and events all across the Hoosier state that are of interest and worthy of being checked out – particularly by our local people in search of a cheap vacation trip.

IT SEEMS THAT Indiana is taking seriously the idea that 2016 is a significant event in their state’s history – one worthy of celebration.

I particularly get a kick out of the idea of the Bicentennial torch relay – which will be taken on a 3,200-mile trip passing through all 92 counties across the state. A running countdown on the VisitIndiana.com website even tells us it’s 50 days and counting until this trek begins.

Personally, I’d like to think all of this activity will be put to shame come 2018 – which is the year that Illinois celebrates its Bicentennial of admission to the United States (Indiana is state number 18 in the order of admission, with Illinois right behind it at 19).

Yet shamefully enough, it seems like we’re going to get skunked by our neighbors to the east; and not just because some Illinois long-based ice cream stand chose to move to a town on the Indiana side of State Line Road. It seems that any efforts for preparation for our big event have been lagging behind for so long it’s a wonder if anything will get done in time for the big event.

AND YES, THESE things usually take some time to plan if they’re to be done properly.

 

RAUNER: Is he slacking off?

I couldn’t help but notice the Capitol Fax newsletter, which on Tuesday pointed out a Peoria Journal-Star news story about how our state’s Bicentennial Commission hasn’t planned a thing. In fact, it hasn’t even met since it was created back in 2014.

Part of the problem is that it was created by former Gov. Pat Quinn, and I can see where current Gov. Bruce Rauner has been preoccupied with other problems and issues (mostly of his own making) to be too concerned about the celebration.

The Capitol Fax newsletter also points out the amount of activity that has gone into the renovation of the Executive Mansion in Springfield, which admittedly is desperately in need of repair. Could this be a distraction?

 

QUINN: Did he not give a big-enough head start?

THE BUILDING THAT serves as the state’s official residence and home of the governor when he’s in the capital city had been allowed to deteriorate significantly during Quinn’s time in office, and perhaps he deserves some blame for that.

But if it turns out that our state’s Bicentennial comes and goes without much of anything to acknowledge it, then that will be something that will be put to blame on the current governor.

After all, it will occur on his watch as governor. In fact, it could be his chance to show off the things he’d like to have remembered as accomplishments. Unless he’s satisfied with having a historic legacy of being yet another guy who quarreled with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago – and lost!

You’d think this would be a time we’d want to show off our many assets. Heck, it could be the moment when Illinois’ parts outside of Chicago get to display themselves proudly.

THE STATE COULD let people know there really are assets in the rest of the state – and perhaps that old “A million miles from Monday” slogan the state used to use to promote downstate tourism wasn’t a total crock.

Instead, we seem content to let Indiana show us up; which really is a sad display.

 

Would Lincoln still claim Illinois as his 'land?'

It makes me wonder if the spirit of Abraham Lincoln truly is gone from our state. What would Honest Abe be doing since that roll over he allegedly did in his grave in response to Rod Blagojevich?

Would it be enough to make him reclaim his Hoosier roots and want to abandon the state that considers itself to be his land?

  -30-

Was Chicago ever really that white?

There’s a new piece of video now publicly available for those people who want to rant and rage about Chicago race relations and just how segregated a city we really are.

The Chicago Film Archives took a nearly 15-minute promotional film and put it on YouTube – so we can now see how the city’s establishment wanted to view itself back in 1977.

NOW I WAS 12 years old back in that year – notable because it gave us Michael Bilandic as mayor (whose reputation hadn’t been whacked by snow yet) and actually had a “July 31” with both the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs in first place and many fantasizing about an all-Chicago World Series.

Richard J. signature, even though he was gone

Of course, that didn’t happen. Now, the Internet is filled with assorted people complaining about the distorted image that film gave of the city as a whole.

After watching the film myself (the DNAInfo.com website for Chicago published a feature Friday about it), I have to admit my initial reaction was to wonder how a city that was roughly split equally between white and black people (and not quite as many Latinos as there are now) could appear to be so white?

Then again, I think back to the mentality of the era and remember how little attention official Chicago paid to the South Side neighborhoods that had in the mid-to-late 1960s developed majority African-American neighborhoods.

Despite all the South Side Hit Men homers ...

ALMOST AS THOUGH they had sunk into a black hole when all the white people left places like South Shore or Gresham to live in suburbs like Oak Lawn or South Holland.

So the idea that the people who shot the video for the film sponsored by the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau and the Illinois Tourism Bureau naturally looked for images of white people is predictable.

The part of the film where then-WBBM-TV news anchor Bill Kurtis narrates copy talking about Chicago’s diversity gave us footage of all kinds of people in ethnic garb – and several intense seconds of a Greek belly dancer in a particularly-skimpy costume.

There were shots that look like they came from Chinatown, and also some footage of Asian ethnics who appear to be a part of a tourist group – as though these “foreigners” were checking us out (and also spending their money in Chicago).

... '77 was just a 3rd place finish

WHICH WAS KIND of the point of this whole exercise.

In fact, the only signs of black people I saw was one quick glimpse of a taxi driver, and an extended sequence of a parade with black people as spectators and participants.

Which makes me think it was from a Bud Billiken Parade from the early 1970s – check out all the afros (the hairstyle) amongst the male participants.

Then again, that wasn’t the only sign that this was the era following the Age of Aquarius, but prior to the Reagan Years.

MANY PEOPLE WILL laugh about the presence of “discotheques” and the sight of so many white people trying to “get down and boogie.”

Although what I noticed was the idea that few of those people had any real dance moves. They were just sort of waving their hands about and trying to writhe and wriggle in time to the music.

The film “Saturday Night Fever” really was a fantasy in terms of the idea that anyone looked like John Travolta’s “Tony Manero” character. At least as far as Chicago was concerned.

As far as those people who were ranting on Friday that the film was “too white,” I’d have to say that this is the image of Chicago that Richard J. Daley would have wanted the world to see.

Then the latest models, now most likely scrap metal

IT WAS ALSO the image many white Chicagoans had of their city – which is why there were so many people who were thoroughly, and utterly, shocked on that day in the spring of 1983 when Harold Washington actually won a Democratic primary election for mayor.

We are better off for acknowledging the larger Chicago; a city where white, black and Latino are headed toward parity, with a sizable Asian population as well.

Although I can’t help but think that whenever I hear people complain about Chicago being too dominant (Gov. Bruce Rauner made such comments earlier this week) over the rest of Illinois, I wonder if they’d have less of a problem with that concept if the city were more truly like this decades-old PR image in the video.

  -30-

How will these tests be spun politically?

I’m sure there are some people who viewed the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling last year concerning tests administered to firefighters trying to gain promotion as some sort of blow to the concept of “affirmative action.”

They want to believe that these tests are some sort of absolute that can be used. And if it turns out that these tests wind up producing higher ranks of firefighters and police officers that are more Anglo than the patrol ranks or of the population, that’s just the way it is.

AFTER ALL, THE best qualified are the ones who are passing these tests.

So I’m curious to see how these same people (the ones who deep down don’t want to have to acknowledge that the old way of picking public safety officials may very well be so flawed as to best be scrapped altogether) react to a court case now pending before the Supreme Court – one out of Chicago that could wind up costing our beloved home city millions of dollars.

All because the tests caused too many white people to get promoted, at the expense of “qualified” black firefighters.

The Chicago Tribune newspaper used its website Monday to report that hearings on the case appeared to indicate that the same Supreme Court that ruled 5-4 (with Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the losing end) in the case involving New Haven, Conn., firefighters had problems with the arguments being made by attorneys for Chicago who were trying to defend the use of the tests.

WHILE THIS IS just a reportorial observation and nothing will be definite until the high court actually issues a ruling, it would seem there are cases where the courts are willing to admit there are problems with the tests.

What is at stake in this new case is a test for Fire Department promotions given during the late 1990s. After some 26,000 people took that test, department officials said they would only consider hiring people who scored “89” or better – a much higher standard than had ever been applied before.

As it turned out, that produced a group of people who got promotions who were primarily white. Many of the black firefighters (about 6,000) who got scores that usually would have resulted in consideration for promotions wound up getting passed over.

The U.S. Solicitor General office had attorneys arguing on behalf of those who were challenging the test results, saying that Chicago city officials knew their handling of the test was discriminatory. NAACP attorneys were in agreement with that argument.

THE CITY’S CORPORATION Counsel got its day in court, with attorneys arguing on behalf of Chicago government that the use of such tests is necessary and that there is a time limit for people who wish to file legal challenges to such tests – a limit they claim most of those complaining failed to observe.

Personally, I know that latter point is one that many judges take seriously. I have seen many legal battles in my two-plus decades as a reporter-type person that ended unsuccessfully for the challenger because their legal paperwork did not comply with the letter of the law.

There are cases where the courts are more than willing to ignore an otherwise legitimate challenge because of a missed deadline or improperly-filed document.

But the Tribune report noted that justices, particularly Ruth Bader Ginsburg, were more concerned about trying to get to the substance of the argument.

IT WILL BE interesting to see what happens if the Supreme Court ultimately rules in a way that implies the tests were flawed. For that would force the issue back to the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois, where one of our city’s federal judges ultimately would have to decide just how much in compensation all those black firefighters who might otherwise have qualified for promotions are entitled to.

Like I wrote earlier, I find this case intriguing just because I’m sure so many people were convinced that the Supreme Court’s ruling last year was somehow a victory for those people who don’t want to have to take racial composition or concerns into account in public safety, or any area of public policy, I would think.

In that case, city officials in New Haven tried in 2003 to overturn test results when they came back “too white” (although some like to claim it is a “big deal” that one of those firefighters denied was Latino).

I would interpret this activity thus far as saying that it is simple-minded to think that race is no longer a factor in the way in which our society’s institutions operate. For those who want to think.

THOSE PEOPLE (MANY of whom probably thought Sarah Palin was downright hilarious earlier this month when she mocked Barack Obama’s “hope-y, change-y stuff” campaign theme of 2008) thought they had a “victory” that could allow their limited view of our society and racial balance to prevail.

I personally would find it hilarious if Chicago, in its legal defeat, wound up socking an uppercut to their view of how our society should operate.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Could Chicago’s legal defeat turn into a “victory” for people whose sensible view (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/02/supreme-court-chicago-black-firefighters-hiring-test-civil-rights.html) of our society should prevail?

People are still quibbling over (http://www.helium.com/debates/251643-did-the-supreme-court-rule-correctly-in-the-new-haven-firefighters-case/side_by_side) what significance should dominate in the New Haven, Conn., firefighters ruling by the Supreme Court.