Will White still be around in ‘19?

On the one hand, the idea of a man pushing age 85 holding the political post that is one of the most visible in Illinois government reeks of absurdity.

WHITE: The pol who won't leave?



That’s how old Jesse White will be if he actually runs for Illinois secretary of state in the 2014 elections and manages to make it all the way to the end of his term in January of 2019.

EVEN RONALD REAGAN wasn’t that old when he finished his terms as U.S. president early in 1989 – and was starting to show signs of the behavior that later was diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease.

But then again, Jesse White has never been the typical politician – or person.

Anyone who saw White as I happened to see him on Saturday – helping to lug heavy mats around in hot, humid weather while helping to set up a stage in suburban South Holland for his Jesse White Tumblers gymnastics team (which was making its second of four scheduled appearances that day) – would not have seen a 77-year-old man.

To play off that old cliché, White was working so hard that it made me tired just watching. Let alone having to keep track of 17 young people AND handle the driving of the bus that was taking the tumblers from appearance to appearance.

WHITE OBVIOUSLY DOES not give much thought to retiring. He got elected to his fourth term in the office that most prominently issues our driver’s licenses (his name sits in the wallet of nearly every legal driver in the state) during last year’s election cycle.

He’s already thinking ahead, using political rallies at the Illinois State Fair last week to tell people he’s already planning to be the Democratic nominee in 2014.

Any other government official who talked of running for re-election this early in the process (three years and three months remaining until Election Day) would be considered delusional.

Yet in the case of White, the reaction seems to be mere acceptance. It’s like White has become one of those officials that we just assume belongs in political post.

IT’S MAKING ME wonder if the name “White” is becoming something akin to “Daley” for Chicago-area politicos.

What amazes me the most about White’s longevity as secretary of state is the fact that he had already had a full political career by the time he first won election to the position in 1998 – the year that Democrats started once again getting elected to Illinois government posts and culminating with the 2002 and 2006 elections that saw Democrats take over everything.

It’s almost like White was the leader who plowed the path for his political allies to come along and take control of the Springfield Scene from people who always saw the purpose of their authority as keeping Chicago under check – instead of trying to work with the city on issues.

But back on that day in January 1999 when White first took that oath, he was already pushing 65 years of age. He was the guy who had been a long-time state legislator from the Near North Side and who had moved “up” to the world of Cook County government by serving as recorder of deeds.

THAT, IN AND of itself, would be a full political career that few other government officials in our city could match. The perception back then was that White would be secretary of state for a term (or two, at most) before retiring. By that logic, White should have moved on years ago.

But he hasn’t.

He doesn’t want to seem to go anywhere, except to work.

That is, when he’s not engaged in the act of operating his self-named tumbling team that he created in 1959 to provide inner-city youths with an alternative to urban street life (a sweet-sounding euphemism for street-gangs and drugs). Which is work.

THE TEAM ROUTINELY performs all over the United States, and in fact later this year has plans to perform in London and in Edinburg, Scotland.

Which means that White could be busy enough if he were to focus his time on managing the tumblers – which in-and-of itself would be a noble way to spend his final years.

Yet White seems determined to hang on politically, knowing full well that anybody who seriously thought of challenging him in a Democratic primary would be seen as bringing down the Wrath of God (a.k.a. state party Chairman Michael J. Madigan) for causing internal political problems.

About the only way that White won’t run for secretary of state in 2014 is if he literally suffers a mishap and departs this planet. Not that I’m wishing for anyone’s death. But it seems that will be the only way that White won’t try to get a fifth term as secretary of state.

AND AFTER SEEING White in action during the weekend, I can’t say I see a man who looks like he’s going to leave us any time soon.

So much for a man whose sense of failure in life probably extends only to the fact that he was once a professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization in the 1960s who never made it to the big club.

Was the Cubs’ loss the people’s gain?

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Gambling versus gaming – that’s what Quinn/Emanuel casinos quibble is about

While watching the activity this week of city and state government, I can’t help but compare the casino-related rhetoric of Gov. Pat Quinn and Mayor Rahm Emanuel to the shouting matches I occasionally hear between my 11-year-old nephew and my 8-year-old niece.

EMANUEL: For gaming?



I adore both of them (along with my other nephew and niece). But when they get into one of their “he (or she) took my (fill in the blank),” I just want to tell them both to shut their yaps. Because neither one comes across looking good.

WHICH IS ABOUT what I think of Emanuel and Quinn, who all throughout the week engaged in a back-and-forth related to the idea of a casino being built in Chicago to help bolster city finances.

Emanuel is a big backer of the idea, and it was in part because of his political muscle that the General Assembly this spring passed a bill that includes the massive Chicago-based casino that city officials have desired for decades.

Eventually (there are some procedural maneuvers that still have to take place), the issue will wind up in Quinn’s hands. Considering that Quinn has only lukewarm support for a Chicago casino – and hates many of the other gambling measures that got attached – he could be the guy who gets to use his “veto” power to kill off the idea.

Which is what lies at the heart of this week’s rhetoric.

THE POLITICAL HISSY hissy fits started at City Hall, where Emanuel tried to step up the idea that a Chicago casino has significant benefits to offer.

It was a wish list, of sorts, that he rattled through. Roads that will be repaired. New schools to be built. Upgrades to the elevated train system maintained by the Chicago Transit Authority. Improvements to public buildings to make them more energy-efficient.

QUINN: Against gambling?



All of which will only get done if the city gets the infusion of cash it would count on if a casino is built in Chicago and the city were allowed to tax it at a significant rate.

Not that Quinn was impressed. He responded by telling people that Emanuel is being premature in trying to figure out how to spend tax money from a casino when it is not a done deal that he will approve it.

PERSONALLY, I THINK Quinn ultimately will approve whatever gambling expansion bill winds up before him. But I think that bill will be significantly scaled back to the point where it will bear little resemblance to the measure now on hold in state Senate President John Cullerton’s desk drawer.

But while he didn’t use the word “veto,” he used words to imply that he might wind up rejecting the casino expansion proposal once it gets to him.

Some might say that Quinn was trying to rub Emanuel’s face in the muck that always arises whenever gambling as an issue comes up. Everybody should say that Emanuel definitely intended to do that to Quinn when he responded a couple of days ago, telling the Chicago Sun-Times that he had previously given Quinn a copy of his wish list – and that Quinn supposedly told Emanuel to make it public.

Is Quinn’s response to Emanuel hypocritical – a chance to play to those people who want to view gambling as the almighty evil?!? Or is this all a lot of childish chit-chat from a couple of pols who have spent too much time outside in the summer heat?

PERHAPS THEY BOTH need a cooling-off period before we let them speak further? It definitely bothers me to think that our mayor and our governor need a “time-out” (just like my nephew and niece) before we all go any further.

Now insofar as who gets the high ground in this shouting match, a lot depends on one’s own ideological leanings on this particular issue. I think they’re both so juvenile that neither deserves to be thought of as the winner.

Also, I couldn’t help but notice that Emanuel this week said how he thinks the bill has adequate safeguards to prevent the possibility of all this new gambling becoming nothing more than opportunities for organized crime to make more money.

Which makes him think that people who talk of increased crime and the need for strong oversight (which includes the Illinois Gaming Board and the Chicago Crime Commission, to name a few) are deliberately ignoring the economic benefits to government that can be derived from gambling.

THAT COMMENT REMINDS me of something I once heard state Rep. Louis Lang, D-Skokie, say in how he judges people’s opinions on this issue in part by whether they use the word “gambling” or “gaming.” He thinks people who persist in calling it “gambling” are deliberately trying to exaggerate the social ills and do not deserve to be taken as seriously as those who use the word “gaming.”

Emanuel and Lang are of the same mind on this issue, while I’m sure those who use the more traditional spelling are leaning toward the hesitancy of Quinn – who on Friday found an “issue” to preoccupy his thoughts.

How else to explain that Friday in Illinois was “Sheen Estevez Day” – honoring actor Martin Sheen and son Emilio Estevez, who were in Chicago promoting their new film.

And as for other acting son Charlie Sheen? I’m sure he’ll get his Chicago moment someday. Perhaps he’ll be in the city and will visit the casino when it finally gets built – dropping who knows how much money on craps, liquor and women all to benefit our city government.

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$2 for “gas” sounds like fast-food price

Michele Bachmann making promises that we will pay less than $2 for a gallon of gasoline makes her sound like a candidate for a school student council president – rather than one aspiring to be president of the United States.

BACHMANN: Running for Jr. High prez?



You know what I mean.

YOU’RE SITTING IN the bleachers of the school gym all those years ago, listening to some council wannabe say during a special assembly that if we vote for her, she’ll use her office to ensure that we get better quality food in the school cafeteria.

It was nonsense talk some three decades ago when I heard it, and we all knew it then. So why does Bachmann think we’re now supposed to believe it when she makes an equally-absurd political promise?

Which she did earlier this week during a campaign appearance in South Carolina. Apparently, winning that straw poll in Iowa really went to her head, in that she’s now speaking with authority on issues upon which she has little to no influence.

What she’s going to realize is that the people who voted for her in that straw poll had probably just sniffed a little too much livestock excrement and were a little giddy when they dropped their bean into a jar.

THE BULK OF us are a little more rational. We’re going to see this as the cheap political talk that it truly is.

What this really amounts to is a petty attempt by the candidate to take a pot shot at Barack Obama on an issue that hits us right in the gut – as well as in the wallet.

We’re sick of having to pay so much for gasoline – remembering well the days when a gallon of gas was about $1 in some places, and we thought it ridiculously expensive that gasoline stations near downtown were charging rates as exorbitant as $1.40!!!

Now, that’s a price that’s pure fantasy. Even Bachmann won't promise it.

BACHMANN WANTS US to think “It’s Obama’s fault!” every time we have to fill up our automobile’s gasoline tank (which in my case takes place about once a week – some have to do it more often).

So she says she can bring the price down significantly from its current area level of just under $4 per gallon (the last time I filled up, I paid $3.839).

Not that she really can do that. If anything, gasoline prices are determined by factors related to the crude oil market. There is little any federal government official could do to pressure the price to drop significantly.

Bachmann, whose campaign rhetoric says she’d push for increased oil drilling in the United States and reduced regulations on the shale gas industry, wouldn’t have the impact she thinks she would have.

WHICH TO ME sounds more like she’s interested in benefitting business interests that want to think they’d be completely profitable IF ONLY they didn’t have to comply with regulations that largely are in place to protect the public safety and the environment.

If Bachmann is going to go around promising $2 for a gallon of gas, perhaps she ought to also go around blaming the “tree-huggers” for causing the problem. Those pesky environmentalists!

Such a statement would make about as much sense as any promise made toward the price of gas.

Of course, when she would fail in her effort, I have no doubt she’ll also blame “foreigners,” particularly OPEC and Arabs in general. She’ll create the stereotype that they are the ones who are benefitting from the high gas prices we’re now paying.

WHICH I’M SURE many of the ideologues who take her presidential aspirations (Or should I say fantasies?) seriously would be more than willing to believe. It’s somebody else’s fault!

If there is anything that we, the people of this nation, could do to have an impact on gasoline prices, it probably would be to reduce the amount of driving we insist upon doing.

Using less gasoline would impact the industry to the point where they’d have to drop prices ever so slightly to encourage us to by more. After all, the time for someone to “jack up” the price of a good is when demand for it is at its peak.

But I’m sure there are some ideologues who are reading this and gnashing their teeth right about now. Telling them that they should use their automobiles more responsibly is going to be interpreted by many of these Bachmann supporters as somehow interfering with their personal liberty.

I MAY EVEN very well get some response about less driving that is reminiscent of the late actor Charlton Heston’s “from my cold, dead hands” quip to the National Rifle Association about firearms. Bachmann herself would probably offer up such a response, if she thought she could score a few political points off of it.

So where should we go from here? Bachmann has the right to make cheap statements as part of her campaigning. We just have to be sure to be responsible enough to acknowledge them for the ridiculous rhetoric that they are.

Unless you are the type who really believed that your junior high vote was going to be a factor in getting a better-quality slice of pizza for lunch.

Then again, perhaps lunch at discount-oriented fast-food places is the appropriate place to think of now. For $2 worth of items at, say, a White Castle is about the only place you’ll get gas for that price.

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Downtown immigration protest message meant for Obama 1,000 miles away

In President Barack Obama’s adopted home town of Chicago, activists made a point Wednesday of expressing their outrage with the president’s willingness to give in to the conservative ideologues.

Those activists gathered outside of a downtown building where the Secure Communities Task Force was supposed to have a hearing. They tied up traffic by blocking the streets with their bodies and managing to draw attention to the opposition felt to what that task force is trying to do.

NOW IT WAS not likely a message that Obama would have seen personally. He was in Illinois for much of the day, finishing up the tail end of his three-day U.S. Midwest bus tour in the rural Illinois towns of Atkinson and Alpha.

But by the time this evening rush hour protest march took place, Obama was long gone from the state, headed back to Washington for the night. He’ll probably “read all about it” in whatever generic wire service news account he stumbles across on the Internet.

But Obama was the target of this event (How else to interpret the protester chants of “Yes, You Can,” a play on his campaign slogan from ’08 that implies he could do the right thing and stop the politically motivated deportations if he wanted to), which involved having protesters try to set up chains from post to post to disrupt people and automobile traffic flow. Then some insisted on sitting in the streets.

All of which resulted in Chicago police making about 40 arrests and getting involved in a scrap with one man – whom both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times report was being punched by the police officers.

NOW THE ISSUE at stake here is nothing new. Activists and others with an interest in the growing Latino population believe that Obama is so eager to try to gain some favor with the conservative ideologues (who are never going to warm up to him, no matter what he gives them) that he has allowed the number of deportations to escalate to record highs.

Those come about despite various directives that indicate that federal immigration officials are supposed to focus their attention on deporting only those people without a valid visa who have developed serious criminal records in this country.

OBAMA: Message meant for his ears



But some immigration officials seem to be eager to bolster the deportation rate rather than worrying about finding people who pose a threat to this nation (and only the most nit-witted of ideologues seriously believes that ALL of these people are a threat).

Which is why the activists chose to protest outside of this hearing of the task force, which was to hear evidence about how well federal initiatives are working in the Chicago area.

NOW, THEY HAVE forced some focus on their argument, which also gained some attention in recent weeks when Illinois state officials tried to drop state out of the Secure Communities program on the grounds that it was not providing the proper balance between immigration and any relevant national security issues.

Gov. Pat Quinn went so far as to issue a public statement saying that officials in his state would not cooperate with the federal officials in this program. A noble statement, to say the least. But federal officials took Quinn’s tough talk about as seriously as his so-called Democratic allies in the General Assembly.

Quinn’s talk is what led the federal officials to say that the previous agreement the state had with the U.S. government concerning the Secure Communities program was expired, and that they did not need the state’s permission to continue their efforts in Illinois – or any other state – as they decide to expand its initiatives.

Now I’m sure some people are going to try to dismiss Wednesday’s activity as irrelevant, or some sort of thuggish behavior – although I’d argue I have heard more hateful rhetoric come from Tea Party-type rallies I have attended throughout the past couple of years.

IN FACT, THIS gathering had several clergy members taking part – and it was those “men of God” who were among the people telling the newspapers how police were beating up on at least one person at the rally. It’s your call if you want to call a priest a liar!

But this was a rally meant less to sway the masses than to try to influence one man – the guy in the Oval Office who is taking his family on Thursday away from the District of Columbia for an extended weekend vacation to Martha’s Vineyard.

I wonder if Obama will give this activity any thought while enjoying one last chance to do something with his daughters this summer before they start another school year.

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Illinois fair pales politically

Wednesday and Thursday will be the political days, so to speak, of the Illinois State Fair. Not that it means much, because people interested in electoral politics will be turning elsewhere for their little trivial tidbits about who is running for what – and who is doing what to whom.

SIMON: The political highlight of the fair?



Our state’s fair doesn’t compare to the state fairs put on by surrounding Midwestern states.

IN SOME RESPECTS, that is a good thing. I doubt any Illinoisan wants the notoriety being directed these days at Indianapolis and the Indiana State Fair. It’s bad enough that a Chicago resident is among that fair’s casualties.

But we’re not going to get the Republican presidential hopefuls passing through Springfield this week – trying to show they are “real” people by devouring as many pork chop-on-a-sticks as they can.

There won’t be any straw polls taken at the Illinois State Fairgrounds that will have the ability to influence who deserves to be called the frontrunner for next year’s presidential election.

Heck, “Dateline SPRINGFIELD, Ill.” won’t even be the primary dateline for political stories in the state of Illinois. People interested in elections will be more likely to pay attention to “Dateline ALPHA, Ill.” where Barack Obama will be concluding his three-day Midwest bus tour.

WILL WE GET a native Illinoisan who gets as brash and bold with Obama as that guy in Minnesota did earlier this week?

By comparison, the political activity at the Illinois State Fair will be subdued.

Wednesday is the day officially designated as “Governor’s Day,” where Pat Quinn officially invites former governors to attend the event – which could be a nice trip down memory lane if you care about what Jim Edgar thinks.

OBAMA: Alpha visit upstaging the fair?



More recent governors have federally-imposed restrictions on their personal freedom that prevent them from being able to be in Springfield on Wednesday.

THERE ALSO WILL be the traditional rallies in which elected officials try to stir up the troops, so to speak. Because Quinn is a Democrat, that party will use the fair on Wednesday. Those of the GOP persuasion will have their rebuttal “Republican Day” on Thursday.

Now I did a seven-year stint at the Statehouse in Springfield, and I covered the Illinois fair every year. So unless somebody has some sort of radical change in the program that they have managed to keep secret until this very minute, I can tell you what will happen.

Quinn will be present, along with other Democratic statewide officials and the few state legislators from central Illinois of the Dem persuasion. It will be a little rally held on a stage erected at the director’s lawn.

It will be hampered by the fact that the Democratic Party in this state is a Chicago-based entity, and there just aren’t many political people who want to make the 200-mile drive to the capital city for the fair. Rahm Emanuel is so unlikely to take time out from his schedule to work the fairgrounds.

THE REPUBLICAN DAY follow-up will give Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford and Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka to shine. Although the Illinois Republican Party is so luster-less these days that it won’t be much of a show.

TOPINKA: The Simon rebuttal?



How many times can we hear Topinka play her accordion before it becomes repetitive?

If anything, the political highlight of this year’s Illinois State Fair is most likely to be the fact that a Carbondale-based band, Loose Gravel (for whom Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon plays banjo), will be among the entertainers at the fairgrounds.

Although they’re not the main musical act. The Oak Ridge Boys will be the name act performing on Wednesday for Quinn’s delight.

YOU MAY THINK that is a moldy-oldie country music act not worthy of much attention. But it is a step up from the Thursday night entertainment – the Abe Lincoln Quarter Midgets auto racing.

One might wonder if the fair organizers deliberately scheduled the oddball entertainment for Republican Day. They may have. I recall how back in the 1990s when the fair had GOP-appointed officials, the rebuttal Democrat Day was usually the one day that didn’t get ANY entertainment scheduled on the main stage.

These last few paragraphs may have sounded like a bunch of boring rambling. It is because the fair’s political events are usually kept so separate from the mass of the fair that I always wondered if the people attending the event were even aware of any political people being present?

There certainly won’t be anything happening at the fairgrounds that will get national attention.  I’d be amazed if we get any Mitt Romney sightings in Springfield. We’ll have to settle for sightings of a woman who sort of looks like Michelle Bachmann (crazy eyes and all) if you have a few beers, then cover your left eye.

THE CAPITAL CITY will have to settle for the fact that Sarah Palin – who was riding around the Midwestern U.S. on her own bus earlier this week – included a brief appearance in Springfield, and even included a stop at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. She got to check out the Lincoln artifacts and now probably thinks she's just like Honest Abe; who during his own lifetime was disparaged harshly by his opponents and didn't receive his acclaim until after death.



The new family portrait? Photograph provided by Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.



That photograph of her and the Palin family with the Lincoln family figures taken by museum officials and posted on their Facebook page is most likely the political highlight of our political scene this week.

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15 months to go, yet Obama already in campaign mode with Midwest journey

Officially, this is not a campaign stunt.

OBAMA: A 3-day Midwest tour


President Barack Obama’s three-day tour by bus of the Midwest is meant to give the chief executive a chance to see with his own eyes just what is happening “out there” in middle America in the wake of all the partisan nonsense that has taken place in the District of Columbia with regards to federal finances and the debt ceiling.

YET WE ALL know that these appearances he is making in assorted small towns that usually don’t get a real live president within their boundaries are going to have the feel of campaign stunts.

Obama wants to use his charm and personality to try to ease the amount of resentment that Republican critics are trying to stir up against the man as their own  party’s presidential dreamers are kicking their own campaigns into gear.

Think of this tour as the antidote to all the rhetoric we’ve heard the past couple of days about how Michelle Bachmann is now a fully-legitimate candidate because she won that straw poll at the Iowa State Fair.

That “win” had so much clout that it actually motivated one of the legitimate GOP presidential candidates (former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty) to drop out.

SO OBAMA WANTS to try to push back before that kind of rhetoric starts to gain too much momentum. Getting buried in bull may be absurd, but it can be politically fatal.

Which is why Obama’s trip (which was planned in advance of that straw poll) comes at a perfect time, as he arrived in Minneapolis on Monday, then boarded the bus upon which he will live through Wednesday – which is the day that he will venture back into his home state of Illinois.

BACHMANN: Obama's opponent?

It also comes at a time when news accounts are being published about the Gallup Organization identifying 12 states that could decide the 2012 presidential elections – states that theoretically could swing to either candidate.

One of the states they identified was Iowa, while also acknowledging that Minnesota is a state taken by Obama in 2008 but that experienced some shifts in partisanship in the 2010 election cycle.

ILLINOIS GETS INCLUDED just because he’s going to be so close to home (in Peosta, Iowa on Tuesday to partake in an economic forum along with Agriculture Secretary – and former Iowa Governor – Tom Vilsack) that we would feel offended if he didn’t drop by.

Atkinson and Alpha – to be exact. He’ll visit those two rural towns on Wednesday before returning to Washington, which in recent years has only paid attention to Northwestern Illinois when the federal government tried to buy the empty state prison in Thompson from Illinois government.

Now I’ll be the first to admit these various forums and town hall meetings are going to be so heavily staged that we’re not going to learn much from the programming itself.

If there is one thing we should pay attention to is the reaction that Obama draws in the surrounding area. Because I have no doubt that the people who get into the events themselves are going to be those partisans who will be on their best behavior.

IT WILL BE others in the area who will have the potential to stir up trouble and express their resentment toward Obama – much of which is due to the fact that he won at all in ’08. And there really isn’t any evidence that the resentment among the people who were against him in the beginning has subsided.

I don’t think an Obama visit this week will reduce the resentment significantly.

If anything, I think the point to having the president in Cannon Falls, Minn., was to appease perhaps just enough people that the urban voter base of Minneapolis and St. Paul that would be inclined to back Obama next year will be significant enough for Obama to “win” Minnesota.

Let’s remember that the Electoral College is a “winner take all” affair.

THE SAME LOGIC goes for Obama’s Iowa appearances on Tuesday, and perhaps even his Illinois stops on Wednesday – although in the latter case I think it is evident that the Chicago metropolitan area has become so large in this state that it shall overcome.

VILSACK: An Obama boost?



The key for Obama in Illinois may well be suburban appearances, particularly in those outer suburbs that once regarded themselves as rural towns; and which some long-time residents wish they could still be.

But with 15 months to go until Election Day, there is still plenty of time for those appearances to take place.

Considering that we got buried in presidential minutia out of Iowa this weekend, I think it won’t be long before we’re all sick and tired of campaign activity before it really gets started.

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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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