EXTRA: Guillen turns to ace Buehrle?

Wouldn’t it be freaky if Ozzie Guillen wound up getting the managerial post of the Toronto Blue Jays for the 2013 season?

For he’d literally be able to have as his top pitcher the same man he has relied upon for the past 12 seasons. The multi-player trade that sent much of the high-priced talent from the Miami Marlins to Toronto was given final approval by Major League Baseball authorities on Monday.

THAT BRINGS FORMER Chicago White Sox ace pitcher Mark Buehrle back to the American League. The Missouri boy who has made it known he wouldn’t mind it if he were to be able to pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals during a professional baseball career instead will get to be a Blue Jay.

Of course, the Marlins began their schizophrenic off-season mode last month when they fired manager Guillen – trying to place the blame on Ozzie for the fact that Miami grossly underperformed during 2012.

Some people who have always had their hang-ups about Ozzie might have been willing to believe that. Except that the Marlins management’s behavior since then has shown it is them, and not Guillen, who are the problem with baseball being a success in South Florida.

There are those who believe the only reason Buehrle left the White Sox following 12 seasons of being their most-reliable pitcher was the idea that he liked pitching for Guillen.

WOULD ANOTHER REUNITING with Guillen be enough to make him happy in Toronto? Much of the reporting about this potential deal and its impact on Buerhle has focused on the fact that he owns pit bulls and would have personal objections to the laws in Ontario that severely restrict ownership of that particular breed of dog.

Or is the Midwest boy at heart going to literally find himself in an alien land – one where he will have to face the tough teams of the American League eastern division multiple times per year, instead of the one game or two a season that he got while pitching for the White Sox of the league’s central division!

Now keep in mind that I’m not in possession of any knowledge that the Blue Jays (who lost their manager to the Boston Red Sox at season’s end) are considering Guillen for the managerial post.

He may well be the last person they’d want to consider for the job! Which could be a mistake. Guillen could be that jolt that could bolster a ballclub that hasn’t won a league championship since 1993 (when they beat out then-shortstop Ozzie Guillen and the White Sox in the AL playoffs).

INSTEAD, THE REPORTS I have seen indicate that one of the alleged front-runners for the Blue Jays managerial post is Jim Riggleman – who back in the late 1990s had a stint managing the Chicago Cubs and later managed the Washington Nationals before they became good.

Who knows? Maybe he learned something in recent seasons (he managed a Cincinnati Reds minor league affiliate last year).

Either that, or they figure he’s already worn a light-blue uniform and might feel comfortable in Toronto.

Somehow, he just doesn’t seem to be the kind of leadership that could help Toronto overcome the New York Yankees, the improving Baltimore Orioles or Tampa Bay Rays – or even the Red Sox (who can’t possibly play as poorly in ’13 as they did last year).

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Metra increases a fare, after saying there’d be no fare increases this year

I can’t say I’m surprised at the outrage some people might be feeling these days toward Metra, the commuter railroad system, for the increase in ticket prices it approved just a couple of days ago.

This increase comes just a couple of weeks after Metra officials told the Cook County Board (which reviews mass transit budgets) that they were preparing a budget for 2013 that calls for no fare hikes. Prices would remain the same, except when they don’t – it seems.

NOW FOR THOSE of you who are confused, keep in mind that Metra technically didn’t  break its word. They kept themselves within the “letter of the law,” so to speak, with regards to fares for the upcoming year.

For the basic fare for those people who ride Metra trains will remain the same. As will the prices charged for those people who purchase monthly passes to allow them to come and go every day without having to make a routine out of shelling out cash!

What Metra’s board increased was the cost of what they call a 10-ride ticket, one that gives you up to 10 rides on a Metra train for a period of up to six months.

The current fare is based on the cost of nine one-way rides, with the 10^th being a freebie on account of the fact that the commuter is coughing up their money up front. Metra gets theirs, and there’s always the chance you could lose a ticket with a ride or two remaining – meaning that they get a financial perk in the process.

BUT COME FEBRUARY, people are going to have to pay for the full 10 rides, which means the only bonus is that you won’t have to wait in the ticket line every single time you want to catch a train.

I honestly believe the fact that they were getting cash up front was a financial plus for Metra that they should have respected. Particularly since it was just this past year that all Metra fares went up – including the cost of the 10-ride tickets (it used to be that you paid the price of eight one-way rides for a 10-ride).

So excuse me for being a little less than sympathetic to Metra for slipping this increase through when their board met Friday.

And yes, I should disclose the fact that I am an occasional Metra train rider who always tries to have a 10-ride ticket on me so that I can just board a train without having to worry about paying for the ride.

CURRENTLY, I’M ON a ticket with three rides remaining. So there is a self-interest I am expressing in this particular rant of a commentary.

Keep in mind that this isn’t just a suburban issue (which is probably how some city dwellers want to view Metra since they probably use the CTA trains and buses for public commutes).

Go out to a neighborhood like Hyde Park where the elevated trains convenience skip by, and it becomes those Metra Electric trains (the ones that are getting new cars that finally will have lavatory facilities) that provide the direct connection to downtown Chicago – along with neighborhoods such as South Shore and South Chicago.

Swing out to the Southwest Side, and it becomes those Rock Island line trains that can take Beverly or Morgan Park neighborhood residents deeper into the city without having to drive a car. It's not just people coming in from Kenosha, Wis. (although there are a few of them as well).

THIS MOVE – WHICH Metra officials say is meant to raise $8.3 million to be used for repairs and maintenance – is going to have an impact on many people,

Which makes me convinced I’m not the only one who feels a bit of disgust – even if an increased cost of a Metra 10-ride is still probably cheaper than the cost of parking one’s car at a downtown garage!

But that’s a rant to be written for another day.

  -30-

Why can’t DePaul play in Lincoln Park?

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



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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  -30-

No more Twinkies?!??

Is suburban Schiller Park about to lose its claim to fame – namely, being the location of the old Continental Baking Co. where a baker came up with a concoction meant to be an out-of-season replacement for Strawberry shortcake.

TWINKIES: 1930-2012?



In short, James Alexander Dewar came up with the concoction that we now think of as “the Twinkie.”

THE YELLOW CAKE stuffed with vanilla crème that got dumped into so many a child’s bagged lunch at school (including many of my own, except for those moments when my mother would pick up a box of Zingers instead).

Anyway, the Twinkie is in the news because of a labor dispute that has a company saying they’ll go so far as to shut down all their plants that make Twinkies, rather than give in to the outrageous demands being made by the union that represents the bakery workers.

Personally, I can’t remember the last time I ate a Twinkie (although the other night, I saw a re-run of “All in the Family” where Carroll O’Connor’s “Archie Bunker” character lamented the loss of a Twinkie when his lunchbox got crushed by a 1-ton crate of machine parts that fell atop it).

The Twinkie has just enough of an iconic status that the mere threat that we will never again be able to buy a box of the snack cakes could get people all worked up into a frazzle!

WILL WE HAVE Twinkie fans picketing the union halls where workers are saying they aren’t going to make any further concessions because they think it is the incompetence of corporate interests that have caused the company to have its financial struggles?

It makes me wonder if we’ll get a real-life version of that episode of “The Simpsons” where fans of a McDonald’s-like McRib sandwich lamented the last one ever made – and actually held an auction for the rights to own it!

Those are Twinkie stains!



Will we see a mad rush on supermarkets in coming days, as people try to snatch up every single Twinkie in sight so they can have a stockpile and postpone the inevitable (no more Twinkies?!?) for as long as they can?

And how will Chicago White Sox fans deride the ballclub from Minneapolis, Minn., if the phrase "Twinkies" no longer has any pop culture meaning?

YES, I'M GOING overboard with the melodrama here. Largely because I think the whole dispute is a nonsense one. Particularly when Hostess Brands, Inc., set the 4 p.m. deadline for concessions by the union – or else face the closures of the bakeries where Twinkies are made. Some workers caved in, but company officials were being coy about whether enough did to satisfy them.

People would lose their jobs right before Thanksgiving, and would be unemployed during the Christmas holiday season. At a time when the unemployment rate is steadily declining, they’d be willing to do their part to shoot it back up.

Of course, who’s to say how hard-and-fast the deadline was? Even public relations types hired by Hostess Brands to make their public pitch admit there might be some flexibility.

All I know is that as I write this commentary, we’re at “H-hour” with no word as to whether the company has the nerve to actually do away with the Twinkie because their workers (the members of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International union) won’t return to work from the strike they went on last week to protest the 8 percent pay cuts they’re being asked to take – along with reductions in health insurance and pension benefits.

THIS LABOR DISPUTE is unique in that the Twinkie is being used as a political weapon.

But on the other hand, it is so typical of management/labor negotiations – in that management seems to want to believe it is entitled to make cuts, and that people ought to be grateful that anybody would want to hire them at any salary rate.

Creme-filling, and chocolate. What more do you want?

It triggered something in me to learn of one union member who told the Reuters wire service that he’d literally make more collecting unemployment insurance rather than taking the pay and benefits cut that the company is demanding of he and his colleagues.

Who’s willing to sacrifice the Twinkie? It might not be that much of a loss. Because personally when I was a kid, I always preferred the Suzy Q.

  -30-

Define “political corruption”

It never fails to amuse me what becomes political corruption, and what does not.

JACKSON: Violated letter, if not spirit, of law?

It really matters so much on the whims of the public and what they’re willing to become outraged over. Because what is more dismaying for an investigative-type person than to spend so much time trying to dig up dirt – only to find out that “Nobody cares!!!”

SOME OF THE biggest ‘dirt” we’re getting is all the trash-talk going about concerning Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., whose critics have been trying to claim for years that he’s prison-bound.

Only it seems that his behavior concerning his dealings with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich when the latter was looking for a replacement for Sen. Barack Obama at the end of 2008 hasn’t crossed over into criminal behavior.

It probably did cross over into boorish behavior on the part of a member of Congress – for which his colleagues may someday censure him. Unless those same federal investigators have taken their ongoing investigation and shifted its gears to another matter.

Which is why all the talk we’re getting these days concerns Jackson’s alleged misuse of the money that was donated to him for campaign purposes.

HASTERT: He didn't do it, he says



THERE ARE CERTAIN circumstances under which it can be put to personal use, and usually very strict reporting requirements.

Which means they may try to claim that Jackson violated the letter of the law – particularly with the reports that claim he tried to build himself a home office with the money, or used it to buy an expensive wristwatch for a woman who doesn’t respond to the name “Sandi Jackson.”

The fact is that there is an element that wants to believe the worst about Jackson. So anybody who claims to have something on the representative from the Illinois Second Congressional district is going to get listened to – and have certain people more than willing to believe them regardless of what they have to say.

Jackson is fresh. He’s “Big News!” Not so much for former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, who made it into the Chicago Tribune this week with reports that he used a federal financial perk to benefit his personal business interests.

EDGAR: Who cuts his grass now?



IT SEEMS THAT retired Congressmen are allowed to use federal funds to maintain an office to help them tie up any loose ends. The Tribune reported that Hastert’s federal-funded office benefitted his own interests.

He supposedly had a secretary using the office to send out e-mails on his behalf, although Hastert gave the newspaper a firm denial. His “I didn’t do it!’ sounded as vehement as the response we’d get from Jackson these days – if he weren’t in seclusion due to his medical condition.

Yet in today’s political climate where the Democrats bolstered their strength in both the Legislature and in the congressional delegation, do we really care any longer about a former Republican leader? This one might well pass into a trivial tidbit. Nothing more!

Although there is one incident I’m curious to see if it does become controversial. It is purely stupid. Then again, it has never taken intelligence to justify an “controversy” as legitimate.

FOR IT SEEMS that the lot located next door to the Chicago residence of the Obama family (which largely sits empty but has a Secret Service detail keeping its eye on the grounds) is for sale.

OBAMA: Following in Edgar footsteps?



A 50-foot by 150-foot lot. You can build a home right next to the president’s property – assuming you pass the Secret Service clearance to even put in a bid.

But in reading the reports about this property, I couldn’t help but notice a paragraph about how the Secret Service actually uses Obama’s lawn mower to cut the grass on the president’s property and on this lot – so as to keep it from getting all decrepit and detract from the first family’s former home.

I recall some two decades ago it became a “controversy” when it was disclosed by a Springfield-based television station that then-Gov. Jim Edgar’s Illinois State Police detail occasionally mowed the governor’s lawn at his personal home located just north of Springfield.

THE OUTRAGE OF it all! How dare this man use professional law enforcement types as though they were mere servants! The waste of taxpayer dollars!

Will we soon get this same kind of faux outrage against Obama – even though he has rarely set foot on the grounds in the past four years?

I’d like to think the answer is “no.” But let’s be honest.

The kind of people who are determined to disbelieve his birth taking place in Hawaii are exactly the kinds who would love to blow this nugget up into full-fledged scandal.

  -30-

EXTRA: When “present” means “yes”

I once had an editor-type person whose hard-and-fast rule was to tell us reporter-types that a “present” vote is the same as a “no” vote.

FRITCHEY: Opposes political "plums"



After all, the number of “yes” votes it takes to approve something doesn’t change. A “present” vote does not add to the “yes” column. So it is just a weasel-ish way for political people to avoid taking a hard stand on an issue.

WHILE I AGREE with that particular editor’s concept that political people are capable of behaving in a weasel-ly manner, it seems that “present” doesn’t always mean “no.”

For the Cook County Board on Wednesday literally gave us an instance where “present” meant “yes” without actually having to take the embarrassment that a “yes” vote would have caused in this particular circumstance.

The specific instance was a measure meant to cut the compensation provided to the county’s Zoning Board of Appeals – which oversees zoning matters in unincorporated parts of Cook County.

The measure passed, but there was one part of it that failed – the idea that individual zoning board members should be limited to $20,000 per year for their work rather than the $12,000 limit that other such boards get.

THE IDEA WAS that the zoning board usually has more meetings in a given year, and should get more overall (even though the base of $500 per member per meeting would be applied to all appointees – regardless of board).

SCHNEIDER: Changing a "Y" to a "P"



In the end, the county rejected the $20,000 limit and went with the $12,000 limit – even though some said that might mean the zoning board would hold fewer hearings; which would require some people to travel farther to have their issues dealt with.

That $20,000 limit had five supporters and nine critics, with one county commissioner (Joan Patricia Murphy of suburban Crestwood) voting “present.”

Yet once the clerk announced the 5-9 vote, two of the commissioners who spoke out in favor of a $20,000 limit suddenly said they wanted their votes changed to “present.”

IT SEEMS THEY don’t want to be on the losing side of an issue. They probably didn’t want some future opponent concocting some nonsense campaign ad saying they voted to pay more money for positions that, by their own admission, were “political plums” used to reward friends.

BUTLER: The Iceman becomes Mr. Pro-bono?



So the vote went into the books as a 3-9 vote, with three others present. John Fritchey, D-Chicago, and Timothy Schneider, R-Elk Grove Village, were the two last-minute changers whose “present” vote shouldn’t be taken as opposition to the idea that these political appointees probably don’t need to be relying on the county for their health insurance or any additional credits towards their eventual pension.

Although I’m convinced the most honorable individual on the county board on Wednesday might well have been Commissioner Jerry “the Iceman” Butler. For he was the one who voted against everything on the grounds that none of these positions should be salaried, or per diemed, or compensated in any way!

“Pro bono. Nada,” said the man who gave us, “For Your Precious Love,” before adding, “They should all be pro bono.”

  -30-

Cart ahead of the horse as casino company touts plans for suburban site

Gambling expansion, particularly construction of casinos, is an issue that we have coped with for decades while apparently going nowhere.



Will this casino conceptual drawing ever become reality? Not if our political people continue to behave as they always have! Illustration provided by Millenium Gaming.



All we have are the 10 casinos permitted by the Illinois Gaming Board that are supposed to be cruises that offer a chance to gamble a bit – even though I’m sure 99.9999999 percent of the patrons could care less about the “cruise” portion and just want to play their “games of chance” in hopes of winning money.

EARLIER THIS YEAR, Gov. Pat Quinn rejected the latest attempt by the Legislature to try to expand casino gambling in Illinois – claiming the bill added on so much; much more than he was comfortable with.

So what do I think of the fact that the owner of a major casino in Las Vegas was within Cook County’s borders on Tuesday to say he wants to build a new casino here?

I don’t! As in think much of the idea.

For the record, the company that operates the Cannery Casino Resorts in the greater Las Vegas metropolitan area says it wants to have another casino – one to operate near suburban Country Club Hills. Specifically, at the northeastern corner of Cicero Avenue and 175^th Street!

WHICH IS A site I’m familiar with because my father and step-mother live in nearby Homewood, and they are the types who enjoy going to casinos. I’ve heard my step-mother, in particular, quip that a casino at that site would get her patronage nearly every day.

My point in bringing this up is to say that the idea of a casino at the site is not new. The mayor of Country Club Hills has touted the site for years as a place where his town could get rich off the taxes it would assess on casino proceeds.

So the idea that Millenium Gaming boss Bill Paulos came to visit our metropolitan area and say he wants to build a facility where he can profit from the gambling losses of our area residents isn’t a revelation.

In fact, it is just an idea that is going nowhere for the time being.

FOR THE FACT is that current Illinois law restricts “casinos” to the 10 gambling boats (that aren’t really boats any longer) already in existence.

Quinn isn’t about to change his mind any time soon, although it seems that he is willing to let Chicago have a casino and quite possibly the south suburbs as well. It was just all the other gambling (such as slots at race tracks and at the Illinois State Fairgrounds) that bothered him.

But for people who didn’t live in the Chicago-area, it was all those other gambling opportunities that mattered to them. They could care less about whether or not Mayor Rahm Emanuel ever gets that lakefront casino he dreams about (focusing his dreams on all the dollars that HE could derive from the taxes Chicago would assess on casino proceeds).

This move by Paulos and Country Club Hills is purely about one-upping the opposition for the day when the gambling expansion concept does move forward. Which could be the real significance of a veto-proof majority in the Illinois General Assembly – it cuts Quinn out of the political equation.

BECAUSE OFFICIALS USUALLY talk about one casino in southern Cook County – yet there are several municipalities that are determined to believe they are the front-runners for the project that would seek to take money from the existing casinos in Indiana municipalities such as Hammond, East Chicago and Gary.

This is one suburban official telling his other suburban counterparts to take their casino dreams and stuff them. It’s nothing more.

So instead of watching the open field that separates Country Club Hills from Tinley Park to see if construction starts anytime soon, we ought to be watching our political people to see if they can put aside their political differences on this issue anytime soon. If they can’t, then we maintain the status quo that has been in place for decades.

If I were a betting man (personally, I find casinos to be tacky), I’d say that the status quo is about all our government officials are capable of achieving.

  -30-