Soccer returns to Soldier Field?

It would be intriguing if the Chicago Fire could take over Soldier Field for a few days next summer.

Soldier Field has had varied uses throughout its existence

And no, I don’t mean I want to burn the stadium down. It may look hideous and freakish from the outside. But it still is a 60,000-plus arena that has housed many sporting and other historic events during its nearly century of existence.

I’M REFERRING TO the Chicago Fire professional soccer team that plays in Major League Soccer. That league has an all-star game every year, and Crain’s Chicago Business reported Monday how officials are negotiating with Chicago for use of the stadium. City officials have put a hold on Daley Plaza and Millennium Park’s Wrigley Square and Harris rooftop for the end of July – which is when the all-star game is scheduled for.

Even though the Fire themselves play in a stadium they had built for themselves about a decade ago out in suburban Bridgeview. For the all-star game (which likely would pit U.S. stars against a foreign team that would view the event as a chance for a U.S. vacation trip for its players), they want the vastness of an outdoor stadium with the massive capacity of a Soldier Field.

Considering that Bridgeview’s Toyota Park barely seats over 20,000 people, it’s quite a difference.

It was always part of the reason why I thought it a mistake that the Chicago Fire left the city for a suburban location back in 2006. I know the argument the team makes – that their crowds fit perfectly in their new stadium, but would get lost in the vastness of a Soldier Field.

YET A PART of me has always thought that the team ought to be striving for the level of success that they could pack ‘em in at a Soldier Field – rather than settling for the smallness of Toyota Park; which I’ll admit is a nice little stadium that I’m sure many second-rate teams would love to have as a home facility.

Soldier Field, when configured for 'futbol'

Perhaps having an all-star game at Soldier Field could be a first step toward moving at least a part of the Chicago Fire schedule back to the near South stadium, thereby creating the potential for Fire officials to start thinking of ways to attract the kind of crowds that would fill Soldier Field to an intimidating presence.

That will be when soccer can truly claim to have “arrived” in this country – when they can draw the kinds of crowds that the New York Cosmos of the old North American Soccer League used to draw (77.691 for a match on Aug. 15, 1977 against the now-defunct Fort Lauderdale Strikers) on occasion.

Or perhaps something like the 61,308 that the Fire themselves drew to Soldier Field for a July 23, 2011 match against Manchester United – an English team!

NOT THAT THE idea of soccer (real football, as opposed to that phony kind the Chicago Bears play ever so badly these days on the Soldier Field turf) ought to be considered alien.

'94 World Cup ceremonies at a jam-packed Soldier Field

I still recall when the World Cup international soccer tourney was played for 1994 with the United States as its host – and how Soldier Field was used as the site for the opening ceremonies and for several first-round games.

Germany and Spain fans, in particular, got to see their teams each win a match, then play each other to a 1-1 tie.

There also was the Copa America tourney, which in the past was for a championship of the South American continent but this year was expanded to include North American national teams.

HOSTED THIS YEAR by the United States, some of the matches were played at Soldier Field, with both Chile and Argentina both managing early round wins on the path to the championship game (fans in East Rutherford, N.J., got to see the championship game between the two, with Chile winning ultimately on penalty kicks).

A nice-enough stadium, but it ain't Soldier Field by any means

Heck, there even was a U.S. matchup against Costa Rica at Soldier Field, with a 4-0 victory for the Stars & Stripes on Soldier Field turf.

If you want to be honest, hosting a Major League Soccer all-star game would be a lesser event than those. Yet it still would be nice to see something involving “the beautiful game” taking place within the Soldier Field bowl.

At the very least, it would be a relief for Chicago sports fans who have come to associate Soldier Field with the weekly dose of agony every autumn as we watch “da Bears” lose, yet again!

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I was kidding, Quinn apparently isn’t

I was joking about the other day when I hinted that Chicagoans might pretend that White Sox pitcher Jake Peavy was JFK and stuff the ballot box – so to speak – in favor of getting him on the American League All-Star team.

But it seems that some people took such an idea seriously.

BECAUSE AMONG THE stunts being employed on the Internet this week to get more people to pick Peavy to be the final member of the team is a video message from none other than Gov. Pat Quinn.

Who apparently has seen how both President Barack Obama and the Daley family has been able to bolster their public credentials by rooting for the Sout’ Side team.

His video message proclaims himself to be a “die-hard” fan of the White Sox and of Peavy – which in-and-of itself shows you that something is off. Since the hard-core of White Sox fandom have been so appalled by Peavy in recent years that we’re still wondering if his performance this season is a fluke.

Will we seriously see a significant number of people picking Peavy, just because Pat Quinn tells us to?

THIS IS THE man whose approval ratings are so low that we have to wonder how he ever got elected in the first place (a mediocre opponent who repulsed Chicagoans is how, but that’s a topic for another day).

It just strikes me as laughable that anybody’s attempt to stuff a ballot box would include the image of Quinn. I’m wondering how many people will be so bored that they will disregard it.

Or will hear what Quinn has to say, and decide to pick somebody else just out of spite?

We’ll see for sure how all this turns out come Thursday, since this is the day that the “final all-star” is supposed to be announced. All those people being able to cast multiple votes on the Internet will not be able to do so after today.

WE’LL ALSO HAVE to see just how it works out to see that White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals fans are ganging up – with Sox fans being asked to pick Peavy and David Freese (the World Series hero last year) of the Cardinals to be the last member of the National League All-Star team.

All those Missouri and Southern Illinois baseball fans are being asked to reciprocate with a vote for Peavy.

Nonetheless, I’m not sure if that truly is enough to win something as superficial as this (which usually are the things we take the most seriously, sadly enough).

For even though Quinn tells us that Peavy has the most complete games in the American League and has held hitters to a .215 batting average this season, I wonder how many of those fans in Japan want to see their national sensation, Yu Darvish, pitch in the game.

DARVISH OF THE Texas Rangers (not the lawmen of old) also is among the ballplayers in line for the final spot on the American League roster – which will (hopefully) slap the National League all-stars silly when they play come Tuesday in Kansas City.

He will get that nationalistic vote. And his appearance on the team would boost Major League Baseball’s desires to gain more international fans. Peavy might well be standing in the way of progress!

Although as we prepare to find out just who gets to be on the All-Star Team, I must admit to having one question.

If we have the image of Peavy as John Kennedy – winning an election due to (ideologues desperately want to believe) stuffed ballot boxes from Chicago – then what does that make the Chicago Cubs?

ARE THEY THE equivalent of an unshaven Richard Nixon, looking deathly ill on national television?

That would certainly explain a lot about the quality of play they have shown this season!

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): NATO 3 hearing Monday all for show

The three young men who face criminal charges for what prosecutors want us to  believe was their subversive attempt to bring down our society during the NATO Summit held in Chicago back in May had a court date Monday that was about nothing but putting on a show.



The stars of Monday's show. Photographs provided by Chicago Police Department



The three men, who face charges such as conspiracy to commit terrorism and possession of explosives, were at the Criminal Courts building for arraignment – which is the point at which a defendant enters his (or her) plea to the charges they face.

BUT IT ISN’T anything uncertain. Because the defendant pleads “not guilty,” gets assigned to a trial judge, THEN the attorneys and prosecutors can seriously start negotiating toward a plea, or work toward having a trial.

It’s not like there was a chance that any of the three were going to plead “guilty” on Monday, even though some people in our society seem to think that every defendant ought to enter a guilty plea to spare the county the cost of conducting a trial.

So the proceedings were a formality.

Although I couldn’t help but notice the news accounts of the court hearing, which pointed out the specially-colored outfits the defendants were wearing – which indicate that all three are being held at the Cook County Jail in protective custody.

EVEN THE COURT spectators (many of whom are inclined to believe the three defendants in this case are making a political statement with their incarceration) played the part – holding clenched fists in the air to show their solidarity with the men as they made their brief appearance before Judge Thaddeus Wilson.

About the only thing that can really be said about Monday’s proceedings is that it means yet another step in the legal procedure is complete. Maybe now this case can take on a lower profile for some time – and attorneys can work on trying to resolve it in some sensible manner.

And maybe we’ll someday get a legitimate answer to the “big” question about this case – were these men arrested for plotting to blow up police stations and squad cars, or did they get busted for possessing beer-making equipment?

What other items are worthy of noting as we resident of the southwest corner of Lake Michigan prepare for the mid-week Independence Day holiday?

DID MIGHTY QUINN FEEL AT HOME?:  It amuses me the lengths government officials will go to in order to provide a scenic background for an event.

QUINN: Maybe he's used to sharks



Take Gov. Pat Quinn, who on Sunday signed into law a measure that prohibits the sale, trade or distribution of shark fins. The governor says such a ban will help global efforts to save the shark population worldwide. The fins have some value in Asian cuisines, and the fin-less sharks often get dumped back into the sea.

Quinn signed the bill into law during  a ceremony held at the Shedd Aquarium, with a tank filled with sharks in the background.

Seeing all those sharks swimming around behind Quinn’s head, looking as though they were ready to pounce on the governor? It really didn’t seem too different from the Legislature and its leadership, preparing to devour Quinn’s desires whenever it suits their needs.

A CHICAGO-STYLE TURNOUT FOR ALL-STAR VOTE: The American and National league All-Star teams have largely been chosen, with five Chicago ballplayers being picked to play in the game to be held next week in Kansas City.

But in a gimmick created in recent years, fans will get to pick one more member of each team – creating the chance that White Sox pitcher Jake Peavy could still get chosen.

Yet he has to be considered a long-shot to win the Internet-based election that runs through Thursday. Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish is going to get a strong vote from people in Japan who’d like to see one of their countrymen on the team. There’s also the chance that Royals fans would like to see their pitcher, Jonathan Broxton, get a chance to be on the team that plays in their city’s ballpark.

That is, unless fans of the Sout’ Side’s ballclub can get behind their pitcher. Perhaps they should pretend he’s JFK, then turn out to vote en masse.

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Fans falling from the skies! Is a genuine major league baseball worth it?

First, Arlington, Texas. Now Phoenix. Is it destined to happen someday in Chicago?

I’d like to think that it is just a Southwestern U.S. phenomenon that makes those people go too far to try to catch a foul ball while attending a professional baseball game.

BUT THE REALITY is that it isn’t. If anything, I’m surprised we haven’t had more incidents, including at the two ballparks right here in Chicago.

At stake is the concept of people in the upper decks of seating at stadiums who are so eager to catch a stray baseball hit into the stands that they wind up falling over the railings.

Just this weekend, a Texas Rangers game turned tragic when a fan who supposedly was trying to catch a baseball as a souvenir for his six-year-old son tumbled out of the stands and fell to his death.

Then on Monday at the festivities leading up to the All Star Game, a fan nearly fell out of the stands. Only the fact that his brother and a friend were able to grab him and pull him back up kept him from taking a 20-foot plunge – which could have been crippling, if not fatal.

IN THAT CASE, the fan was present to catch balls hit during the Home Run Derby that is part of the All Star celebration He and his buddies had already managed to get three baseballs.

It was the attempt to catch Ball Number Four – a ball hit into the stands by Milwaukee Brewers slugger Prince Fielder – that caused the near-fall.

Now I’m sure there will be some people who will claim that the fans in Arlington and Phoenix were being absurd in their desire to get a baseball, and that somehow it is their own fault. We may well hear that canard from the ideologues about “taking responsibility for one’s actions” who won’t want to hear any sympathy for these two.

Yet I can’t help but think that these two are merely among those types who let themselves get swept up in the moment when a stray baseball gets hit in their vicinity. Throughout the years in various stadiums, I have seen this kind far too often. Something like this will happen again.

NOW IN ALL the years I have attended ballgames, I have never caught a foul ball or home run ball (I prefer to sit near the infield, so the latter is less likely for me). But I have seen the types of people who get all excited at the scramble that inevitably results when a ball winds up in the stands.

I even recall the closest I ever came to such a catch of my own. It was the one  game I watched at U.S. Cellular Field from the club level – those mid-level seats intermixed with the private boxes that some people swear is the only way to watch a sporting event; and other people just swear at.

I was in a seat overlooking home plate and to the left of me was open air. If I had been sitting about five feet further to the left, I would have caught this particular foul ball.

But nobody was sitting there. I would have had to make a seriously-risky reach to come close to catching it. I probably would have come crashing down on a fan sitting in the lower deck, so I let it go. Which got me an inning’s worth of derision from the people sitting around me, many of whom thought I should have made something resembling a dive to try to get the ball.

I HAVE NO doubt that some of those people, if they had been in my particular seat, would have made the dive.

All to get a baseball with no particular significance to that particular game – which in and of itself was merely one of 81 games the White Sox played in their home stadium that particular season.

It’s not like the ball would have had any particular value to a collector of sports memorabilia. It would merely be one of thousands of foul balls that get hit into the stands at major league games every year.



Which is why I was pleased to see on Saturday that when Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees got that 3000^th base hit of his career with a home run to the left field seats, there wasn’t some massive scramble that resulted in somebody getting hurt.



THAT BALL COULD have had some value to Yankees fans, at least one of whom would have been enough of a sucker to pay for it if given the chance. But would it have been worth getting hurt? I can’t see it.

So as we prepare for the baseball season to resume on Thursday (following the American League’s 5-1 loss Tuesday to the National League in the All Star Game), perhaps we should be giving some thought to the way we behave while sitting in the stands.

That is, if we're not obsessing with the beginning Wednesday of the perjury trial of former star pitcher Roger Clemens.

We ought to be agonizing about why the White Sox can’t get their act together and play up to their potential (I’d argue the Cubs ARE playing to their potential). Not about which fan is going to lose his (or her) balance and come crashing down upon me sitting in the lower deck, all in pursuit of a souvenir whose market value is $169.99 per dozen.

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Will Sox make 1st Place a fleeting memory

We’re at the All-Star break, and the Chicago White Sox are in first place. Whodathunkit?

By beating up on the Kansas City Royals Sunday by a 15-5 score and with a little help from the Minnesota Twins (who beat the previous first-place occupant Detroit Tigers), the White Sox can claim sole possession of first place in their division as baseball takes its annual three-day mid-season break.

THE TOP BALLPLAYERS, including first baseman Paul Konerko, will be spending the next few days in Anaheim, Calif., not to check out Disneyland, but to play in the All-Star Game proper and partake in the various festivities (including the somewhat interesting minor league all-star exhibition and the over-bloated Home Run Derby).

For the rest of baseball, it is a time to relax.

Which might be a good thing for those local sports fans who would like to see the Blackhawks Stanley Cup championship followed up promptly with a White Sox appearance in the playoffs – if not the World Series itself.

I’m not sure how realistic that latter goal is, although I never believed this particular ballclub to be as bad as they played back at the beginning of the season (remember the point that lasted for a day or two when they were literally the worst team in the American League?)

BUT THEN AGAIN, I’m not counting a division title yet, even though baseball people like to think in cliches, and one of those being that the team in first place at mid-season likely will go on to win. (It used to be the team in first place on Independence Day would win the pennant, but so much has changed with the structure of baseball that it is no longer technically accurate).

What I wonder is if too many people are going to relax because they will figure the White Sox were in first place at the All-Star break, meaning they don’t have to do anything special to keep that status.

A part of me wonders if we’re going to get a repeat of 2009 when Mark Buehrle pitched that perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays. In doing so, that particular victory tied the White Sox for first place with the Tigers.

That tie lasted for one day. It wound up being the high-point of the season, both in terms of the quality of Buehrle’s game and in terms of how high the White Sox achieved for the rest of last season. I doubt that when 99 percent of baseball fans think back to 2009 that they even remember the White Sox as a factor.

I HOPE THAT’S not what we’re going to get a repeat of here.

For I can’t help but notice that when the season resumes on Thursday, the White Sox will be in Minneapolis to play the Twins – the team that was in first place in the American League central division for most of this season and is still not that far behind.

The pessimist in me could easily see the Twins being motivated enough to want to beat up on the White Sox and take at least three of the four games they’re scheduled to play this coming weekend (if not an outright four-game sweep).

That would make the Twins literally into the team that knocked Detroit out of first place on Sunday, and took the White Sox down as well one week later.

WHAT WE LITERALLY have is a good three-way pennant race for the divisional title. Only one team can prevail (it is obvious that the so-called wild card team will come from the AL eastern division). It will be an interesting fight to the finish.

I’m only hoping it stays that way. Because I think about the most pathetic thing that could happen to Chicago sports this year (I consider the fact that LeBron James went to Miami to be a blessing in disguise) is if this division race turned into a two-way between Detroit and Minnesota.

So those are my thoughts about baseball on this day that the World Cup can no longer serve as a diversion for athletic interests.

It will be intriguing to see the All-Star Game itself on Tuesday (I always root for the American League, but realize it basically is a fan exhibition – regardless of what stunts baseball officials try to impose).

WILL KONERKO GET a chance to bat at a moment of significance? Will there be anything of significance in the game to Chicago baseball fans (the Cubs outfielder Marlon Byrd and White Sox relief pitcher Matt Thornton will be the only other Chicago ballplayers on hand)?

Is this a game where the Chicago Tribune sports staff should just stay home, letting their sister sports staff at the Los Angeles Times handle this one? With news budgets being what they are these days, it almost wouldn’t shock me if that happened.

But after Thursday, we can all return to the significance of a pennant race. Here’s hoping that the All-Star break doesn’t relax the White Sox too much, or else Sunday’s “first place” status will wind up being such a fleeting memory that we probably won’t believe in future years that it ever happened.

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A ballgame is hardly controversial, except to those who always have complaints

It appears that Barack Obama was not the only Chicago politico who was in the stands on Tuesday for the baseball All-Star Game held in St. Louis.

Some pundits are trying to make an issue of the fact that several members of the General Assembly, including Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, got tickets and went to the game.

WHAT THEY ARE trying to claim is controversial is the fact that negotiations toward a state budget (which is 16 days overdue and counting) were taking place Tuesday during the day, and they were put on hold so that the legislators could leave the Statehouse to make the roughly 90-minute drive to downtown St. Louis for the ballgame.

I have a hard time getting worked up over this so-called controversy, mainly because I doubt it would have accomplished anything to have the legislators remain within the Springfield city limits Tuesday night, except to have them break for the night and have the individual legislators find a bar to hang out in for a few hours – possibly to watch the game on television.

It’s not like the sides were so close to a deal that there was any chance they would have reached agreement, then have the rank-and-file legislators themselves come in to vote to approve a plan that gives the state a budget.

Even if they had stayed in Springfield, we’d still have them returning to the Statehouse on Wednesday to continue their talks - which appear to have resulted in a budget deal for the next six or so months. I’m not sure I really see how any significant time was lost for negotiations by what has happened.

IN FACT, THE only people I can think of who seriously would have a gripe are those Springfield tavern owners who lost a chance to serve some alcoholic beverages to our legislators. They lost some business.

The bottom line is that our Legislature blew its deadline for approving a budget a month-and-a-half ago (this was supposed to be done by May 30).

They blew an absolute, problems will now occur no matter when the situation gets resolved, deadline a couple of weeks ago (the old fiscal year ended June 30).

The fact is that the state is now two weeks (and counting) into the current fiscal year without a budget in place. Whether the final budget proposal gets approved July 15 or July 16 really doesn’t matter any more.

OUR OFFICIALS BLEW it. Only this time, they don’t have the presence of Rod Blagojevich to blame for the inability of all the factions of state government to get their act together and figure out the plan by which the state will spend its revenue and serve the people.

People who are now trying to get all worked up over the fact that John Cullerton sat in the stands at Busch Stadium on Tuesday to see a ballgame sound to me like those who are trying to distract attention from their own screw-ups by trying to create a screw-up by someone else for people to observe.

It’s all a little silly.

Of course, I can remember people getting worked up back on April 13, 1992.

REMEMBER WHEN THE Chicago River sprang a leak and tunnels underground under the Loop became flooded? That was the date that the flood water reached the basements of downtown office buildings and department stores (remember the fish in Marshall Field’s?)

It was also Opening Day for the Chicago White Sox, and then-Gov. Jim Edgar was on hand for the festivities.

Despite the fact that he only stayed for about two innings before returning to his office to figure out how the state could help Chicago cope with one of the most bizarre floods in recorded history (rivers are supposed to overflow, not spring leaks), he got some criticism for not immediately jumping all over the Chicago River situation.

But Edgar wound up serving his two full terms as governor, and only the most hardcore conservative has any serious gripes about the man. Edgar’s Opening Day appearance (the White Sox beat the Seattle Mariners 1-0) is a minor footnote – and that is what ought to become of the fact that John Cullerton & Co. took advantage of the fact that the All-Star Game was played in a city close enough to the Illinois capital city that they could realistically go to the game and return home the same night.

IT’S NOT LIKE they had to hop a jet plane, or make the haul to Chicago (which at about a 4-hour drive is long enough that an overnight stay would be needed). They got back to work on the budget on Wednesday.

And as long as we’re on the All-Star Game (I’m an American League fan, so all is right with the world these days), I also think the people who are trying to make an issue of Obama’s “first pitch” are being absurd.

I honestly didn’t hear the “boos” that they kept referring to. I was listening for them, because I always expect political people to get heckled in a sports stadium (most people, including myself, follow baseball and go to ballgames to get away for a few hours from the realities of life).

Yet all I heard was the usual roar of a large crowd when they see something they recognize. There probably were a few “boos” in there, but I also heard cheers. And as far as the pitch itself, now we know why he became president, instead of a high-priced slugging outfielder for the White Sox.

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