Ever-changing scene that is Chicago

This is most definitely a scene from Chicago’s past.

Chicago's appearance is ever-changing. Photograph by Chuckman's Chicago Nostalgia

This particular photograph depicts what used to be in terms of the proximity of our city’s newspapers being published so close to each other.

THE PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS the old Field Enterprises building that housed the Chicago Sun-Times until they sold it off about a decade ago to Donald Trump – who erected that ugly tower that looms over downtown Chicago in an ominous fashion.

Which is particularly notable because people used to become amateur architectural critics in bashing about the old Sun-Times building (it looked like a barge or garbage scowl, they’d say).

It seems Trump has come up with something even more despised in appearance than the old Sun-Times building.

To the right, just the other side of the Wrigley Building that Frank Sinatra made reference to in his unofficial city anthem, “My Kind of Town, Chicago Is,” is the Tribune Tower.

THAT EDIFICE ERECTED back in the mid-1920s from which Col. Robert R. McCormick ruled his newspaper empire and his vision that “Chicagoland” (stretching from Detroit to Kansas City) was a unique version of our nation that made far more sense than anything occurring on any coastal point of the United States.

Tribune's new home come '18. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

It used to be from these points about one block apart along the Chicago River that our city’s two major newspapers (and as you can see from this particular photograph, the Chicago Daily News was part of the mix as well) did their part to help create the character of our city – for better or for worse.

Soon, it’s only going to be a memory that either newspaper was ever in such a prominent place along the riverfront.

The Sun-Times, of course, moved a few blocks west along the river several years ago to the building that was the annex to the Merchandise Mart. Even that building is becoming history.

THIS WEEKEND IS when the newspaper is leaving the location for a site in the West Loop. At 30. N. Racine Ave., they’ll be out of downtown altogether.

What will become of Alamo, Comiskey Park bricks?

While the Chicago Tribune reported Friday that they, too, are leaving a riverfront site. As part of the many actions of corporate restructuring, they sold their nearly century-old building to a Los Angeles developer who envisions turning the tower on Michigan Avenue into retail and luxury residences.

The newspaper confirmed they’ll be moving sometime early in 2018.

They will be relocating to the Prudential Building – which may be just a few blocks south of the Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue. Which could give their newsroom a prime site overlooking the Millennium Park.

BUT I CAN’T help but think that the Chicago River is going to be a little less active with two such prominent residents moving away from their riverfront locations. Even though I understand that riverfront land is so precious and valued from a real estate standing that it probably makes more sense to sell it off and take the money – rather than use it for newsroom space.

One other thing does amuse me about this particular photograph. Notice off in the background that the Hancock Center building is under construction. Which means if one had turned around and looked to the south, the Sears Tower would be non-existent. Chicago’s “twin” towers (only Trump thinks Chicago has three towers, with his building completing the trio) were not yet to be.

Lake St. location won't be the same as Lower Michigan Ave.

I do have one question, though. That is the main site of the famed Billy Goat Tavern, which used to draw a significant share of its business from reporter-type people (I myself have had too many drinks there throughout the years, although it has been a couple since I last ventured to Lower Michigan Avenue) for a “cheezbugga” and a beer) from its proximity between the two newspaper buildings.

Now, that clientele will be gone. Where will they move to, to ensure their future in 21^st Century Chicago?

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EXTRA: Rings around da Goat!

I happened to be in a car flipping around the radio dial when I stumbled across WGN-AM and heard one of their announcers take a pot shot at the design the Chicago Cubs came up with for the rings they gave this week to players and other people connected with last year’s championship ball club.

Remembrin' the goat

Among the details meant to make the ring unique (as if being the first Cubs team to win a World Series in 108 years isn’t unique itself) is an engraved symbol of the goat’s head.

ACKNOWLEDGING THE DECADES of tales that Cubs fans engaged in about “the curse” of the Billy Goat Tavern’s mascot that was kept out of Wrigley Field for a World Series game back in 1945.

Some, it seems, thought it horrible that the Cubs would want to remember a symbol of their long-time futility. Personally, I think it is a touch of honesty – and something that Cubs fans should never forget.

 

How much free publicity did Billy Goat Tavern get

Because, let’s face it. One winning year doesn’t erase all those seasons of futility. The Cubs character is built so much on losing.

Having a third World Series victory (1907, 1908 and 2016) doesn’t come close to the 27 World Series titles of the New York Yankees, the 11 of the St. Louis Cardinals. Or even the eight of the New York/San Francisco Giants.

IF YOU REALLY want to be honest about things, the Cubs winning last year means they’re now equal to the three titles (1906, 1917 and 2005) of the Chicago White Sox. Which means the real question for the hard-core of Chicago baseball fans is to speculate about which team will win Title Number Four first.

So let’s give a touch of credit to the Cubs for acknowledging their decades of futility in their moment of celebrating their victory – a celebration that will endure the entire 2017 season and probably put to the test the level of tolerance the rest of us fans of baseball have for Cubbie self-indulgence.

 

A more Soxy ring design?

On a final note, I have to say I think the Chicago White Sox came up with a less-gaudy design for the ring they put together for their World Series championship ball club of 2005. It’s something about the solid black face with the Old English-style Sox logo spelled out in diamonds that is less garish than the 108 diamonds that went into the design of each Cubs’ tribute ring.

Although to be honest, both of them look like such hefty pieces of jewelry I can’t envision anyone actually wearing either one of them on a regular basis.

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EXTRA: No goats inside Wrigley

What with the fact that playoff baseball will return to Wrigley Field come Friday, we’re going to hear a lot of tales about that damned goat.

The alleged reason the Cubs didn't win in '45

As in the one that “Billy Goat” Sianis supposedly tried to take to a World Series game with him back in 1945; only to become offended when Wrigley Field ushers (remember the Andy Frains of old?) wouldn’t let the goat into the ballpark.

THE RESULTING GREEK hex is supposedly the reason the Cubs lost the World Series to the Detroit Tigers that year (never mind the fact that the Tigers were revitalized by the return of their star Hank Greenberg from military service during World War II) and have been unable to return to the World Series ever since.

Am I the only one who can’t get around the fact that those ushers of old acted entirely properly by refusing to let a piece of livestock into the ballpark?

The idea that a ball club’s failure is somehow due to this is just too absurd to believe – even in some sort of fantasy-type of way!

Repeated tellings of the goat tale are just one of the things that many of us are going to find incredibly annoying about the Cubs’ appearance in the upcoming rounds of playoff games.

OUT OF FEAR that saying this will somehow get me banned from visiting the Billy Goat Tavern (the one underground near Michigan Avenue, the others are mere imposters), I’m not up to giving the place free publicity.

 

His 2 home runs the real reason the Cubs didn't win

Which, when you think about it, was the purpose that old man Sianis (the uncle of its current owner, Sam Sianis) had in mind when he brought a goat to a ballgame to begin with!

Let’s be honest. The Billy Goat Tavern has got generations of free publicity from repeated tellings of the tale of “da Curse.”

Perhaps it’s just time to admit the Cubs haven’t been able to win the whole thing all these years because they weren’t good enough – a situation that Cubs fans are hoping has finally been rectified now that we’re well into the 21^st Century.

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EXTRA: The Curse of Rick Renteria?

Don’t get me wrong. I really don’t think that highly of the baseball skills possessed by now-former Chicago Cubs manager Rick Renteria.

But a part of me wonders if his name is about to go into Cubs lore alongside that ridiculous goat owned by Sam Sianis’ uncle – the one who is supposedly responsible for the fact that the Cubs can’t even get into the World Series.

LET ALONE WIN one!

Call me skeptical that the release of Renteria as manager so that the ball club can now hire former Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon to manage the team on-field puts the Cubs any closer to actually winning a championship.

I realize that Maddon took the formerly hopeless Rays and helped make them a team with winning records – along with one that actually won an American League championship and played in the World Series in 2008.

Remember ’08 – the year that both the Chicago White Sox and Cubs managed to finish first place in their respective divisions; only to get knocked out of the running in the first round of playoffs that year?

THE CUBS COULDN’T even win a single ball game in that particular postseason. It started the latest process of deterioration that has saw some dreadful Cubs teams and has Cubs fans pleased that 2014 produced 73 victories – the same as the White Sox, whose fans were thoroughly repulsed by a ball club that could play so badly.

Then again, that’s the difference between the mindset of the two major league organizations that purport to represent Chicago.

In recent years, the Cubs were managed by Dale Sveum, who was openly regarded as an interim managed who would keep things going while the Cubs relied on minor league prospects to develop into worthy ball players.

The cheap way of rebuilding a ball club. It’s also the way that leaves much uncertain because one never knows just how close to full ability a prospect will play up to.

BUT CUBS MANAGEMENT became convinced last winter that the team had developed enough to put in a real manager.

That was when Renteria was hired away from coaching slots (and a stint managing the Mexico national team in the most recent World Baseball Classic) with the San Diego Padres.

Cubs management admitted in a statement issued Friday to announce his dismissal following one season that he actually lived up to expectations for this season. He did nothing wrong.

But the Cubs (who last year thought seriously they could lure a manager away from the New York Yankees) continue to operate under the “Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence” mode.

THEREFORE, A MANAGER who once had led a team to a World Series appearance (let’s not forget the Rays lost that year to the Philadelphia Phillies) was somehow considered all-desirable. The Cubs must have him.

Never mind that they may already have had the guy who was suited to lead them to any improvement the Cubs might achieve in the next few seasons.

So what happens if we wind up learning that a field manager isn’t all that significant in a team’s success if he doesn’t have the ball playing personnel to back him up? What if the Cubs don’t wind up with a batch of superstars on the cheap through their minor leagues? What if the next few seasons produce mere mediocrity – which would be an improvement for the Cubs but far short of all the tough talk we’re hearing from Cubs fans these days?

Will we start hearing about how Renteria’s dismissal laid a new round of bad karma on the Cubs, thereby causing them to fall short of a desired championship? Maybe we should point out that Sveum made it to the World Series (a coach with the Kansas City Royals this year) before the Cubs.

WILL CUBS FANS of a half-century from now be ruing the day that the Cubs were short-sighted enough (which, admittedly, does seem to be the mindset the Cubs have operated under for so many years) to let Renteria go?

Will Renteria’s grandchildren be brought back to a 150-year-old Wrigley Field to symbolically try to lift the hex?

You’ve got to admit that it makes about as much sense as the ways in which Sianis of the Billy Goat Tavern has often said he lifts the hex his uncle placed on the team when they wouldn’t let his goat sit in the stands with people for a 1945 World Series game?

Although I suspect that for Cubs fans, the real misery would be if the White Sox manage to improve in the next few seasons and Cuban slugger/Rookie of the Year Jose Abreu leads them back to the World Series before their favorite ball club gets there.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Winter street “dibs” is anti-Chicago spirit

Now that the “holidays” are over with the completion of Christmas and Hanukkah (and proceeding through Kwanzaa), the bulk of us can move on and accept the fact that we’re now in winter.

And with the coming of the heavy snowfalls of recent days, we’re going to get to hear more blowhard rhetoric from people who claim they’re “sticking up” for their inalienable right to park in front of their home – even if it means they have to turn the street into a junkyard in their attempt to “claim dibs” on a parking spot.

COUNT ME AMONG the ranks of those who thinks it downright ridiculous that Chicago would want to claim this bit of selfishness as some sort of character trait.

But there are those who will claim it is part of what makes Chicago unique that some of us think we have the right to own a parking spot for our automobiles once we have dug them out of the heavy snow.

These people think that because they were inconvenienced by snow, they now deserve some sort of perk. That’s ridiculous.

To me, it is one of the realities of urban life that automobile parking is inconvenient. I accept it as a fact that when I venture into certain neighborhoods of the city, it will be difficult to find a parking spot if I choose to bring my car. On days when it snows and some potential spots get covered over, it becomes that much more difficult.

SO THE IDEA that some people think they can “own” the space where their car was just because they had to dig out the shovel is so anti-urban. If you’re really that determined to hang on to that parking spot, then perhaps you shouldn’t move your car.

My basic philosophy on this issue is “you move your car, you lose the spot.” If you want to be able to drive around and have some sort of guaranteed parking near your humble abode, go live in a suburb.

Those people who insist on cluttering their vacated spots with old chairs or other junk are merely one step up from litterers. I have no problem with the police treating them as such. The fact that the Chicago Sun-Times went so far Sunday as to editorialize on the side of the nitwits (http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1958985,shoveled-own-it-editorial-122709.article) is a holiday-season embarrassment for the newspaper.

What other “issues” are of concern to those of us who choose to live on the shores of Lake Michigan at this time of year, rather than along the Gulf of Mexico or some other place with warm weather?

I WISH THEY’D MAKE UP THEIR MIND: My brother, Chris, and I have always joked about Sam Sianis, the long-time owner (and nephew of the founder) of the Billy Goat Tavern, whom we claim will go along with any gag if it means free publicity for his chain of establishments.

So it wasn’t any surprise (to me, at least) that Sianis played along with celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the opening of the original Billy Goat on Madison Street near what is now the United Center.

He even went so far as to correct Gov. Pat Quinn, who according to news reports botched the old “no fries, cheeps” line from the old Saturday Night Live sketches that allegedly were based on the Billy Goat shtick.

The problem is that I know that at least one of the Billy Goat locations, at 303 S. Wells St., actually serves fries, no cheeps. Not that they’re particularly good fries. Besides, there’s still the sentiment that the only “real” Billy Goat (http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1960293,billy-goat-cheezborgers-122709.article) is the one on Hubbard Street underneath Michigan Avenue.

WILL LES EXPOS LIVE ON?: I understand that Chicago Cubs fans are going to get all worked up into a lather over whether former outfielder Andre Dawson deserves to be in the baseball Hall of Fame. He had a couple of respectable years playing with the Cubs in the late 1980s.

Perhaps I should say more than “respectable,” on account of that Most Valuable Player award he took while (http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/league-of-her-own/2009/12/chicago-cubs-headlines-for-sunday-let-the-annual-hawk-in-the-hall-discussion-begin.html) playing for a last place Cubs team.

Yet I’m just wondering how much Cubs fans are going to rant and rage if Dawson actually gets 75 percent support from the sportswriters who will vote this year, on account of the fact that Dawson actally played more seasons and had the bulk of his best years as a player with the now-shuttered Montreal Expos.

Will we have to endure some sort of claim that the Cubs are being slighted when Dawson’s bronze plaque depicts him wearing the “MB” logo of the Expos rather than the cutesy “C” of the Cubs? It will be even more ridiculous than the occasional White Sox fan who still rants that Carlton Fisk’s plaque emphasizes his time with the Boston Red Sox.

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Cubs' goat talk a bit annoying

Normally, we Chicagoans have to wait until October before we start hearing about goats in conjunction with the Chicago Cubs.

We all get reminded of the fact that Billy Sianis, owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, wasn’t allowed to take his tavern’s namesake goat into Wrigley Field for the 1945 World Series – for the mere reason that the Cubs considered the livestock to be a health hazard.

TO LISTEN TO Cubs fans (an irrational breed), the Cubs should have exposed their World Series fans to the animal. But because they followed common sense, they are now “cursed.”

I guess Cubs fans just can’t accept the fact that the reason their team hasn’t won a World Series in 101 years (or a National League championship in 64 years) is because they stink. They weren’t good enough. The other ball clubs were better.

Easier to bring up ridiculous talk about curses, which comes up whenever the Cubs manage somehow to finish the baseball season in first place and wind up in the National League playoffs. Somebody has to come up with THE reason that the Cubs can’t manage to win two rounds of playoffs for a league championship and a chance at a World Series victory.

But at least the goat nonsense was usually reserved for season’s end.

BUT NOW, CUBS fans seem determined to share their silly tales that they like to think of as team tradition by coming up with excuses to spew them year round.

It was Opening Day (although the heavy rains threatened the playing of baseball on Monday) at Wrigley Field, and team officials found a goat’s head hanging from the statue near Addison and Sheffield streets that shows longtime St. Louis and Chicago baseball broadcaster Harry Caray in all his glory.

Only instead of some clown putting a can of Budweiser brand beer in Harry’s outstretched hand, somebody dangled the goat’s head.

According to news reports, nobody believes that someone sacrificed a goat in order to sever its head and make some stupid point outside of Wrigley Field. Officials note the number of small grocery stores that cater to ethnic populations in Chicago. They say it most likely was purchased from a butcher who had no clue what the people buying it intended to do with it.

AT LEAST I hope there’s not some ethnic butcher who likes the thought of his product being dangled from the Caray statue at Wrigley Field.

But as police note, somebody pulled this exact same stunt back in 2007. So perhaps the real question is, “Why was there no goat’s head in ’08?”

The other question is, “Is this destined to become a new Chicago Cubs tradition,” along with that silly one of throwing balls back onto the playing field.

Are we going to have to endure yearly reports of goat heads being found in the vicinity of the ballpark on Opening Day, and a whole bunch of clucks somehow thinking that it is “cute” and enhances the lovability of the boys in baby blue who routinely get beat up upon by the nine missing children who were last seen by their mother near Wrigley Field.

WHAT ALWAYS STRUCK me as being most ridiculous about this “goat talk” in conjunction with the Chicago Cubs is that it really is nothing more than free advertising for the Billy Goat Tavern – which remains in existence and has expanded to multiple locations.

The old proprietor Billy Goat Sianis (nicknamed that because of his beard) is long gone, just like anybody else who actually remembers the days when the Chicago Cubs weren’t totally hopeless.

But his nephew, Sam, is more than willing to repeat the old stories about how his uncle put the hex on the Cubs as punishment for not letting the goat into the ballpark, even though Billy Sianis bought a ticket for him.

Then again, Sam Sianis has shown a willingness to do just about anything that will give his business free publicity. I still remember those advertisements the Illinois Lottery used to run that featured various people around Chicago, implying they played the lottery.

SAM SIANIS GOT his full-color picture on countless billboards and in magazines and newspapers because of that. And now, every time somebody tells the story of the goat and the Cubs, we get to hear once again about the activities of Oct. 6, 1945.

The Billy Goat Tavern gets free publicity. And once again, the Cubs give away some attention to somebody else’s business interest.

You’d think that if the Billy Goat were getting this much attention, the Cubs would insist on somehow being compensated for it. After all, it is a tavern getting advertising at the expense of the Cubs’ athletic reputation.

But then again, this is the team who lets their home stadium be named for a chewing gum company (don’t forget that the Wrigley family put their name on what was once Cubs Park to give their business – not their family – free publicity) without demanding compensation.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: How much free publicity has the Billy Goat Tavern gained throughout the years (http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1524080,w-dead-goat-wrigley-field-cubs-curse-041309.article) due to the tales of the Cubs’ goat hex?

Sam Sianis is in the same ranks (http://www.outdoorimpact.com/3cre_lott.html) as bluesman Buddy Guy, and athletes Jim McMahon and Mark Grace.