EXTRA: 8-8 a double historic date for Chicago baseball both sides of town

Future Hall of Fame pitcher Rich Gossage once joked he'd only wear the Sox shorts if given a matching halter top. But he wound up getting a save in the victory the Chicago White Sox acheved over the Kansas City Royals. 

Aug. 8 is one of those dates we’d otherwise ignore, but ought to acknowledge for the moments of baseball trivia it produces here in Chicago.

For it was on this date in 1976 that the Chicago White Sox first wore the version of a uniform that included short pants. There was a double-header that day, and the White Sox showed off their knobby knees during the first game -- in which they beat the Kansas City Royals.

THE SECOND GAME that date gave us a ball club reverting back to their long pants and losing ways of the ‘76 season, although the Sox did dig out the shorts again later in the month, and actually managed to beat the Baltimore Orioles 11-10 in 10 innings while wearing them on Aug. 21.

The date also became significant 12 years later when the Chicago Cubs tried to get cute in their first staging of a night baseball game at Wrigley Field. The game was scheduled for the date otherwise known as 8-8-88. The only problem was it wound up raining heavily that night and the game was called before they could get in enough play to make it an official ballgame.

Hence, the first night game ever played at Wrigley was actually on Aug. 9, 1988. That’s what happens when one tries to get cutesy – the baseball “gods” wreck havoc upon your plans for silliness.

 

Then the rain came falling from the skies, ending play after merely 3 innings

Does this mean that the baseball gods, by not hitting Comiskey Park with a tornado some 12 years earlier, secretly approved of the shorts scheme? Or just that night games at Wrigley are a true abomination that I’m sure the bulk of the Lake View neighborhood would still think true!

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What is Theo thinking? Or, does Red Sox karma get quashed by Cubbie-ness just as badly as Yankees mystique?

I’m not a Chicago Cubs fan, but I still remember the managerial hires by that ballclub that saw Gene Michael and Lou Piniella come on board.

Particularly in the case of Piniella, but also with Michael as well, there was the sense that the Cubs were reaching out to a real-live New York Yankee. Bringing in one of the Bronx Bombers (both men had been ballplayers, managers and executives for the team) to the North Side was assured to bring a winner to Chicago.

AS THOUGH A Yankee could overcome that very un-cute matter of losing so often that Chicago Cubbie-ness isn’t anywhere near as sweet as it sounds.

The lesson I learned is that Cubs losing is powerful enough to overcome Yankee winning (take the 1981 World Series, where Bobby Murcer returned to the Yankees to see them lose – because his interim with other teams included a two-year stint with the Cubs).

If there is something to be learned from this, it is that there are no saviors. No one is going to suddenly come in and make a respectable baseball franchise out of the Chicago Cubs.

Anybody who seriously believes that is just as absurd as those people on the South Side who seriously think that dumping Ozzie Guillen as manager was the lone move needed to make the White Sox winners again.

WHY AM I rambling through all of this?

It’s just that mental aggravation is what I felt when I first saw a Chicago Tribune report (which admittedly ripped off the information from Boston’s WEEI radio) that Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein is going to leave the team so he can take a job at the head of the Cubs.

Those gossip column tidbits about fans seeing someone who looked like Epstein this weekend hanging around the Lincoln Park neighborhood? Maybe they weren’t totally intoxicated!

According to the reports, Epstein would get more than $15 million to run the Cubs for the next five seasons. If he wins, he will become a Cubs demigod who will have employment for life.

IF HE DOESN’T, he’ll be dumped on as badly as the Cubs’ last demigod, Sammy Sosa – who in so many ways is what that franchise is all about (although that’s a subject for another day’s commentary).

Now none of this is official. Even the Tribune is reporting that actual compensation still needs to be finalized, and may not be done so until the end of the week.

So Wednesday afternoon’s radio rumor from The Hub could easily become Wrigleyville’s pathetic joke by Thursday morning. We’ll have to wait and see how it turns out.

It’s just that I don’t see this ballclub being turned around in a winter’s notice. It will take a long, drawn-out building process (and things could still go wrong). Just like there’s no crying in baseball, there also are no guarantees.

WHICH IS WHY I really don’t get why Epstein would want to come to the Cubs. I do understand why he’d want to leave Boston – a place with whiny fans who are (deservedly so) emotionally traumatized by the way their team played so badly in September that they wound up out of the playoffs altogether.

Leaving those people in the lurch is what they deserve.

But falling for the ivy at Wrigley Field? I can’t help but wonder how long until he kicks himself and starts having the same thoughts that outfielder Lou Novikoff once had – that the ivy was poisonous.

The speculation always is that whoever happens to be in charge of the Cubs when they do eventually win something (no National League championship since 1945, no World Series title since 1908) is going to be regarded as a baseball genius. It will permanently set their legacy.

AS THOUGH EPSTEIN really needs that. The 2004 World Series title for the Red Sox, followed up by another one in 2007, already did that for him.

All he’s doing if he comes to Chicago is risking getting entangled in the muck otherwise known as Chicago Cubbie-ness. Come to Chicago and get caught up in the losing ways of the Cubs, and we’ll quickly see that perhaps Epstein wasn’t all that bright – and maybe those two Red Sox championships in the past decade were some sort of fluke (the Yankees were really a better ballclub in ’04).

Which makes me want to scream at Theo that he should have a long, hard talk with Piniella – who despite his playing days on championship Yankees teams and his managerial stints with a champion Cincinnati Reds team and several near-misses with Seattle Mariners ballclubs, is going to forevermore carry around the stink of the Cubs.

A blotch on an otherwise intriguing career in baseball. One that maybe Piniella could talk Epstein out of enduring for himself.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Inter-gallactic visitors “do” the South Side?

I’ll be the first to admit the truth behind the statement that UFO’s were in Chicago airspace on April 2, 2011. By that, I mean that something was flying in the skies, and neither I nor most other people have any clue what it was.

What would E.T. think of the South Side?



That fits the definition of “unidentified” flying object to me.

SURE ENOUGH, SEVERAL people indicated seeing bizarre lights in the skies above the South Side on Saturday night. My first guess would be to think that they were airplanes coming out of Midway Airport, except that the reports (including video snippets shot by people who couldn’t resist the chance to pull out their cellular telephones and take pictures) indicate the “lights” moved about in patterns unheard of by any aircraft known to man.

Because those people shot video of wildly-moving lights, this story is getting picked up by television broadcasts across the country. It seems that the sure-fire way to get on the television news is to provide video.

Don’t do anything actually significant. Just come up with a goofy picture or two. That will get you more air-time than winning a Nobel Peace Prize (hear that, George Ryan?).

The part of this story that captures my attention is that these objects were reportedly seen over the South Side – 35^th Street and Western Avenue, to be exact.

WHICH MAKES ME wonder what any inter-gallactic visitors who allegedly were responsible for the lights would actually think of our fair city. It’s not like they checked out our downtown skyline or the other sights.

It’s not even like they could go to a Sox game – they were about 1 ½ miles west of U.S. Cellular Field, and anyway, the White Sox were in Cleveland that day to play the Indians.

And in the end, a group called the Baby James Foundation rallying against child abuse nearby at 35^th Street and Archer Avenue took credit for the “lights,” saying they released sky lanterns as part of their program. Which sounds too much like a bad conspiracyfrom an X-files parody.

What else was notable about life on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan?

IT’S A BIRD. IT’S A PLANE. NO, IT’S A GOOF!:  There was another flying object in the skies over Chicago this weekend. Only this one is completely identifiable.

Chicago Police say patrol officers heard a “loud, popping” sound near a construction site on Wacker Drive early Sunday, then saw a man come floating to the ground. It seems the man, a native of Ottawa, Ill., used a parachute to jump from the upper floors of the structure – which will someday be 90 floors tall.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that police, after checking to see the man did not injure himself, placed him under arrest. The charge will be reckless conduct – for which he will appear in Misdemeanor Court next month.

It’s too bad the man couldn’t have pulled his stunt about six hours earlier. Then perhaps he could have used his unique view from the skies to tell us all definitively what those lights were that flew about the South Side.

OPENING DAZE!?!:  The late baseball mogul Bill Veeck once described the difference between Chicago White Sox and Cubs fans by saying that Cubs fans go to games to relax, while the last thing a White Sox fan would ever do to put himself at ease would be to watch baseball.



I couldn’t help but sense the truth in that statement (which he made in his book, “The Hustler’s Handbook”) this weekend – watching the White Sox start off the 2011 season by taking two of three games from the Cleveland Indians. That included the 15-10 Opening Day victory on Friday.

His "wisdom" lives on

Yet the cynic in me can’t help but notice that the White Sox, in that first game, would have been humiliated by a 10-1 loss, had they not managed to jump out to that early 14-0 lead. Then on Sunday, shortstop Alexi Ramirez hit into the first triple play of Major League Baseball’s season. Now the White Sox go on to Kansas City to play the Royals (who managed to start out their season by winning three of four games from the Los Angeles Angels), before finally having their Opening Day Thursday against the Tampa Bay (not so devilish) Rays.

As for those Cubs? They started the season by losing two of three games to the Pittsburgh Pirates, including a Sunday afternoon game where they took a lead into the 9^th inning before blowing it. Yet I’m sure many Cubs fans were just thankful to sit in the chill of Wrigley Field, pretending that the ivy on the walls was fully-green, the grass had grown to full length and that their team had a clue.

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Will Peavy top Dean in ranks of Chicago baseball? Is he payback for Trout?

I’m starting to wonder if Jake Peavy is destined to be the best ballplayer to never accomplish a thing with a Chicago baseball club.

Peavy is the National League’s former Cy Young Award winner (as in the best pitcher in that league in 2007) who hasn’t shown a sign of greatness since joining the Chicago White Sox mid-way through the 2009 season.

I’LL CONCEDE THINGS started out promisingly. He won the three games he started when he first came to the team in 2009. But since then, the Jake Peavy story is one of injuries keeping him from pitching on a regular basis.

During his time with the White Sox, he has 10 wins, 6 losses, an earned run average of 4.11, with 40 walks and 111 strikeouts. Which would be acceptable if it came in a single season and Peavy were nothing more than the number four pitcher in the White Sox’ starting rotation.

But this is the man who supposedly was going to supplant Mark Buehrle as the White Sox’ top pitcher. The man who was going to be the dominant ace from Chicago. The one who would ensure that the White Sox would get another American League championship (if not a World Series title) in our current lifetime.

Now, we’re getting reports that Peavy may have become so anxious to return (and start earning the $16 million he is to be paid for the 2011 season) that he may have hurt his arm a little further, making it likely he will miss even more of this season. He definitely won’t be on hand when the White Sox start their season April 1 in Cleveland against the Indians.

DID THE SAN Diego Padres know what they were doing when they signed him to a big-money contract, then trade him away to Chicago?

I’m not implying some sort of conspiracy (leave that to Toronto Blue Jays fans still bitter over acquiring pitcher Mike Sirotka from the White Sox right as his arm went bad). I’m just wondering if Peavy is destined to be another hard-luck story that is so typical to Chicago baseball.

I’d say Peavy ranks up there with Dizzy Dean in the annals of Chicago baseball.

Dean is the Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher whom everybody remembers for his goofy temperament and his star years with the St. Louis Cardinals (including that peak year of 1934 when he won 30 games and he had a 2.66 earned run average.

BUT DEAN ALSO did four seasons with the Chicago Cubs, and nobody remembers his stint on the North Side – unless they’re looking for more examples of ineptitude by Cubs management throughout the years in acquiring athletic talent. Dean made the Hall of Fame DESPITE being a Chicago Cub.

Dean from 1938-41 won 16 games, while losing 8 with a 3.35 earned run average. That’s over four seasons. Which means if Peavy manages to win six more games during the next two seasons that he is under contract to the White Sox, he will match Dizzy both in victories AND in untapped promise.

There’s even the similarity in that Peavy and Dean were undone by injuries. In Dean’s case, it was sudden. The All-Star Game played in 1937, when Dean got hit on the foot by a line drive. His toe was broken, and he tried to come back before the foot was completely healed.

Which meant he had to alter his pitching motion to avoid putting full weight on that foot, Which cost him all of the movement on the ball that made him so special. That is when the Cardinals chose to let him go, and new Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley insisted on giving him what was big money for the era.

BIG BUCKS SPENT in Chicago to reward him for past athletic success. It applies to Peavy just as much as it did to Dean during the waning years of the Great Depression.

Which makes them the exact opposite of somebody like Steve Trout, the one-time White Sox and Cubs pitcher back in the late 1970s and into the 1980s who was a competent pitcher in Chicago – and was one of the regular starting pitchers for the Cubs the year they won their first division title ever in 1984 (13 wins, 7 losses, a 3.41 earned run average (80 wins, 78 losses with nearly 600 strikeouts during his 10 years in Chicago baseball).

In 1987, he was traded to the New York Yankees, who were counting on Trout to bolster their pitching rotation (the team’s weakness during the 1980s) and were willing to give him the big money contract that would have been his reward for a decade of work.

But four losses, no wins and a 6.60 earned run average in a half-season caused the Yankees to trade him away to the Seattle Mariners, while also paying that team $1 million to take him off their hands. It’s no wonder Trout these days is back in the south suburbs (he played his high school ball for Thornwood High School in South Holland – the same school that produced former Chicago Bulls player Eddy Curry – before signing with the White Sox) having to work for a living like the rest of us.

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BASEBALL: Will it be fine in ’09 – now that the standings become relevant

I am a fan of professional baseball who enjoys the sport particularly because of its daily nature (you don’t have to sit around all week waiting for “the big game”) and the fact that anything can happen at virtually any time in the 162-game season.

Yet it wasn’t until Monday morning that I seriously looked at the league’s standings. It’s my own personal rule – I don’t pay much attention to the standings until Memorial Day.

BY NOW, WE’RE just over one-quarter of the way through the American League season (and for those foolish people with little sense, the National League too). By now, we’re able to see just enough of play to know how good (or bad) our city’s ball clubs truly are.

It makes a lot more sense than trying to predict a pennant winner in mid-April, based off a couple of good weeks that could be a total aberration. I still remember a few years ago when the Cleveland Indians started off the season with a record of 11-1 and many pundits were ready to start thinking of them as one of the truly great ball clubs.

Fourteen games later, they had a record of 13-13, and they wound up not even finishing with a winning record that season.

So what should we think of our city’s teams? I’m finding the White Sox to be a maddening ball club.

THEY’RE CAPABLE OF playing as though they’re one of the league’s elite teams, and they’re also capable of playing like they want to take over the image the Cubs have built up throughout the years for ineptitude.

With a record of 20-24, it would not be unreasonable to think they’re not going to repeat as a division title winner.

Yet they get the dumb luck of playing in an American League division where none of the teams are dominant. How else to explain the fact that they’re 4 games under .500, yet only 5 1/2 games behind first place Detroit?

Now some people want to think that the “story” behind the 2009 season is the “resurgence” of the Kansas City Royals – they’re not in last place in the division like they usually are.

YET LET’S BE honest. They may be in second place, but they have a record of 22-23, which means they have a losing record, which also means they’re only a couple of ballgames better than the White Sox.

Am I delusional to think that the White Sox could suddenly hit a hot streak, win a few ballgames and put themselves back in serious contention (1st Place by July 4, which is supposed to be the date upon which serious championship contenders have put themselves into the running).

It could happen. Then again, it may not.

Any ball club that could lose so many games in early May (for a stretch, the only games they weren’t losing were the ones Mark Buehrle started) may not have it in them to have a hot streak.

BUT THEN I look at the rest of the American League’s central division and see a batch of teams that could easily start playing as badly as the White Sox. We could have a team that finishes anywhere from 1st through 4th place.

Heck, even when the White Sox manage to play “well,” they also do things that overcome any positive impression that might be received.

Take this past week into account. They played two three-game series in Chicago and won four (literally winning two of three each against the Minnesota Twins and the Pittsburgh Pirates).

Yet what are going to be the two games that people will remember? It will be the two losses.

THAT’S WHAT LOSING 20-1 will do for the national reputation, along with taking a lead into the ninth inning against one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball with your so-called top relief pitcher on the mound – and finding a way to blow the ballgame.

There are four more months to go in the 2009 season, but I don’t know if baseball on the South Side is going to be a cheerful or maddening experience. Will this be the fourth division title of the ‘00’s for the White Sox, or a year we’ll want to forget (like much of the latter half of the 1980s)?

Intriguing is about the most accurate words I can think of to use, but I count on following baseball to be a means to forget about my life’s problems – not add new ones to the list.

Now as I have written before, I don’t care much about the Chicago Cubs or anything having to do with the National League (which is why I didn’t care much about so-called star pitcher Jake Peavy of the San Diego Padres turning down a chance to play for the White Sox).

YET IT JUST strikes me as odd that a team so many pundits want to believe is a legitimate pennant contender that is “due” to win something after coming so close the past two years went into the holiday at 21-22 (fourth place, out of six teams). I know they were higher until they hit an 8-game losing streak (which is something not even the White Sox have managed to do this year).

But I’m getting the impression that baseball won’t be fine in ’09 – at least not if you measure a season’s success as to whether they were legitimate contenders for a league championship.

While I can appreciate the idea that baseball being played at any level can be a thing of beauty to watch (I will always find the mind games played between pitcher and batter to be the most intriguing aspect of athletics), there could be so much bad baseball played in Chicago this year.

It’s almost enough to get me to root for the New York Yankees (at 26-19, only 1 game out of first place), just because it would irritate those Cubs fans who think their team shares some cosmic “bond” with the Boston Red Sox (which is in itself an absurd thought, but that’s a subject for future commentary).

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Or perhaps I should just spend the summer following the Chicago Fire, who have managed (http://web.mlsnet.com/news/mls_news.jsp?ymd=20090525&content_id=4946018&vkey=news_mls&fext=.jsp) to win their last 10 matches. When was the last time either Chicago baseball club ran up a winning streak like that?

Yet another year goes by without the World Series being played in Chicago

The World Series begins Wednesday, and those dreams some of us had of an all-Chicago affair deciding a U.S. professional baseball championship for 2008 are so dead they’re burned to a crisp.

It’s going to be the Tampa Bay Rays against the Philadelphia Phillies. While I can’t say I really care who wins the thing, I must admit to taking some interest in potential Chicago angles to this series.

IT IS THOSE Chicago angles that makes me think all of us in the Second City ought to be rooting for the Devil Rays (I don’t care if that name offends the locals, it’s a sea creature and it sounds better than just “Rays”).

In fact, this ought to be something that could potentially unite fans of the White Sox and a certain other ball club that had delusions of winning a pennant.

Take the Phillies, a ballclub that like the Cubs dates back to the 19th Century. And it is a team that quite possibly has an even more pathetic history than the Cubs (who were a respectable National League franchise for the first third of the 20th Century).

While the Cubs have only won two World Series in their history (1907 and 1908), the Phillies are a team that have only won the series once (1980) in their history.

JUST IMAGINE THE anguish Cubs fans would feel if the Phillies were to win the World Series, thereby giving them just as many overall victories as the Cubs? Ever since the Braves changed the losing character of their franchise history in Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta by rattling off a dominant string of division titles and five league championships in the 1990s, it has been the Phillies and the Cubs as the historic doormats of the National League.

And if the Phillies were to win a World Series, it would create the perception in some minds that they too have dumped their losing ways, leaving the Cubs all alone (except for a few dumpy expansion teams) at the bottom of the baseball pool.

They went from being convinced this was THEIR year to potentially being left alone in the loser pool.

I don’t think I could handle the mass depression that the North Side and its sympathizers would sink into. In fact, I think such depression would make Cubs fans even more unbearable.

BUT THERE ARE a pair of other reasons for which I will admit to taking some interest in Tampa Bay winning a World Series title – even though they have only been in existence for 11 years (it took the Houston Astros 44 years of existence before they won their first National League pennant, and are still waiting for that first World Series title).

Those reasons are pitcher Chad Bradford and outfielder Cliff Floyd – both of whom found their baseball fortunes at a point this year where they wound up signing to play for Tampa Bay.

Floyd is a Chicago area native who played his high school ball in suburban South Holland (the same high school that produced one-time Chicago Bull Eddy Curry and former White Sox and Cubs pitcher Steve Trout). He’s also the guy who grew up a White Sox fan (claiming Harold Baines as his favorite ballplayer) who later went on to play for the Cubs (in 2007).

This could literally be the year that all Chicagoans can unite behind rooting for a hometown guy to have that BIG moment, thereby making him a local sports legend for the remainder of his life – even if his “local” moment came for another city.

CHICAGO SPORTS FANS have so little history of baseball heroes in October that we’ll settle for a local boy done well somewhere else – just like we don’t hold it against Bill Skowron (who learned how to hit while playing slow-pitch softball back in the 1940s) that he had his baseball heroics playing for the New York Yankees back in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Then, there is Bradford, a relief pitcher who I still remember from the beginning of his career when he was with the White Sox.

Bradford is not the BIG MAN who comes into a game to finish it off. He’s the guy who pitches to a hitter or two at a time in mid-game, to prevent a messy situation from becoming a complete disaster.

What makes him unique is that he’s a sub-mariner. He throws his pitches with a motion that’s not quite underhand. But it definitely isn’t a sidearm throw.

I STILL REMEMBER the first time I ever saw him pitch (in 2000 in a late-season game against the Seattle Mariners). As it turned out, I had a seat that game in the lower deck straight behind home plate.

I got the same view of the pitcher that the catcher and umpire had, and I still remember the break on Bradford’s pitches as being absolutely freaky. He doesn’t throw overly hard, but I can’t hit him even in my dreams.

While I realize the White Sox shared the same doubts about Bradford (how can such a freakish throwing motion ever work long term?) that many conventional baseball people have, I must admit to being intrigued that he has lasted for so many ball clubs throughout this decade (the average major league baseball player’s career is only four seasons – he’s already lasted for nine).

If anything, I’ll watch Bradford come into ballgames and try to envision “What if?” As in, what if Bradford had been kept in Chicago? What could he have achieved on the South Side?

THEN, THERE’S THE biggest “What if?” What if we had lost the White Sox to St. Petersburg, Fla.?

Don’t forget that the monstrosity of a stadium that Florida officials built in the mid-1980s in hopes of luring a major league team to the Tampa Bay area nearly lured the White Sox (Thank God for political manipulation, Springfield-style, that kept the team in Chicago).

That World Series title in 2005, along with division titles in 1993 and 2000, and generally winning records throughout the 1990s and 2000s, could have easily been achieved by the “Florida White Sox.”

I’m willing to throw the fans of Tampa Bay a bone and let them finally have a winning season (including an American League pennant and a chance at a World Series title), particularly since it means those of us who are Sout’ Siders at heart got to keep our historic ball club.

SO GO RAYS! Beat the Phillies (even if our junior senator, Barack Obama, is being deluded enough by his campaign manager to root for Philadelphia).

And preferably, they’ll do it in less than six games. Because I’m really not in the mood for a Republican stink over the Obama infomercial on Oct. 29 delaying Game Six of the World Series. We have enough stupid issues in Campaign ’08. Here’s hoping baseball helps avoid another one from arising.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: All those people who placed pre-season bets on Tampa Bay to win the World Series this year (back when the odds were 200-1) have the potential to clean up (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g8_fAf0_P0VnrmKibfTL7ywUv8ugD93UEN4G0) financially.

There are two Rays players (http://www.baseball-reference.com/f/floydcl01.shtml) with the potential (http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/bradfch01.shtml) to stir up Chicago interest.

How will David Letterman mock Tampa Bay baseball these days (http://lateshow.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/top_ten/index/php/20020327.phtml)?

A history lesson (http://whitesoxinteractive.com/History&Glory/SaveOurSox.htm) about what could have been.

No ball game today in Chicago!

A question to be pondered by Chicagoans on both sides of the baseball partisan split. Which concept is more depressing?

Is it the sight of all those unsold souvenir books in bookstores and supermarkets proclaiming "This is the Year!" that no one wants because it reminds Cubs fans of just how quickly (and tackily) their ball club failed in the National League playoffs this year?

OR IS IT the lack of a sight of similar souvenir books celebrating the fact that the White Sox also won a division title in 2008, and did so with a truly historic flourish at season's end? But because of the way the White Sox barely lasted longer than the Cubs in American League playoff action, there was no time to put something together.

I can't think of any White Sox fan who's that anxious to buy something now. You can't even find caps with a patch or t-shirts proclaiming the 2008 A.L. Central Division champions. And those Cubs shirts and caps that were mass-produced out of a delusion that this truly WAS the year are already marked down significantly in price.

It just means we're shifting attention to next year.

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Is Mayor Daley a compulsive gambler when it comes to Chicago sports teams?

When it comes to political people placing bets on their hometown professional sports teams, Mayor Richard M. Daley is a master.

Perhaps it was all those years in the 1990s when the Chicago Bulls were dominant in the National Basketball Association. Daley would contact his counterpart in whatever city the Bulls were taking on, and place a bet for delivery of some sort of food item indigenous to that particular burg.

THE BULLS’ SUCCESS (six NBA titles in eight seasons) meant he got a lot of good eats.

So naturally, Daley is carrying on his bets now that the 2008 Major League Baseball season has turned out to be so unique for Chicago.

Our mayor actually has bets going with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and with three officials in the St. Petersburg/Tampa, Fla., metropolitan area.

Now as this is written, both the White Sox and Cubs have managed to start off their performance in the 2008 playoffs by losing all their games thus far. Javier Vazquez just seemed determined Thursday to give the Tampa Bay Rays a lead, even after the Sox recovered from his initial outburst of negativity. And the Cubs showed what the franchise's character is all about, losing by scores of 7-2 and 10-3.

SO THERE’S A chance that Daley will be making double payments.

In the case of the White Sox (the baseball team that Hizzoner Jr. actually takes an interest in), he’s offering up sausages made in Chicago, along with lots of baseball equipment that the park districts in those cities could use for their youth league baseball programs.

Should the Sox manage to rebound and beat the Devil Rays (I’m sorry, but I think that’s a better sounding name than this generic-sounding moniker they came up with beginning this season), Daley will get seafood and cigars.

When it comes to supporting the Cubs, his bet is more a symbolic gag.

L.A. WILL GET a gesture supporting that city for the 2016 summer Olympics if the Dodgers win, while a Cubs victory would result in Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell being “returned” to Chicago (the company owns both the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times), although some food products apparently also will transfer hands.

Daley has the routine down pat.

In cases where actual goods are exchanged, Daley gets sponsors to pay for the items, which means the local providers wind up getting some free publicity if they have to cough up the goods. So Daley doesn’t pay for anything.

And even if Daley “wins,” the mayor is usually good about plugging the companies that would have provided the stuff.

SO EVERYBODY GETS a feel-good movement, and our political people get to feel like they connect with “the fans,” who also are “the voters.”

I just have one question.

What happens if my dream of a World Series for this year comes true, and we actually get the first all-Chicago World Series for the first time in 102 years?

Does Daley bet against himself? Does he get lame and do nothing? Or will we have to settle for Gov. Rod Blagojevich filling in for a political surrogate for the Cubs, with Daley taking up the cause of the White Sox?

WHAT COULD THEY bet that would represent the image of the North and Sout' sides? How about some of those gooey, sticky-sweet cinnamon rolls from Ann Sather restaurant, up against some sausages and other meat products provided by the Calumet Meat Co. (the home of Moo and Oink)?

In a separate matter, Daley is not the only politico who sees the need to try to connect with sports fans.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who also is running a campaign to be the first Chicagoan to get to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., told ESPN Radio that a City Series would be reason for him to take some time off from the campaign trail – so he could be at the ballpark to cheer for the White Sox.

“I’ll tell America, I’m sorry guys, but I’ve got my priorities straight,” Obama said during a radio interview earlier this week. The scary thing is that there is a certain segment of the U.S. population that would agree with Obama on that view.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Is there a bet that Richard M. Daley can resist when it comes to Chicago’s (http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=31264) professional (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/30/daley-bets-local-eats-on_n_130686.html) athletic teams? Or does he know how to play along with a good gag (http://laist.com/2008/10/01/mayor_villaraigosa_bets_chicago_may.php) when he hears one?

Barack Obama would want to be at the World Series if any of the games wind up getting played (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/10/02/obama-jokes-hell-skip-campaigning-for-a-chicago-world-series/) in Chicago.

1-0? That was nerve-wracking!

I’m looking at a recent copy of the Sporting News, one which features a preview of the Major League Baseball playoffs before it was known for sure who would qualify.

Their cover was meant to be a parody of the opening credits of the 1970s “Brady Bunch” sitcom, with those photographs set up in a tic-tac-toe and everybody looks at each other. Only instead of Maureen McCormick and her ilk, we got to see ballplayers from the eight teams the magazine thought would be part of “The Playoff Bunch.”

EITHER THE SPORTING News was incredibly intelligent, or stupendously lucky. They picked seven of the eight playoff-bound teams correctly (the White Sox are represented by a headshot of slugging outfielder Jermaine Dye).

If only they had dumped the picture of Jose Reyes of the New York Mets for a Milwaukee Brewer (perhaps C.C. Sabathia?), they would have been perfect.

So now, we’re beginning the playoff season for 2008. For the first time ever, both Chicago ball clubs qualified. This is a pet peeve of mine, but it irritates me when news anchor types say this is the first time in 102 years that the Sox and Cubs made the postseason in the same year.

It is true that the last time the two teams finished the regular season in first place in the same year was 1906 – the White Sox led by Hall of Fame pitcher Ed Walsh went on to beat the Cubs, led by Hall of Fame pitcher Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown, in the World Series that year, 4 games to 2.

BUT THAT WAS under a different structure when teams had to win their league championship in order to qualify for “the postseason.” Now, a team only has to have one of the better records in the league to make the playoffs. Winning the league championship comes after winning two rounds of playoffs – with the third round being the World Series itself.

What is accurate to say is that this is the first time ever both Chicago ball clubs qualified for the playoffs in the same year, since playoffs have only been held in baseball since 1969.

Whether they both can manage to win two rounds of playoffs and meet against each other in the World Series for only the second time ever is something I don’t even want to speculate about.

Too much of post-season baseball is a coin flip. Who will get “hot” over the next three weeks? Does the fact that the White Sox played three “win or die” games in a row mean they have kicked off a momentum that could carry them, or did they expend their energy just to make it to the playoffs?

DOES THE FACT that the Cubs finished the regular season with the best won-lost record in the National League mean they will remain dominant? Or does the fact that they have basically been in idle for a week-and-a-half mean that they have lost momentum, and will get knocked out in the first round by Manny Ramirez and the Los Angeles Dodgers?

I’m rooting for the concept of an all-Chicago World Series, just because outside of New York City, it is a rare event. We have only had one in just over a century of competing American and National leagues, while St. Louis only had one. Philadelphia and Boston never had one (although the latter city came so close in 1948), nor has Los Angeles – although in theory they could get their way this year, as both the Dodgers and Angels of suburban Anaheim also qualified for the playoffs and somehow, I think L.A. has a better chance than Chicago to get a City Series in '08.

That doesn’t mean I’m rooting for Cubdom.

I’ll likely follow my usual playoff baseball routine in following the activity of the American League, and will settle for learning who wins the National League pennant once the World Series starts.

THAT MEANS I’LL root in the World Series for whoever wins the American League championship.

So-called civic pride wouldn’t get me to root for the Cubs any more than I would expect any of those blowhards who showed up at Daley Plaza on Tuesday to back the Sox should they make it to a World Series against L.A., Philadelphia or Milwaukee (wouldn’t the idea of a Sox/Brewers World Series irritate Cubs fans?).

So I’ll be following baseball in coming weeks, primarily as a relief from the activity of the presidential campaigns in October, the whacked out attempts in the District of Columbia to resolve the financial crisis and the constant speculation about whether Gov. Rod Blagojevich is on the verge of being indicted by “the feds.”

I’ll leave you with one final thought, and it relates to Blagojevich. He was one of the people who participated in the official MLB-sanctioned fans rally for the Cubs in the shadow of the Picasso (which was clad in a silly blue cap for the occasion). Will being a Chicago Cubs fan help boost Gov. Rod Blagojevich's popularity ratings at a time when some are speculating he will be indicted later this year? Photograph provided by State of Illinois.

OUR GOVERNOR, WHO has never made a secret of being a Cubs fan (just like Mayor Richard M. Daley could be seen sitting in a front-row seat near the dugout at Tuesday night’s tie-breaker game against the Twins) made a point of saying he thinks former third baseman Ron Santo belongs in the Hall of Fame.

Perhaps he thinks that praising the memory of the one-time frozen pizza pitchman will gain him the love of Cubs fans across the state.

Who’s kidding whom? Blagojevich contempt has reached such high levels in Illinois that not even Cub fandom could save him.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: For a team to lose its top player and potential Hall of Fame pitcher and STILL manage to come within 1 game of finishing the regular season in first place is a remarkable (http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/29983084.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUqCP:iUiacyKUU) achievement, and I suspect we'll be hearing more from the Minnesota Twins in the next few seasons than we will from, say, the Detroit Tigers.

EXTRA: 'Whities' vs. 'Twinkies,' while Cubs fans dream that they own Chicago

One more win, and the Chicago White Sox will be able to forget those horrid memories of last week in Minneapolis when they managed to blow their long-held lead in the American League’s central division.

The White Sox finally finished their 162-game regular season schedule on Monday, and their 8-2 defeat of the Detroit Tigers gave them an 88-74 record – identical to the Minnesota Twins.

SO JUST AS the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox finished 1948 with a tie, as did the Red Sox and the New York Yankees in 1978 and the Seattle Mariners and California Angels in 1995, the White Sox and Twins will now have the dreaded one-game tiebreaker to qualify for the playoffs.

A 163rd game will be added to the schedule for both teams – to be played on the South Side (thank goodness our Sox won that coin flip held a few weeks ago, or we’d be playing again in Minneapolis).

Now I know some geeky types who root for the Chicago Cubs are going to claim the fact that the White Sox did not finish off the Twins last week is evidence they “choked.” Of course, the fact that Minnesota didn’t then proceed to finish off the season this past weekend – losing two of three to fourth-place Kansas City Royals – is equally bad.

Ultimately, the winner tomorrow gets the AL Central Division title and (more importantly) the memory of their choke erased.

ONE THOUGHT ABOUT Monday’s “do or die” game, which is now nowhere near as important as Tuesday’s “do or die,” I was glad to see that Freddie Garcia did not get the loss for the Detroit Tigers.

The one-time Sox star from that memorable season of 2005 has suffered arm troubles, and hurt his shoulder so that he came out of the game with a lead. It was the Tigers’ relief pitchers who blew the lead for Detroit.

One thought I will have. In recent years, Major League Baseball has created the notion that the cities that host the teams that make it to the playoffs should hold downtown rallies to celebrate their pre-playoff accomplishment.

The White Sox had one in Daley Plaza in 2005, and the Cubs had one last year. They also are getting one this year – as the news anchor team over at WBBM-TV seemed to be wetting their pants with glee as live footage was shown of a giant Cubs cap being put on the Picasso statue in preparation for the Tuesday rally celebrating the Cubs’ division title over in the second-rate National League.

WILL THE WHITE Sox (if they manage to beat Minnesota on Tuesday) get a similar rally later in the week? Or are they just out of luck, on account of how long it took them to finally win a division title?

And would any city officials be bold enough to mention the White Sox and the possibility of rooting for an all-Chicago World Series in front of a crowd of Cubs partisans? Just imagine the “boos” Mayor Richard M. Daley would get if he dared suggest that the world does not revolve around Wrigley Field?

But talk of a second World Series in four years on the South Side is getting ahead of ourselves. After all, the Sox (or the “Whities,” as Twins manager Ron Gardenhire likes to call our team) still need to beat the Twinkies in order to say they accomplished anything in 2008.

If anything, that attitude is the big difference between the fans of the two Chicago ball clubs – both of which have stretches in their histories of losing teams.

I STILL REMEMBER a Cubs fan in 1998 who, on the day that the Cubs won a tie-breaker playoff game against the San Francisco Giants to qualify for the playoffs, said that made the season a complete success, on the grounds that the Cubs ended the season with “a symbolic victory.”

Any actual playoff victories would be a bonus.

By that logic, the White Sox would be able to claim a “symbolic victory” by forcing the Twins to play an extra ballgame.

By our logic, victory only takes place on the field. “Symbolic” wins are what we call losses. So let’s follow the lead of Captain Stubby and his Buccaneers. “Let’s Go, Go Go White Sox.” At the very least, let’s show the nation that this truly is a two-team town.

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Cubs a flop if they don’t win NL pennant, & Sox fans would love to flop them

What are the odds the Detroit Tigers will play here Monday? Or the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday, or Tampa Bay Rays next weekend? Photograph provided by State of Illinois.

To listen to many Chicago Cubs fans, the gods of baseball have been excessively cruel to them. How dare anyone not realize that their team is a fun-loving batch that deserves multiple championships?

They certainly don’t deserve to be the team that has managed to go a century without winning a World Series title, and according to the title of one written history of the ball club, has overcome odds of “1 Million-to-One” by not even winning a National League championship since 1945.

IN SHORT, CUBS fans are becoming insufferable in their belief that they are somehow “owed” a championship this year, since their favorite ball club has managed to win its division and likely will finish the season Sunday with the best won-loss record in the National League.

My personal favorite snit-fit is the two fans who are upset that an elderly man who they usually share a Cubs’ ticket package with during the regular season decided he would keep the playoffs and World Series tickets he was eligible to buy.

Their whining went so far as to result in a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court, claiming the 84-year-old man was cruelly depriving them of their “right” to see a baseball game.

Of course, they managed to resolve their dispute Friday by deciding to share the tickets, and alternate which games they went to.

THERE ALSO ARE the “fans” who are upset that the city wants to impose restrictions on alcohol sales in the taverns surrounding Wrigley Field during the ballgames. For every “fan” who actually gets a ticket to enter Wrigley Field during a playoff game, there will be three or four more who decide to hang out in the Lake View neighborhood bars within a block or two of the stadium.

They will then claim that because they were drinking while hearing the roars of the crowd emanating from Wrigley Field, that they were “there” when whatever winds up happening actually happened.

It probably shows that I’m not a fan of the concept of the Cubs being in the baseball playoffs this year. Part of it is because I have never had any use for the Cubs, or anything in the National League (although this year, I would get a kick out of seeing the Los Angeles Dodgers make it to the World Series in the season after Joe Torre was released as manager by the New York Yankees – who fell short of making the playoffs in 2008).

If the Los Angeles Angels (who likely will finish the season with the best record in the American League) manage to win the two rounds of playoffs, that could set the scene for a “City Series,” although I suppose third-rate baseball pundits will try to call it the “Freeway Series” or something equally lame in a California-ish style.

OF COURSE, THERE’S always the chance that the White Sox will manage to eck out a division title – overcoming their awful play in Minneapolis this weekend. The first City Series in Chicago in 102 years would be an incredibly tense event.

White Sox fans (and anyone who carries the spirit of Chicago’s South Side in them) would view such an event as a life-and-death war. I believe Mayor Richard M. Daley (whose family is long-time White Sox season ticket holders, on account of the fact they grew up about a six-block walk from the old Comiskey Park) when he says a City Series in Chicago would create an ugly mood in the city.

A good part of the reason that such an event would be ugly is that Cubs fans would resent having the White Sox in what they would see as “their” World Series.

The fact is that for a Chicago baseball fan, rooting for one’s ball club includes having a desire to see one’s team come out on top of the other team, even though former Chicago sports broadcaster Mike North recently derided such thought as being “the way 12 year olds think.”

HE MAY BE right in a purely logical way. But if professional sports is a batch of grown men playing a child’s game, then it only makes sense that watching professional sports is a way of turning back the clock emotionally to a simpler time.

Like, when we were 12.

For Cubs fans, part of the joy of the 2008 season is that their team won a division title and could win a league championship and go to the World Series, and could even win it, while the White Sox fall short.

If it turns out that on Tuesday of next week, 2008 goes into the local history books as the second time that both the White Sox and Cubs managed to finish the regular season in first place, it means they’d have to share some of the glory.

SOME WHITE SOX fans I know would be willing to “settle” for knowing that the baseball record books would record both teams as having accomplished something in 2008, and that the Cubs didn’t get all the glory. Meanwhile, Cubs fans would see it as some sort of plot to steal their glory.

Some I know resent the fact that the White Sox actually managed to win an American League pennant and World Series title in 2005. In their minds, the White Sox weren’t supposed to win anything until AFTER Cubs teams took some sort of title.

Of course, there is the White Sox mentality that will enjoy the thought of the Cubs fizzling out in the first round of the playoffs, just as Cubs fans will take pleasure if the White Sox are unable to get into the playoffs.

And if both Sox (Chicago and Boston) manage to get into the American League playoffs, then White Sox fans will take a certain amount of pleasure in knowing that they have robbed Cubs fans of some of the satisfaction they desired from this 2008 season.

SO EVEN THOUGH this season is not yet over, and the playoffs and World Series will stretch the U.S. baseball season into the days surrounding Halloween, I will venture this observation.

I know that Cubs fans will claim they had the better ball club in the first decade of the 21st century – citing the two consecutive division-winning teams they had in 2007 and 2008.

But unless the Cubs manage to win both rounds of the National League playoffs, thereby making late singer Steve Goodman’s song lyric about the last Cubs’ championship coming in, “the year we dropped the bomb on Japan” an obsolete thought, then the Cubs will have fallen short.

After all, White Sox fans don’t celebrate the memory of 2000, when our favorite team had the best regular season record in the American League, but lost in the playoffs. Nor do we go on about the fact that our team usually finishes with winning records (2007 was an aberration).

UNLESS 2008 BECOMES the year the Cubs beat out three other playoff teams to win the pennant and go to the World Series, the year will be a failure.

And even if the Cubs do manage to bring the World Series to the North Side, our local history will always record that it was the White Sox who were the first Chicago baseball team to win a championship of any kind during the lifespan of any Chicago resident currently under the age of 50.

I suppose we could allow the Cubs fans to follow in our footsteps for now. But next year, …

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: “A Dying Cub’s Fan’s Last Request” is one of the few things about the Chicago Cubs (http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_cubs.shtml) that doesn’t annoy me.

“Sports Illustrated” is convinced that 2008 is the year that Cubs fans get to be insufferable boobs (http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/po_cubs.shtml) in their World Series celebration. Does this mean the Cubs’ chances of actually winning are doomed?

What combination of White Sox victories and Minnesota Twins defeats this weekend will (http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/chi-080926-white-sox-twins-chart,0,2994230.htmlstory) keep alive the chance of the second-ever World Series played (http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080923&content_id=3532201&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb) entirely in Chicago?

EXTRA: We're Number 3!

The Chicago White Sox (after a weekend of historic rainfall) finally get to play some baseball, and they manage to do well.

Winning both games played Sunday (a third game will have to be made up at some point in the future, if it has a bearing on a division race), the White Sox game even produced something historic.

HOW OFTEN DOES one get to see a grand slam home run by each team in the same inning? That’s what happened in the evening game (the one carried nationally by ESPN), and it is the first time it has happened since 2005, which means it technically is a more rare event than a no-hit ballgame.

Just as easily as Marcus Thames deflated the White Sox emotionally with a four-run home run that tied up the ballgame (and cost the Sox a lead that had once been 7-0), they were emotionally re-inflated when DeWayne Wise managed to knock his own four-run homer to put the White Sox back in the lead.

So is Wise the big man of Chicago sports on Monday? Of course not.

He had to up and go and pull his intriguing moment on the same day that Chicago Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano threw a no-hit ballgame against the Houston Astros (played in Milwaukee, on account of Hurricane Ike).

WHEN ONE CONSIDERS that we’re now in football season (which means that every single Chicago Bears game has to be treated like a sacred event), that means even the Bears loss to Carolina 20-17 will get big play.

So sorry, DeWayne Wise.

At best, you’re number three on the list of Chicago sports stories, as they will appear for today.

There’s one person who ought to be thankful for this. Octavio Dotel, the White Sox relief pitcher who gave up the grand slam home run that briefly made Sox fans think they were going to lose (did he ever get booed), will now have his moment of shame forgotten by most, and completely ignored by a few.

WHAT’S THE BOTTOM line?

When combined with the Minnesota Twins’ loss to Baltimore, the White Sox have a 1 ½ game lead for their divisional title. And if they can keep up playing for two more weeks like they did on Sunday, then 2008 will really become the first year since 1906 that both Chicago teams managed to finish a regular season in first place.

That is, unless, the Cubs manage to figure out a way to blow it to either Milwaukee or St. Louis. If it were any other team, I’d say that’s ridiculous.

But these still are the Cubs.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: For one night, the creator of this web site has to eat some crow (http://www.talk-sports.net/mlb/sucks.aspx/Dewayne_Wise). For those who are unaware, Wise (http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=276547) is one of the White Sox spare outfielders.

City Series not worth the hype

This weekend is far from the first time Chicago's two major league teams have faced each other. Take this 1909 confrontation at the West Side Grounds. Photograph provided by Library of Congress collection.

Every year in Chicago sees two weekends when the local population gets absolutely stupid – the weekends when Major League Baseball so decrees that our White Sox and the Cubs ought to play against each other.

Considering that the two teams have actually managed to last this long in their respective seasons in first place in their respective divisions, fans this year are getting particularly ridiculous.

ANY CHANCE OF actually getting tickets (without paying a ticket broker’s ridiculous price markup) for this weekend’s three-game series at Wrigley Field (or next weekend at U.S. Cellular Field) is long gone.

Many people are planning their weekends around the concept of being able to watch the games on television – including the Sunday night game, when ESPN has so decreed that the Sox/Cubs matchup will be broadcast nationally.

So am I the only Chicagoan who is willing to admit I could care less about this series?

I am bracing myself for the pompous rhetoric that will be spewed by the fans of whichever team manages to win at least two of the three games in each series, trying to claim that some “great moral supremacy” is conveyed by that fact.

IT IS NOT.

This weekend could very well turn out to be the most over-hyped event in Chicago sports this year (and Second-most over-hyped event in sports nationwide behind any match-up between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox).

Now don’t take this as some sort of sign that I hate baseball. I don’t.

In fact, it is a particularly pleasurable sport, as I have always enjoyed the “head game” (as prominent writer Roger Kahn refers to the dueling nature that occurs when a pitcher faces a batter). And I am interested in seeing how the White Sox turn out (with mild delusions that they can actually hold on through season’s end in October to win their division) in 2008.

BUT THE CIRCUS atmosphere that crops up every year around the Sox/Cubs series manages to turn me off of actually watching the games. Nothing that actually happens on the playing field will warrant the attention (not even if there’s a repeat of the incident when a brawl resulted from White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski plowing through a former Cubs catcher who was improperly blocking home plate) given to these games.

Having to listen to the ridiculous rhetoric is just more than I can take.

This will be one three-game series where I will be content to look up the box scores after the fact to see how the players did, and if anything truly significant happened.

For those who are now going to say I can’t be much of a baseball fan if I’m not willing to watch the actual games, I’d say that’s absurd.

SINCE THERE’S NEXT to no chance I could actually get tickets to attend any of the games (I’m not willing to spend that kind of money), I would have to watch television. And the simple fact is that watching a sporting event on television is (first and foremost) watching a television program – not a ball game.

I can get wrapped up in the pitch-by-pitch activity of a ball game while watching from the stands, particularly if I can get a seat on top of the infield where I can make out what the pitcher is throwing. Watching on television is just too distracting, particularly if the broadcast crew gets hung up on trivial activity or on showing off their newest graphic elements (like the crew with Fox Sports always does) that usually add nothing to one’s understanding of baseball.

So I likely will try to find some other way of getting a live baseball fix (a part of me is considering a trip to Gary, Ind., to see the Railcats of the Northern League take on the Schaumburg Flyers – all the other Chicago-area minor league ball clubs are on the road this weekend).

Besides, even if I could get tickets to the Sox/Cubs match-up this weekend, I’d probably take a pass. In the same way that New Year’s Eve is for amateurs, so is a Sox/Cubs game. Too many halfwits who only come out because they think the games are an “event” where they “must be seen” to prove they are “somebody” populate the stands.

THAT WAS MY experience the one time in my life I actually did go to a Sox/Cubs match-up (in 1999 at then-New Comiskey Park). Even then, the attraction for me was that I went with several of my co-workers, most of whom were Cubs fans who experienced a deep funk when the Sox came from behind in the 9th inning to win.

Too many of the people who will be in the stands this weekend will be the clowns who are determined to show they are “man” enough to wear a Cubs jersey on the South Side and scream stupid epithets, or to wear blackface with white lettered “Sox” logos on their cheeks while sitting in the sun at Wrigley Field.

This is the weekend that Chicago’s real baseball fans shudder. Those of us who find a beauty in the game will be disgusted at the way in which it is buried under a mass of trivia.

The fact that both of these teams are in first place only complicates things, since everybody wants to envision the scenario by which the White Sox personally crush the Cubs’ hopes of winning a division title. (Nobody with any sense seriously envisions the alternate result).

PEOPLE OF CHICAGO, repeat after me. “It’s only June.”

If both Chicago ball clubs are still in first place come Sept. 1 (as they were in 2003), then we can seriously start talking about the possibility of both Chicago ball clubs making it to the playoffs and possibly having an all-Chicago World Series (the first, and only, since 1906).

Anyone who brings up the subject before then is being ridiculous.

And anyone who tries to turn this into South Side/North Side warfare is being ridiculous.

SO I DON’T want to see anymore of the car commercial featuring managers Ozzie Guillen and Lou Piniella skipping rope and riding bicycles together. I don’t care what the Las Vegas gambling geeks set for odds on this series – or the chance either/both teams win their respective leagues’ pennants.

And I definitely don’t want to know the results of the Chicago Sun-Times self-promotional contest to determine whether the skanky women who exist at Wrigley Field are better looking than the tough Sout’ Side broads one finds at U.S. Cellular.

All I can think of with regards to this “contest” is one of the most honest moments I have ever seen in a film – 1997’s “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” which starred Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz, and set their climactic confrontation in the women’s wash room at “the Cell.”

Seeing the two about to get into a fight while surrounded by a bunch of toughs wearing various styles of Sox jerseys reminded me of some of the women I have encountered at the ballpark throughout the years – none of whom I would guess will be in attendance for the “silly show” posing as baseball this weekend and next.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: My childhood memories include the 1977 baseball season when both (http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubssox/cs-080618-1977-chicago-cubs-white-sox,1,4835846.story) Chicago ball clubs were in first place through the end of July. Neither team won so much as a division title, let alone a league championship.

What’s more likely to happen? The White Sox will win their second American League championship (http://chicago.nationalsportsreview.com/2008/06/19/ws-stands-for-white-sox-and-world-series-%E2%80%93-coincidence/) in four years, or the Cubs will go for their 100th straight season without a World Series victory.

Apparently, I’m not the only person who realizes that the baseball played this weekend (http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/sports/bauman/1007609,2_2_AU16_TWOCENTS_S1.article) and next is not the “make it or break it” moment for Chicago sports.

Resistance is futile -- Illinois will buy Wrigley Field

To paraphrase former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, June 30, 1988 (or July 1, depending on whose clock you believe) is a date that will live in Illinois political infamy.

It was in the (alleged) final minute of that day that then-Gov. James R. Thompson strong-armed the Illinois House of Representatives to approve a proposal to construct a new stadium on the South Side for the benefit of the Chicago White Sox.

For legislators who were present, the swiftness by which the White Sox bill came up on the final day of the General Assembly’s spring legislative session created an awful taste that to this day causes many to automatically vote “no” anytime a bill relates to sports.

But in creating an Illinois government agency to operate state-owned stadiums in Chicago, the General Assembly set a precedent that now pressures them to give in to the desires of Chicago’s other professional baseball team. The Cubs want the state to take ownership of their ballpark – 94-year-old Wrigley Field.

Specifics of a state takeover of Wrigley Field have yet to be determined, although the general plan is for the Cubs’ new owner, real estate developer Sam Zell, to sell the building to the state, which would place it under the control of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority.

Such a move would make the state (ie, taxpayers, meaning you and me) responsible for paying for Wrigley Field’s maintenance, and also means Illinois government would be responsible for raising the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary (it could go as high as a half-billion dollars) to give Wrigley Field the major renovation the building so desperately needs if the structure is to remain a viable stadium for the Cubs in decades to come.

Eliminating that expense from the Cubs’ ledgers would benefit Zell as he looks to sell the team, which he acquired last month as part of a larger acquisition of the Tribune media company. Zell wants to find a local buyer, and letting a new owner know they would not be responsible for having to pay for the cost of a Wrigley Field renovation can only help boost the final price he gets for the Cubs.

Many people are disgusted at the thought of state funds being used in any way to benefit a sports team. Mayor Richard M. Daley was once among them, as he previously lambasted Gov. (and Cubs fan) Rod Blagojevich for even considering the move.

But reports in the Chicago Sun-Times indicate that Daley (whose family members are long-time White Sox season ticket holders) and his advisers have since been briefed on specifics of a possible sale of the stadium to the state. Daley is now non-committal on the issue.

Like it or not, we’re in an era where the status quo for sports teams is to play in municipally built stadiums. It is only natural for the Cubs to want treatment similar to the other 29 teams in Major League Baseball.

That concept would not be a problem if only government entities had some sort of backbone and actually negotiated lease agreements that called for the teams to pay substantial rent, or allowed government a significant cut of monies derived from the stadium (parking and concessions revenue).

In today’s sporting world, the fact is that most government entities pay to construct the stadium, maintain the building at taxpayer expense AND allow the teams to keep virtually all revenues raised by events held in the building.

The White Sox’ deal with Illinois has resulted in some seasons where the state got a few million dollars in rent. But other years when attendance dropped resulted in only token rent payments to Illinois. There were even three seasons in the late 1990s (back when foolish fans went to Cubs games en masse because they thought Sammy Sosa was super and not steroid-laden) when the Sox paid Illinois nothing.

Some teams have better deals. Take the Texas Rangers, whose stadium was built by Texas state government due to political connections held by the Rangers’ then-owner George W. Bush. The state built a stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, and now pays the Rangers a few million dollars per year to play there.

Governments claim a sports franchise helps enhance the public image of their cities, and the loss of a team would make them look minor league. Such a view is what got Illinois to pay $139 million to build U.S. Cellular Field – the White Sox were threatening to become the Florida Sox and play in a domed arena in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Now in all fairness, Illinois is not losing money on the Sox deal. The bonds that raised money for stadium construction are being paid off by income from an entertainment tax charged on tourists and other people who stay at downtown Chicago hotels and eat at area restaurants.

That tax is producing money in excess of what was expected back in 1988, so much more that the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority was able to provide a portion of the $600 million needed to pay for the 2002 renovation of Soldier Field for the Chicago Bears.

After providing assistance to the White Sox and the Bears, and also providing funds throughout the years for construction of stadiums for minor league baseball teams stretching from suburban Crestwood down to Marion in the heart of Little Egypt, it becomes impossible for Illinois to justify saying “no” to the cutesy Cubbies – regardless of what other projects one thinks are more important.

Like it or not, governments have put themselves in the business of constructing sports stadiums. Expecting Illinois to now take on a Wisconsin-like “good government” mentality and say “no” to the Cubs is just ridiculously naïve.

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