Ban the boorish boob from the ballpark -- or perhaps just his ballpark beer?

I’m not sure how feasible it is for the Chicago Cubs to say they’re banning from the ballpark for life a man who is alleged to have been making racist hand gestures when he was in the presence of Doug Glanville – who once played for the Cubs but has turned to broadcasting for a living.

Outfielder-turned-broadcaster is focus

I could see where someone like Glanville would offend the sensibilities of racists – he’s a black man who also happens to be rather articulate, I’ve read thoughtful pieces about baseball that he’s written for the New York Times. In short, his existence dumps all over every stupid theory that the bigots would spew.

SO TO LEARN that Glanville, working for NBC Sports Chicago in broadcasting a Cubs game earlier this month, had a fan (in reality, just a nitwit who happened to be wearing a sweatshirt being the Cubs’ logo) flashing gestures typically associated by white supremacists? It’s not surprising!

I don’t doubt the man in question thinks he’s a tough guy who was putting Glanville in his place. Or maybe there’s some truth to the fans who are saying this is the kind of stupid stuff that happens when you serve alcohol in public.

It is good to know that Chicago Cubs management is taking this incident seriously, and not just dismissing it as a bit of naughty behavior that happens in public. As though we’re just supposed to accept that this is the way the world works.

But seriously, how do we know that fan won’t be able to slip in with the rest of the crowds that cram their way into Wrigley for Cubbie baseball?

Does Ernie's spirit still attract to Wrigley?

THE HONEST TRUTH is that there are some Chicagoans whose baseball preference for the Cubs over the White Sox is based on the notion that the Wrigley scene is one meant for white people. Some prefer going there because they think the White Sox scene is one where you’d find some black fans whom they'd rather not bother with.

And to be honest, white fans and black fans at the ballpark have the potential to act as poorly as they do in other scenarios.

So the idea that somebody with white supremacist leanings would be part of the crowd at Wrigley Field? It’s very possible, just like bigots exist just about everywhere. The way they ought to be dealt with is to let them know their rancid rhetoric and terrible thoughts will not be tolerated – that they are the outsiders in our society.

Who remembers East-West games at Comiskey?

As for whether I regard the Cubbie crowd as inherently racist? I’d say that’s an extreme. Cubs fans may be an insipid batch (“Cubnoxious,” except that the “feds” recently found that term to be inappropriate), but not all-around evil.

IN FACT, I’M aware there’s a certain generation of black Chicago that, to the degree they pay any attention to baseball, are inclined to follow the Cubs.

Memories of when Ernie Banks, Billie Williams and Fergie Jenkins were the base of the ballclub in the late 1960’s still linger. That and the fact that many of the white Sout’ Siders of old were White Sox fans – which meant rejecting the Sox was an act of protest by those black people, just like wearing a dashiki or having one's hair in an Afro.

But then again, there’s an even older generation who remember the days when there was Negro League baseball in Chicago, and the American Giants of old would use Comiskey Park for their home games – whereas Wrigley Field was a place where black baseball fans were supposed to regard as unwelcoming toward them.

Some may think it’s ridiculous to associate the almost annual presence of the old East-West Game (the Negro League version of an all-star game) with the modern-day White Sox. Although even Ernie Banks is now deceased – and not surely still bringing people into Wrigley Field with his sunshiny (in public) demeanor.

IN SHORT, IT’S probably no wonder that many black sporting fans are inclined to look to athletic endeavors other than baseball when deciding to spend the big bucks on going to a game.

Is Robinson baseball's act of penance?

Baseball, all too often, acts as though the fact that Jackie Robinson was permitted to play for the old Brooklyn Dodgers somehow indemnifies the game from all past, present and future flaws.

Although there may be some truth to the fact that this latest Wrigley Field incident was more a matter of a buffoon drinking himself into a stupor that caused him to act stupid.

But the notion of one getting intoxicated at the ol’ ball game strikes me as an impossibility. I know that when I went to a ballgame just last week, I had one beer – which cost $10.25!!! Who can afford to wind up blowing a 0.08 or higher at that price?

  -30-

“Harold, Harold” – Baines will force many to reassess their baseball thoughts

Long-time Chicago White Sox outfielder-turned-designated hitter-turned coach and now team ambassador Harold Baines is now a Hall of Fame member, and that fact is confounding the way many people view the game of baseball.

Which, more than anything, is the reason why so many seem to be so miffed that Baines will get the national pastime’s version of immortality – a bronze plaque at the Hall of Fame museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. that will proclaim him to be a significant figure within baseball history.

WHILE TOO MANY more likely didn’t pay much mind to Baines back in the 1980s – when he was a star outfielder with the White Sox. One who managed to keep playing all the way through 2001 as he bounced around the American League as a designated hitter with the Texas Rangers, Oakland Athletics, Cleveland Indians and two returns to the White Sox, along with three stints with the Baltimore Orioles.

Where his performance was significant enough that the Orioles themselves inducted Baines into their team's personal Hall of Fame back in 2009.

When combined with the fact that Baines had his uniform number “3” retired by the White Sox back in 1989, it seems that Harold played a significant part of baseball history – and that too many of us, for whatever reason, missed it.

But rather than admit that we might have missed out on something special, we’d rather claim it really didn’t mean a thing.

I’LL BE HONEST. I was surprised Sunday night to learn that Baines actually was chosen to be a Hall of Fame member. I knew his name was up for consideration, but I figured the baseball-types who made the decision would overlook him.

I can even comprehend why he was regarded as a long-shot for induction. His most significant statistic was 2,866 – as in the number of base hits he got during his athletic career.

It’s not far from 3,000 – which usually is regarded as an exalted figure whose achievement makes one Hall of Fame-worthy. But it still falls short, so I’m sure there are those who figure Harold Baines came close, but just wasn’t good enough.

Although back in 2014 when manager Tony LaRussa became a Hall of Famer, he actually gave Baines a plug for Cooperstown-induction by saying Harold suffered from extensive knee injuries which were the reason he had quit playing the outfield full-time.

“IF HE HAD kept his knees together, he’d have had his 3,000 hits,” said LaRussa – who apparently meant what he said because he was amongst the people who had a vote on Sunday and not only used it for Baines, he also lobbied his colleagues on Harold’s behalf.

Of course, the news reports from Sunday also indicated Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf also had a vote – causing some to claim this is merely more Chicago-style politicking and perhaps as outrageous as that 1919 White Sox team that saw eight team members indicted for criminal conspiracy to throw the World Series.

Perhaps it’s because some paid too much attention to those years where he bounced around the American League – rather than the ‘80s when he got Most Valuable Player votes every season from 1982-85 and was a top hitter for the 1983 White Sox team that was the first Chicago ballclub to ever make it to a postseason playoff spot.

Either that, or they were paying way too much attention to the Chicago Cubs – and maybe they’re miffed that Cubs star relief pitcher Lee Smith from that same era will have to share his “big day” of Hall of Fame induction with Baines.

ONE THING WILL be interesting – how much of an induction speech will Baines deliver? Since as a ballplayer, he was so low-key and quiet that part of the reason he isn’t better remembered by fans is that his ego was way under control to the point where he was easily ignored.

Although it should be noted that on Sunday when interviewed, Baines actually became choked up emotionally and had to fight back tears.

There is one thing that baseball fans will have to change – one of the stories commonly told to mock the White Sox of the Bill Veeck era was how back in 1977, they did not use their first pick in the nation for amateur ballplayers to pick a future superstar like Paul Molitor – who went on to have a Hall of Fame career with the Milwaukee Brewers – but instead picked a player whom Veeck had seen play as a local Little League star, which turned out to be Baines himself.

Now, people are going to have to say the White Sox used their rare opportunity to pick a franchise icon and Hall of Famer himself. Which also will explain how come July 21, the streets of Cooperstown will echo with the “Harold, Harold” chant so reminiscent of the old Comiskey Park itself.

  -30-

School proximity restrictions about politics more than public safety

The political reporter-type person in me always found humorous the laws that were meant to restrict proximity to a school or church – usually based on the concept that certain individuals or businesses have no business locating hear the youthful or the overly-holy amongst us.

BERRIOS: Name in news despite himself

No strip clubs or dive taverns across the street from a church or convent (remember that bar in west suburban Stone Park that ultimately lost its liquor license because the nuns nearby didn’t appreciate the drunken neighbors?).

THEY ALWAYS STRUCK me as something overly simplistic, and not always easy to enforce. Particularly if they come down to issues of “How close is too close?”

So I was intrigued by a pair of stories I stumbled across Friday.

One involved Gov. Bruce Rauner signing off on a long-standing change to state law that requires the General Assembly to approve amendments to the state’s Liquor Control Law for every instance for every instance where alcohol is served within 100 feet of a church or school.

Now, municipal officials will have the authority to issue exemptions. No more having to get the legislative types who, theoretically, ought to be preoccupied with bigger issues instead of worrying about where taverns are located in the neighborhoods.

THERE ALSO WAS a Chicago Sun-Times report about the company that oversees parking of cars for various public events at privately-owned lots.

In the instance that has the newspaper all worked up, people attending ballgames at Wrigley Field are parking their cars in, amongst other places, a lot that is part of the Inter-American School property two blocks away on Waveland Avenue.

The “controversial” part is that the Blk & Wht Valet LLC employed an individual to work at that lot who has a criminal record for sex offenses – and part of his penalty is that he is required to list himself as a sex offender, which limits the places where he can be.

RAUNER: Giving local officials more control

And as the Sun-Times chose to phrase it, their reporters found the employee in question at work, “with kids swinging on the monkey bars behind him.”

FOR THE RECORD, that employee has since been fired from his job, although it seems the company may wind up losing its contract for claims they didn’t do an adequate background check on their employee.

Although the Sun-Times reports the company saying the worker in question didn’t indicate his criminal record on his job application. Which would put this incident in the category of a person with a record hoping it wouldn’t catch up with him.

In short, an incident where such restrictions aren’t the easiest thing to enforce. I suspect, however, this particular worker is going to think he’s the victim – yet another incident of “the system” working to keep him unemployed.

One thing that caught my attention is the political connections of the company that, basically, is using other peoples’ property to park cars near Wrigley, along with Guaranteed Rate Field and the United Center.

ONE OWNER IS the son-in-law of soon-to-be former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios (he’s married to former state Rep. Toni Berrios) and also is a grandson of a former Chicago Public Schools official with ties to the 11^th Ward Democratic Organization (a.k.a., the Daley family).

How tame is parking nearby?

By comparison, Rauner indicated his support of the state law change is meant to create greater local control, since he told the Chicago Tribune that many state legislators used the law to maintain a sense of local influence in their home neighborhoods.

After all, getting the legislator to support your measure would require a campaign contribution to the appropriate authority, with other legislators across the state sticking up for their colleagues even though they often knew nothing of the local situation.

So no matter how much people spew rhetoric about these laws somehow benefitting children and the public safety, in the end, they all come down to political concerns.

  -30-

How do disabled watch Chicago baseball? Should they switch ballclubs?

It will be interesting to see what becomes of a lawsuit filed recently that says the Chicago Cubs are now in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act – the federal law that governs how accessible buildings must be to people with physical disabilities.

Were wheelchairs at ballpark even contemplated in so-called good ol' days?

In this case, a 20-year-old Cubs fan whose father is a prominent attorney is suing the ball club because he doesn’t like the way renovations of Wrigley Field in recent years have altered the seating made available to people who must use wheelchairs to get around.

THIS PARTICULAR FAN used to like to sit in the space out beyond the right-field fence between the bleachers and the foul pole – on the Sheffield Avenue side of the building, to be exact.

The Cubs used to use that space to allow wheelchair-bound fans to park themselves during ball games and watch from their own seats. The fan says in his lawsuit that he enjoyed being able to sit out in the sunshine (of a day game, presumably) while watching a ballgame.

But with the renovations of recent years, that space has now been filled in with an outdoor bar that’s supposed to add to the ambiance of the ball park – while making it easier for bleacher fanatics to get themselves an over-priced drink (everything associated with ball parks these days is overpriced, so that’s not a slander aimed only at the Cubs).

Wrigley portion focus of lawsuit. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

His lawsuit also points out that the Cubs used to have a space in the grandstand behind home plate where wheelchair-bound fans could park themselves. It actually put them in front of many other fans, which meant the disabled got a particularly-prime location within the Wrigley Field seating.

NOW, THE LAWSUIT contends, wheelchair-bound people must park themselves in a spot several rows further up – and when the bulk of Cubbie fandom chooses to stand and cheer, it becomes impossible for the wheelchair-bound to see anything!

What an outrage!!!!!

How do disabled maneuver the crowds?

Although I couldn’t help but notice many people using the Internet and the Chicago Tribune to comment (anonymously, of course) about the lawsuit in negative ways; trying to claim that this particular wheelchair-bound fan (he’s coped with muscular dystrophy for half his life) is merely upset he can’t get a prime spot in the ballpark.

Doesn’t he realize life ain’t fair? Which is a rather cold-hearted approach to take toward life.

MY OWN REACTION is to wonder just how far this particular lawsuit will go in the courts. Since it seems based on the premise that the Cubs ought to have to undo many of the changes made in the structure in recent years – whose purpose was to add private clubs in the ball park and also some prime seating that could go for top dollar.

Are the Cubs really trying to bolster their financial bottom line by reducing the number of disabled who can enter the ball park?

The Sout' Side's wheelchair view of the playing field

I’d almost suggest those fans dump the Cubs and start attending Chicago White Sox games, where the existing stadium puts disabled people in the lower deck concourse (the space where all the concessions stands are located). People can park their wheelchairs right up against the existing seats.

When I’ve noticed them at ballgames, it’s almost like they’re part of the existing crowd – only they brought their own chairs. Which means I’d hope those fans would get some sort of financial break on ticket prices – although I’m not naïve enough to think that’s so.

BUT THEN AGAIN, I’ve heard Cubs fans dump on the White Sox because the ball club puts those with wheelchairs behind the grandstand seats, rather than amidst them.

Although personally, I’d think that the heavy presence of elevators at Guaranteed Rate Field (unlike the century-old Wrigley Field) would make it much easier to maneuver around.

But as I wrote easier, we’ll see how seriously the courts take this lawsuit. Because I’m sure the Cubs will argue they’re playing ballgames in a century-old building that, if you truly maintained its historic character, was never intended to accommodate wheelchairs.

Frivolous lawsuit? Or discrimination against the disabled? We’ll wait and see.

  -30-

Netting at the ol' ball game? Why not!

Do you want to provoke a serious argument with a fan of professional baseball?

This netting the last time I went to a ballgame in Gary, Ind., didn't stop me from seeing on-field action. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

If so, bring up whether Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Or whether baseball ought to get realistic and adopt the designated hitter in both of the major leagues.

IF YOU HAVEN’T aggravated enough people with those lines of inquiry, then bring up the idea of whether baseball stadiums ought to extend the screens that now exist behind home plate to stretch all the way around the playing field.

Should fans have to have some sort of netting between them and the playing field to offer some sort of protection from balls hit into the stands? Is the act of watching a baseball game so potentially hazardous that teams ought to offer their fans some form of protection?

The issue, which has cropped up in baseball fan debate sporadically in recent years, was raised to a higher level last week when a fan at Yankee Stadium in New York got hit by a ball hit into the stands. The statistical desire to show how far and how hard all home runs were hit was used to show that this particular foul ball was traveling at 105 miles an hour at the time the fan was hit.

Does anybody pay attention to signs like this?

It’s no wonder she had to be taken to an area hospital for some medical treatment.

THIS ISN’T EVEN a lone incident. For it seems that on Friday, a fan attending a Chicago White Sox game at Guaranteed Rate Field got hit in the mouth by a foul ball hit by Brandon Moss of the Kansas City Royals.

Do ball clubs think this sign is adequate protection?

White Sox officials were quick to point out that the fan did not have to be taken to an area hospital. Although the Associated Press reported that the fan was seen publicly for some time holding a napkin to her face at the spot where she got hit by the ball.

Now a Royal, his foul hit fan in mouth

This particular fan was seated about 30 feet behind the first base dugout being used by the Kansas City Royals. Which is a prime seat, but also provides just enough distance that some people could be naively conned into thinking they are far enough from the playing field to avoid being hit.

Now as things are now at Guaranteed Rate Field, there is a netting that stretches a few dozen feet high right behind home plate. But once you move down the foul lines, you’re exposed. A lot of foul balls can come whizzing your way, if you’re not paying attention.

WHICH MAY BE the real problem. Too many people go to ballgames, but really don’t pay attention to what’s happening on the field. Meaning a line drive could turn foul and whiz right by their head – and they wouldn’t notice until it’s too late.

The first designated hitter

Now I know some baseball fans who insist the reason they don’t sit in seats right behind home plate (aside from the fact they’re cheap and don’t want to pay the prime prices for such tickets) is because they don’t like the obstruction of their view of the game that the netting supposedly causes.

I don’t buy it. That netting usually tends to fade out of one’s view quickly enough, and perhaps those fans down the foul lines need to be protected from their own vacuousness. Because the courts have previously ruled that line of small type ball clubs used to print on the back of tickets implying that people who attend games assume all risks of being injured doesn’t mean a thing.

Oh, Hell no!!!

I also know there are those who go to ballgames (usually on tickets provided by someone else, so they didn’t really pay the absurdly high prices of major league ball these days) who don’t pay attention. I’ve encountered too many of these knuckleheads who try to mock those people who DO pay attention to the playing field.

AS FOR THE idea of netting being unsightly, I recall when I attended ballgames at the old Vonachen Stadium in Peoria, Ill. Netting extended from one end of the grandstand to the other. All seats had

Maybe someday in Cooperstown?

something offering protection – although admittedly, the minor league grandstand only stretched from first base to third base and did not go all the way down to the foul lines.

This is something that ball clubs are going to have to take on just to avoid the perception that going to a ballgame is a hazard to one’s health. The reality is that modern-day stadiums with all their gadgets and attractions offer too many distractions. Perhaps netting from foul pole to foul pole is the price we pay.

Which I’m sure is a concept so radical for some people – perhaps even more upsetting to their concept of how things should be than my suggestions that it’s time the National League get off its high horse and realize the designated hitter has arrived and is part of the modern-day game.

And as for Pete Rose in the Baseball Hall of Fame? I’d sooner see Sammy Sosa there!!!

  -30-

Does a ring really make up for shabby treatment of Bartman through years?

To me, the scary part of the whole ‘Bartman affair’ is that it offers up actual evidence that Homer Simpson was right when he commented on a long-ago episode about sports fans’ behavior.

Steve Bartman is the Chicago Cubs fan (a concept I never will be able to comprehend) who for 14 years has been blamed by so many other Cubs fans for the failure of the ball club to win the National League championship of 2003.

HE TRULY HAS been reviled for the fact that when he attended Game Six of the final round of National League playoffs that season, he was one of several fans who tried to catch a ball that wound up in the stands.

But which Cubs outfielder Moises Alou ranted and raged at the time he should have been able to catch as a foul ball for an out.

Bartman didn’t even get the ball, but the public perception was that fan interference by the computer programmer was to blame for Alou being unable to make the catch.

Cubs fans just wanted an excuse for Alou’s failure, and the following error by shortstop Alex Gonzalez – both of which caused a seven-run rally that blew a Cubs lead and resulted in the Florida Marlins ultimately going on to the World Series that year.

BUT BARTMAN HAS had to take the blame, to the point where there have been times in his life he’s had to live in seclusion. He definitely has had to keep a low profile in life, all because of the Cubs fan-types who believe Simpson when he said, “this ticket (to a ballgame) doesn’t just give me a seat, it gives me the right, NO the DUTY, to make a complete ass of myself.”

Cubs fans have certainly lived up to that standard whenever the subject comes up.

To the degree that Cubs ownership this week felt compelled to have a special ring made up of their 2016 World Series-winning accomplishment, and to present it to Bartman.

Sort of an apology by the ball club for all the harassment he’s had to endure, when in reality he was just another geeky Cubs fan who was probably just as disappointed as anybody else that the baby blue bears didn’t win it all in ’03.

FOR WHAT IT’S worth, any Cubs fan can go to the Josten’s store set up at Wrigley Field this season and buy themselves a ring – a $299 starting price, or $499 for the deluxe model.

But this particular one is going to have the unique status of having been issued to Bartman himself. Should he ever try to sell it, the ring will be worth more than just the current value of the diamonds used to piece it together.

This ring may well wind up being one of those items that is the basis of the Bartman estate that gets passed down through the generations. I almost feel sorry for anyone pathetic enough who in the future tries to steal it – it would be too hot for anyone else to legally get anything for it.

Personally, I’ve always viewed the whole Affair le Bartman as evidence of the irrationality of the Chicago Cubs and their fan base. Blaming a guy sitting in a seat down the left field foul line for the activity that occurred on the playing field.

BY COMPARISON, FANS of the Chicago White Sox (a more sensible breed on so many levels) know the reason their ball club lost the 1983 American League playoffs was due to a baserunning gaffe by infielder Jerry Dybzinski. Only Cubs fans want to place blame elsewhere other than the playing field.

So it may be a bit extravagant that the Cubs management felt compelled to issue such an expensive (and gaudy, to be honest) piece of jewelry.

Although I like Bartman’s own attitude – he issued a statement in which he said, “my hope is that we all can learn from my experience to view sports as entertainment and prevent harsh scapegoating.”

While in reality, I suspect what he wants to do is be able to go back to being just another anonymous schmo sitting in the stands while watching a ballgame.

  -30-

EXTRA: Cubs play like their cubbie selves; blow ballgame to Yankees 3-2

It was a bright, sunny Friday afternoon in Lake View, nice-enough looking that many people were willing to ignore the 50-degree chill that felt downright frigid.

My view of Joe Mantegna's ceremonial first pitch -- I had to watch the video screen in left field. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

The Chicago Cubs managed to jump to a 2-0 lead against the New York Yankees, and were one out away from winning before Brett Gardner knocked a three-run home run – allowing hard-throwing relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman of the Yankees to treat the Cubbies the same way he treated the Cleveland Indians last year while pitching for the Cubs in the World Series.

Do Cubs fans wish baseball was an eight-inning game?

I WAS THERE, sitting in my overpriced ($65, plus tax) seat in the uppermost row of the upper deck – with a post obstructing any view I would have of the pitcher.

It seems that many other people felt there were flaws in the views they were officially supposed to have of the ballgame. Which is why the concourse was packed with people gathering around the television monitors set up near concessions stands.

Also, the outdoor Park At Wrigley set up just to the west of Wrigley Field (the third base side) also had a crowd of people gathered outside watching a giant video screen broadcast of the game.

These people paid for the right to sit outside of Wrigley Field ...

And before you presume that it is possible for people to hang out outside the ballpark and still watch the game, you have to have a ticket to hang out in the park area.

... and watch the game on television, while others ...

SO WHAT YOU really have are people who pay the top prices to get themselves tickets to enter the stadium, then choose to spend their time watching the game on television. Which to my mindset makes no sense!

... watched the broadcast while ordering food

To me, watching a broadcast is something I do in the comfort of my own home – avoiding the hassle of transporting myself to Clark and Addison streets and dealing with the crowds and the cold weather and ridiculously absurd prices charged these days for stadium concessions ($7.50 for a hot dog, $10.50 for a beer).

Just one other thought about Friday’s ballgame, where actor Joe Mantegna tossed out the ceremonial first pitch – and bounced the ball about two feet in front of home plate. He grimaced and expressed some shame at his weak toss, although I'd argue he has nothing to feel bad about.

Sitting in the uppermost row of the ballpark, I had the protective netting hanging about two feet above my head

Many generations of Cubs pitchers have thrown equally-weak pitches from that very same mound; leading to the generations of blown ballgames Cubs fans have had to endure.

Cubs fans upset with Friday's outcome could have consoled themselves by purchasing a replica Cubs World Series ring at the Jostens gift shop that will be in Wrigley Field for the rest of 2017

  -30-

Baseball is back! Or, is 2019 the year us Chicago fans ought to look forward to?

There are some of us who consider ourselves Chicago baseball fans who are deluded enough to think the new season began Sunday night what with that ballgame played in St. Louis. But for those of us who will always view the existence of the Cubs as an irrelevancy, the season begins Monday.

Waiting for the first smashed window of '17. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

For the Detroit Tigers are in town to play the Chicago White Sox, while other ball clubs also get their first games of the 2017 season in as they try to keep alive the illusion that they’re legitimate contenders for a championship this year.

WE’LL GET OUR introduction to the concept of “Guaranteed Rate Field” (which is really nothing more than a U.S. Cellular Field relabeled), while Chicago Cubs fans will have to wait a few more days before they’ll be capable of seeing their favorite ball club take to the playing field live.

Since that night in early November when we saw the sight of the World Series ending with an extra-inning infield groundout, some of us filled our need to see athletic activity by enduring the misery of the Chicago Bears or the mediocrity of the Chicago Bulls.

Personally, I took to following beisbol in the Latin American leagues, where Puerto Rico got to see some highlights.

A Boricuan ball club won the Caribbean Series, beating a team from Mexico in the championship game. While in the World Baseball Classic, a team from Puerto Rico had dreams of going through the tourney completely UNDEFEATED before, in its final game, it fell short to a United States nation team.

Quintana still the White Sox ace, for now!

ALL OF WHICH were moments to enjoy watching. But there is still something special about the return of American and National league activity. The ability to go out and watch a ballgame live – which is an experience unlike any other sporting activity.

There’s nothing quite like the battle between a pitcher and a hitter – each trying to outthink the other so they can come out ahead in a ballgame.

By comparison, watching a seven-footer stuff a basketball through a hoop mounted 10 feet in the air seems so cheap.

I’m anxious to see the series of activity that will take place over the course of the 162-game seasons that our city’s two major league ball clubs will play. I’ll probably even follow the activity of the minor league ball club in Geneva, or the independent leagues that have teams in places like Joliet, Schaumburg, Crestwood or Gary, Ind.

Did you see 'ESPN, the Magazine' report about all the Twinkies Moncada ate?

NOT THAT I seriously expect to see a championship ball club in the area (no matter the delusions of those Cubs fans who think they’re now entitled to a string of seasons of historic sporting significance).

There’s a reason why no National League team has won two straight World Series titles since 1975-76 – it’s tough! Particularly with all the rounds of playoffs we now require before teams even get to a World Series. Even the American League has only produced two teams (the New York Yankees of 1977-78 and 1998-2000 and Toronto Blue Jays of 1992-93) that succeeded.

Is Kris Bryant so wonderful ...

Besides, those Cincinnati Reds teams that were successful those two years had talent that cause some people to think they were amongst the best baseball teams EVER (although anyone who’s serious knows the Oakland Athletics of ’71-’75 topped them).

I don’t think anybody seriously thinks the modern-day incarnation of the Cubs is THAT great. Or that any of their individual ballplayers are at the top of the list of even the Cubs’ elite (unless we’re prepared to finally dump the image of Ron Santo as an all-time great just because we now have Kris Bryant).

... that Cubs fans will drop Santo's status?

THEY MAY HAVE an interesting ball club. But there’s no guarantee of a World Series title, or even an appearance. Perhaps similar to the White Sox, who likely will show some signs of competence, but we’ll be waiting to see if there’s potential for long-term growth for the Sox.

Personally, the part of me following Chicago baseball is more interested in the potential for 2019 – which would be the centennial of that infamous World Series when the White Sox lost to the Reds and eight players ultimately were indicted on criminal charges they were offered money to lose!

New season brings back old memories

Maybe 2019 is the perfect timing for a White Sox team to grow into a championship team in its own right and play in a World Series against the Cubs.

A real-life “City Series” (the only in Chicago since 1906) that would help resolve many of the bar-room arguments about “Sox vs. Cubs” – and letting us see the inherent superiority of a certain Sout’ Side ball club.

  -30-

Chicagoans would rather watch playoff baseball than crummy football

I happened to eat dinner Thursday night at a Mexican restaurant that had two televisions set up at opposite ends of the dining hall.
 

Will these be legitimate next week, or just good for a laugh?

One tuned to the National League playoff game in which the Chicago Cubs ultimately beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, placing themselves one win away from their first league championship in 71 years.

THE OTHER SET was tuned to Thursday Night Football – whose broadcast this week was the usual Chicago sporting favorite, the Bears, takin on their arch-rivals, the Green Bay Packers.

Usually, that’s a game that gets sports-oriented people in Chicago to wet their drawers with glee and excitement. It stirs up a lot of rhetoric, regardless of how either team is playing.

Simply put, the fact that the Bears have won only one game this season shouldn’t have put a damper on the event. But it did.

The television ratings that came in for Thursday night showed the Cubs broadcast in Chicago getting a 24.1 share, which translates roughly to 1 million people in the metropolitan area actually watching the ballgame.

BY COMPARISON, THE Bears only got a 12.8 share, or just over half of what the Cubs managed to attract.

So much for the notion that Chicago is primarily a football town and that it is the Bears who are the team that manages to bring the city together as a whole in spirit.

'85 Bears still the big gun of Chicago sports memories?

Although I have always thought that Chicago is primarily a baseball town and that a local fan’s baseball preference is always stronger than what he feels for the Bears. Only with the baseball fandom split between two ball clubs, it means the Bears can claim a larger audience than either team. Which makes me wonder what things would be like if the Cardinals had never left town and remained a charter member of the NFL on the South Side?

Former Bears coach Mike Ditka, who has made his efforts to stay in the public eye by latching onto Cubs attention and publicly rooting for the team to make it to the World Series next week, has said he thinks a Cubs World Series title would be bigger than the ’85 Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl victory.

Did '05 Sox top Bears in some minds?

IT WOULD BE to that segment of Chicago sporting society that cares about the Cubs. Just keep in mind that to White Sox fans, their ’05 World Series win already has topped the Bears in importance, and there’s no way a stinkin’ Cubs pennant would ever top the memories of Paul Konerko, Mark Buehrle and manager Ozzie Guillen signaling for the big, tall and fat relief pitcher to come in to save the game.

Not that any of this detracts from what the Bears accomplished 31 years ago by becoming the first Chicago team in decades to win a thing.

If anything, what with the Bears, the Bulls, the Blackhawks and White Sox all having won championships within our lifetimes, it probably is about time that the Cubs get off their duffs and win something – just so we can quit thinking there’s anything particularly special about them.

It’s about time that the Cubs win something so we can put a rest to those out-of-town types who denigrate the Chicago sporting experience – largely by claiming there can’t be anything special about a city that takes a team with the Cubs’ losing ways at all seriously.

Still a 21st Century 1st for Chicago

ALTHOUGH ONE CAN argue that the new Cubs management has already succeeded in that they have put together a ball club that will likely be a legitimate contender for the rest of this decade. Even if the Dodgers manage to prevail this weekend, the Cubs probably will be in the running for a championship come 2017.

There’s also the fact that even if the Cubs were to win a thing (and I don’t doubt there are many Chicagoans who dread the very concept), all it would really mean is that the Cubs will finally have matched the White Sox in championships achieved during this century.

One!

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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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