Gossage, Sutter departures so typical of Chicago baseball

When it comes to Chicago baseball, ineptitude is the norm.

The Chicago White Sox have only managed to win two American League championships since 1920. That makes them the successful franchise, by Chicago standards. The Cubs haven’t won anything in the National League since (in the words of immortal folk singer Steve Goodman) “the year we dropped the bomb on Japan.”

For those who wonder how two organizations can combine for such ineptitude, all I have to do is think back to 1976. That year explains everything.

The Bicentennial year saw both teams finish in last place in their respective divisions. It also was the one season the Chicago baseball scene included two of the greatest relief pitchers ever to play Major League Baseball.

Bruce Sutter was a rookie that season with the Cubs, and he quickly established himself as having an incredible pitch (the split-finger fastball) that made him un-hittable for an inning or two at a time. That pitch led him through a major league career that resulted in him being inducted last year into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

The Hall of Fame is going to announce a new crop of inductees on Tuesday. Observers say there’s a very good chance that Rich Gossage will be among the honored ballplayers.

Gossage was a White Sox discovery, as the Sox signed him out of high school, brought him up through their minor league system, then got five seasons out of him at the major league level – running through 1976.

If Gossage actually gets inducted into the Hall of Fame someday (and in my opinion, that honor is long overdue), then my gut reaction is going to be to wonder, “What if?”

What if two of the top-ranking relief pitchers of their era and all time had stuck out the bulk of their careers in Chicago? Could there be a championship flag or two flying over a Chicago ballpark (other than the White Sox of 2005) that doesn’t date back to the nineteen-aughts or teens?

What if Gossage and Sutter had been dueling competitors for the Sox and the Cubs? Just imagine how much fun it could have been arguing about which team has the top closer (It was Gossage, although Sutter was not that far behind him in being un-hittable in the clutch). It would have been as much fun as 1950’s era fans arguing best shortstop, Luis Aparicio or Ernie Banks, or best hitter of the 1990s, Frank Thomas or Sammy Sosa.

Before one argues that Gossage and Sutter are evidence of the greed of the modern day ballplayer, keep in mind that both men were traded away by their respective Chicago ball clubs.

Gossage was sent to the Pittsburgh Pirates for the 1977 season in exchange for slugging outfielder Richie Zisk, who paired up with Oscar Gamble to slug the Sox into contention for a division title for that one year.

The Cubs sent Sutter away to the St. Louis Cardinals after 1980 in exchange for Ken Reitz and Leon Durham, who wound up making what turned out to be the game-losing error that cost the Cubs a National League pennant in 1984.

What makes it so sad is that this isn’t a case like when the Cubs traded future Hall of Fame outfielder Lou Brock to the Cardinals. One can argue that Brock showed nothing of his future promise playing in Chicago, and probably needed to get away from the Cubs in order to become the star ballplayer he was capable of being.

It was obvious to baseball fans back then that the Chicago teams had something special in the forms of Gossage and Sutter.

During the early-to-mid-1970s, the White Sox were actually respected for having two top arms to pitch in relief. It is ironic that, at the time, Terry Forster was actually thought of as No. 1 (with Gossage as a close 1A). The Sox used to ration out relief appearances to give both men equal innings, which prevented either from becoming tired out during the course of a 162-game season.

The reason Gossage had such an awful final season in Chicago (9 wins, 17 losses, a 3.94 earned run average and 135 strikeouts in 224 innings pitched) was because that was the year the Sox tried to convert him into a starting pitcher. The shortsighted theory was that he had the best pitching arm on an awful ball club, and could be of more use throwing every four games rather than pitching out of jams every game or two.

Sutter quickly showed he was a star. With his unique pitch (which is really a variation on the forkball thrown by pitchers for decades), he became un-hittable. He brought a touch of prestige to Cubs teams of the late 1970s that struggled to avoid losing 100 games a season by making the National League All Star team four times and winning the Cy Young Award as the league’s best pitcher in 1979.

But after an arbitrator forced the Cubs to pay Sutter a top salary worthy of being arguably the best relief pitcher in baseball, he was traded away. The Wrigley family who then owned the Cubs was infuriated at the “gall” of Sutter to challenge what they wanted to pay him, which admittedly would still have been a respectable amount of money for that era.

Sutter went on to become the greatest relief pitcher in the history of the St. Louis Cardinals, and was an integral part of the Cardinals team that beat the Milwaukee Brewers in the 1982 World Series.

Likewise, Gossage left the Pirates after one season, becoming a free agent and signing his own big-money contract with the New York Yankees – where for the next six years he challenged Sutter for the title of baseball’s best relief pitcher.

It is appropriate to anyone who remembers the early-to-mid-1980s that when Sutter was inducted into the Hall of Fame, his bronze image at the Cooperstown museum depicts him as a Cardinal.

In the same way, any future bronze image of Gossage will show him as a Yankee.

And in Chicago, all we can do is curse out our teams’ inability to keep the star players they develop, while dreaming of what could have been – Sutter’s Hall of Fame plaque showing a capital “C” and the Gossage plaque depicting the old-English script logo spelling out “Sox.”

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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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Statehouse could pass for Rick's Cafe these days

When I learned that the Illinois General Assembly did nothing Wednesday during its “specially called” late afternoon session to address Chicago’s mass transit funding problems, I felt like Capt. Renault.

The Claude Rains character from the film “Casablanca” was, “shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on” at Rick’s Café Americain, and I was “shocked, shocked to find” our state’s Legislature unable to do anything to find the money needed to maintain current levels of bus and elevated train service in the Second City.

I held out slight hope early in the day, when I read stories on web sites maintained by Crain’s Chicago Business and WBBM-TV, both of which noted Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s order to bring the Legislature into session at 5 p.m. so they could take action on some measure that would resolve the funding shortfalls for the Chicago Transit Authority.

Instead, the Legislature snubbed the governor. The Illinois Senate was only in session for two minutes before adjourning. By comparison, the Illinois House of Representatives put in 650 percent more time – which means they were in session for 13 minutes.

Now special sessions in Springfield (where lawmakers are forced to gather to deal specifically with one question) work well when the Legislature’s leaders have a plan, usually one that has been negotiated with the governor.

Lawmakers in the Illinois House and state Senate show up at the Statehouse, participate in the process of ramming a bill based on the plan through legislative committees, and then put it up for a vote by both chambers. Then they go home.

In theory, a Legislature that started at about 5 p.m. Wednesday could have given final approval to a solution by about 2 or 3 a.m. Thursday, and Blagojevich could have signed it into law in the next couple of days.

That would have averted the talk of crisis, by which the CTA says it will have to make major cuts in its bus and train service – 81 of 154 bus routes would disappear and up to 2,400 workers could be laid off – if there is no solution in place by Jan. 20.

But it was a complete waste of time for Blagojevich to call the Legislature into session when there was no plan for how to find the money needed for mass transit.

In fact, there has been no movement whatsoever toward negotiating a solution, as Blagojevich is barely on speaking terms with the two leaders – House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President Emil Jones – who are ostensibly his Democratic allies.

Calling the General Assembly into special session Wednesday was nothing more than a cheap trick by Blagojevich to try to make the general public think it was the Legislature’s failure to act that will cause service cuts.

Chicagoans who wake up on Monday, Jan. 20 and try to take the bus to work, only to discover that their neighborhood bus route no longer exists, are going to be angry. When coupled with the fact that many Chicagoans pay little attention to state government (thinking of it as a second-tier organization that ranks beneath the City Council in importance), many could take that anger out on their local legislator.

That’s really not fair. The legislators who make up the rank and file of the General Assembly would liked to have had a serious plan to consider last night.

They would have enjoyed casting a vote on a solution to the mass transit problem. Heck, they wanted to vote on a funding proposal several months ago. It is not their fault that this problem from last spring has lingered for so long.

For those who wonder why don’t the legislators pass something on their own, it doesn’t work that way. The legislative leaders determine when bills can be called for a vote, and they are not inclined these days to lift a finger to help Blagojevich look good.

Your local legislator is stuck having to wait for the powers-that-be to come up with a solution, and they are nowhere close to doing that. That’s why some legislators have been known to jokingly refer to themselves as “mushrooms;” because they’re always kept in the dark about things.

Of course, the legislators can engage in their own immature behavior. How did they respond to Wednesday’s call for a special session?

After participating in the brief non-sessions, they held committee meetings at the Statehouse, where they spent their time discussing Blagojevich’s proposal to shift $385 million in regional gas tax revenues to mass transit funding.

Instead of trying to find a real solution, they spent their time taking cheap shots at the Blagojevich plan, lambasting the governor for robbing money intended to pay for road maintenance.

No one is seriously trying to find a permanent solution to the mass transit problem. Blagojevich may try to come up with another temporary solution to flush some money to the CTA and delay service cuts, but lawmakers as a whole are more concerned these days about taking steps that will give them political cover and allow them to try to shift the blame off onto someone else.

Insofar as commuters are concerned, what is the bottom line?

People who rely on CTA buses or “L” trains to get to work or travel about town had better figure out an alternative transit solution pretty quickly, or else they’ll be stranded in a Chicago winter cold waiting for a bus that never shows.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The General Assembly’s lack of action Wednesday on mass transit funding problems is detailed here: http://cbs2chicago.com/local/cta.funding.crisis.2.621513.html

It feels so good to be relevant again

Perhaps this is selfish of me, but I’m glad to hear that voters in Iowa are so closely split on the presidential candidates that no one candidate is likely to gain a significant bounce from Thursday’s caucus activity.

It has been discouraging in recent presidential election years to know that the nominations for both political parties were virtually wrapped up by the time Illinois’ primary elections came around.

The worst had to be in 2000, which is the one time in my life I used an absentee ballot to cast my vote. I chose a Democratic ballot and cast my vote in advance of Election Day for the campaign of former Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey.

By the time Election Day came around in Illinois, it was a done deal that Al Gore would win the Democratic Party’s nomination to try to succeed President Clinton. Bradley had already dropped out of the race.

My vote truly was wasted.

This year, Illinois moved up its primary from mid-March to Feb. 5, with the deadline for registering to vote set for this coming Tuesday. The so-called “Tsunami Tuesday” in February will see voters in Illinois and 21 other states cast their ballots.

What amazes me is that Illinois’ elections will come on the same day as New York and California. Just think; voters in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago all will be casting their votes at the same time.

We’re going to be part of a massive flood of Americans who set the stage that day for the Nov. 4 general election for president.

Will we literally get the sight of Hawaii native-turned-Chicagoan Barack Obama standing on a Chicago stage while learning he will be the Democratic nominee? Will Chicago-area turncoat Hillary Clinton (the New Yawker was raised in Park Ridge, Ill.) succeed in squashing Obama and the other Dems that day?

Or are we destined for the upset of the 21st Century – a Bill Richardson victory?

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Obama meant for bigger playing fields than Springpatch

The Illinois General Assembly had just sworn in new members about an hour earlier on Jan. 8, 1997, when a Democratic legislative aide led a gangly newcomer to the Statehouse pressroom to meet me as part of a quickie tour of the capitol building.

Back then, I covered Illinois politics and oversaw a bureau for United Press International. The aide was an aspiring political operative who previously held my job with UPI, and he brought the freshman state Senator for an introduction in hopes that some spark might arise that could pay off big in the future – stories for me and sympathetic coverage for the new senator.

It didn’t quite work out that way, and it’s a shame for me professionally because the skinny senator with a big grin was Barack Obama.

At the moment Obama approached me, I was tied up in trying to grind out stories about the swearing in of a new Legislature; one that shifted control of the Illinois House of Representatives back to the Democrats and ended a two-year era in which Republicans dominated Illinois politics, controlling everything except the state Supreme Court.

Hence, our first meeting was little more than a handshake and a promise to get together in the future to talk more extensively about issues – which turned out to be like those promises to “do lunch” that never come about.

Now I can make excuses by saying the GOP still controlled the state Senate and was run by a man – James “Pate” Philip of Wood Dale – who was particularly determined to let Democrats know they were irrelevant. So meeting any freshman Democratic senator was a low priority for me.

But the reason I remember the meeting so vividly is because I remember later that day kicking myself for not getting something more from Obama. I sensed he was going to be someone special in public life, although if I would have had to bet money back then on his future, I would have guessed he’d become a member of a president’s Cabinet instead of sitting at the head of the table.

I had heard from Springfield about Obama’s 1996 Illinois Senate campaign on the South Side of Chicago, where he was able to run unopposed by forcing an incumbent member of the Senate to drop out of the race to avoid an investigation into whether her nominating petitions were legally flawed.

I had already read his first book, “Dreams from My Father,” and was in awe of the notion that someone barely older than I am (he’s got four years on me) could have enough self-confidence to think his life story was worth having others read about.

Many of my colleagues in the Statehouse press corps and political people who worked in the Statehouse thought differently. “Arrogant” and “elitist” were among the terms I heard used to describe Obama.

It didn’t help that Obama officially was part of the Legislature’s Black Caucus, consisting of the African-American legislators from inner city Chicago and East St. Louis and usually comprising about 30 of the 177 members of the General Assembly.

To the many lawmakers who came from areas where African-American people were non-existent, the caucus often came across as something alien and shrill -- best marginalized or outright ignored.

When Obama tried to overcome that attitude by creating ties with suburban Chicago and rural lawmakers (including Republicans), his Black Caucus colleagues began to distrust him.

There also was that degree from Harvard Law School, which made Obama stand out among a pack of lawmakers – many of whom got their legal education at the Chicago-Kent School of Law or the law school at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

Not to knock the quality of an education one can receive at either of those institutions, but the criticisms that Obama was an “Ivy League snob” all too often sounded like petty jealousy, rather than any serious reason to doubt Obama’s ability.

For Obama’s sake, it was a good thing that he moved “up and out” from Springfield, Ill., and into the world of public policy in Washington.

While D.C. has its share of political hacks, Statehouse scenes usually are dominated by people who can block out the Big World picture and get ahead by being able to master arcane legislative procedures to get bills passed into law. Concern about whether those laws benefit the public is irrelevant.

Alton Miller, in his memoir of what it was like to work for Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, quoted his former boss (who also served in Congress and the Illinois House) as saying, “the IQ standard is about as high (in Congress) as you’re going to get anywhere in the world. I mean the average is way up there. It’s not like City Council, or the state legislature.”

So as Obama prepares for his first serious test of whether or not he’s a legitimate candidate for president, I must admit I’ll be watching Thursday’s caucus results in Iowa closely, even though I’m not sure yet whether I’ll vote for him. There are aspects of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards that I find appealing. Even Bill Richardson could make a fine office holder, even though he has run a worthless campaign to date.

Obama’s not the first Chicago political type I covered to move on to Washington. I have first-hand memories of about a half-dozen of the 19 current members of Illinois’ congressional delegation. I also remember past D.C. bigwigs like Carol Moseley-Braun from when she was a lowly state legislator and Cook County recorder of deeds.

But it would be nice to say I saw a future president in his early stages. I only wish I had a quirky story to tell of Obama’s formative days at the Statehouse in Springpatch.

The best I can do off the top of my head is to recall one St. Patrick’s Day (either 1998 or 1999) when the debate in the Illinois Senate was getting a little giddy (maybe somebody snuck in some green beer).

Suddenly, now-retired state Sen. Denny Jacobs, an East Moline Democrat, felt the need to get up and say that St. Patrick’s Day was a wonderful holiday because it was a day on which everybody could be Irish.

His evidence? “Why look at my colleague, Barack O’Bama!”

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EXTRA! EXTRA! It's a Girl

For those of you who just have to know, the first baby born in Chicago for 2008 is a girl, born to a couple at 12:12 a.m. Tuesday at Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center on Chicago's Northwest Side.

Both mother and daughter, who has not yet been named, are reportedly doing fine, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Here are the details of newborns who came into this world on the first day of the Centennial of the last Chicago Cubs' World Series victory.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/721735,nybabies10108.article

The real question is to wonder whether the Cubs will ever win a World Series during their lifetimes?

Cutesy First Baby stories become ugly

Today is the worst day of the year for a news junkie such as myself because I could have told you months ago what Tuesday’s big local news story will be – a newborn child who came out of the mother’s womb at “one second after midnight” is the first-born baby of the new year.

The First Baby story bugs me every year. It is so artificial that it is the very definition of junk news – trying to attach significance to a meaningless fact.

I understand the story’s point is to allow television stations and newspapers to show pictures of a beaming mother, sighing with relief that the pain of childbirth is over while she is holding her newborn baby boy or girl, who is at that stage in life when – even if kind of ugly – the baby’s still cute.

But in the overall story of life, there’s little difference between the baby born at 11:57 p.m. on Dec. 31 and the one born at 12:01 p.m. on Jan. 1. There’s no Tens of Thousands of Dollars in Cash and Prizes awaiting the parents of the First Baby.

But hospitals take the story so seriously. Each of them wants the free publicity of being able to say their doctors delivered the First Baby.

Think I’m kidding?

I still remember 1989’s First Baby in Chicago story very well. Back then, I was a reporter for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago, and that was the year of my life when I worked extensively on the overnight shift.

So when 1988 became 1989, I was working. Because senior editors all had holidays off, I was actually in charge that night in determining which stories were covered by the wire service.

So in the 20 or so minutes right after midnight, the City News Bureau got several telephone calls from area hospitals. Memory says seven hospitals had their public relations people call us to claim they had babies who were born in the minute or two after midnight.

One hospital official wanted to know how much she would have to adjust the official time to get their newborn baby into the running to be THE STORY as First Born Baby in Chicago for 1989.

In the end, we had two hospitals both claiming to have had babies born within 10 seconds after the stroke of midnight.

I went ahead and made a judgment call. It’s a tie!

That’s how the City News Bureau reported the story. That’s how news radio stations picked up the story in the morning. Later in the day, Chicago’s television stations sent news crews out to talk to both sets of parents, and the newspapers the next morning recognized our self-declared tie as the official result.

What is sad about all of this is that a third hospital called in after the initial outburst of telephone calls, and after we had made the call that the First Baby was a two-way tie. That hospital was claiming to also have had a baby born in the first minute after midnight, and they wanted to be included.

I ultimately took it on myself to say, “No Way!” They were late in notifying us, and who’s to say just when each of these babies was really born. Changing the story at that point just to massage the ego of another hospital seemed absurd.

What is even more absurd than that?

How about arguing with a hospital director at 3 a.m., who started using some pretty vile language to complain about what he perceived as my snub of his hospital’s public image. We quarreled. I refused to make any change. There was no three-way First Baby of Chicago tie in 1989.

Now some might say that I manipulated the story. But for real manipulation of a First Baby story, one has to look at what happened in Peoria, Ill., the following year.

The Journal Star newspaper reported a story of the first baby born in an area hospital, showing a nice, young couple with their child. Later, we learned the actual first child born in Peoria that year came to life in an ambulance en route to a hospital, a couple of hours before the official child. The reason officials ignored that baby is because the 16-year-old mother’s life story was deemed too depressing and irresponsible to put in the newspaper.

So I ruined a three-way tie for First Baby. Elsewhere, a mother was considered “too ghetto” to be in the newspaper with her baby.

I’d like to think my refusal to play along with a hospital administrator’s ego was more responsible than what happened in Peoria, particularly when one considers that, at heart, the First Baby is basically a fake news story.

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