Is Chicago Cubbie TV really going to be Marquee outfit? Or more TV clutter

We’re going to hear a whole lot of people screeching and screaming about the fact that the days of old, with Chicago Cubs baseball being on television every afternoon (after all, Wrigley Field ain’t got lights) are withering away. 

Broadcast booth; different stations, same programming. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

The Cubs’ management are following the lead of ballclubs like the New York Yankees, whose ballgames are the focal point of the YES Network.

ALL CUBS. ALL the time! A whole separate channel for people who want to indulge themselves with the Cubbie baseball brand.

It has been hinted for some time now that such an action would happen. But the Cubs made the announcement this week that they’re going to partner with the Sinclair Broadcast Group in putting together the cable TV channel that will exist solely for those people who think the Cubs are the extent to which baseball exists.

If you get the sense that I wouldn’t be eagerly waiting for the new channel to begin operations for the 2020 season, you’d be correct. Of course, I currently have a package of television stations – most of which I have to admit I never watch.

So the idea that I can ignore whatever new channel is put out there will be incredibly easy.

IF ANYTHING, I would wonder how many other people will also object and choose to ignore it – because it’s inevitable that any sports-related channel is going to consider itself prime programming for which an extra cost will have to be assessed.

Because the whole point is for the ballclub to take in additional revenue. If it were just the old mindset that viewed the broadcasts as advertising for the team, then there’d be no need to shift Cubs broadcasts from WGN-TV.

After all, the team has been there since the years just after the Second World War. Too many people are used to the notion of Cubs games being the very reason for WGN’s existence.

Field will look the same, regardless of which channel is carrying games

But I’m also aware that modern-day broadcasts are about finding stations willing to pay the teams big bucks. Or in the case of the Cubs, going into the broadcast business so they can add the TV profits to the bottom line of the ball club.

THAT ACTUALLY WAS the difference of the days when Tribune Co. was the ball club’s owner. Which was in the business of publishing and broadcasting – and if anything bought the ballclub back in the early 1980s so as to reduce the cost of broadcasting and covering the ballgames.

Which I’m sure is regarded as a very quaint, naïve approach to baseball in the 21^st Century. Keeping down the cost of the fees paid to the teams WAS the point. Now, the teams are looking to get every penny possible.

So anybody who thinks there’s going to be a sympathetic audience for their rants about how the Cubs “belong!!!” on Channel 9, I’d have to say, “Get a clue!”

The teams think they have a right to expect you, the viewer, to pay up, big time! And if it’s really important to you to be able to see the Cubs play in this upcoming era where the team is likely to be on the decline and returning to their natural state of existence as a garbage ballclub that occasionally reaches levels of mediocrity, then pay the fee so you can keep watching the games.

PERSONALLY, I'D SAY there are other ball clubs worth watching – whose games might be easier to have access to.

Baseball DOES exist outside of Wrigley

And I’m not talking purely about the White Sox. Although I’m sure there is room within the environs of Guaranteed Rate Field for those people who have been deluded enough to spend their lives thus far wearing Cubbie-blue.

At least assuming they can lose some of their more ridiculous habits they’ve developed while sitting in the Wrigley Field combines.

Such as, the first Cubbie exile who throws a home run ball back onto the playing field is going to find themselves being flung onto the field by heckling fans.

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Commuter trains wonderful; that is, until they don’t work on schedule

I’m a native of what’s  thought of these days as the greater Sout’ Side part of Chicago (having lived both city and suburb), and I’m actually someone who often uses the commuter trains in order to get around.

Commutes through the Hegewisch neighborhood were among those tampered with Tuesday by Mother Nature. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

It’s largely because I don’t have an automobile these days; enjoy the notion of not having a monthly car payment to make and also detest the idea of paying for parking – particularly on those occasions when I have to travel downtown.

THE ONE TIME in my life I shelled out some $35 to park a car for about two hours in a downtown garage is a horrid memory – and an experience I never want to repeat again during my lifetime.

So let’s just say that the hardest part of the crummy winter weather we’ve experienced in recent weeks is what it has done to my commute.

I’m actually one of those individuals who was impacted by the commuter trains being totally thrown off schedule – if not shut down outright. Of course, the wintry weather also significantly reduced my desire to make any sort of trip unless absolutely necessary.

Which is why Tuesday was particularly depressing during the morning hours.

Weather tampered w/ overhead cables

THAT WAS THE time when the Metra commuter railroad’s “Electric” line was out of commission, as was the South Shore line that takes people from downtown Chicago into Indiana all the way out to South Bend.

I’ve almost never made the trip all the way to the home town of Notre Dame. But there are times when I do have to venture into Hoosierland and rely on a combination of the two trains (usually making the transition in the Hyde Park neighborhood) to get there.

Learning that such a trip was impossible put quite a damper on my morning mood.

Fortunately for me, the travel I had to do on Tuesday didn’t come until later in the day by which time the trains were up and running again (with the icy conditions having been overcome, for the time being). And also, I was able to borrow use of a car for the day.

WHICH MADE ME a commuter braving the icy roads and hoping that I neither lost control of someone else’s automobile – or no one else driving around me lost control of their car and came crashing into me!

Many fewer commuters passing through Millennium station these days

Being able to rely on the commuter trains (and the CTA ‘el’ within the city limits proper) is such a convenience. One of the advantages of urban life.

That is, until the weather manages to take the system down in whatever way possible so that the ability to transport oneself from place to place becomes a near impossibility.

Then, one can feel so incredibly isolated even within a massive urban area. Almost as though Mother Nature is feeing the need to remind us all that none of us are above the impact of her quirks and how she, not we, are the ones ultimately in control of our environs.

Anxiously awaiting summer days

I’LL ADMIT IT was worse a couple of weeks ago at the peak of the polar vortex – remember those days of 50-below wind chill temperatures and railroad people literally were igniting the train tracks aflame so as to keep them from freezing over and it was all the commuter train lines throughout the Chicago area that were impacted?

This is a lesser scale inconvenience, but it has me hoping for springtime weather. With the fact that springtime-like weather conditions in Arizona made it possible for both the White Sox and Cubs to begin spring training camps was little concession.

I will admit I was pleased to learn that Metra is considering this weekend free train rides (as to the usual $10 fare for a weekend pass) come Saturday and Sunday. It has me pondering a trip downtown so as to take advantage of the discount perk.

It would, however, be just my luck that the free fare comes at a time when the train (which has a commuter stop just a couple of blocks from my current humble abode) isn’t any guarantee to be operating, or running anywhere near to on schedule.

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14 more ‘shopping’ days ‘til we narrow down the field for a new Chgo mayor

We’re two weeks away from Election Day, although some people have taken the time to cast their ballots already.

Chicago's next mayor?

Not that it’s all too clear who the people are leaning toward at this point. One of the drawbacks of a 14-candidate field for mayor where “undecided” is leading everybody else is that it’s not all as clear as the polls would have us believe.

THE LATEST POLLS may well show Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and one-time White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley as the top two vote-getters. But they’re not dominant.

There’s always the chance that the “margin for error” factor that is inherent in polls is undercutting someone else to the point where they may wind up being amongst the top two candidates once the votes are actually counted. The very reason why the old cliché about the “only poll that matters is the one on Election Day” is ever so true.

There’s also the confusion of the early voting process that theoretically gives somebody a chance to have a head start on building their base for Election Day.

But until Monday, all early voting took place at the downtown offices of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Anybody who wanted to cast their vote already had to take a trip downtown – and I’m not sure how many people are that politically motivated.

ACTUALLY I DO know. It’s 1,762.

The so-called 'frontrunners' … 

That’s the number of people who went to the early voting center during the past couple of weeks. That figure is bound to get a significant boost in the next few days, as now is the point in which an early voting center will open up in each of the city’s 50 wards.

But it may also be a time period in which confusion reigns. As in one in which the lack of a clear front-runner will make people inclined to wait until the last minute before deciding just who it is they’d like to see become the successor to Rahm Emanuel as mayor.

Why rush into things, many may think? They may wind up voting for a ‘loser’!

… for a spot in April 2 run-off

AND BY LOSER, I don’t mean someone who didn’t get the most votes. I mean someone who may later turn out to be totally incompetent for the mayoral post.

What I personally am trying to figure out is just how much of the ‘undecided’ vote will remain undecided enough to not bother casting a ballot.

I don’t doubt municipally-minded voters will believe this is an excessively important office for which to cast a ballot. But I also wonder how many people will come to the conclusion that none of the 14 are worthy of their vote.

How many are going to feel contempt for the concept of having to vote for the least-inept mayoral candidate available? How many will decide it’s just not worth their time or effort to show up – either at an early voting center or at their polling place come Feb. 26?

IN WHICH CASE, it may wind up being that all 14 candidates will get a slight boost in the poll percentages that show them all basically piled up on top of each other in terms of voter support.

How loud will Enyia scream IF she falls short?

It means that the Feb. 26 election is likely to produce a result with some two-thirds of Chicagoans casting votes for someone other than the two who qualify for an April 2 run-off.

Which means the ultimate factor in deciding who will become Chicago’s next mayor may wind up being the candidate whom somebody could support as their compromise pick, if their preferred candidate can’t get enough voter support.

This may well be the election cycle where being second-best in the minds of voters two weeks from now will have the end result of being the person who gets to take the oath of office come May.

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Who will pay more for Machado?

Spring training camps for many major league baseball clubs, including Chicago’s own White Sox and Cubs, begin Tuesday for pitchers and catchers, with everyday players expected to show up at training camp by Sunday.

MACHADO: Type of image some want to see

So even though we don’t know yet where potential future Hall of Fame ballplayer Manny Machado (at least some want to fantasize) plans to play in 2019 and for the next several years, there’s still some time for things to settle themselves out.

I COULDN’T HELP but be amused by the weekend’s activity, which mostly centered around the latest rumors about how much money Machado is being offered by certain ball clubs who’d like to have him come play for their team.

All because the speculation is that Machado is a super star and will continue to be a super-duper super star for the next several seasons. Meaning it could be a big deal for whichever team he chooses to play for.

The feeling has been all along that Machado, who has spent the bulk of his time playing in Baltimore for the Orioles but also was a Los Angeles Dodger for part of 2018, wants the bright lights of the Big Apple.

He wants to be a New York Yankee. Which is why the reports on Saturday that the Yankees made him an offer of some $220 million for the next seven or eight years. Which is bigger than the past previous offer made by a ball club – the $175 million over seven years by our very own Chicago White Sox.

OF COURSE, I couldn’t help but notice that just a couple of hours after the report of the Yankees’ offer, there were reports saying the White Sox boosted their offer to $250 million for eight seasons of play.

Could Manny be as important to Sox … 

But I also noticed some news entities went out of their way to ignore the latter report. It’s almost as though some are taking sides as to which ball club they want Machado to wind up with. As though some think the White Sox aren’t worthy of buying a big-name ballplayer.

I don’t know how truthful that sentiment is. Only to say that Machado is going to wind up being paid a disgustingly large sum of money, regardless of which team he ultimately chooses to play for.

There is some thought that Machado’s wife, Yainee, is an influence. As in the Miami-area native likes the idea of life in New York City. As does Manny himself. Which could be a good part of the reason the free agency negotiations have extended from November all the way to the days before the beginning of spring training camp.

… as Luis (above) or Luke?

BUT COULD IT be that the White Sox, who still plan to have Machado’s brother-in-law, Yonder Alonso, and their childhood friend Jon Jay, both of whom are major league ballplayers in their own right, may wind up with the Miami-native star of Dominican ethnicity, could wind up with Manny?

Could it be those family ties will matter one bit? While helping to overcome the sentiment that Yankee pinstripes are more prominent than the White Sox version?

I don’t know what to think about where Machado will wind up, or if this situation will even be resolved by week’s end. My understanding is that Machado is a bit peeved that he’s not being offered something more than the current record-setting contract – the $325 million for 13 seasons that Giancarlo Stanton of the Yankees is receiving.

No matter how much Yanks offer, not likely to top Jeter in team history

He may well believe that the contract offers he has received are a gross insult – particularly since at age 26 he probably has more than a decade of playing time left at a star level.

WILL ANY OF that be played with the old-English script spelling out “S-O-X” on his jersey’s left breast. Will the day come when baseball fans seriously put Machado’s name up there with Luis Aparicio or Luke Appling (both Hall of Fame players in their own right) as the team’s best shortstop ever.

Could Manny become the next Garland?

Then again, could Machado go to the Yankees and find out he’s NOT the team’s best shortstop ever – falling behind such peloteros as Derek Jeter, Phil Rizzuto or Tony Kubek.

It will be interesting to see how the situation plays out, and how quickly? Because this could otherwise become a distraction for so many ball clubs. And a massive problem if Machado turns out to be the 21^st Century baseball equivalent of Wayne Garland – the one-time Baltimore Orioles pitcher who got a 10-year “big money” contract from the Cleveland Indians, only to suffer career-ending injuries after playing only two seasons.

It also will be intriguing to see whether Machado becomes someone who gets the cheers of the Bridgeport faithful in coming seasons, or becomes Enemigo Numero Uno for Sox fans who heckle him mercilessly every time his ballclub makes the trip through Guaranteed Rate Field.

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Will we get a ‘do-over’ to try to bring that Amazon campus to Chicago?

There are many aspects of life where we wish we could have ‘do-overs,’ as in the ability to ignore some negative outcome and try to do it again in a more positive manner.

EMANUEL: Would do-over revive his legacy?

It would seem public policy is becoming one of those areas; what with the issue of Amazon.com citing a new corporate headquarters to supplement the existing campus in Seattle, Wash. All part of Amazon’s desire to make itself a company whose presence is all-dominant and powerful.

IT WAS A big deal last year when Amazon.com stirred up an application process that got municipalities all across the country eager to beg and plead with the Internet retailer of just about all kinds of goods to locate within their municipal boundaries.

Heck, even Gary, Ind., felt compelled to genuflect before the almighty-Amazon corporate image – hoping they could gain the facility.

It wasn’t surprising to many that when Amazon finally chose sites for their new proposed facility, they went with Washington, D.C. (the national capital) and New York (the largest city).

Specifically, they picked a New York proposal to locate within the borough of Queens. Only for it now to turn out that many of the locals are expressing objections to their city offering up much of anything in the way of incentives to attract Amazon.com to “the Big Apple.”

THAT IS WHERE the do-over comes into play. For Chicago officials on Friday made sure that Amazon.com officials were aware that the Second City is still willing to put forth the same offer (which would let the company pick from about five sites scattered around the city) that they did before.

Will Rahm succeed in resurrecting brawl w/ New York for Amazon.com?

In short, if New York doesn’t want ‘em, then Chicago is more than willing to take ‘em.

If New York can’t get local officials and activists to go along with the $2.8 billion in incentives that were offered up, Chicago is willing to resurrect its own plan for incentives.

With Mayor Rahm Emanuel indicating he’s more than willing to take the Chicago equivalents of those people who object to corporate tax breaks and other incentives being offered get with the program.

RAUNER: Will he get blame for initial loss?

AS IN HE’LL be prepared to use his political muscle to get those critics to “stifle themselves!” so that Chicago can draw a business entity that would definitely become one of the most prominent to call the Second City its home.

It’s not surprising to learn that Emanuel is willing to use his final couple of months in office to try to win over Amazon.com with a political do-over.

If he could actually manage to snatch this project away from New York City, it would be a significant move for his legacy. If anything, he could erase the failure he felt for being unable to get the project in the first place.

People ultimately will remember where Amazon.com chooses to locate. If Emanuel and other political people (including Gov. J.B. Pritzker and possible future Mayor Toni Preckwinkle) succeed, no one will remember that they initially failed.

IF ANYTHING, THEY may well try to shift blame to former Gov. Bruce Rauner – whose own support for the project was apathetic, at best, and in fact included some support for St. Louis. Indicating he seemed not to care where it actually wound up.

We’ll have to see just how important a New York City address is to Amazon.com officials. It may well turn out that it matters too much, and that Amazon officials are merely trying to sway New Yorkers into going along with the deal they originally agreed to.

So will a do-over for Amazon.com manage to succeed? It will be intriguing to watch the coming weeks to see whether Chicago’s level of clout is anywhere as strong and intense as our political people always fantasize it is.

Although I also suspect that when it comes to the average Chicagoan, there’s another issue where we’d rather have a do-over – as in that NFL playoff game the Chicago Bears managed to lose to Philadelphia. We’d love to have Cody Parkey try again at kicking that field goal, whose miss wound up bringing the Bears’ Super Bowl aspirations this year to a crashing end.

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The further away from Chicago, the better – that is, if it has to happen at all!

It has become the immigration-related issue that just won’t die, and manages to take on a more intense character of pathos with each evolution it makes in the process.

The old Dwight Correctional Center for women ceased to exist in 2013

No, I’m not talking about President Donald Trump’s fantasies of erecting a wall of sorts along the U.S./Mexico border.

THIS IS ABOUT the notion of building detention facilities with which to lock up people awaiting immigration-related offenses that could result in their eventual deportation from this country.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have dreams of using facilities scattered across the nation – including one whose intent would be to hold people found living in the Chicago-area while lacking a valid Visa or legitimate citizenship status.

Currently, people facing immigration violations often get sent off to county jails with which the federal government has contracts with. In our case, many people caught here wind up in the McHenry County Jail to wait while their immigration cases are resolved.

A concept that offends many people because it means that people who haven’t committed a criminal offense (no matter how much the ideologues want to think it ought to be regarded as one) are being locked up with people who HAVE committed crimes and are merely awaiting the day they’re sent off to the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections to serve their time.

THE IDEA IS that having these separate detention facilities means we can take the immigration cases out of jail with criminals. But we can still treat the individuals like criminals – which is what the ideologues are really after!

The problem is that people of rationality hate the idea of any kind of facility that is jail-like from being in or near their communities.

Dwight not far enough from Chgo for project

That is why local officials in places like Joliet, Crete and Hopkins Park in Illinois, along with Hobart, Gary and Elkhart County in Indiana, have all turned down the idea – not giving in to the fact that many of these places (particularly Gary, Ind.) could use the economic boost that could be derived from construction of a new facility and the possibility of jobs for people already living there.

This is just not a popular idea, which is why it seems officials are looking for a site further and further away from the heart of Chicago that will say “yes” and accept their plans.

THE BLOOMINGTON PANTAGRAPH is reporting that officials are looking at Dwight (a Livingston County community not far from the interstate connecting Chicago to St. Louis) as a possible site.

Local planning commission officials are considering annexation of a site near down so they can offer it up to federal officials for the plan.

Perhaps people are figuring Dwight is the right kind of place for detention facilities because, for many years, Dwight was the location of the Illinois Corrections Department facility for women found guilty of criminal offenses.

Maybe they also figure that a community with less than 2 percent Latino ethnic composition of its population won’t share the kind of hang-ups that communities up our way have with regards to such facilities.

ALTHOUGH THIS COULD be one of those instances where people surprise us by overcoming whatever hang-ups they may have and wind up doing the right thing.

As much as I like the idea that this ‘detention’ concept for immigration is now solidly outside of the Chicago metropolitan area (most of us only regard Dwight as a train stop between here and Springfield when they’re forced to use Amtrak), it is a concept that would be better off withering away altogether.

This detention center in Tacoma, Wash., could be replicated in Dwight

Because we ought to be trying to figure out ways to make better sense of our federal immigration laws and clean up the bureaucratic mess that we now have.

Instead of building facilities so we can house people with pending cases so we can let them stretch out even longer – before the ideologues try to have their way of deporting everybody from this country who isn’t exactly like themselves.

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EXTRA: Whose side will people take with regards to Daley’s debate absence?

B. DALEY: Took union endorsement over debate

It will be interesting to see whether Bill Daley’s mayoral campaign takes a hit, or receives a boost, from the fact he blew off a televised debate Thursday night that would have given him some serious exposure in the upcoming election.

Daley, one of 14 candidates with dreams of becoming Chicago’s next mayor, let officials with WFLD-TV know Thursday afternoon that he wouldn’t be participating in the program that Channel 32 had planned for Thursday night.

MENDOZA: Daley a sissy?

DALEY INSISTS HE found out last-minute that local 130 of the Chicago Journeyman Plumbers and Technical Engineers union wanted to do an evening event by which they’d endorse his mayoral campaign.

Saying he saw it as a choice of being with political people or “normal people,” he chose to take the endorsement. By an old-school way of viewing things, I could see how this works – if he can successfully spin this as a chance to spend time with the kind of people who might actually vote for him.

But others think the fact that the Chicago Tribune published a story Thursday morning implying that he only passed a licensing test some four-plus decades ago to sell insurance because someone tampered with it.

BLAGOJEVICH: Pol of  testicular virility

It surely would have been an issue that he would have been questioned on during any debate. Was Daley merely hiding from some serious questions about an old issue?

MAYORAL OPPONENT Susana Mendoza thinks so. “There’s one bad story about him and he wilts like a little flower,” she said, adding that this may well be evidence he’s not fit to be mayor of the metropolis of Chicago. Is she calling him a political sissy?

She might as well have accused Daley of lacking the “testicular virility” that one-time Gov. Rod Blagojevich once claimed was his biggest strength as a government official.

R. DALEY: Man of the people?

Of course, that line is now recalled as one of Blagojevich’s most buffoonish moments as governor. Will this absence from the debate – which already was considered controversial because Daley was among the five candidates invited to participate while nine other candidates were excluded – really be seen as evidence that the Son of Hizzoner himself is too weak to hold office?

Or is it Daley deciding to hang out with the so-called “normal people” his way of trying to play politics the way his father would have – as it was “Old Man” Daley who once said, “No poll can equal the day-to-day visits of the men and women of the Democratic Party.”

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