Loyalty? Or selfishness?

Watching the Chicago White Sox these days, a part of me can’t help but wonder who’s smoking what with regards to the ballclub’s best player these days – Jose Abreu.

Potential Sox all-time star?

Yes, I know the team has several youthful ballplayers who have the potential to be stars that lead the White Sox to potential championships in coming seasons.

BUT THE FACT is that Abreu, the Cuban exile who came to Chicago back in 2013, has been THE significant part of the White Sox during this past decade. He’s also achieved enough in recent seasons that his name has to come up in any discussion of White Sox history.

Abreu, at 167 home runs is already amongst the top home run hitters in Sout’ Side baseball history. Wouldn’t it make sense that people would want Abreu to be the BIG BAT at the lead of the potential White Sox championship teams of the 2020s?

Yet the fact is that there is a significant share of White Sox fandom who would just as soon see Abreu depart. It seems the contracts he has had to play in Chicago come to an end after this season.

If the White Sox want to keep him, they’re going to have to come up with some sort of financial bonanza to make it worth his while to want to stay in Chicago.

BUT THERE’S THE fact that Abreu now is 32, which in traditional baseball thought, is the point in time when a ballplayer crosses over from his physical athletic peak and starts to become over-the-hill.

Also an Indian, Cardinal and Senator

Do the White Sox really want to pay big money to keep Abreu for a few more years to see if he can be a part of the White Sox’ next World Series title-winning team?

Would the team be better off letting him go to some other ball club, while relying on the big name peloteros such as Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez to be the stars of the Sox?

For his part, Abreu says he wants to stay with the White Sox – going so far as to say he will sign himself to stay with the Sox even if the Sox themselves don’t make him a contractual offer beyond this 2019 season.

SO IS ABREU truly loyal to the Sout’ Side baseball scene? Or is he just being selfish in thinking about himself?

An Orioles team Hall of Famer

Actually, it’s the reason why I think old-timer fans who complain about modern ballplayers having no loyalty are full of it. The so-called loyalty of the past was usually one way – players were expected to give all to the teams, who would think nothing of trading away or releasing a player when it was to the team’s self-interest.

Heck, I remember when Frank Thomas (the White Sox’ most recent Hall of Fame player) expressed thoughts of wanting to play in Chicago his whole career. But the White Sox let him go willingly – and he wound up finishing with stints in Oakland and Toronto.

Even such White Sox notables as “Minnie” Miñoso and Harold Baines played for other ball clubs – with Miñoso also playing for Cleveland and Baines playing well-enough for Baltimore that he’s also a member of that team’s personal Hall of Fame. Or even legendary Sox like Luis Aparicio or Nellie Fox, who also played for Baltimore and Boston, along with Philadelphia and Houston respectively.

Sox combo also had their moments with Athletics and Orioles

SO MAYBE IT wouldn’t be the most outrageous deal if Abreu became a Yankee or a Red Sox for a few seasons. Who knows; that might be his best chance to actually be on a championship team.

One of the few life-long Sox

It’s not exactly out-of-line to think that the White Sox of the 2020s could find their championship dreams thwarted by the up-and-coming teams the New York Yankees are putting together these days.

Which actually would be in character with White Sox history, as the “Go Go” teams of the 1950s wound up finishing most seasons in second place behind the Yanks.

And we’ll have to see for ourselves just how much a part of White Sox history Abreu himself (will number 79 be the next uniform digit retired) is destined to become.

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Trump seems determined to use immigration trash-talk to get re-elected

President Donald Trump wants another term in office, and seems determined to create the impression of himself as the guy who kicked all those frickin’ foreigners out of this country.

TRUMP: National equivalent of playground bully?

He’s the guy who wanted a series of national immigration raids to create a sudden boost in the actual number of deportations.

OF COURSE, SO many details got out about where and when these raids would take place that Trump put a hold on the plan – while insisting he did it as a courtesy to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was working to put together a border aid package in Congress.

Not that anybody believed Trump would do anything out of courtesy to anybody but himself. Which is why the talk is starting up again that raids of a sort will start Sunday.

With activists saying they’re planning a protest rally in Chicago for Saturday, hoping to get several thousand individuals to publicly express their disgust with The Donald and his immigration desires.

This comes as Trump made his announcement Thursday of his latest desire to get information about non-citizens living in this country. He contemplated an executive order that would require a Census Bureau question as in being able to enact his desires without having to get Congress to sign off on them first, which truly is the “American Way” of doing things.

TRUMP, WHO HAS tried to get the 2020 Census population count altered so as to include questions about the citizenship status of those reporting, now says he’s going to require federal government agencies to turn any information over to the Commerce Department so it can be compiled into incriminating information.

He’s not concerned with the several court rulings that have found there to be no legitimate purpose to having such a question as part of the Census. Because the purpose of the Census is to get as accurate a count as possible of the U.S.’s actual population on April 1, 2020.

And Trump is determined enough that his way MUST prevail that he’s going to get his question included in some form, so as to gather up as much information as possible as to who exactly is here.

Which has some concerned that all Trump is doing is trying to gather intelligence that could someday be used to single out even more people for deportation. Trump backers try to claim that it’s overly cynical and paranoid to think ill of the presidential intentions on this issue.

BUT IT PROBABLY says much about the lack of trust the majority of our society has in the executive abilities of Trump that we don’t fully trust him. And for good reasons.

Because this is the man who started off his political portion of life by letting it be known he was more than willing to single out for abuse certain types of people – and was more than willing to kowtow to the segment of our society that has a strong xenophobic streak running down its spine.

The kind of people who will wet their pants with glee at the very thought of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents working overtime on Sunday to weed people out, arrest them, then deport them.

And those who are willing to think that the courts’ refusal to go along with Trump’s desires for a Census Bureau question that some in our society would not feel comfortable answering is merely evidence that the courts themselves ARE the problem.

IT WILL BE curious to see if this becomes a winning strategy; letting the ideologues amongst us think they are succeeding in reclaiming our country from those of us who’d prefer to see American ideals prevail in the way things are done.

Which is why I found interesting the results of a Morning Consult poll that shows one-time Vice President Joe Biden holding slight leads over would-be presidential challengers Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.

But that is amongst people who identify themselves as most likely to actually vote. Which means it could well be in the hands of those slightly-more apathetic about casting ballots to decide whether we actually replace Trump come November of 2020.

Which may well be part of the Trump strategy as well – stir up so much trash that the bulk of people will be dismayed enough to not bother voting. Truly a sad strategy that says little about the man’s inherent character.

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EXTRA: Gas prices on the rise. So are the level of complaints we’re hearing

Just a thought as far as people complaining about the price of gasoline going up these days on account of the increase in the state of Illinois’ motor fuel tax.

Remember when gas prices soared this high in Chicago?

Yes, it costs less in surrounding states, which could make for an advantage if one happens to be in a bordering region at the time they need to make a automotive fuel purchase.

SUCH AS MY own circumstance earlier this week when I happened to be in Gary, Ind., and encountered a Mobil gas station charging $2.69 per gallon of gas. Other stations I witnessed in the land of Hoosiers had gas prices ranging from $2.79 to $2.95.

Yet the moment I came back to the land of civilization, the cheapest gas prices I saw were around $3.19 – with motor fuel at name-brand stations costing potentially $3.30 per gallon. With the additional cost that gas usually incurs in Chicago proper, the cost goes up further.

With the gaspricewatch.com website indicating Thursday that gas prices in the city topped at $3.45 per gallon. Much higher than the national average of $2.81 per gallon.

So excuse me (think Steve Martin in the white suit with arrow through his head) if I’m not overly swayed by a story published in the State Journal-Register of Springfield (which the newspaper picked up from the Register-Star newspaper of Rockford) that says prices on the Illinois side of the Illinois-Wisconsin border are now out of control.

An outrage? Not necessarily

THE PAPERS INDICATE gas prices at $2.78 per gallon at stations in Illinois, compared to $2.61 per gallon just north of the state line in Wisconsin.

My point is there are more drastic price differentials than what this paper is trying to pursue as evidence of an outrage. Things are worse elsewhere.

And as far as my own situation, I don’t know I’m willing to make the trip to Gary every time I need to fuel an automobile. It was a circumstance that benefitted me that one day.

Now if it turns out that the gas tax revenue increase does NOT benefit all the road repairs and other projects that the state of Illinois alleges the money will go do, THEN we can rant and rage. Until then, those of us with complaints ought to quit showing that we’re more full of gas than our cars.

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The now-late Jim Bouton gave us the lasting memory of 'Chicago Shirley'

I couldn't help but notice the reports Thursday about the death of one-time major league pitcher Jim Bouton at age 80.

Back in the days when Bouton was a future star

The one-time New York Yankee who is probably better known for his diary of the 1969 baseball season -- when he was struggling to hang on in baseball with the expansion team Seattle Pilots -- got his attention even though his death wasn't really a shock. He suffered a stroke in 2012, then later was diagnosed with a condition that could cause brain vessels to burst under pressure.

BUT I COULDN'T help but reach out to for my copy of "Ball Four," that diary from a half-century ago when Bouton offended much of the baseball world for telling the truth about some of the antics of the jocko world.

Such as the practical joke once played on fellow pitcher Fred Talbot, who hit a grand-slam home run in a ball game, then got a phony telegram purporting to be from a fan who won $27,500 in a local radio contest tied to the ballgame.

Supposedly, the "fan" was willing to share $5,000 of the prize with Talbot. Yeah, suurrre!

Which, by the way, happened 50 years ago this very week.

What Bouton will most be remembered for

SOME PEOPLE CLAIMED that such insider stories were an embarrassment to baseball. While others felt they offered some color by making ballplayers seem a tad more human -- rather than so jock-ish.

I actually re-read the book every spring. The coming of a new season always makes me want to revive a few past memories.

And I always get my kick out of his entry for June 15 -- which became an essay about the availability to ballplayers of women, particularly stewardesses,, who were a step up on the social scale from "baseball Annies" (a.k.a., groupies).

Where it seems the ultimate "Annie" was a woman known as "Chicago Shirley," who even held orientation briefings for rookie ballplayers to make her services known -- and Chicago was supposedly the best city because we have ballclubs in both leagues. Maybe that's why our ballclubs went for so many years champion-free.

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Confederate values – Is that really what we’re fighting over these days?

The choice of entertainment for the Illinois State and DuQuoin State fairs is, strictly speaking, not a Chicago-area issue. Although I have no doubt that people exist who are going to somehow claim this is evidence of Chicago or urban values predominating over the way rural people want to live.

Cancelled in DuQuoin

Which is to say that a whole lot of nonsense is being spewed over the acts that have been hired, or not hired, to perform at the events taking place during August.

THE DUQUOIN FAIR in Southern Illinois is an alternative event to the Illinois State Fair that usually takes on a more rural character. More southern than the rest of Illinois. For those people who think of the Land of Lincoln as neighboring up against Kentucky, rather than Iowa or Wisconsin

Among the acts that had been scheduled to appear there was a band billing itself as Confederate Railroad. But it seems state government officials cancelled their contract with the band because there are those who take offense to someone using the symbolism of the old Confederate States of America.

Personally, I’ve never really heard the band. I had to use the Internet to do a search to find out anything about them, and from the snippets I heard, I don’t think there’s much of a loss.

But there are people who are prepared to think of this as some sort of snub to their idea of what a “real America” ought to be about.

PARTICULARLY WHEN THEY learned about the entertainment scheduled for the Illinois State Fair in Springfield. Where is seems that the rapper Snoop Dogg is scheduled to perform.

The same people who are prepared to think that Confederate Railroad is somehow worthy of our attention are offended – probably by the presence of any act that isn’t geared to a white, rural sensibility.

But Snoop Dogg particularly offends them because one of his many album covers includes the 2017 record “Make America Crip Again.”

Double-standard? Or over-reaction?

Which depicts the artist in a totally gangsta pose of standing over a flag-covered corpse, whose toe tag indicates it’s the body of none other than President Donald Trump.

ADMITTEDLY, THAT’S A tacky image to use. But it seems state officials have no problem with it, or with Snoop Dogg. As opposed to Confederate Railroad – whose own appearance in DuQuoin is no more for this year.

State Rep. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, is trying to make an issue of this, and claims there will be a significant boycott of the DuQuoin Fair – which potentially is a blow to the Southern Illinois economy that considers the fair one of its most significant events each year.

She’s gone so far as to use a lengthy Facebook post to denounce state officials, particularly Gov. J.B. Pritzker, whom she says is “hypocritical” and “will own the resulting economic damage.”

With Pritzker aides telling the Capitol Fax newsletter that Bryant is distorting many facts, and also tossed out threats implying that Pritzker’s personal safety would be placed at risk because of all of this.

WITH BRYANT SUPPOSEDLY telling the governor “I love my people, but they’re crazy.” Crazy enough to do bodily harm to our state’s chief executive? That’s more of an indictment against them than their willingness to get all worked up over the music of Confederate Railroad.

Personally, it makes me think the Taste of Chicago is a much more sane event than either of the state fairs – even though I’ve never thought of any of these events as THE place to go for top-line entertainment.

The most rational event of all -- regardless of the oversized turkey legs

I’m inclined to think the state fair in Springfield is particularly weak in that it usually features musical acts whose artistic peak occurred some two decades ago. In that regard, the idea that Snoop Dogg is reduced to playing in Springfield somehow seems fitting.

While I find it ironic any band would take the “Confederate Railroad” imagery for their own identity – since anyone who really knows their history would understand that one of the Southern states’ biggest weaknesses in trying to become an independent nation was their system of trains to ship people and goods from place to place. It stunk!

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Women’s and men’s national soccer matches didn’t attract the same fans

It was quite a day for those of us who consider ourselves fanaticos de futbol, but for very different reasons.

Women's win topped men's loss locally

For this Sunday saw the women’s national team play for the World Cup – and WIN!!! Team U.S.A. beat the Netherlands 2-0 in a championship match played in France, which also was quite the feat because this is the second consecutive World Cup the U.S. women have won.

IT REINFORCES THE very notion that when it comes to women’s soccer, the U.S.A. rules. Our women are better than the women of any of the other 200 or so nations of the world that play soccer.

But later in the day, the men’s national team had their own championship to play for – as in the Gold Cup, the every-other-year tourney for bragging rights across North America and the Caribbean.

Our men took to the pitch, and right here in Chicago. As the Gold Cup championship match this time around was scheduled for Soldier Field. Where the other Team U.S.A. tried to win bragging rights – only to lose 1-0 to Los Tricolores of Mexico.

Which feeds off of one of the most intense rivalries in the world of soccer, as much of the political tension that exists between the neighboring nations spills over onto the pitch.

In L.A, Mexico tops all

DON’T DOUBT THAT for the sizable Mexican-American population of Chicago, they were on hand to see the Mexican nationals issue a symbolic whomp over every nitwit who tries to use the red, and blue as some sort of evidence of their natural inferiority. One-time soccer star Landon Donovan pointed out during the broadcast of the match that the crowd in Chicago seemed to be leaning toward Equipo Mexico.

While a lot of the people chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A.” every chance they got were hoping for a men’s team victory as further evidence of superiority – and perhaps evidence that Donald Trump isn’t a total whack job every time he shoots his mouth off.

Which is a totally different vibe than one got from people whose interest was in watching the women’s team take on the World.

For the women's team, it really is!

I was at a “watch party” where people gathered to see the Women’s World Cup final who were eager to see a U.S. victory as further evidence that Trump is the ultimate whack job for all his rhetorical nonsense.

FOR TRUMP HAS engaged in his own comments being critical of the women’s national team, because he thinks some of its players don’t conform to his ideal of what an “American woman” ought to be.

Especially forward Megan Rapinoe, who has taken her own pot shots at Trump and even got quoted in the New York Post as saying her presence on the team is an “F You” to our president.

Which the Post tried to write up as evidence of those whacky, soccer-playing broads, only to find many people followed the World Cup specifically because they liked the idea of someone standing up to Trump.

Of course, this whole Soccer day must be miserable for those of us who actually take anything Donald Trump says seriously.

Donald Trump's nightmare front page?

BECAUSE NOT ONLY did the women win (and one of the players managed to drop a U.S. flag on the ground), the men lost – AND to Mexico!!!

Which was actually a happening I enjoyed seeing – the goal in the 73^rd minute by Jonathan dos Santos must have been as agonizing to the ideologues as that of Rapinoe being the hero of the game. And winner of the Golden Boot!

I don’t doubt those people are going to go into overtime with the rhetoric about how soccer is an abomination and how it really doesn’t matter. They weren’t watching anyway. Which means they missed a heck of a show – particularly the portion that occurred at Soldier Field and saw people paying hundreds of dollars per ticket for the right to watch (I had to view on television).

Or perhaps many were like one woman I encountered at a watch party, who while viewing the women’s team going for the glory on behalf of the United States could only generate a great big raspberry for the evening’s activity by the men.

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Chicago out-conned by Rio de Janeiro?

For all the rhetoric we hear about how venal and corrupt the inherent character of Chicago truly is, I couldn’t help but wonder if the real problem is that our city is run by a batch of goo-goos.

The 'games' that never were

It was the thought that popped into my head when I read reports about the bribery and corruption that is being alleged, tied to the decision more than a decade ago to stage the 2016 Summer Olympic games in Rio de Janiero.

THE OFFICIAL RHETORIC was that the International Olympic Committee decided it was FINALLY time to stage an Olympics in a city south of the equator.

But now, we have a former governor of Rio saying he paid the U.S. equivalent of over $2 million to committee members in order to ensure they voted for Rio over any of the other cities around the world that were competing for those games.

In short, bribes were paid. The process was rigged.

Now how truthful should we think all of this is? Well there’s the fact that former Governor Sergio Cabral already is convicted of criminal acts and is serving a lengthy prison term – at 200 years, it is one he may never be free from.

SO WHAT REASON would Cabral have to lie? It seems he has nothing to gain, or lose, by coming forth now with the testimony he offered in court last week. Or it could be the ultimate reason – political revenge.

There are other officials who will have trials coming up soon – and this could be a desire on his part to take down those officials to make them suffer the same fate that he is now enduring.

Daley's soul supposedly too black, but … 

Attorneys for those officials, by the way, claim it’s all trash-talk on Cabral’s part. He’s got no proof! Or so they say.

Now how is any of this the least bit relevant – or interesting – to those of us in Chicago? It’s because those 2016 Olympic Games were the ones that then-Mayor Richard M. Daley was determined to bring to the Second City. Remember the plans for a stadium to be temporarily erected in Washington Park?

REMEMBER THE GLOBAL battles between Tokyo, Madrid, Rio and Chicago? Remember the sentiment that this was a fight for Chicago to win so as to show our global dominance?

… was Hizzoner really too honest to prevail?

Remember the thousands of people gathered in Daley Plaza on that date in 2009 when the Olympic site was chosen – with fanatics chanting “We’re Number Four” (Chicago’s place on the four-city ballot) only to be suddenly silenced when it was learned that Chicago’s bid was the first to be knocked out of the running.

We really were number four – in terms of actually getting those games. The visions of Barack Obama presiding over an Olympics held in his home city turned out to be fantasy.

Mayor Daley was so disgusted by the city’s failure to win the Olympic games that the city has pretty much given up on attracting the International sports scene. It’s a large part of the reason why the 2026 World Cup tourney for soccer will be played partially in the United States – yet none of the matches will be held in Chicago.

EVEN RAHM EMANUEL had enough of the bad aftertaste to not want to bother with the international sports scene.

But now, we hear the whole thing may well have been rigged. We may well have lost that political fight to Rio de Janeiro because we weren’t corrupt enough. As in maybe we would have attracted the Olympic games and all the international attention that Daley wanted to bring to Chicago if only we were as corrupt as some of the political ideologues would want to insist we are.

The 'facility' that never became!

Not that I’m claiming we in Chicago should have loosened up our wallets and come up with more cash than the International Olympic Committee demanded from the Brazilians.

But it makes me wonder how much those ideologues are choking on their rhetoric at the notion that Chicago was out-corrupted by somebody else. And that it may well have been a Daley who got out-hard-balled politically for being too honest.

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