It seems kind of quaint that Wrigley Field once didn’t have light towers

I’m old enough to remember the days when Wrigley Field didn’t have light towers and the Chicago Cubs tried to claim a sense of superiority out of the fact they didn’t play baseball at night in their home ballpark.

A very popular poster of the past

Which means I must really be getting old if it has now been 30 full years since the date the Cubs were able to get in a full ballgame under the lights.

NOTE THE SIGNIFICANCE of the phrasing of that last sentence. For many news organizations have published stories that focused on Wednesday being the 30^th anniversary of the first night game. When actually, it was Thursday.

Yes, the Cubs tried playing baseball under their then-newly-installed light fixtures on Aug. 8, 1988 (the marketing people liked the idea of the first night game ever being played on 8/8/88). I also remember all the hoo-hah that arose once it became apparent the people determined to keep lights out of Wrigley Field were going to lose.

It was regarded as a significant moment in city history – almost as though they think the Chicago city flag ought to get its fifth star to celebrate the lights being erected at Wrigley Field!

But it rained that night. They barely got in a full inning before heavy rain came down and (more than two hours later) the game had to be called. Since baseball rules say five innings must be played for a game to be considered official, the happenings of 8/8/88 officially didn’t mean a thing.

The light-less Wrigley Field, compared to … 

IT WAS THE following night that the Cubs got in a full game, and started the fight that continues to this day – the one about just now many night games can be played in any given season.

For the simple fact is that more people are capable of going to ballgames if they’re scheduled around the standard-issue work day. Even the Cubs realize that, and likely wish they could be like all the other ballclubs that typically have about 60 of their 81 home games played in the evening hours.

As one who back then, and still to this day, is more inclined to check out Chicago White Sox games (personally, I could care less about anything related to the National League), the whole idea of thinking anything special about day baseball was always strange.

… the brightly-lit environs of Comiskey Park

If anything, the idea of going to a game following a day of work seemed to make the event all the more a treat. Because all too often, being able to go to a weekday day game means you’re skipping work or school – or else you’re unemployed and one-time Cubs manager Lee Elia wasn’t exaggerating that long-ago day of his obscenity-laced rant about Cubs fans.

AND EVEN IF you’re not old-enough to remember pre-lights Wrigley, you’ve heard enough about the “85 percent of the world that works” compared to the rest of the people who have time to go to daytime Cubs games on a regular basis.

For what it’s worth, I wasn’t at that “first” Cubs night game. That particular year was the one during which I worked an overnight shift for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago.

Meaning I remember covering the overblown outcry over trying to play night baseball, but was actually asleep when they attempted a ballgame.

Elia had own thoughts about day game crowds

When I came in the following early night, it seemed almost humorous to learn the marketing efforts fell to naught, and that the Cubs had to come crawling into the 20^th Century some 53 years after the Cincinnati Red brought night baseball to the major leagues (May 24, 1935 – the night that then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a Western Union telegram message to the Reds, giving team President Larry MacPhail (whose grandson, Andy, became Cubs team president many years later) the go-ahead to turn on the lights.

SO FOR THE record, the first successful attempt at playing night baseball at Wrigley Field was 30 years ago Thursday.

The Cubs played the New York Mets and actually managed to win 6-4, with Cubs pitcher Frank DiPino getting credit for the victory and Hall of Fame pitcher Rich Gossage getting a “save.”

Somehow, I doubt there will be any similar remembrances next week – which technically would be the 79^th anniversary of the first night game played in Chicago overall. The White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns 5-2 on Aug. 14, 1939.

I suspect more people next year will point out the 40th anniversary of Disco Demolition Night (or maybe even the 100th anniversary since the 1919 World Series) than the 80th anniversary of night baseball in this city.

  -30-

Will signs of businesses past cause confusion for future Chicagoans?

I suppose people will argue it’s a matter of historic preservation, but there’s a part of me that thinks it’s ridiculous that the giant letters of gothic type spelling out “Chicago Tribune” will remain in place on the building the newspaper no longer uses.

Sign to be restored around 2020

Tribune Media (the division that operates the television stations) sold the nearly century-old tower that was corporate headquarters, and the newspaper that had been housed there for decades made its move just over a month ago.

Dominant sign near Tribune's new digs

IT SEEMS THE company that bought the building (and has plans to convert it into condominiums) thought it was buying the rights to the building, as-is. Including the eight-foot-high letters that spelled out the newspaper name.

While the newspaper thought they had the right to take their sign with them to their new offices in the one-time Prudential Building just a few blocks to the south.

In the end, it appears the sign will remain in place – with the argument being made that it is a part of the historic character of the structure that the company thought it was buying along with the structure itself.

Retail rivalry signs live on, even though Field's … 

The sign itself will be taken down later this year when the construction work needed to convert the structure into high-end condominiums for the ridiculously-wealthy of Chicago residents. When that work is complete (sometime around the year 2020), the sign will be restored.

WILL WE HAVE future generations of out-of-towners who get confused about where exactly one of our city’s newspapers is located?

… & Carson's are no more

Particularly because it seems that there isn’t anything excessively prominent to let people from outside know that the Tribune is located where it is now.

I took a recent day trip downtown just to walk around, and checked out the Prudential Building area because I wanted to see for myself just how prominently the newspaper had put its stamp on its new digs.

I found nothing. I had to have it pointed out to me where exactly the Tribune’s new home is. The Tribune hasn’t let its professional ego take over its new site.

IF ANYTHING, THE huge sign marking the building as the corporate headquarters of The Prudential Insurance Company of America is still all-dominant. Just as a few blocks once one crosses the Chicago River and one-time site of Fort Dearborn, the gothic type of the Chicago Tribune will be a very visual reminder of what once was.

Maybe that’s not too confusing. Take a little trip along State Street just a few blocks away, and you’ll see the signs remaining on Marshall Field’s and Carson, Pirie, Scott – even though it is Macy’s and Target that now do business in the one-time downtown flagships of Chicago’s classic retailers.

Past newspapers live on only as Mich. Ave. plaque

Maybe it’s evidence of my increasing age (I’m on the ‘experienced’ side of the half-century mark), but I’m at the point where every time I head into the city, I notice something else missing.

I’m starting to develop in my memory an entire city that no longer exists in quite the same form.

I ONCE THOUGHT it odd that a part of me still expects to see the brick, whitewashed building at 35^th Street on the Dan Ryan Expressway, instead of the pale pink concrete paneled structure that replaced it as the Chicago White Sox ballpark some 28 years ago.

Of course, it also makes me realize there are older generations of people who would regard themselves as life-long Chicagoans for whom my Chicago of memory would be a whole lot of nonsense – none of it existed when they were around.

How many think Macy's Frango Mints the  same? Photos by Gregory Tejeda

We have a city of perpetual change. It may be a sign of continued development. Because stagnation is not something we’d want to occur.

Although I also noticed that when I used the search engine of bing.com to confirm the new Chicago Tribune address, it persisted in telling me the newspaper is at Tribune Tower north of the river. Perhaps the Internet is confused by the sign’s remaining in place – and may be evidence we shouldn’t put too much trust in anything we find on these computers.

  -30-

Losing yet another tie to Chicago’s past

I must confess to turning a year older today, so perhaps it’s only appropriate that I get all nostalgic over something that I’m sure many people would think totally trivial.

Soon to be history. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

I can’t help but think there’s a loss to the Chicago Transit Authority’s ‘el’ station downtown at Randolph and Wabash streets, which officially closes to the public following this week.

ALTHOUGH I’M SURE some sarcastic types will quip that we’re lucky the ‘el’ platform didn’t collapse due to age and decay before the wrecking crews could get around to demolishing it.

Now a part of the reason I feel some sort of affinity for this particular downtown transit stop is that it is a mere block from the Metra Electric commuter trains that I have lived significant portions of my life from.

Which means a trip into downtown would put me right at the Millennium Park site (even though back when I was a kid, no one would have conceived of such a grand park in place of the railroad yards that still exist underneath the park grounds.

The outside view that someday will no longer be

The point was that I have made many trips that involved taking a Metra Electric train, then transferring over to an ‘el’ train at Randolph and Wabash. And if you’re in the city already but not on the South Side, the Randolph and Wabash station was a location that put you near the Marshall Fields’ of old (now Macy’s, which just doesn’t feel the same), State Street’s shopping district in general and just another block away from the Daley Center courthouse (with the Picasso), then City Hall and the Thompson Center state government building.

Trump will no longer loom over Randolph

MY POINT IS that the ‘el’ station feels like a fairly prominent spot for people traveling throughout the area.

Now I don’t know exactly how old that particular ‘el’ station is – although it has the feel of many decades approaching a full century. It has the feel of a place that has experienced first-hand the history of Chicago.

I often wonder if the people who now go about speculating ridiculously about the chances they would get shot by gang members on Chicago streets while waiting for an ‘el’ train at the station are the great-grandchildren of people who waited at the exact same ‘el’ stop, wondering if they were going to get caught in the crossfire of violence by the Capone mob?

My point being the station has the feel of being a part of Chicago that has been around that long.

Among the Randolph Street sites nearby

AND IT SHOWS.

CTA officials are closing the station effective Sunday, replacing it with a new downtown ‘el’ station one block to the south at Washington Street – which officially is being billed as the Millennium station. That station officially opens Thursday.

I’ll concede that I have long noticed the grime that has accumulated at the Randolph Street ‘el’ station to the point where I wonder what I could catch if I touch something too long, and have often cynically speculated about how secure the platform’s wooden boards could be after all these decades of use.

So I don’t doubt the station’s time to be replaced has come.

Will street musicians still gather at Randolph/Wabash?

ALTHOUGH IT’S GOING to mean the decades of habit I have developed in my mass transit routines are going to have to be adapted to comply with the fact that the ‘el’ station is now one block further to the south.

I doubt I’m alone, since many of us develop transit routines that we follow reflexively, not giving them much thought. Now, we’re going to have to think a few extra seconds to make sure we don’t screw up and wind up being taken to the Monroe Street or State and Lake street stations while travelling through the Loop. Besides, I couldn't help but admire the video snippet I found Wednesday on YouTube posted by someone whom I suspect feels a sentiment similar to my own about this soon-to-be defunct 'el' platform.

I’m wondering if this station will take on a sentiment similar to what I feel for the old Comiskey Park. I must admit that whenever I travel on the Dan Ryan Expressway, a part of me expects to see the old brick, whitewashed ballpark still standing as I approach 35^th Street. Which creates a tinge of disappointment when I see the rose-colored concrete structure that actually is now 27 seasons old.

In my mind, this structure isn't just a decades-old postcard

Am I going to sense the ‘el’ platform that used to exist whenever I travel the Loop and my ‘el’ car passes by Randolph Street?

  -30-

EXTRA: 66 years since Gaedel had his "moment" in the baseball sun

It was 66 years ago on Saturday that the name Eddie Gaedel became something anyone would bother to remember.

Gaedel was a Chicago native who was a dwarf and would up using his lack of height (3-foot, 7-inches) to make him a performer. On Aug. 19, 1951, he made his grandest performance when Bill Veeck used him to gain national attention for his St. Louis Browns ball club.

GAEDEL PLAYED HIS one-and-only major league game. He was a pinch hitter for the leadoff batter and drew a walk on four straight pitches because the Detroit Tigers hurler couldn't throw strikes to one so short.

It was his only game as a ballplayer. But let's not forget that Gaedel did another stint on a major league playing field. There was that ballgame at Comiskey Park in 1960 where "Martians" landed in a helicopter and used a conveniently-placed microphone placed on the playing field to declare that White Sox stars Luis Aparicio and Nellie Fox were honorary Martians (because of their lack of physical stature).

Gaedel being one of the  men from Mars who supposedly took an interest in baseball.

Sadly enough, that latter stunt was his final baseball-related appearance. He was mugged a year later in Chicago, and suffered injuries that resulted in him suffering a heart attack from which he died in 1961. He remains in his eternal rest, buried at St. Mary's Cemetery.

Gaedel one of 'martians' who took to infield at Comiskey Park in 1960

  -30-

EXTRA: “The Cell,” (2003-16)

The Chicago White Sox have spent the past 14 seasons playing their home games in a building known for short as “the Cell.” But with the name change announced Wednesday to Guaranteed Rate Field, does this now mean the Sox play at “the Rate?”

From "New Comiskey" to "the Cell" to "the Rate?" Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

 Ugh!!!

THEN AGAIN, GUARANTEED Rate Field, named for the Chicago-based national mortgage lender that bought the naming rights to the stadium through the 2029 season, isn’t any more stupid than any other corporate-motivated name for a sports arena.

I question what companies really get out of paying millions of dollars to sports teams to have their brand put on the building.

Particularly in a case like with the White Sox, where the fan base is stubborn enough to resist using the new name. This could well be the inspiration for fans to deliberately go back to using the old “Sox Park” name that was on the ballpark they played in during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Although with a building of the physical scale of the current stadium, I’d argue for calling it “White Sox Stadium,” just like Yankee or Dodger, or perhaps Kansas City’s old Royals Stadium – which was the inspiration for the White Sox’ ballpark when it was built in the early 1990s.

SO FOR WHAT it’s worth, the reign of the building that began its life as “New Comiskey Park” may wind up being able to say its glory days came when it was named for a company that once used actress Joan Cusack as its face (that is, when they weren’t using a pink space alien).

For it was during its time as U.S. Cellular Field that the World Series was played in Chicago – a first in 46 years and the only one in recent years played by a Chicago team.

No matter what the Cubs accomplish this year, history will record it was the White Sox that won an ultimate championship first any time in this century.

It also was the payout from the U.S. Cellular interests that covered the cost of a renovation that enhanced much of the character the building currently has.

BU IT’S NOT like the “U.S. Cellular” name could have continued for much longer. If anything, it’s a wonder it lasted as long as it did.

Considering that U.S. Cellular doesn’t even exist anymore in Chicago or Illinois. The building essentially became advertising for a company that local people couldn’t use – even if they wanted to.

And considering that the company withered away locally, it didn’t likely do much business when it was here. So the days of “the Cell” are no more. Let’s just hope that someone can come up with a new moniker so that we don’t wind up calling the building “the Rate.”

 

One last task before retiring -- name park

Perhaps Sox broadcaster Ken Harrelson can use his skills at brandishing nicknames (he being the guy who came up with, among others, “The Big Hurt” for Hall of Famer Frank Thomas) to come up with an appropo label for the ballpark at Shields Avenue.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: People were just as upset 14 years ago when the “U.S. Cellular” moniker was applied to the White Sox ballpark.

EXTRA: Just under one month, and we’ll have baseball back so I won’t have to scour the Internet for this stuff

I have to confess – the first time I ever got into the clubhouse facilities and onto the playing field of a major league baseball stadium (at the structure now known as U.S. Cellular Field), I felt the need to head over to the dugout and perch myself on the steps.

Envisioning myself as a manager-of-sorts, trying to come up with the unique strategic move that would lead my ball club to victory, get me the owner’s praise – and a bigger contract for future seasons. Then, the fantasy ended, and I headed up to the press box to cover the ballgame (back in my UPI reporting days).

Assuming the managerial pose

SO WHILE SCOURING around the Internet, I came across a 1967 short film entitled, “No Game Today,” in which a young boy manages to sneak into an empty Comiskey Park and go roaming around the field.

Even taking a few seconds to make that same managerial pose I once did.

Although I found myself watching the film (which clocks in at just over 10 minutes) more for its details of the old Comiskey, a ballpark I still remember fondly. Heck, I recently had a dream in which my brother and I were at a ballgame – sitting in those stands even though the structure hasn’t existed since 1990.

Although the ballpark appeared a lot cleaner back in ’67 than it was in those final seasons when I saw ballgames there (I still remember the time under the stands in the right field corner when I tripped because of a foot-deep pothole that had developed throughout the years).

I ALSO COULDN’T help but notice that the famed pinwheels on the center field scoreboard that we presume always existed didn’t way back then.

Now I’m not going to proclaim there’s anything deep or telling about this piece of film-making. Just a chance to reminisce about a piece of old Chicago, while also anxiously awaiting the beginning of Chicago baseball ’16.

And if this video isn’t enough, then perhaps this other bit on the fuzzymemories.tv website (which manages to find the most trivial, but intriguing, bits of Chicago television programming) will help.

It’s the entire final ballgame of the Chicago White Sox’ 1980 season – against the California Angels, with the voice of Harry Caray doing the play-by-play back before his Chicago Cubs days, when those fans were likely to think Harry was too much of a drunken lout to ever fit in as part of the Wrigley Field scene.

  -30-

Why does the modern ballpark feel more like a giant TV viewing room?

The ambiance of attending a ballgame in person (rather than viewing it on television, like so many people do these days) is no longer about the sight of so much green grass mowed ever so perfect, or the smell of the concessions wafting out toward the field.

Do we really need to see Sox rally-killing double plays so large? Image by Illinois Sports Facilities Authority

It seems to be more and more about the video boards that stadiums seem to think are the keys to the success of the facilities in which they actually play their games.

ANYBODY WHO DOUBTS this ought to consider a couple of actions that occurred this week in Chicago with regards to the facilities used by our city’s two professional ball clubs.

A U.S. District judge issued an order that rejected the lawsuit filed by owners of apartment buildings across the street from Wrigley Field – the one that challenged the legality of the video boards the ball club erected for 2015 and for seasons to come.

Meanwhile, the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority gave its approval to a new set of video boards for U.S. Cellular Field. The center field scoreboard with its iconic pinwheels (copied from the old Comiskey Park) will literally become a video board, with additional boards erected beyond left and right fields.

Beginning with 2016, people attending White Sox games will get to see a more grandiose display of video replays – in case you missed the sight of Adam LaRoche striking out, you can see it over and over and over again.

THE SAME WILL be in place at Wrigley, as the legitimacy of those video boards that block out the views from the rooftops of the apartments across the street from the outfield was approved.

Personally, I could care less. One of the reasons I actually enjoyed the last ballgame I went to this season (back when the Yankees came to town) was that I was in a centerfield seat with my back to the video boards.



The old ambiance of Sox and Cubs parks ...

They weren’t the distraction that day that they can often be. Yes, I’d actually rather watch the activity on the playing field – or on occasion check out the activity in the bullpens to see which relief pitchers are trying to catch a little nap before playing.

Although I suspect there are others who could care less, and probably enjoy the video-laced atmosphere, along with the ballplayers having their own personal “theme music” (usually some heavy-metal guitar riff or rap music tune). Maybe it’s not real until it has been on video?

... are definitely things of the past

UNLESS THE CHICAGO Cubs really are destined to go on and on to win the World Series (rather than just being one-and-done against the Pittsburgh Pirates), it could be that these video board announcements will be the highlights of this year for Chicago baseball.

I couldn’t help but be amused by the Crain’s Chicago Business report about the U.S. Cellular video boards, which included the fact that the state was obligated to upgrade the video boards because the current boards at the ballpark are now considered antiquated compared to what other stadiums have.

The White Sox’ lease with Illinois requires the building to be maintained to “major league” standards. I can already hear the people complain about the state wasting money that could have been put to use elsewhere.

Although that lease (with all its perks to the ball club) is what ensures the White Sox remain a viable financial entity and keeps Chicago’s status as a two-team town – rather than becoming like St. Louis, Philadelphia or Boston.

AS FOR THE Cubs, I have to confess some praise for Judge Virginia Kendall and her ruling that tossed out the lawsuits brought by those apartment owners who tried to bolster their own financial bottom-line by turning their rooftops into private clubs (with people paying anywhere from $90-150 a seat) to view ballgames.
 

Excuse me for not sympathizing for those rooftop club owners whose views are now permanently blocked. Image provided by Chicago Cubs

I’m old enough to remember the days when the sight of people sitting on the rooftops added to the ballpark’s character – in part because being allowed to go up on the roofs was a perk of actually living in the building. Outsiders were verboten!

For a building that likes to promote the idea that it has the same character as when it originally opened in 1914 (and where the Cubs will celebrate a century of activity come next year), those rooftop clubs are so garish and un-historic.

Just as tacky, perhaps, as the new video board for U.S. Cellular – and so unlike anything that Bill Veeck had in mind when he had the original exploding scoreboard put in place at Comiskey Park (or, for that matter, the ivy on the walls at Wrigley).

  -30-

Comiskey, Wrigley to live on in Tribune, but will Tower last long?

It’s the quirky story of the week; the Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue that has bricks and rocks from various sites around the world is getting two new additions to its façade.

A Wrigley Field brick will soon be across the street from Wrigley Building

Specifically, bricks from Comiskey Park (torn down in 1991) and Wrigley Field (whose outfield seating was rebuilt during the winter) are going to be embedded into the building that the Chicago Tribune always viewed as the castle from which Col. McCormick and his successors ran their news empire.

BASEBALL FANS WILL have no problem viewing those structures as some sort of historic places worthy of inclusion in the tower – which also includes bricks from the dome of St. Peters Cathedral, the Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall.

Then again, the Tribune Tower also includes a brick from the structure on Ontario Street where McCormick himself was born. Which I’m sure the colonel thought was the most significant of the roughly 160 bricks and rocks he managed to obtain for the collection.

Which is supposed to emphasize the idea that the gothic structure on Michigan Avenue is just as significant a structure as any of those other places.

For what it’s worth, the new bricks (new by Tribune Tower standards, old by baseball standards) will be installed come Friday. People will now be able to pass by, and there are bound to be a few baseball types who will make a point of checking out the building so they can see a piece of the old park.

Tribune now owns a piece of White Sox ...

ALTHOUGH TO BE honest, the demolition of Comiskey Park a quarter of a century ago was done in a way to maximize the amount of rubble that could be kept for souvenirs.

My point being that there are so many Comiskey Park bricks out there (distinguished from Wrigley bricks in that they’re covered with whitewash) that they’re not particularly rare.

I remember once seeing a pile of them as part of a touring exhibition of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and there are many White Sox fans who managed to snag themselves a brick that they now regard as the equivalent of a holy relic.

Every now and then, I even see a Comiskey brick up for sale!

AS FOR MY own family, there actually is a seat from the original Comiskey Park. Although throughout the years we managed to lose track of who had possession of it, and it may well have been disposed of by one of the family members who isn’t as attuned to baseball as the hard-core fans are.

... just as they once owned the Cubs

Then, there’s the Wrigley brick – which is available because when the outfield structure was reconfigured to accommodate those video boards, the outer walls needed to be rebuilt.

So there are Cubbie bricks to go along with Sox bricks. Baseball fans of all Chicago persuasions will be able to claim relics.

And now the Tribune Tower is regarding them both as a piece of Chicago history.

Will their spirits now linger on ...

ALTHOUGH A PART of me thinks that these bricks are just bricks. The lasting part of having attended ballgames in both structures is the memory of those games – even though many of the “intriguing” moments I have seen were performed by visiting team ballplayers (Reggie Jackson at Comiskey and Vladimir Guerrero at Wrigley hit two of the hardest balls I have ever seen).

Which means these two bricks are now part of the Tribune structure, which may someday soon not have the same meaning it has held for the nearly one century it has been in existence.



... at Tribune Tower as well?

Tribune is now two companies (the broadcast properties and the newspapers) and who is to say how long they will continue to be housed there? Which could make for an interesting predicament.

When the day comes that the structure at 435 N. Michigan Ave. is demolished, will there be eager scavengers picking through the rubble in hopes of finding that Berlin Wall brick? Or a piece of Comiskey?

  -30-

How bad does behavior have to get before ball club becomes responsible?

It has been 36 years since I first attended a ball game in Chicago, and the closest I ever came to having an incident was one White Sox game I went to with my brother and cousin when I was in high school.

Sometimes, the beatings come outside the ball park

It was the end of the game and the three of us were waiting outside Comiskey Park for our pre-arranged ride home to show up. We became aware of the fact that a couple of guys appeared to be eyeing us a little too closely.

BEFORE ANYTHING COULD happen, the three of us decided to walk around and mix in with the crowd that was leaving the stadium. We literally took a lap around the ballpark – which put us right back in the same spot.

By then, our potential attackers had moved on. Our ride wound up arriving a couple of minutes later, and the night ended without incident.

It stands out in my mind solely because it reinforces the fact that the stadium crowds usually are harmless. Some people overserve themselves. But, by and large, they are a hazard solely to themselves.

So what should we make of an incident that occurred at U.S. Cellular Field last season that has resulted in a lawsuit recently being filed.

FOR IT SEEMS that a couple attending a ball game last year left the ballpark, only to find that a trio of men were publicly urinating in the parking lot – and chose their car as the place to spray their piss.

When the couple tried telling the men to get lost, the men allegedly took offense and started beating up the couple.

As it turned out, the three men were arrested a couple of days later. They all now face criminal charges in Cook County court. Those cases are still pending.

Where the legal fight is now taking place

But the couple has now filed their lawsuit against the White Sox and the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority – the state agency that owns the stadium. Admittedly, they’re also suing the men who allegedly did the beating – claiming they incurred medical expenses because of the incident.

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported that the couple said in their lawsuit that the ball club’s security did absolutely nothing to try to intervene to prevent the beating from taking place. They argue that since it was ballpark property, the ball club is responsible.

Now aside from those whiny losers who look for any excuse to take a White Sox pot shot, what amazes me is to read some of the (anonymous, of course) Internet commentary that implies the couple themselves should have known better.

As though they should have let the trio finish their public urination and go staggering away, then drive their vehicle to the nearest car wash to have the stink of piss removed.

There are those who think the couple got what they deserved.

OF COURSE, THERE also were those who felt the need of the multiple stories of public urination that has taken place throughout the decades outside of Wrigley Field. Which is about as irrelevant to this incident as is possible.

Personally, I’m inclined to think of anyone who can’t control where they piss as something of a loser. Particularly at U.S. Cellular, where there are actually public restrooms accessible from outside the stadium.

I can see where a couple would be upset to see nothing being done about such a scene being made all over their automobile. Why security would deliberately ignore such actions is beyond me. But it will be intriguing to see how the courts ultimately rule with regards to this lawsuit.

Do we need to have the Piss Police patrolling the areas outside of both of our ballparks? Or is an occasional coating of urine on our automobiles now an occupational hazard, so to speak, of attending a ball game and watching our hometown teams get their butts whomped once again?

  -30-

Maybe that’s why some fans think of Wrigley Field as ‘the Urinal’

A part of me wishes I could dump all over the Chicago Cubs organization for their Opening Day festivities that kicked off the entire 2015 baseball season Sunday that clearly had inadequate toilet facilities for the fans who attended.
                    

But if I’m to be honest, I have to admit that washrooms are a persistent problem at large-scale events, including at a ball park where there are some facilities built into the place.

THERE SHOULDN’T BE a need to have port-a-potties on the premises, although it seems the Cubs organization on Monday admitted there were problems sufficient that they’re going to have to install the portable toilets for the next month or so.

At least until the renovations are complete – and that could be mid-May.

Which is going to make Cubs games an even more unpleasant atmosphere than the quality of baseball being played on-field usually makes them.

And before any of you starts giving me the line that the Cubs are now a quality organization that is in serious contention for the National League championship of 2015, I’d point to the Sunday night scoreboard and the fact that the arch-rival St. Louis Cardinals have the “W,” which ultimately is the only statistic that matters!

ACCORDING TO THE reports, the problem stemmed from plumbing problems that have left half of the toilet facilities in the ballpark’s upper deck unusable.

That caused those fans to have to come down to the lower deck of the 101-year-old building, which meant they were jam-packed. There were reports of people having to wait up to an hour in line before they could walk up to one of the troughs and do their business.

Yahoo! Sports even included pictures of empty beer cups left on the floor – except that the cups had been refilled with what appeared to be urine of people who just couldn’t wait to get in the rest room proper!

I write “appeared” because I wasn’t there, and even if I had been, I wouldn’t have been bold enough to walk up and take a whiff of the cups to sense what was actually in them.

ALTHOUGH I SUPPOSE I could come up with some sort of joke about the content of those cups not differing significantly from the ballpark beer usually offered up for sale.

The conditions on hand Sunday night were severe, and made worse in the context of a ballpark undergoing a major renovation to make it a more modern facility.

Instead, we got to see that Wrigley really is a building lingering into the 21^st Century with 19^th Century toilet facilities. Perhaps the attention ought to be on an upgrade to restrooms, rather than to installing a video board that will merely let the fans see replays of all the plays that the Cubs players botched up on the field?

Perhaps that would bring an end to the stories I have long heard from Lake View neighborhood residents about how obnoxious of neighbors Cubs fans can be with acts of public urination – particularly in the alleys of the buildings directly surrounding the ballpark.

YET I HAVE to admit to having seen similarly disgusting moments while attending Chicago White Sox games. I remember one incident a few years ago when an inebriated fan walked into a rest room, saw the lines of people waiting for the proper urinals that exist at U.S. Cellular Field, and decided to relieve himself right into a public sink!

I wish I could say he was a Cubs fan who simply didn’t know how to behave in public, but I can’t say for sure.

Then again, it actually reminded me of a moment during the first ball game I ever attended as a kid at the old Comiskey Park. At game’s end, I went to the rest room and used a trough similar to what still exists at Wrigley, then went to a sink to try to wash my hands. At which point, another Sox fan told me I was crazy to do that because of the generations of people who had used the sinks for disgusting purposes.

I suppose it means that Sunday night at Wrigley could have been much worse than the sight of piss-filled beer cups scattered all over the floors!

  -30-


EDITOR'S NOTE: Yeah, yeah. I know -- 10-1!?! All across Missouri, baseball fans are filled with glee, while we count down the 161 remaining games of 2015.

No more “Sears” on State Street! Will anyone in Chicago miss it in the least?

My initial reaction to learning this week that Sears plans to close its so-called “flagship” store on State Street was to wonder to myself, “Didn’t they just get here?”

Big news! Or the ultimate "ho-hum?"

It actually shocked me to realize that the return of Sears to State Street occurred in 2001. They’ve been back for nearly 13 years – with the help of funds provided by city government from Tax Increment Finance districts. It was state funding that kept the corporate headquarters in suburban Hoffman Estates a few years ago.

YET I ALSO have to confess that perhaps it is people just like myself who are responsible for Sears’ inability to maintain a major department store in the downtown Chicago area.

For in those 13 years that Sears was back on State Street, I personally never set foot in the store. From accounts I have heard and read from people who have been inside, they were the rarity.

There weren’t enough customers for Sears to make a go of it. Some of you may want to wisecrack that none of the Sears stores have enough customers to survive. But the modern-day Sears customer is someone who is using one of their suburban shopping mall customer.

Not exactly the kind of person who’s going to want to make the trip to downtown to lug around shopping bags from store to store in search of their life’s necessities and luxury items.

YES, I REALIZE that there are many millions of people who work in the Loop who could include a trip to Sears in with their routine before returning home. Although I suspect even many of them weren’t going to want to be bothered.

It’s hard to think of the State Street Sears store as the company “flagship” when it most likely was an afterthought to any kind of person who was still inclined to think “Sears” when they had shopping to do!

The Chicago White Sox' "real" home....

Which is why the idea of Sears on State Street (at State and Madison streets, to be exact) will be no more once we get into spring. In fact, the whole idea of Sears as a Chicago entity is really no more. The corporate headquarters is in suburban Hoffman Estates – and even that has threatened to leave our area altogether in recent years.

Sears, it seems, has become an element of Chicago history – not its present. Just like Marshall Field’s, that little tugboat-like building on the Chicago River that once housed the Chicago Sun-Times, and Comiskey Park.

... just like this is the "real" Sears

IN FACT, MY own thought process thinks that the Sears store on State Street is comparable to U.S. Cellular Field – the stadium used by the Chicago White Sox.

We go to it, we sit in its seats and watch a ballgame. Yet we can’t help but remember that old whitewashed brick building that used to be to the north of 35^th Street and think the current structure is somehow lacking.

As though it’s not the real ballpark.

Just as Sears used to be one of the anchors of the shopping district on State Street, until they gave in to contemporary retail trends (the ones that favor a cut rate-type marketer like Wal-mart) and closed their long-time flagship a couple of blocks further south near Congress and Van Buren streets, the current Sears store somehow felt like it was an imitator.

TO THE POINT where I never felt compelled to spend money there – even though the history buff in me fully comprehends the significance of a business flagship on State.

So what happens now? Other than the fact that the Chicago Public Schools has expressed interest in moving their main offices from Clark Street over to State – taking over at least part of the store

Will we someday wonder why it was called Sears?

The company has said the closeout sale will begin soon and will carry on until mid-April. Maybe somebody has dreams of people who file their tax returns early, and spend their return in one last shopping spree on State Street.

Wouldn’t it be just Sears’ luck of late that they mark everything down significantly in price – only to find out that still, nobody wants to make the trip to buy.

  -30-