Touch of old-school politics; replacing holiday turkeys with paid-off bills?

I’ve heard the stories from Chicago’s political past, from the days when certain aldermen – usually those whose constituents were amongst the poorest and least fortunate of the city’s populace – would give out their annual holiday turkeys.

WILSON: Handing out cash

Or hams. Or something else that could be a main course at a holiday dinner – thereby ensuring that some poor family would have something to eat on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Just like all those rich folks who could afford to buy their own holiday meal.

THE PAYOFF, OF course, was that the alderman was trying to build up good will amongst people who had a vote come Election Day. They’d remember who gave them something tangible and would be inclined to cast their ballot for the alderman’s re-election – along with the higher-level politicians aligned with the said alderman.

When you look at things that way, it would seem that Willie Wilson (the African-American executive who started with a South Side McDonald’s franchise and self-made himself a fortune) is playing old-school politics and trying to maintain good will amongst the kind of people whom he thinks would be inclined to take him seriously should he actually run for mayor come February (and an April runoff) 2019.

Wilson has attracted public attention in recent days for the fact that he showed up at a South Side church and gave away cash to anybody with hardly any questions asked. He wants to think that he’s helping the unfortunate by enabling them to pay off some bill that otherwise could devastate their life’s routines.

Some have questioned whether Wilson’s act amounts to bribery (buying peoples’ votes). Others are all offended because Gov. Bruce Rauner was at the church with him – and may have actually provided some of the cash that Wilson gave away.

ALTHOUGH IT ALSO appears state Elections officials interpret the law as being vague; meaning that neither Wilson nor Rauner nor anyone associated with either man is likely to face the prospect of a criminal indictment for their actions.

I stumbled across one weblog where the writer tried to claim Wilson’s actions are downright petty to all the favors and support that Mayor Rahm Emanuel will be able to buy with the roughly $12 million he has raised for his own re-election campaign fund.

Not that I’d agree with such thoughts. But I also suspect Wilson will not be bothered by his actions – and probably will go out of his way to denounce his detractors as being “out of touch” with the realities of urban Chicago.

RAUNER: Was gubernatorial money involved?

Appealing to the sensibilities of people who would regard having their telephone bill paid off as being more “real” than anything more conventional political people could ever offer them.

I’D ARGUE IT’S really taking advantage of people who don’t know better and buying them off dirt-cheap! Really, how many government officials of the past got themselves re-elected, and capable of cashing in on the political gravy train, for the mere cost of a holiday ham?

How much good will did Wilson get for the roughly $300,000 that he says his personal foundation (and not political campaign fund) shelled out at church this past weekend?

I’d say it’s cynical to think that coughing up some pocket cash (which is what people like Wilson and Rauner think of the sum offered up this weekend) can be used to buy up the good will of people with nothing else in life.

It is a tactic that ought to be firmly lodged in our political past – because it really does reek of buying votes, even though the law sees just enough of a gap in reality for the act to be construed as such.

NOT THAT I expect Wilson to care one bit about anything I write here, or anyone else says or thinks.

EMANUEL: The ultimate target of tactic?

He’d probably say I’m being all “high-minded” and that these “rules” aren’t realistic to daily life; existing solely to “hold down” the less fortunate amongst us. As if we’re making an issue of this only because it is African-American people continuing to benefit from something that used to be standard political practice.

If anything, it is more likely to be Rauner who will suffer political blows. Guilt by association, even though he has said he never would have given Wilson’s foundation any kind of contribution if he had known it were to be distributed in such a crass manner.

Which could be mere double-talk on Rauner’s part to escape the taint of this controversy involving the governor and possible mayoral candidate who do have one thought in common – both probably think it is Emanuel who holds down their ability to have greater influence politically. Because Rauner certainly hopes that any good will Wilson derives will spill over onto himself come Election Day on Nov. 6.

  -30-

Is it finally Danny Boy’s time to leave Congress, or will he gain another term?

Dan Lipinski has been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 14 years, and by all rights ought to have all the political benefits of incumbency when it comes to getting re-elected.

Does Dan Lipinski wish he could be ...

Yet the realities of partisan politics may have changed enough that Lipinski is now at risk of losing the Congressional seat he inherited when his father, William, retired following a political career that saw him rise from the ranks of a South Side alderman to a member of Congress.

OR MAYBE HE isn’t going to lose. That is the big unanswered questions on the Chicago political scene this election cycle.

Every cycle, Lipinski has to answer allegations that he’s too conservative to be a Chicago-area congressman, and in fact has so many ideological leanings to the right that he has no business identifying himself as a Democrat.

Not that it has worked in the past. There are many people who  have tried challenging Dan Lipinski since he gave up a university teaching position in Tennessee in 2004 to return to the Chicago area and replace his father on Capitol Hill.

None of them put up a serious challenge. To the point where I understand why Lipinski, the younger, would go into this election cycle feeling confident that he could beat off yet another “misguided liberal-type” of political dreamer.

BUT THIS ELECTION cycle is turning out to be the one in which a liberal-type might actually win the primary election to be held Tuesday. Which, of course, would result in a Nov. 6 general election victory, since even the Republican Party is openly appalled at the thought that they’re likely to nominate Art Jones, a white supremacist, to run for them.

So will Marie Newman, a small businesswoman, manage to elevate herself to Congress by the benefit of running at the right time? Or will Lipinski manage to gain himself yet another two-year term representing Chicago’s Southwest Side neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs?

... same old-school Dem as his father, Bill?

Is Lipinski, a Democrat with a significant voting record in line with Republican partisan interests, truly out of line with his constituents?

That is a question I have been pondering for several months now.

BECAUSE THE DISTRICT is one that is pretty much the remnants of the old South Side of Chicago – one that was ‘white ethnic’ in composition and one that most definitely didn’t think of itself as sympathetic to the interests of African-Americans.

A part of me jokes that the people who support Lipinski in Congress are the children and grand-children of the same Chicago residents who, back in 1968, cheered for the Chicago police officers who beat up the ‘hippie freaks’ who protested in Grant Park during the Democratic National Convention and who were offended when the resulting investigation classified the incident as a “police riot.”

As though the rest of the world was out of whack with their sense of morals. Just as I’m sure Lipinski-backers feel about Newman and her supporters.

Personally, I’ve always understood Lipinski’s Democratic Party identity is tied to his support for issues related to organized labor and unions. I have no doubt that someone like Gov. Bruce Rauner, with all his ideological rhetoric on such issues that he tries to bill as “reform” probably thinks of Lipinski as being just as much a part of the “problem” as Michael Madigan.

TO THE POINT where I don’t expect the hard-core Republicans think much of him just because on abortion or many other social issues, he sympathizes with their political party’s platform. There are those who have no problem thinking of Dan Lipinski as a Democrat. They're the ones who are the target for a Twitter campaign trying to portray Newman as anti-Catholic -- so Vote for Dan!

NEWMAN: Will she bring Ill. 3rd into 21st Century?

Newman is trying to inspire the people whose political leanings are influenced primarily by those very social issues to rise up and vote for her. Dump Dan Lipinski, is their battle cry. Many Democratic-leaning national organizations are offering up support to her.

But will it work. Is the motivation amongst many progressive-minded voters to dump anyone perceived as not openly hostile to Donald Trump capable of providing enough voter support to enable Newman to beat Lipinski?

Or is there still enough of the old spirit of the Sout’ Side remaining to send Dan back to Capitol Hill? We’ll know better come Tuesday night.

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: I happened to read through some of the old copy published at this weblog when I found this Feb. 3, 2008 commentary about Lipinski being challenged by Mark Pera (remember him, I don’t). It amazes me about how some realities of Chicago and its political scene haven’t changed one bit during the past decade.

Can Chicago support more pro soccer? Does North Side want its own team?

Does professional soccer in this country have visions of playing off the South Side/North Side split that exists in our city – with each side having its own team to root for?

Architectural rendering of new stadium to attract Amazon.com, United Soccer League to Chicago

Some people seem to have such dreams, although it’s questionable whether the baseball dichotomy that exists in Chicago could ever be recreated for another sport.

ADMITTEDLY, THIS IS all theoretical.

It comes about because part of the Chicago proposal for trying to encourage Amazon.com to build their second corporate headquarters here is to erect a stadium at a site along the Chicago River’s north branch on the fringes of the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

It’s meant to enhance the neighborhood that could be the site of the Amazon.com facility – an effort to make it a hip and happening place (and yes, I suspect the only people who would find this upgrade worthy are the types who would use terms like “hip” and “happening”).

Concerts could be held there, and there’s talk of trying to get the United Soccer League to expand its operations with a team in Chicago that could actually play its games there.

IT SOUNDS NICE, except that Chicago already has a professional soccer team – the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer. Which isn’t exactly an attendance-leader for the league, and usually provides ammunition for the NASCAR-type mentality people who want to think soccer is too foreign to be worthy of any support on the sporting scene.

The existing Toyota Park of southwest suburban Bridgeview

The Fire, when they originally were created back in the 1990s, played their matches at Soldier Field. But when that stadium was renovated into its current state, the Fire used the need to find a new home as an excuse to get their own stadium.

Which they now have out in the southwest suburb of Bridgeview. I’ve been to Toyota Park for a few matches. It’s actually a nice facility, and does the team some credit to have it available at their control – unlike Soldier Field, where the Chicago Park District always made it clear the Chicago Bears were the primary tenant and others would have to play second-fiddle.

But it has created a situation where some people living in the northern reaches of the Chicago area want to believe that a team playing its games at 71^st Street and Harlem Avenue is too distant.

Is 20 years of existence strong enough for Fire?

WHO WANTS TO have to travel south, particularly that far south, to see a soccer match?

Although I’d point out (as someone native to the South Side and surrounding suburbs) that the region stretches as far south as 236^th Street before you reach the southernmost tip of Cook County.

But there’s speculation that a United Soccer League franchise based on the north side, particularly if on the fringe of a trendy, upscale neighborhood, could try to market itself as an alternative. Even though the United Soccer League technically is a minor league that ranks below Major League Soccer on the sporting scene.

Chgo soccer hasn't been same since Sting ceased to exist

Some could argue we have the same scene with baseball, where the Chicago White Sox have been ever since their creation in 1900 a team that marketed itself as the face of the South Side, and with the Cubs upon their moving to what is now Wrigley Field back in 1916 as the North Side team.

BUT LIKE I said, it was a conscious decision of Charles Comiskey that he had the Sout’ Side team. The Fire would become the South Side team of default, with the hoity-toity types of the North lakefront deciding to watch soccer matches in their own neighborhoods – that is, if they ever get such an urge.

Personally, I played a little soccer in high school (no, I wasn’t any good at it), and my own memories also included rooting for the Chicago Sting of old – that now-defunct team that actually won North American Soccer League championships in 1981 and 1984. To me, I’d like to have the Sting back, rather than any of these new teams.

White Sox fans still think "Ugh!"

But that’s not about to happen. We’ll have to see what becomes of this new team talk – particularly if Amazon.com winds up choosing some other city and the motivation for building a new stadium up north withers away.

There would be one interesting bit – since a North Side team would technically be a minor league club, and it would create the state where players would “move up” to the Chicago Fire down south. Similar to when Ron Santo was traded from the Cubs to the White Sox in 1974 and was greeted with fan banners reading, “Ron Santo, Welcome to the Major Leagues.”

  -30-

What’s good for Hyde Park sticks it to South Chicago, while the masses yawn!

In my mind, I already can hear the lone voice or two out of the South Chicago and South Shore neighborhoods along the lakefront who will express furious anger at the thought of the limited access to public transit they already have being cut even further.

Metra may make it easier to get to Hyde Park from Randolph and Michigan at the expense of other parts of the South Side. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

The rant will be vociferous. It will be sincere in its emotion. And I also don’t doubt that the masses, particularly those involved with mass transit in the Chicago area, will care less.

I’M REFERRING TO the proposal being put forth by the Metra commuter railroad system that takes people from all across the metropolitan area into downtown Chicago to alter the set-up of the Metra Electric line, which goes from Millennium Station at Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue south to University Park, with branches that break off and take people both to Blue Island and also to the aforementioned South Side neighborhoods.

According to Metra officials, their intent is to boost the number of trains on the line that pass through the Hyde Park neighborhood. Under the current set-up, once the morning rush hour is over, trains go through at the rate of one per hour – the same as through the rest of the south suburbs on the line.

But because Chicago Transit Authority “el” service doesn’t stretch into Hyde Park, people living there rely on the Metra for contact with the rest of the world. Metra officials say they’d like to have trains stopping in Hyde Park stations (every two blocks from 51^st to 59^th streets) every 20 minutes.

That’s nice for them. I think that’s great. Particularly since I often use the Metra Electric (I’m old enough to remember when the line was a part of the Illinois Central railroad, and there are many old-timers who still think of it as the “IC line”) to get to Hyde Park, and it would be nice if trains ran more frequently.

BUT I ALSO was born in the South Chicago neighborhood, and know that CTA trains don’t go anywhere near the neighborhood. Even the number of bus routes are limited.

A trip downtown on the Number 30 South Chicago bus route that eventually puts you on a Red Line train at 69^th Street is slow, makes multiple stops and can take over an hour each way to make the commute.

It’s part of the reason activists in this area are pushing for the CTA to extend the Red Line train south to 130^th Street, which would make it possible to use other bus routes to catch the “el.”

 

UChgo influence makes Hyde Park transit a priority

But just at a time when CTA officials are moving forward with that long-rumored project, Metra now wants to come in and reduce the service the area already had.

NOW I’LL ADMIT a bias here. I was born in the South Chicago neighborhood, and remember as a kid visiting my grandmother who lived just one block from the 91^st Street station that is the end of the South Chicago line.

I know Metra officials are arguing that the specific train lines they’re talking about cutting so as to shift the service to benefit Hyde Park have fewer than 10 passengers, and sometimes only one or two.

But I’d argue that it’s because Metra in recent decades has offered such a scant service to the area that local residents have come to not expect it as an option when they need to get from place to place.

Older area residents recall the days when trains ran regularly on the South Chicago branch – in fact, as frequently as the every 20 minutes that officials are talking about creating for Hyde Park! I’m sure area use would increase if service were available.

YET THAT ALSO requires some ambition and a desire to actually provide a product. Whereas in the past, Metra has clearly considered getting people from suburban locations into downtown Chicago as its priority – with the stops that Metra trains make within the city considered as a thing of the past.

You'll need a car to get to area around 95th St. bridge

So yes, Metra officials deserve some praise for wanting to bolster Hyde Park service – possibly by summer’s end.

Yet here’s hoping that residents of South Chicago and the surrounding neighborhoods that would rely on Metra service if it were more frequent and reliable can get their voices up loud enough where they’re heard over the din of public anger on so many issues.

Otherwise, it will be too easy for Metra officials to dismiss them as insignificant; leaving a sizable part of Chicago further isolated from the rest of the city.

  -30-

Schaller’s Pump a disappearing part of the old Sout’ Side Irish part of Chicago

Schaller’s Pump is a Bridgeport neighborhood tavern that could claim the distinction of being the oldest in the city of Chicago – tracing its lineage from 1881 until Sunday, when it closed for good.

One-and-a-third centuries of Bridgeport drinking now complete

It could also claim its current ownership by George Schaller and his family, which has held the property since the days following Prohibition. We’re bound to get a few sentimental reports in coming days (the Chicago Tribune kicked in with theirs on Monday) about this “cultural” loss to the city.

YET LET’S BE honest. There were elements of that place near 37^th and Halsted streets that weren’t exactly the most welcoming aspects of Chicago. It wouldn’t shock me if a great number of Chicagoans had never been there and probably wouldn’t have given much thought to setting foot in a place that viewed itself principally as existing to serve the people of Bridgeport.

The pea soup, meatloaf and Prime Rib on weekends? I never experienced them.

Personally, I only visited the place once. It was back in 1999 and several of my work colleagues and I wound up going together to a ballgame – at then-New Comiskey Park to see the White Sox take on the visiting Chicago Cubs.

It’s actually the only time I ever have gone to see a Sox/Cubs game (too many knuckleheads feel compelled to show up, which is why I usually catch those games on television or by reading a box score). Afterward, the batch of us decided to try to hit an area bar for a quick drink.

WHICH IS HOW we wound up walking over from Shields Avenue to Halsted Street and spent a bit of time at Schaller’s Pump. Bridgeport ain’t like Wrigley Field with the Cubby Bear Lounge located across the street,

The place was (I recall) in a good mood, largely because the White Sox that particular night had come from behind to beat the Cubs.

Our group took up a separate table and was pretty much watched quietly by people who wondered if we’d cause trouble because it was pretty obvious we weren’t Bridgeport native.

Will Sox fans have to drink in stadium bar now?

I do recall one guy asking me “what the story was” about our group, which had several younger obviously-suburban women and also some of the non-white types that a certain element of Bridgeport had long feared coming into their neighborhood.

WHEN TOLD THAT we were a batch of people who worked together, he kind of sighed, rolled his eyes then focused his attention back to his beer.

Like I already said, it helped that the White Sox won, so people were in a good mood. If the Cubs had won, maybe his reaction would have been more harsh.

But people were happy, particularly when the one colleague of mine who had worn a Cubs jersey into Schaller’s Pump was immediately told upon entrance to take it off (he did, and the bar’s staff kept it behind the counter; returning it upon his departure).

There also was the semi-humorous moment; when the bar’s patrons – upon seeing a televised recap of how the Sox beat the Cubs that night wound up bursting out in song. Giving us a genuine take on “South Side Irish,” which one of my work colleagues mocked by referring to it as the “Band Aid jingle.”

A GOOD THING that the Schaller’s crowd didn’t hear that wisecrack. It might have been contemplated as “fightin’ words.”

But no, there wasn’t a fight. In fact, we had our drink there, then moved on. Which probably kept the night from escalating into an incident.

Sox' ballpark doesn't have a Cubby Bear-like bar across the street

Although I recall one of my former colleagues saying she had now “experienced” the South Side, and I recall her asking me what it had been like to have “grown up” in the area. Even though the part of the South Side I call home is about 60 blocks further south and way to the east.

We of South Chicago and the East Side (and the 10^th Ward in general) think of Bridgeport as being “way up North,” which is a thought that I’m sure would grossly offend the 11^th Ward locals who now won’t have Schaller’s to hang out at to console themselves.

  -30-

EXTRA: Chicago wins its second World Series title of the 21st Century

It seems the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday didn’t manage to blow it big time. They won a World Series championship – their first in 108 years. Although it took extra innings in the final game to achieve.
 

Did 1st pitch honors 'sted of Charlie Sheen

It’s also the second World Series won by a Chicago baseball team in this century – let’s not forget the Chicago White Sox won a title back in 2005. Even though Cubs fans have been going out of their way for the past week to try to ignore that fact.

THE SARCASTIC SIDE of me wants to say “It’s about time” those lazy slackers on the North Side managed to win something on behalf of Chicago. Quite frankly, I’m tired of dealing with out-of-town crackpots who presume there has to be something wrong with Chicagoans as a whole because we take the loser Cubs seriously.

But some of us do, and I don’t doubt that they’re feeling a certain level of glee that White Sox fans felt some 11 years ago. Hope you Cubbie-fan types enjoy your parade that the city likely stages for you in coming days. Although I somehow suspect that the White Sox title meant more to the city and then-Mayor Richard M. Daley than this year’s Cubbie victory does to Mayor Rahm Emanuel – who did finally deign to show up at the ballpark for Game 7 on Wednesday in Cleveland.

As for the celebration, I’m sure Cubbie-types will get all worked up and think it’s a historic moment. I know there are Sox-fan types who can tell you exactly where along their parade route they stood, and how close they were to first baseman Paul Konerko when he voluntarily handed over the final ball from Game 4 to team owner Jerry Reinsdorf.

Not that any of this is in any way a sign that our city is “united” behind a ball club. That will never happen. The character of Chicago baseball is the very split, and the hard-core of each side would consider it sacrilegious for any kind of unity to occur.

 

Hit a grand slam (not a Denny's breakfast)

HOW ELSE TO explain those Bridgeport types who actually deigned to wear caps bearing the Chief Wahoo logo in recent days. I strongly suspect those caps will be mutilated in coming months – perhaps the first time that arch-rival Cleveland makes a visit to Chicago in 2017 to play the White Sox.

Because seeing the Indians in the World Series was a reminder that the White Sox weren’t, and may have hurt even more than the Cubs’ presence there. Although I did get my kick out of seeing that for Game 7, the Indians used for their first ball ritual one-time White Sox slugger Jim Thome. Thereby sparing us the sight of actor Charlie Sheen, who wants us to think he really played for Cleveland.

 

Hit a more-legendary 4-bagger in '05

I’m sure there are some Cubs fans who felt a tinge of annoyance at having a Sox slugger so prominently displayed – even if he also was an Indian (and a Phillie and Twin).

I wonder how long the resentment will carry out on Jason Kipnis, the Indians infielder from suburban Northbrook who hit that home run in Game Four that put the hurt on Cubbie blue hearts for a little while.

ALTHOUGH I’M SURE the Addison Russell grand slam home run of Tuesday night helped console them. While also reminding White Sox fans about that similar shot Paul Konerko hit back in Game 2 of ’05.

Which brings us around to what will be the lasting bit of trash talk that Chicago baseball fans will now start to engage in for years to come. Who was better – ’16 Cubbies or the ’05 Sox?!?

As much as I already hear that “best team in baseball” nonsense being spewed all year by Cubs fans, anybody with sense knows that the Buehrle/Garland/Garcia/Contreras pitching rotation would shut down the baby blue bears over and over and over again. 

We're long overdue for a rematch, don't you think?

Which is why we need to have an all-Chicago World Series, and soon! Although there are times I wonder if Chicago could handle the stress level that a Sox vs. Cubs series would create in the chill of a Second City October?

  -30-

Wade thinks Trump behavior sorry, but not completely because problem is real

New Chicago Bull Dwyane Wade got himself some national media attention Friday, what with an interview he gave to ABC News where he talked about the death of his cousin – who was killed a week ago by a stray bullet fired on the South Side.

ALDRIDGE: Celebrity death due to her cousin

The death of Nykea Aldridge, who was only 32, truly is a story of how stupid and pointless life can sometimes be – she was walking along the street with a baby carriage when she was hit by the gunshot.

THE BABY WASN’T hurt. But the mother is now dead. The child is orphaned.

The sad part of this story is that nobody would be paying any attention to Aldridge’s death if not for the fact that she’s a cousin to Wade – the one-time prep basketball star from Richards High School in Oak Lawn who has played the past 13 seasons with the Miami Heat and now hopes to spend the final days of his time as a professional athlete with the Bulls.

Almost as though her life had no meaning in and of itself. Then again, that is the real problem with the homicide rate in Chicago – too many people are willing to presume that the problem only impacts people who don’t matter.

All of this got national attention last weekend when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump used Twitter to make a comment about how a vote for him would be a vote for reducing urban violence.

HE SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED Wade by name (and managed to mis-spell it in the process).

Which led to George Stephanopoulos of ABC (and also one-time communications guy to former President Bill Clinton) asking Wade for his thoughts.

I’m sure he offered aid and comfort to the Hillary Clinton camp when he said he was bothered by Trump bringing up his family to score political points for himself.

WADE: From his days as a local prep star

But he also said he realizes that anything drawing national attention to the urban violence of Chicago is a plus. Because otherwise, we’re too likely to continue to ignore it.

OF COURSE, WADE also made a point of saying he wants tougher gun laws in Chicago – which definitely is something that the Trump types will oppose.

For Chicago has tried to pass absolute bans on firearms ownership within the city, only to have conservative-leaning courts issue rulings that have thwarted the city’s desires.

If anything, the Trump types are the kind of people who probably think they ought to be allowed to carry their firearms on their person so they can shoot first, so to speak, at anyone who gave off a menacing aura in their presence.

They’d probably argue that if Aldridge had been armed, she could have shot back at the two brothers who now face criminal charges for the incident. Of course, she didn’t realize a shot was fired until it was too late. Which makes that kind of logic completely absurd!

REALIZE THAT I have my own bias when it comes to firearms – I think they’re the equivalent of automobiles. Many government officials are quick to cite the cliché that a driver’s license is a privilege, not a right, and that such license can be revoked.

But talk about restricting firearms brings up an illogical rant about one’s right. Even though I’d argue that in daily life, one needs access to an automobile more than a pistol.

It will be interesting to see how Dwyane Wade continues to bring up this family situation; what with Aldridge’s funeral set for Saturday. Could Wade become a figure of prominence both on urban violence and on the basketball court for the Bulls?

Or is he going to be more important back in Miami, where he will be part of an event on Sept. 17 where he will bicycle for six miles with Miami police to promote public safety.

  -30-

What does Cubs ‘Magic Number’ mean for those fans who could care less?

We’re at that point of the baseball season where teams that have played somewhat respectfully start thinking seriously about the chance that this year could be THE YEAR for their favorite ballclub.

 

Sox fans have had to fantasize about the past

A league championship! Perhaps even a World Series title. There are at least a dozen of the 30 major league ball clubs who are acting these days as though this is THE YEAR.

INCLUDED AMONGST THOSE dreamers are the perpetual fantasizers who follow the Chicago Cubs. Even though it has been 71 seasons since the National League championship banner last flew over the Lake View neighborhood (and 108 years since “Cubs” and “World Series champions” were tied together), we’re getting the talk.

Particularly in the form of the “magic number,” which is the number of Cubs wins and second place team losses needed for the Cubs to prevail with a first place finish for the 2016 season.

As of Sunday, that number was “28.” Which means they’re not on the verge of clinching anything in the next few days. But it is close enough that 2016 could wind up being just like 1984, 1989, 1998, 2003, 2007, 2008 and 2015.

Years in which there was a Cubs playoff appearance but someone else won the rights to call themselves the championship team for the year.

SO IS 2016 destined to be THE YEAR for the Wrigley Field denizens. Or just another season in which they fall short?

Personally, I don’t really care. And I’m not alone.

 

That early season start seems like a century ago

For the reality of Chicago is that the character of our city’s baseball feelings is that they’re split between two ball clubs. There are those of us, myself included, who are going to feel apathy toward whatever the Cubs do.

In my case, it’s largely because I’m a fan of the American League and its ball clubs. Even if by chance the Cubs do win their first National League championship since 1945 and the rights to play the AL champion in the World Series, I’ll likely be rooting for the latter.

FOR THOSE PEOPLE who somehow think that’s disrespectful to Chicago or somehow petty, I’d say it’s only natural. I suspect it is the way many Cubs fans went about regarding the 2005 season when the Chicago White Sox managed to win their first American League championship in 46 seasons, then went on to perform many historic moments in beating the Houston Astros in the World Series that year.

There was that segment of Chicago that got all worked up and held that victory parade that stretched from U.S. Cellular Field through the South Side and into downtown. There also were other people who felt a big “ho hum” towards the event.

Which, if the Cubs do manage to accomplish something in 2016 (personally, I’m skeptical they will), is a sentiment that we will see repeated. Some of us will care. Others of us will already have moved on either to the Chicago Bears or to the 2017 season.

It’s just the character of Chicago – no matter how insufferable some Cubs fans get in believing that everybody on Planet Earth somehow cares what their favorite ballclub does.

IN FACT, I’LL be honest. There is a part of me that wouldn’t mind if the Cubs were able in 2016 to share in the feeling of what it is like to have a ball club that does something worthy of note.

 

The White Sox are 2-1 this season with me sitting in the stands. All photographs by Gregory Tejeda

Because I personally think the “lovable loser” mentality reflects badly upon Chicago as a whole. And while I’ll admit all of our city’s professional sports teams have had their eras of suckiness, it is largely the lengthy stretches of the Cubs that implants that image in the public’s head.

If the Cubs really do win something this year, we can finally move on and quit thinking there is something so special about a ball club that can never win a thing. Then we can get on to the ultimate argument-provoking debate for Chicago sports fans – who’d win a fantasy championship series between the ’05 White Sox (best in the American League that season) and ’16 Cubs?

Of course, anybody with sense could see Mark Buehrle pitching a complete-game shutout and catcher A.J. Pierzynski using his baseball “smarts” to pull off such a fantasy victory for the Sox.

  -30-

Can you hear Olympic anthem in our skies? What could have been in Chi

President Barack Obama is expected to be in Chicago some time this week to make known the worst-kept secret – his presidential library and museum will be put in Jackson Park, not far from the University of Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry.

 

What could have been this month in Chicago

But if one goes back a decade ago, Obama was supposed to bring the eyes of the world this week on Chicago to a site just a little further to the north, as in Washington Park.

BECAUSE THAT WAS supposed to be the site where an Olympic Stadium would be constructed – an 80,000-seat temporary structure that would have the opening ceremonies and major events for the Olympic Games that are scheduled to begin on Friday.

As for Jackson Park, it too was supposed to be part of the Olympiad plan – the plan was for a stadium to hold field hockey events would be built there, and that facility eventually would be converted into fields where soccer could be played.

But we all know how Chicago’s bid to be the host city for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games fell through. It turned out that amongst the four finalist cities that were seriously in the running, Chicago literally came up Number Four – as in the first one that was knocked out of the running.

It seems the International Olympic Committee was determined to put the games in a city south of the Equator – and Rio de Janeiro was the only such city in the running that year.

NOW I KNOW there are people out there who will vociferously argue that Chicago is so much better off not having been chosen. All the construction that it would have taken to turn the South Side into a series of venues usable for international athletic events would have cost us a bundle.

And for all the whining and moaning taking place these days about the Zika virus and the chances that world-class athletes will wind up being infected while there, you just know that with the homicide rate in Chicago drawing so much public attention, there would be all the world speculation that a world-class athlete would wind up getting gunned down in the bad-assed streets of Chi-town.

All it would take would be one stinkin’ little incident and the world would be dismissing a Chicago Olympiad as being an even bigger mistake than the ’96 games that were played in Atlanta.

OBAMA: Bringing eyes of nation to Jackson Pk

But I can ‘t help but wonder what could have been if we’d being hearing the Olympic theme echoing across the skies of Chicago, and countless renditions of national anthems from around the world providing inspiration to those world-class athletes getting a chance to say they performed their deeds here instead of Brazil.

IT COULD HAVE been an event of the scale of the World’s Fairs of 1892 or 1933 – something that could have gone into our history as a communal experience we all shared.

Something to show that Chicago is capable of a more serious public event than the Taste of Chicago or Lollapalooza!

It also could have been the chance to put to use those parks of Washington and Jackson, which I suspect many people in the metropolitan area don’t know much about because they’re just the South Side. In fact, I literally know some people who can’t tell the difference between the two and think they’re just one large strip of open land.

If anything, Chicago needs to have a significant happening on the South Side so as to let people know the city does not come to an end at Roosevelt Road and that the French were being a bit ridiculous when they issued tourist advisories to their citizens saying there’s nothing of interest down south.

TO THAT END, it is good to know that the Obama library will wind up in Jackson Park. An attraction for many people who probably will have to look up on a map to see where it is, because otherwise they just think of it as generic South Side turf.

But an Olympiad could have been a once-in-a-lifetime event. And the fact that our officials had plans how to convert all the constructed athletic facilities into something the city itself could use permanently could have reduced that factor many cities experience of expensive Olympic stadia that wind up sitting vacant in the future while their construction bills continue to be paid.

And we could have seen events of inspiration that could have helped elevate our civic mood to a point where we overcome the malaise we feel these days in Chicago.

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Did Cook County sales tax hike become political equivalent of Sox/Cubs brawl?

The Cook County Board narrowly voted in favor of President Toni Preckwinkle’s proposal to boost the county’s share of sales taxes, and I couldn’t help but notice the breakdown among how county commissioners voted.




PRECKWINKLE: She got her (or Stroger's) tax hike

All of the African-American and Latino members of the county board supported the idea, along with certain white members who had one thing in common with their non-white colleagues.

THEY WEREN’T FROM the North Side or its surrounding suburbs.

It would seem that Madison Street, the informal dividing line between South and North sides, also applied here. Forget about any support for the increase of the county sales tax from 0.75 percent to 1.75 percent on the North (supposedly more affluent) side of the city.

South of it, it would seem that political people were in line with the thought expressed by Commissioner Stanley Moore, who said that while he doesn’t like a tax increase, he is showing his “faith” in Preckwinkle’s judgment that she’s not guiding the county into a political sinkhole.

It is a potential sinkhole for him, since his county district includes neighborhoods such as South Chicago, the East Side and Hegewisch, along with suburbs such as Calumet City and Lansing that are located directly on the Illinois/Indiana border – where local governments tend to think the sales tax is something meant only for state government to use.

JUST THINK OF how low the Illinois sales tax would be if there weren’t local and county governments staking their own claim to it. Seven percent, to be exact – instead of the 10.25 percent it will be now.

If anyone is likely to feel a direct blow to their political futures for supporting this, it is Moore – who only got onto the county board when he was appointed to replace William Beavers following his indictment and conviction on charges related to his desire to use campaign contributions while gambling at casinos.


MOORE: Will his 'faith' come back to bite him?

I suspect that for Robert Steele (whose mother had a stint as county board president), Jerry “the Iceman” Butler and Deborah Sims, the same faith was a factor, as it would be for Jesus Garcia (how would Rahm have used this against Chuy if the mayoral campaign were still ongoing?) and Luis Arroyo.

As for white commissioners, John Daley of the Bridgeport neighborhood is a political establishment type who likely was consulted before the sales tax hike was even introduced.

WHILE JEFFREY TOBOLSKI of McCook and Joan Patricia Murphy of Crestwood also come from parts of the county that align with the South Side.
 

DALEY: Wound up backing Toni

The only Sout’ Sider, so to speak, who didn’t back Preckwinkle was Elizabeth Gorman of suburban Orland Park, although she was a Republican who had consistently said she would vote against a tax hike – and wound up being the lone abstention on the grounds that she’s quitting her political post next week to take a better-paying job outside of politics. Just like there's always a lone South Sider or two who winds up  going goofy and rooting for the Cubs.

Whereas all the opposition to the tax hike came from the North Side and suburbs.

Even from people like Bridget Gainer and John Fritchey – both of whom are people with urban constituencies that usually think highly of Preckwinkle and her Hyde Park ways. As are Richard Boykin of Oak Park and Larry Suffredin of Evanston.

THEN, THERE ARE the Republicans who naturally would oppose anything that Preckwinkle would put forward – particularly if it was an idea identical to something they dumped all over former County Board President Todd Stroger for.

SCHNEIDER: Voted the party line

Do you know how badly Tim Schneider, who also is Illinois Republican Party chairman these days, would be castigated by his GOP colleagues if he were to back this proposal – no matter how badly the county needs the revenue?

The same likely goes for Peter Silvestri of Elmwood Park, a former mayor, and Gregg Goslin of Glenview, a former legislator. I’m sure some will argue it is a matter of a more affluent North Side not needing to rely on government as much.

Although I’m wondering if it would be easier on all of us to have our South Side vs. North resolved on the ball fields each summer – it certainly would be a lot cheaper on our pocketbooks!

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