By Steve Rhodes
* Pot, urination, towel drills and Sam Zell. You should see what goes on at Wrigley when the team is on the road. In The Cub Factor.
* Orlando Cabrera’s greatest sin. In The White Sox Report.
* One Coach To Hire. In SportsMonday.
Our very own Jim Coffman notes: “Oh, by they way, I think Gangler predicted a Zambrano meltdown in his last Cub Factor and I predicted last week that the Collins thing would fall through (at the same time beat writers at both papers were saying it was just a matter of days before Collins was hired). We don’t just write sports, we write future sports!”
Hot Spot
A Beachwood reader on the Sun-Times’s “Which Team Has The Hotter Fans: Cubs or Sox?” contest:
“After careful review, this loyal Minnesota Twins fan has to go with White Sox fans. For future reference, after review of said photos I would say Sox fans also win:
“Most likely to kill you in a knife fight . . .
“Most likely to car-jack a ride home . . .
“Most likely to be really pissed when beer sales are suspended at the end of the seventh inning . . .
“Most likely to be able to tell you which train you need to take to get back to the North Side . . .
Food Fight
I’ve always thought the one thing White Sox fans had going for them was better food at their home park than the horrible, overpriced choices at Wrigley. In fact, I pretty much thought that was the consensus. But not according to the New York Times, which rated ballpark food on Sunday and found the offerings at the cellphone stadium wanting.
“What to order: Nothing. Your best bet is to bring a six-pack to the parking lot, and barter a cold one for a tailgater’s hot dog. Failing that, a box of Cracker Jack.
“What to avoid: Everything.”
Wow. Harsh, dudes! You can look up what the Times had to say about Wrigley and the rest of the parks here.
Puddy Duddies
Wisconsin high school officials propose topless-fan ban.
El’s Bells
Beachwood reader Garry Jaffe writes about the IOC’s observation that, well, the placement of CTA lines isn’t very lakefront Olympic-friendly:
“There would be rail lines to all the lakefront sites & McCormick Place & Soldier Field if the city & CTA had gone through with the original plan to abandon the South Side Main Line [the entire Jackson park/Englewood lines] & had moved them to the IC Mainline as the plan called for in the mid-60s.
“The new L line would provide local service to 115th St., while the IC would have closed a lot of stations & sped up its trains. The IC right of way had plenty of space as it once had 10 tracks from Randolph St. south to 115th St. Four freight tracks, two long distance passenger train tracks & four commuter tracks.
“All that’s left now are the four commuter tracks & Amtrak shares the outer two with the express commuter trains.
“But the idiot politicians destroyed that possibility with the $100 million poured into the rebuilding of the now Green Line, which goes from the Loop to, well, nowhere.
“What the hell good is a train that stops over a mile & a half from the Museum of Science & Industry? Or a half mile from the University of Chicago Hospitals?
“None!
“Plus service is only at 20-minute intervals most of the time.
“It used to go to 63rd & Stony Island [that was the main entrance to the 1893 fair], but when the L bridge over the IC tracks just east of Dorchester Ave was determined to be beyond repair, Dorchester became the end of the line [1400E].
“Then they cut back to Cottage Grove, now the end.
“I hope Daley’s happy with pandering to the South Side ministers on the L project, now it’s coming back to bite him in his Olympic worshipping ass!”
Crime Wave
Strange sentencing.
Housing Hooey
“CHA spokesperson Brian Zises was asked multiple times since April 8 to explain why the housing authority was acting against HUD regulations. By press time, Zises had declined repeated requests to explain the CHA’s actions.”
Rooms To Let
He still ain’t got no cigarettes. In The Return of Roger Miller.
Strange Twist
It turns out MLK was a Republican.
Royko to Pritikin
Drop dead.
Speech Code
Why is it a scandal when Ozzie Guillen calls Jay Mariotti a fag but it’s acceptable for Lacy J. Banks to equate homosexuals with rapists and murderers?
Sting Thing
I’m not sure what’s more idiotic, the cops conducting undercover crosswalk stings or the cops conducting undercover crosswalk stings and announcing when and where they will take place.
Breaking News
“A Lincoln Park High School student lost the tip of his right index finger Friday in a freak accident involving a window in a school computer lab,” the Sun-Times reported Saturday.
I think the real news here is that this was actually deemed news. And that it took two reporters to get “the story.” And that it made Page 7, Metro.
And that “freak accident” was a window slamming on the student’s finger.
Rear View
So is that what was behind this?
The Beachwood Tip Line: No horse.
Posted on June 9, 2008