By Steve Rhodes
Sorry for the delay, I lost the whole column just as I was posting it and I had to reconstruct the whole damn thing. This has been a really crappy week. Is the bar open yet?
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1. The view from Minnesota:
“That’s the best game by far, this year, emotionally,” Twins pitcher Scott Baker said.
The players gave manager Ron Gardenhire – seen here kicking the game-winning field goal – the game ball.
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Why no reporting on what Ozzie Guillen was jawing about to Minnesota fans from the top step of the dugout?
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The Dusty & Ozzie Show rolls on.
2. The view from Milwaukee:
“[T]he Brewers walked out of Miller Park in silence, their heads bowed, momentum swiped and their confidence and even poise crumbled.”
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“The four-game series with the Chicago Cubs brought thousands of rabid Cubs fans north to spend their money, drink our beer and, yes, behave like . . . well . . . like Cubs fans always behave,” the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote in an editorial this morning. “But we’ll put up with their odious ways and manners and even their cheesy Cubbie Bear outfits – believe us, we know cheesy – because we’re happy to take their money.”
3. The view from Cincinnati:
“Saturday night, at Great American Ball Park, Ken Griffey Jr. pulled up on a fly ball to right field, letting it bounce in front of him for a base hit,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. “Fans booed, even some who were wearing Reds jerseys with his name and number on their backs. Less than a week later, he was gone, taking with him all the promise, all the thrill, all the excitement many of those same fans felt eight short years ago.”
4. The same people who think the Bears shouldn’t go after Brett Favre are the same people who thought the Bulls were better off without Kobe Bryant.
5. Guides to Lollapalooza. (If you don’t have tickets yet, you’re out of luck, unless you sneak in.)
* Aftershows, by DeRo.
* Hour-by-hour, by Kot.
* The most painful conflicts.
6. “For all the potential of the Internet, there are times when I consider it a cesspool of misinformation, ignorant opinion and faked imagery,” Tribune public editor Timothy J. McNulty writes. “I also find it confusing and untrustworthy.”
7. “Mayor Richard Daley on Thursday defended his move to boot vehicles with just two parking tickets as justified when the city budget is short by several hundred million dollars,” the Tribune reports.
Sure, if we get to boot the mayor after every two violations of the Shakman decree.
8. “Patrick Swayze was spied filming The Beast in the Millennium Park garage Wednesday night,” Bill Zwecker notes.
Gee, I didn’t know Swayze was playing the mayor in an upcoming movie.
9. “All but one of the half-dozen aldermen in attendance said they would begrudgingly go along with the booting crackdown,” the Sun-Times reports.
In exchange for the mayor releasing their ward budgets from the pound.
10. Our hero.
Via commenter Wes Sabi at Chicagoist.
11. “Daley Defends Secrecy On Deficit.”
Why should the budget be different than any other part of city government?
12. “‘What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,’ Obama said. ‘You know, he’s not patriotic enough, he’s got a funny name, you know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills,'” AP reports in a story that appears today in the Sun-Times.
“He didn’t explain the comment. But it evoked images of past presidents such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant.”
A) He didn’t explain the comment and we in the media are too stupid to know what he meant by it.
B) “They” weren’t available for comment.
C) Yes, this is the image that comes to mind! AP must pay better than I thought.
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Just a wild guess here: Leno did a joke last night about how McCain knew all those presidents?
13. You loved her Maude series; now our very own Kathryn Ware is back with Ironside, a cop and his chair. See the first kick-ass installment.
14. Baby Daddy Gold.
15. So Madigan was right?
16. Daley heading to Beijing.
A) Will study budget secrecy techniques.
B) Will return with more red-light cameras.
C) Wouldn’t it be great if his car got booted while he was gone?
17. NBC News has hired Luke Russert to cover the conventions and focus on youth issues.
First story: How unfair it is when kids of politicians get jobs through their family connections.
18. The Denver Boot.
19. “It’s big. It’s ugly. It looks invincible. But the Denver Boot is really a marshmallow.”
How to beat the boot.
20. Tour of Secret Chicago Impound Lot.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Send ’em your boots.
Posted on August 1, 2008