By Steve Rhodes
“If the Cubs were expecting an air-conditioned version of their friendly confines Wednesday night, they must have been sorely disappointed,” the Arizona Republic reports.
“A rowdy Diamondbacks contingent made up the vast majority of the sellout crowd at Chase Field, and the video board even presented a spoof of a lonely Steve Bartman, the poor soul who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time four years ago at Wrigley Field.
“As it should, home-field advantage belonged squarely to the home team, and the Diamondbacks, exhibiting the same qualities that won them 90 games in the regular season, got great pitching, just enough offense and a thank-you-very-much pitching change to take command of this National League Division Series with a 3-1 win in Game 1 in front of a sellout crowd of 48,864.”
Plus: Lou Piniella out-thought himself.
And: Can Cubs Games Trigger Heart Attacks?
Beachwood Cubs Coverage
* Big Z and his package. Our very own Scott Buckner investigates. In What I Watched Last Night.
* What Britney Spears had to do with last night’s game. Our very own Marty Gangler explains. In The Cub Factor.
* The Cubs and Radiohead. Our very own Joel Boehm expounds at Agony & Ivy.
NEW! 10:36 A.M: Joel Boehm has a new post at Agony & Ivy. Says Boehm: “Baseball is a game of rhythms, and last night, the Cubs stepped out of the rhythm of the game, I thought, a risk that wasn’t worth taking, and they paid the price.”
American Psycho
“When the Justice Department publicly declared torture abhorrent’ in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations,” the New York Times reports this morning.
“But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
“The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
“Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on ‘combined effects’ over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be ‘ashamed’ when the world eventually learned of it.”
By the way, unless something has changed over the last few years, my understanding is that Comey is pretty much U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s best friend.
No Joy in Obamaville
“In recent weeks, Barack Obama’s chief campaign strategist David Axelrod has met with major contributors at the campaign’s Chicago headquarters and in private homes to allay concerns about his candidate’s lack of movement in the national polls,” the New York Observer reports. “Obama campaign manager David Plouffe has presided over conference calls to calm down jittery bundlers. The candidate himself has even gotten on the phone with groups of big donors to assure them that the campaign is on the right track.”
Says one donor: “The patience of some supporters is wearing thin.”
Law & Daley’s Order
“Mayor Richard Daley backed on Wednesday a controversial decision by the city’s top attorney to withhold from aldermen the names of Chicago police officers accused of using excessive force,” the Tribune reports.
“Daley said he’ll leave it to Corporation Counsel Mara Georges to interpret the legal requirements concerning a list of officers who have had the largest number of complaints lodged against them over the last five years.
“‘That would be up to her,’ the mayor said. “She is a lawyer. I’m not the lawyer for the city.”
See, it’s out of Daley’s hands.
Budget Books
It’s all about the libraries, see.
Walk-A-Thon
“The mayor also defended his decision to double the city’s nickel-a-gallon tax on gasoline at a time when Chicago motorists are already paying the highest gas prices in the nation.
“‘You want more and more people using public transportation,’ he said.”
Was the mayor out of town or something when the latest news about the CTA broke?
Todd’s World
“Particularly disturbing is the repeated insistence that I have padded the county payroll with friends and family . . . The myth about wholesale patronage hiring is at the heart of most of the loud and libelous criticism heaped on myself, my staff and this administration since I took office.”
– Cook County Board President Todd Stroger in a letter to the Tribune yesterday
“Cook County Board President Todd Stroger this week hired the girlfriend of his powerful ally, Commissioner William Beavers, for a coveted county job. But after the Chicago Sun-Times began inquiring Wednesday about the hiring of Patty Young, she was taken off the payroll. Both Young and Beavers initially denied she was a county employee, but other employees confirmed she had been working there. Young later said she decided not to accept the job in the county Purchasing Department – where she would have reported to the wife of Stroger’s best friend – because it didn’t pay enough.”
– “Hired Monday, Gone Wednesday” in the Sun-Times today
Burke’s Law
If Ald. Ed Burke is only going to answer questions about his myriad conflicts of interest – this time involving Tony Rezko – through written statements, why not just say he refused to answer and leave it at that. Pretty soon Lou Piniella will only be answering questions through written statements. Sheesh, didn’t you guys learn this stuff in journalism school? You don’t let news subjects dictate the rules of the game to avoid being questioned by reporters.
Like A Virus
Likewise, subjects of news stories who refuse to talk with reporters ought not be allowed to then get their viewpoints published unquestioned in letters to the editor, as the Sun-Times allowed with the mayor’s nephew, Robert Vanecko (and which doesn’t seem to exist online). Step up to the plate, Mr. Vanecko, and be a man. Otherwise don’t get involved in the public’s business.
Thank You Big Media
Rick Kaempfer’s “Dear FCC” is now a video.
The Beachwood Tip Line: A dry heat.
Posted on October 4, 2007