By Steve Rhodes
“If you want to know why there are so many Cubs fans living in the Valley, all you need to do is go to Luke’s of Chicago on 16th Street and Indian School Road,” the Arizona Republic reports today.
“It’s a place that sells Italian beef and Polish sausages so good you can practically hear the El rumbling over your head when you take a bite.
“And business is brisk because for decades people have been leaving Chicago and moving to Arizona for good weather and economic opportunity.
“Many of those transplants will be cheering for the visiting team when the Diamondbacks host the Cubs this week.
“‘I’m a Cubs fan till the day I die. It doesn’t matter where I live,’ Philip Manno, 33, said as he waited for his order.
“When you combine hometown loyalty with spring training and countless games televised on Chicago station WGN, there is a good chance that Chase Field will sound a lot like Wrigley West this week.”
Numbers Racket
John Mallul, supervisor of the FBI’s organized crime unit in Chicago, estimates the Outfit has about 30 “made” members and a little more than 100 associates, the Tribune reported on Sunday.
Hiring Racket
In the same wrap-up of the Family Secrets trial, Chicago Crime Commission head Jim Wagner told the Tribune that “This trial showed how many of these guys had jobs where they worked for the city or McCormick Place. When you look at the number that have been connected to the Department of Streets and Sanitation, the Water Department, it’s hard to explain without the idea of clout being a factor.”
Let’s connect some dots.
“More than 1,400 people have staked claim to the $12 million fund created to compensate victims of City Hall’s rigged hiring system, a federal monitor said Monday,” the Sun-Times reports.
“‘It tells me what everyone has known all along: Political patronage continued to run rampant’ in spite of the Shakman decree, said Ald. Joe Moore (49th).
“Attorney Michael Shakman’s landmark lawsuit was supposed to end political hiring and firing, but didn’t.
“Shakman suspects the number of victims is greater than 1,443. But some people are afraid of retribution, some chose to file their own lawsuits and others were unaware the reason they didn’t get the job was the interviews were rigged, he said.
“Referring to the 2006 trial that ended in the conviction of Mayor Daley’s former patronage chief, Shakman said, ‘We know from the [Robert] Sorich trial that it was a wholesale process of rigged interviews and illegal hiring.'”
And who pays for all that illegal hiring?
“Mayor Daley on Monday served up a pick-your-poison menu of tax increases – including the largest property tax hike in Chicago history – and asked aldermen to choose enough of them to fill a $193 million budget gap,” the Sun-Times reports.
Dot Dot Dot
The county, run by Todd Stroger (D-Daley), is also going to raise your taxes.
I mean, someone has to pick up Earlean Collins’s slack.
Betting Man
“Daley is betting Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon that the Chicago Cubs will beat the Diamondbacks in the National League Division Series that starts Wednesday,” Sports Illustrated says.
“Daley’s bet includes goodies from nine Chicago businesses, including hot dogs from Best’s Kosher, pizza from Connie’s, and root beer from Windy City Soda.”
The mayor is also trying to throw Inspector General David Hoffman and federal monitor Noelle Brennan into the deal in exchange for any retired mobsters in the Phoenix area.
Mayor Cub
Daley, a diehard White Sox fan, put on a Cubs cap during Monday’s downtown rally.
I bet he wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a CTA hat, though.
*
Do you think the mayor engineered a Cubs playoff spot to distract us from the Children’s Museum fiasco, which he engineered to distract us from the CTA fiasco?
I’ve been living here too long.
Resurge Regurge
The big story on the cover of the Tribune’s Perspective section on Sunday was about “The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism.”
How can it resurge when it never seems to recede? This is one of those stories the papers run every year, as if it’s on some sort of checklist next to “Why don’t college students protest like they did in the Sixties” and “Whatever happened to manners.”
Or “How ’bout those wacky Roller Girls, with their tattoos and dreadlocks.”
Man You Should Know
“One time Robbie Fulks, who sometimes calls on Ligon when one of his regular band members can’t make a gig, spotted him in the audience during a show at FitzGerald’s, beckoned him onstage, and made him rotate from instrument to instrument every few seconds for an entire song,” Anne Ford writes in the Reader’s cover story last week about local musician Scott Ligon.
“‘Everybody wants to make music with him,’ [Kelly] Hogan says. ‘It’s like having five guys in one. He can do everything.’
“A few years ago, he started doing a party trick called the Hypnotic Wheel at the country calendar shows. The bit consists of [his brother] Chris ‘mesmerizing’ Scott by spinning a cardboard wheel painted with a red-and-white spiral, then shouting something along the lines of, ‘You are Buck Owens! You are the Lovin’ Spoonful!’ while Ligon jumps from one musical imitation to the next.”
Ode to Steve Bartman
Ya gotta feel for the guy.
But still.
From our very own Tom Latourette.
The Beachwood Tip Line: Goat-free.
Posted on October 2, 2007