By Steve Rhodes
The funny thing about Carlos Zambrano is that if he wasn’t a player he’d be one of those guys jumping out of the stands and running across the field to accost a player.
Oh wait.
Wake-Up Call
Cubs rookie Eric Patterson was sent back to the minors for showing up late to the ballpark – again.
You’re a rookie called up to play at Wrigley Field in a pennant race and you’re late to the park? They couldn’t get me to go home at night. I’d just sleep at my locker.
Close Call
By the time R. Kelly goes to trial, George Ryan will be out of prison.
Bad Call
The endorsement of the Sun-Times editorial page is hardly worth the 25,000 votes that separated Paul Vallas from Rod Blagojevich in the 2002 Democratic primary for governor, but no one from the editorial board nor publisher John Cruickshank or editor Michael Cooke have come forward to this day to explain what really happened when then-publisher David Radler overruled the board in issuing its endorsement of Blago.
If the paper really wants to put the Radler (and Conrad Black) Era behind it, it has to come clean about what really went on – not just in the business suites but on the news pages. Surely that’s what the editorial board would demand of other civic entities.
Call Ahead
“A Paris program that allows residents to rent a bicycle on one side of town and drop it off miles away could be duplicated in Chicago if Mayor Daley has his way,” the Sun-Times reports.
It would replace the CTA.
*
If the mayor has his way?
Did I wake up in an alternate universe where this even remotely a question?
“The mayor’s bike rental proposal went down in flames today before a city council committee that questioned the program’s cost and effectiveness . . . ”
*
The program will be funded by one of the mayor’s new Mobile TIFs.
Routine Call
Meanwhile, the world’s greatest manager has another entirely predictable mess on his hands.
Earth to Neil
A guide to (the print version* of) today’s Neil Steinberg.
1. Let’s be flip about a missing man who may be dead while pretending to care!
2. I don’t follow sports but I read somewhere that something interesting happened this weekend!
3. Add Lou Holtz to the list of public figures I’ve never heard of!
4. Invoke tough guy Chicago columnist persona from the past because I don’t recognize the present and then pretend to apologize for having a big enough vocabulary to score 551 points against my 11-year-old son in Scrabble! See, I’m really smart!
* The online version is a bit scrambled.
–
On 848’s Month in Review segment last Friday – which also featured our very own Cate Plys – Steinberg objected to John Kass’s portrayal of the Family Secrets trial as a blueprint for how the city works.
The days of laying a dollar on the seat to pass a driver’s license test are over, Steinberg noted.
True enough. Now we have an ex-governor on his way to prison on corruption charges that began with driver’s licenses being awarded to truckers in return for campaign contributions.
Cynical Call
Aside from being a day late to the Zambrano story, the Sun-Times’s front page today features this tease: “Skinhead a suspect – but death wasn’t hate crime.”
From the page 5 story “Harbor Suspect Said He’d Attack Man: Cop:” “The man is allegedly a member of a skinhead group.”
Sidebar underneath that story you might have missed: “Reportedly Member of Skinhead Group That Fights Prejudice.”
So, you know, disregard the premise we used to draw you into the story and the assertion we made therein.
Hammer Time
Bob Reed on how the Oak Brook-based Ace Hardware’s proposal to turn itself from a co-op into a traditional corporation would enrich management but screw you and your neighborhood store owners.
Don’t Call Us
Sneed’s World.
Calling Out Clooney
Forgive us, George, you’re just trying to make a living.
Call Plan
“Fed up with dropped calls and a string of defective cellphones, [Chicago consultant] Corey Taylor said he became irate when he learned he’d have to pay $175 to get out of his long-term contract with Verizon Wireless. So he resorted to a rather extreme measure. He faked his own death.”
Calling All Cars
The 10 Worst Cars of All Time. (via Consumer World)
Call Them True
Tied and true.
The Beachwood Tip Line: Always on-call.
Posted on September 5, 2007