Hey, City Hall: Chicago Cops Can Play For Fans, What about Bears?

CHICAGO — Coronavirus has been a bummer for sports fans. You can't go to a Sox game. There's no social-distance cheering allowed at Soldier Field when the Bears play. And Wrigleyville is a ghost town when the Cubs are in town.

Chicago's Finest, the police department's baseball team, isn't letting that stop them playing ball. Manager Vince Macias scored a stadium in the south suburbs so the team could invite fans to watch them take on the Dallas Fire Department Thursday night in a mid-pandemic charity game.

It's for a good cause. The $5 admission fee benefits the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation, which supports the families of officers injured or killed in the line of duty.

[COMMENTARY]

Still, when Chicago police news affairs sent an email Thursday alert promoting the game at Ozinga Field in Crestwood, I couldn't help but wonder if that's such a good idea.

As of Thursday, the police department has had 944 confirmed COVID-19 cases, and the CDC reported that Texas posted a high-risk coronavirus positivity rate of 23.4 for every 100,000 residents — a statistic that would qualify the "Lone Star State" for the city's coronavirus travel quarantine list.

So, I sent a police spokesman a note asking if Supt. David Brown thought it was a good idea for his officers to invite fans to a ball game against firefighters from his home state given the current state of the pandemic in Texas and Chicago's strict coronavirus guidelines for public gatherings.

Chicago's public health restrictions limit the number of sport spectators to 50 people.

Ozinga Field — the Crestwood home of the Frontier League's Windy City Thunderbolts (which cancelled its season due to coronavirus) — is allowed to host 600 people, 20 percent of the stadium's capacity.

By Thursday afternoon, about 430 people had expressed interest in attending the game on the Finest's Facebook event.

Thunderbolts General Manager Mike VerSchave told me fans are supposed to wear masks per state regulations, and his small staff does the best its can to urge compliance.

"But you know how it is," he said. Yes, we all do. Levels of coronavirus guidelines compliance — and enforcement — depends on what town you're in.

That's been a bummer for Chicago sports fans who just want the opportunity to catch a Sox, Bears or even a Cubs game (when they're playing the Sox) after suffering through a coronavirus summer limited to TV broadcasts and Twitter feeds.

Politics is the only reason that I figure police officials said Thursday's ball game wasn't officially sanctioned by the department, despite two emails alerting to reporters about the charity outing that suggest otherwise.

Supt. Brown wasn't available to offer his take. The police spokesman sent over a prepared statement that didn't answer my question: "The game was organized by officers on their personal time." Chicago public health officials didn't reply when I asked if they're OK with the police department promoting a public gathering that wouldn't be allowed at, say, Sox Park.

I understand the politics. Chicago's top cop would get unnecessary blow back if he said he supports the charity ball game in the suburbs that would be banned within the city limits by Mayor Lori Lightfoot's administration. A public health department scolding of police raising money for the families of fellow cops slain on duty could only create unnecessary tension between the fraternal order of police and City Hall.

I swear, I'm not trying to be a stinker.

But when a bunch of cops reliving their glory days on a ball diamond can go to the suburbs and legally draw 600 fans to a suburban ballpark, it begs an important question.

Can't City Hall find a way to safely squeeze a few thousand Bears fans in 62,000-seat Soldier Field for a game this season?

Asking for some friends.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots

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