On Saturday morning, during a break from the couch, I drove down to the South Side to White Sox Park to get a look around.
The ballpark was closed, obviously, and no one was around.
It didn’t matter. After spending so much time writing about baseball owners and players fighting about things that have little relevance to most fans, I wanted to be reminded of what it was like to see the ballpark on a beautiful Chicago morning, to imagine being inside and kibitzing with security guards and waiting for the Sox lineup to be posted on Twitter.
I don’t miss the games as much as seeing the people at the games. My favorite time is a weekend morning when the park is quiet and the Sodfather is watering down the field while a few of us in the press box set up our computers and make sure our digital recorders have functioning batteries for the day’s interviews.
With no games to cover, I walked around 35th Street, stopping by the old tree with the rotted sign nailed to it that reads, “Resale of tickets at any price is prohibited.” It has always amazed me that the tree somehow survived the demolition of old Comiskey Park and that no one has touched the sign in more than 30 years. If only they could’ve moved McCuddy’s across the street … but, oh well.
When I was about to leave, I spotted a family playing ball in the parking lot directly north of Sox Park, the one on the ground where Comiskey once stood. It was pitcher’s hand, of course, since there were only six players. The dad was pitching and the mom played right field. The four boys took turns hitting, standing at the original home plate where Babe Ruth, Luis Aparicio, Dick Allen and Frank Thomas once stood. Second base was a handicap parking logo painted on the asphalt.
It wasn’t Sox-Twins, the game originally scheduled for that afternoon, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Watching the Hughes family play left me with a melancholy feeling about the state of the game, which seems intent on self-destructing at a time when we need it most.
Hours later the melancholy turned to anger while watching a protest movement I believe in turn into a riot that is sure to leave lasting scars on our city.
(Trigger warning: If you came here to read about baseball, you can stop reading.)
Of all the videos and descriptions of Saturday night’s chaos in the Loop, one tweet from Tribune reporter Paige Fry stood out. It described two young women swapping shirts after apparently looting a store.
“Who wears a size medium?” one asked.
This is how a peaceful movement fails, by giving haters the opportunity to claim protesters were more intent on criminal acts than protesting the killing of George Floyd. It plays into the hands of those who want to divide us instead of unite us.
Things only got worse watching the newscasts, where former police Supt. Garry McCarthy was called upon as some kind of expert without anyone mentioning McCarthy was fired a week after a judge ordered the release of a dash cam video showing police officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times as he was walking away.
If anyone was unqualified to discuss how the city should be handling things, it was McCarthy. It would be like asking Alex Rodriguez how to solve the steroid problem in baseball. McCarthy predictably brought up Antifa’s alleged involvement without any evidence to support his opinion, and he called for a stronger response from police while absolving his friend, current Supt. David Brown.
Fortunately, WLS-7 anchor Ravi Baichwal called him out for making unsubstantiated charges and basically hung up on McCarthy. Thank you, Ravi, for doing the right thing.
Let’s get real. This likely was mostly Chicagoans destroying Chicago, seemingly enjoying looting places such as the Nike store on Michigan Avenue, where the Michael Jordan logo stood in sharp contrast to the broken storefront window.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Sunday, calling out looters before extending the curfew.
Stick to sports, you say?
No, thanks. Not when I’m watching my hometown being torn down.
But let me get back to baseball for those who don’t want reality intruding on their sports, even during this shutdown.
At spring training, when interviewing Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant about his comments criticizing the Astros cheating scandal, I asked why he was speaking out more than he has in the past.
“I just see the game as more of a game now, and when someone finds a way to get around certain things and cheat, like, yeah, speak up and say something,” he replied. “Speak up. Speak up when you see something that is completely wrong. Just speak up.
“And that’s good that we did. There’s a way to handle everything in life.”
So speak up, Chicago, and say something. What happened in Minneapolis was tragic, as everyone knows. But what occurred in Chicago on Saturday night was wrong.
It’s our city. It’s our future.
Let’s not let the acts of a few ruin the reputation of a city we love.
