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Bash the Cubs, Ignore the Truth
By JOHN F. KUCZAJ
There was a hideously inaccurate column in the Sun-Times sports section last Wednesday, Oct 10 that really ticked me off but I wasn't going to pounce on it until I read three more stories that have perpetuated the inaccuracies.
On Wednesday the 10th, Sun-Times sports columnist Carol Slezak (http://www.suntimes.com/index/slezak.html) wrote a response to Cubs President Andy MacPhail regarding a "Dear neighbor letter" she had mailed to her that detailed proposed Wrigley Field improvements. He column was in the style of a sarcastic "letter" to MacPhail mocking the sincerity of the letter that she estimates went out to 2,500 Wrigleyville residents.
[NOTE: I work for the Tribune Company, though not in the newspaper division or the Cubs for that matter. It should also be noted that I have read (and preferred) the Sun-Times since I was a child and currently have it delivered to my home, I rarely read the Tribune, I am a life-long Cubs fan & once I went to a Wrigleyville bar and waited an unbelievable long time to use the restroom. If you disagree with the facts I state in the following piece, by all means correct me.]
First, the "letter" writing style she chose here ended up being very weak. That style works well when your audience is totally aware of the issues you write about but in this case, she was writing about specifics contained in another letter, so she had to liberally refer to passages within her own letter. The end result is a poorly organized mess that contains ideas but little real flow. As you read it, you are reminded of high school essay assignments where you had to awkwardly incorporate the question in your answer. "Photosynthesis is a very important part of the life of a plant because…"
She starts her column by questioning the finances of the team-noting that attendance topped 2.8 million this year and lots of profitable concessions were probably sold. "I don't pretend to understand how a mammoth conglomerate such as Tribune Co. can be so poor," she states, then she questions spending money on that very letter informing the residents of proposed changes when the money could be used to other uses. She then points out that while the bleachers need more restrooms, men relieve themselves on neighborhood lawns, alleys & trees. She questions the expanded bleacher proposal as "significantly blocking the view of the neighborhood from inside the stadium," and suggests that for the extra $42,000 per game the extra seats would take in, the Cubs risk ruining the ambience of the stadium. Finally, she mocks the statement that 12 additional night games would allow more working families to attend, pointing out that night games create more illegal parking and illegal peeing-except after the last community meeting when residents noticed that more cars were ticketed due to neighborhood pressure.
In the Sunday Sun-Times sports section, a letter writer stated (http://www.suntimes.com/output/sports/cst-spt-letters14.html) that Slezak was correct, that the Cubs should not expand Wrigley, but instead abandon it for a new stadium. He mentioned the Wrigleyville residents price-gouging for parking spots during games, how property values would plummet and businesses would close up once the Cubs moved out. He finally asked why didn't she or other residents notice the park and think about its effect on the neighborhood before moving in there.
The letter writer's points were absolutely correct, but there was more murky logic, factual inaccuracies and stones being thrown from glass houses in Slezak's column. Talking about the team's finances and noting the "mammoth" Tribune Company is a favorite of Sun-Times staffers. They can't seem to figure out why a company wouldn't take one division's revenues and channel them into another rather than force each division to succeed and fail on their own. I suspect that most of this "confusion" comes from a genuine desire to see the team win at any cost (except more revenue sources at the park or higher ticket prices of course). Sportswriters are sports fans after all, and covering past champions like the Bulls & Bears likely whetted their appetite to cover champions today. That's totally understandable. So maybe the sportswriters aren't REALLY ignorant to the way corporations are run. I mean, the Sun-Times staffers have to totally understand this stuff-being owned by the large Hollinger International corporation. Hollinger recently sold its many Canadian newspapers for a huge profit and plans are under way for a massive windfall from the new skyscraper that will be developed on Sun-Times land by Hollinger and Donald Trump. Yet despite the huge profits from asset sales and any profits that come from Hollinger's other big newspapers - the London Daily Telegraph and the Jersusalem Post-the Sun-Times continues to be in the penny-pinching, cost-cutting mode: employing more part-time reporters, not replacing reporters with specialized beats (advice, investigative, architecture, etc.) and shrinking the newshole so that interior pages contain ads that cover 15/16 of the page among other things. Do the Sun-Times writers question why Hollinger continues to accumulate wealth but doesn't give any to their own paper? They should. Sun-Times writers are most definitely throwing stones from their glass building when they talk of corporations that don't divert funds from one division to another. They need to get over it. It's old.
The complaint of Cubs fans relieving themselves on the property around the stadium is old and largely inaccurate. Thanks to an increased police presence and the gradual disappearance of the Bleacher Bums, incidents of fan urination are nowhere near to being the nuisance they used to be. In fact, most of the current urination problems are directly linked to the drinking establishments in the neighborhood that are routinely filled beyond capacity after Cubs games. While it may surely be Cubs fans urinating on carol's lawn, they are undoubtedly patrons of the nearest drinking establishment-you know, the bar that only has one unisex bathroom for the 300 people they are serving?
While we are talking about these drinking establishments, let me address the supposed distaste for night games at Wrigley. Residents really don't mind as much as the area drinking establishments do. You see, those bars do great business after the games, but day games are much more profitable than night games. You see, night games attract more families and those families tend not to hang out after the games-they tend to go home and go to sleep. The day game fans tend to have more time on their hands, so many venture over to the neighborhood watering holes for a drink or twenty. Residents generally like the night games better because the game starts after rush hour and the fans leave right away. It's the neighborhood alcohol sellers who are opposed to more night games. Carol forgot to mention that. Oh, and she also forgot to mention that most of the rooftops around Wrigley are owned or leased by drinking establishments. Remember the old days when you'd see shots of residents sunning themselves on the roof? Not anymore. Businesses (not residents) have sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into erecting bleachers on the rooftops and selling tickets that can range from $50-$100 per game. Those rooftop entrepreneurs are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars. So who is really hurt by the proposed bleacher expansion? The residents? Nope. It's the alcohol dealers whose inadequate bathroom facilities force people to pee on Carol Slezak's lawn. Boo hoo.
Finally, there's this odd notion about the bleacher expansion blocking the view of the neighborhood from the field. That's a total load of crap. The only things blocking the view of the neighborhood are the 30-foot high seat risers on top of the rooftops of the adjacent buildings. The neighborhood views will easily be seen by fans and TV viewers alike with the proposed bleacher expansion. Oh, and that $42,000 per game that Slezak considers paltry comes out to $3,402,000 over an 81-game season. Not too paltry in my mind.
Slezak generally writes decent columns that usually state the obvious and offer little new insight. Occasionally she will write an excellent column, but just as often she'll write a column that makes you wonder if the only thing about sports she knows is that is was Huey Lewis' best album.
On Tuesday, Jay Mariotti (http://www.suntimes.com/index/mariotti.html) wrote a glowing column about Arizona Diamondback owner Jerry Colangelo and how after only four years his team is playing for the National League pennant. He celebrates the fact that Colangelo pumps all his money into his sports teams and moans about how the owners of Chicago sports teams (including the Tribsters) don't do the same. I remember him saying the same about former Florida Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga, who broke the bank to get a championship in Miami. Huizenga paid insane salaries to decent players which caused salaries all around the league to rise. He overspent and ended up losing money as his team won the pennant. Then he traded away all the team's talent before selling the team. Now the talk is that the Marlins may be folded because they can't seem to be profitable. Unlike Huizenga, Colangelo is getting a TON of money from the publicly-financed sports arenas that Phoenix has given him Mariotti would have a stroke at those kind of sweetheart deals in Chicago. Mariotti celebrates Colangelo, but for all their success, the Diamondbacks lost about $30 million last year (http://azcentral.com/news/articles/breaking/0908attend08.html) and the future financial outlook doesn't look good. The taxpayers are subsidizing Colangelo now, but give it a few years and I'm sure you'll see the Diamondbacks in the same shape the Marlins are in today. If there's one compliment to the owners of Chicago sports teams, it's that they are smart businessmen who are in it for the long haul.
Articles from Thursday (http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-wrig18.html) and today (http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-wrig18.html) touch on many of the same points that Slezak mentioned in her article, and glossed over the truth in much the same way. The Thursday article mentioned the "Wrigleyville Rooftop Owners Association" that "generate millions of dollars of income" from Cubs games. This group of business (not residential) owners are afraid the bleacher expansion will hurt their views of the game.
Duh..
If I sell tickets to people so we can all watch my neighbor across the yard while she sunbathes in the nude, I don't think the city would have much sympathy for me when she erects a privacy fence, curtailing my view.
It's very easy to go after the "goliath" of this story-the Cubs. Good journalism demands that the story behind the story be told: the lobbying influence of the alcohol sellers in the neighborhood. They are part of the problem and as the "voice" of the residents, they are the fox guarding the henhouse. In a perfect world, the Cubs would double-deck the outfield and paint raised middle fingers on the outside facade-at rooftop level.
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