May 28, 2010—
Maybe this is how my reporting career began.
I was 10 years old when I first sat in the smoky, stinky balcony of Chicago Stadium. On March 12, 1966 my Dad took me to my first Chicago Blackhawks game. In the third period the Blackhawks Bobby Hull fired a wicked slap shot past New York Rangers goalie Cesare Maniago to become the first player in the National Hockey League to score more than 50 goals in a season.
Apparently I was excited by all the beer and confetti.
I still get excited by beer and confetti.
Everyone in Chicago is talking about bandwagon jumping as the Blackhawks play in the Stanley Cup for the first time [...]
May 24, 2010-
It took too long to take my first bike ride to Humboldt Park this spring.
Humboldt Park is a rambling 3 1/2 square mile area on the near northwest side of Chicago regarded as the cultural capital of the Puerto Rican midwest. On Sunday the park was filled with people despite the bandwagon jumpers who watching the Chicago Blackhawks hockey game. [Quick—who is Lou Angotti?] The sound of salsa music filled the air and fathers played soccer with their sons. I could smell the richly grilled steak and onions of the jibarito sandwich.
I live on the border of Humboldt Park and Ukranian Village, my favorite bridge in [...]
May 19, 2010
I got up at 7 a.m. last Sunday after spending all of Saturday night listening to Nashville icon Pat McLaughlin sing roadhouse soul at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn, Ill.
My mission was to eat a Cudighi Yooper sandwich at Fifth Third Field, home of the Midwest League’s West Michigan Whitecaps just north of Grand Rapids.
The Yooper—not to be confused with major league hurler Brandon Looper—is a spicy coarsley ground sausage patty smothered in white cheddar cheese, roasted onions, Marinara sauce, green and red peppers and served on a sesame seed bun. ($5.75).
The Cudighi (pronounced could-a-key) Yooper was chosen by fans [...]
10:30 p.m. May 4
We had Mary Frances Veeck—who turns a glorious 90 years old this fall—and her daughter Marya on our little weekly radio show this afternoon:
http://www.talkzone.com/shows/199/fancave.html
They talked about their life with late Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Veeck and his underreated appreciation of art. I nudged Mary Frances about the story she told me in 1986 where she and Bill would send off a bottle of Champagne to a celebrating couple.
”We had a history of that,” she said in a 1986 interview at Bill’s beloved Miller’s Pub in Chicago’s Loop. “We were married about six months and we went to a [...]
