Long foul balls from this new Wisconsin stadium could land in Illinois.
BELOIT, WIS.—Minor league baseball is about coming and going.
No one wants to stay put.
But after the ABC Supply Stadium opens on Aug. 3 with the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers taking on the Beloit Snappers in downtown Beloit, the ballpark will be there for years to come. Fans will walk through the centerfield gates along the bed of the timeless Rock River. Located on the Illinois-Wisconsin border, long foul balls hit over the first base facade could land in the Illinois zip code. Hopefully, they won’t get super [...]
The late Buck O’Neil visits his Monarchs with a rainbow on opening day 2021 (Courtesy of Kansas City Monarchs.)
KANSAS CITY, KS.—The Kansas City Monarchs were the royalty of baseball’s Negro Leagues. They played in Kansas City, Mo. between 1920 and 1961 and their graduates included Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson (1945), Ernie Banks (1950-53), and Satchel Paige (1934 and 1940-47). The team produced more major league players than any other Negro League franchise.
The Monarchs have taken a new flight as a member of the American Association.
These Monarchs play at Legends Field in Kansas [...]
Sly Stone at his Marquette Park piano. We should have written a song together. (Photo by Phil Moloitis.)
I don’t recall the tip that led me to the Prime & Tender, an oddball nightclub-restaurant at the corner of 63rd and Harlem in south suburban Stickney. It was the spring of 1983 and I was a staff writer at the Suburban Chicago Sun-Times and was freelancing for the Reader and the Illinois Entertainer.
The Prime & Tender was not the Pump Room. Patrons walked through a cheesy, long mirrored hallway as if they were boarding an old cruise ship. They sat along the perimeter of the multi-colored dance [...]
SPRINGFIELD, IL.–The new exhibit “The State of Sound (A World of Music From Illinois)” celebrates the migratory paths artists took to Illinois. Visitors at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM) in Springfield can learn about the roots of our musical tree as well as a multitude of contemporary branches.
Photo by Dave Hoekstra
You can follow some of this Chicago-to-Springfield path to visit “The State of Sound,” which runs through January 2022.
The ALPLM is rolling out a special $29 “State of Sound” VIP ticket starting May 26. That includes a T-shirt, our 36-page souvenir [...]
Steve Goodman in his favorite outerwear. (Courtesy of Rosanna Goodman)
Beloved Chicago singer-songwriter Steve Goodman did not miss much in his 36 years.
That’s how he wrote “City of New Orleans,” his 1971 ballad about a fading America. Goodman was taking the original City of New Orleans train from the Illinois Central station in Chicago with his wife Nancy to visit her family in Southern Illinois. She fell asleep next to him. Goodman looked out at the fast-moving farms from his window. Time was flying. Inside he saw restless riders, train conductors, and old men in the club car. He kept score. He was a [...]
Howlin’ Wolf harmonica, 1950’s (On loan from Bettye Kelly.)
SPRINGFIELD, Il.–”The State of Sound: A World of Music From Illinois” has been called one of the most ambitious exhibits in the 16-year history of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM) in downtown Springfield.
“The State of Sound” features Miles Davis’s custom-made red trumpet, Steve Goodman’s handwritten lyrics to “City of New Orleans,” Mahalia Jackson’s first Decca record from 1937 , and Curtis Mayfield’s 1970s paisley pants and vest suit. There are more than 125 artifacts that relate to the [...]
The Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis, Tn. is one of my favorite music museums in the country. I’ve been chronicling the museum since 2003 when it opened on the site of the original Stax studio, which was razed in 1989.
I’ve leaned into the way the museum connects with local students through their Stax Music Academy. I had some of the inspired students on my WGN radio show in 2017 as they prepared to go to France, England, and Ireland to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Stax/Volt European Tour.
I’ve also made a minor nuisance of myself wondering aloud for 25 years why Chicago hasn’t been able to [...]
John Prine collection (Image courtesy of Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, items on loan from the John Prine family.)
Singer-songwriter John Prine traveled around the world.
But he performed with the comforts of home.
A collection of heartfelt treasures were always on a black-draped table at the center of the stage behind Prine. The materials provided comfort and emotional support for Prine as he faced large audiences.
The items celebrated his roots in Maywood, Ill. as well as his family and friends in Nashville, Tn. They included:
* A plastic motorcycle man [...]
Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Veeck thought outside the box.
One of the best ways to understand Veeck’s brilliant mind is to go inside a large plastic storage box of treasured clippings, notes, paperwork, and pictures covering Veeck’s years of owning the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, and St. Louis Browns.
It is a remarkable archive that has never been made public.
Mary Frances, Bill Veeck, and midget files.
There’s files and files and files: “How Veeck Got the Sox–1975.” “Scoreboard.” “Buys Browns 1951.” “Veeck-Cuba” “Disco Demolition.” “Amputation,” “Veeck in High School (Hinsdale [...]
Lee’s Barber Shop is in a tiny strip mall on the near north side of Naperville, Ill. A seasonal Dairy Queen sits south of the barbershop and a shuttered dry cleaner is on the north end of what is known as Modern Way Center. Lee’s has as much in common with the Las Vegas Strip as hair on Bruce Willis.
The new master barber at Lee’s is Noe Hernandez, Jr.
Hernandez grew up in the Naperville area, about 40 miles west of Chicago, before embarking on a career that took him to the Palmer House in Chicago, H.R.H. Truefitt, and Hill Barbers in London (the oldest barbershop in the world) and most recently master barber at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
I have many lovely books about Chicago baseball in my library.
One of my top ten favorites is “You Should Have Seen The Ones I Turned Down (Tales from a Life Spent in Hotels and Locker Rooms with everyone from Jerry Vale to Leo Durocher),” a 2008 autobiography by former Chicago Cubs traveling secretary Blake Cullen. I found the 156-page paperback in 2012 in the corner of Prince Books in downtown Norfolk, Va.
I couldn’t turn down a book with that title.
I learned that Cullen was born in Chicago and that his father George Thomas Cullen was hotel manager at the Edgewater Beach Hotel. When his father moved [...]
Mark Baier is sitting in his warehouse in an industrial park on the far west side of Naperville, Ill. He picks up a Stratocaster and starts to play the Beatles hit “I Feel Fine.”
And why shouldn’t Baier feel fine?
The warm tones on a cold February afternoon are impeccable through his Victoria Amplifier. Baier created and designed the Victoria, the amplifier of choice for Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, John Legend, John Mayer, and many more. Mayer made the effort to find the Victoria Amplifier Company, lost in a shuffle of nondescript industries like Conley Steel and MidWest Stair Parts near the border of west [...]
Let’s say you assembled a team of friends to make a comprehensive documentary about some precious but overlooked musicians and the unique small-town community that surrounded them. You did this for love. Friends jumped in on faith and fellowship. It took more than seven years and $250,000 out of your own pockets to get this project to the finish line.
Last year, in the middle of a pandemic, you found a distributor who believed in the doc. Wow.
Many DIY documentaries don’t get that far.
Our documentary “The Center of Nowhere (The Spirit and Sounds of Springfield, Mo.)” got off to a [...]
We all need a soulful angel on our shoulders.
That was part of the resume of Danny Ray, the “Cape Man” for soul brother number one James Brown. Ray died of natural causes Tuesday in Augusta, Ga. He was 85 years old.
On Wednesday the James Brown Estate called Ray “the second hardest working man in show business.”
Ray served as master of ceremonies for the James Brown and the Famous Flames Revue, but he was best known for draping a flowing cape over a worn-out Brown in at the end of a concert.
In my career, I always tried to look beyond the stars. That’s how I wound up backstage with Ray after [...]
The road to find out & Larry King radio; 1991. The author at Santo Domingo Pueblo, N.M.
It sounds like a strange thing to bring Larry King into a conversation about the American road.
But I got hooked on Mr. King in the summer of 1991 when I drove Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica, Ca. I was alone and I took my time: Saint James, Mo., Stroud, Ok., Seligman, Az., etc. My soundtrack was country and soul music, regional baseball games, and Mr. King, who had a late-night show on the Mutual Broadcasting System.
Mr. King–who died Saturday at the age of 87–featured guest [...]
MILWAUKEE—When you’ve been in lockdown for nearly a year, the only way to go is up.
Last summer I found socially distant minor league baseball in Franklin, Wis., southwest of Milwaukee. I drove along South Howell Avenue near Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. I noticed a few airport-themed restaurants and bars along the gritty ribbon of highway. It reminded me of the 1980s and going to the Baby Doll Polka Club, across the street from Midway Airport in Chicago. I recalled a simpler time when people might stop to watch airplanes take off into places more exotic than the South Side of Chicago or the South Side of Milwaukee.
So, last Friday I drove back to [...]
Wyonella Smith, 1921-2020 (Courtesy of Marie Ellis.)
Wyonella Smith had a love affair with Chicago. With a forward nature in her eyes, she saw the hopeful texture of its baseball seasons and she navigated local media in its black and white years. Mrs. Smith was the wife of trailblazing newspaper columnist and mid-1960s WGN-Channel 9 sports anchor Wendell Smith. Mrs. Smith died on Thanksgiving Day at the Montgomery Place Retirement Community in Hyde Park.
She was 99 years old.
Mrs. Smith lived in the same retirement center as Mary Frances Veeck, the wife of Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Veeck. Wendell Smith [...]
Phyllis Jaskot at her bar, early 1960s (Courtesy of the Jaskot family.)
In a city known for unique taverns, Phyllis’ Musical Inn, 1800 W. Division, is the full dance card.
Phyllis and Clem Jaskot Sr. opened their Chicago bar in 1954. The club has since taken on at least three historic personalities: the cornerstone of a 1950s polka music strip known as “Polish Broadway,” a minimalist country-rock club that in the 1980s featured live sets from Souled American, Green and many others, and now, the last interesting drinking establishment on gentrified Division Street.
Beloved matriarch Phyllis [...]
Artist Ken Auster’s “Turnin-A-Burnin” (Courtesy of Jack Morris)
The only Ruby Tuesday restaurant left in Illinois is off of Route 66 in downstate Litchfield. I’ve had the chicken and broccoli pasta a few times there over the past year. On every visit, I’ve paid a little more attention to the artwork. The walls contain restaurant themed paintings that recall Edward Hopper’s sparse realism.
On the north wall of the Ruby Tuesday, there is a giclee (inkjet printing process) of a waiter in a creased white shirt serving two men at a small table with a white tablecloth. A chef with a [...]
