I started following the Cubs when I was growing up in the northern suburbs of Chicago in the late 1960s. While my family was originally from the West Side (and White Sox fans) most of my friends were Cub fans. In addition, the North Siders played day games at Wrigley Field that were broadcast on WGN, channel 9. (The Sox, meanwhile, were on snowy channel 32 -- UHF! -- and played mostly at night.)
On a typical summer day I'd plop myself in front of our black-and-white set with a big bag of Jay's potato chips and an ice cold 50/50 and watch the exploits of Ron Santo, Billy Williams and -- my favorite player -- Ernie Banks. (Let's not get into that whole Collapse of '69, okay?)
So I grew up a Cubs fan in a Sox family. Unusual? Not really. In fact, my family's baseball history (like many in Chicago, I suspect) was complicated. You see, although most of my extended family were Sox fans, my father's brother was a die-hard Cubs fan. Huh? Well, my Uncle Ed was quite a bit younger than my dad and my other uncle, so he may have -- like me -- chosen his own team to follow.
Which begs the question: Which team did my grandfather follow?
While everyone assumed that Grandpa Tracy was a lifelong Sox fan, it turns out, according to my father's other brother, my Uncle Chuck (the family historian), that he was a Cubs fan before he was a Sox fan. (Hmmm. Sounds a little like John Kerry: "I voted for the bill before I voted against it.")
How did that happen? (Hang in there; we're getting closer to the answer to my original question.)
Both of my grandfathers grew up on the near West Side of the city. In the late nineteenth century, the Cubs played their home games at West Side Park, where Rush Hospital is now located. So it was only natural, I guess, that they should follow the local team. And, after the Cubs moved north to the corner of Addison and Clark, my grandfathers simply followed them up there on the streetcar.
But while my mother's father remained a Cubs fan until the day he died, my Grandpa Tracy suddenly switched his allegiance to the White Sox around 1930. Why? Because, in his words, "That Wrigley's a Kluxer!"
A what?
The owner of the Cubs, William Wrigley, was long rumored to be a member of -- or at least a sympathizer with -- the Ku Klux Klan, the nativist organization that had become rabidly anti-Catholic (among other things) by the 1920s. And, when Wrigley fired Joe McCarthy, the Cubs' Irish Catholic manager, after the 1930 season, well, that just about confirmed it for my grandpa.
Which brings me back to the subject of this post. (Are you still there?)
On the front page of the Times this morning is an article, "G.O.P. 'Super PAC' Weighs Hard-Line Attack on Obama." Apparently, the Republicans are going to play the race card this time around (my emphasis):
A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the “super PAC” era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from.
Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September, the plan would “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do,” the strategists wrote.
The plan, which is awaiting approval, calls for running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.
“The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,” says the proposal, which was overseen by Fred Davis and commissioned by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. Mr. Ricketts is increasingly putting his fortune to work in conservative politics.
The $10 million plan, one of several being studied by Mr. Ricketts, includes preparations for how to respond to the charges of race-baiting it envisions if it highlights Mr. Obama’s former ties to Mr. Wright, who espouses what is known as “black liberation theology.”
The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.”
A copy of a detailed advertising plan was obtained by The New York Times through a person not connected to the proposal who was alarmed by its tone. It is titled “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good.”
The proposal was presented last week in Chicago to associates and family members of Mr. Ricketts, who is also the patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs.
Now, I'm not saying that this Ricketts guy is a racist -- or even a Kluxer, for that matter -- but I will say that he doesn't sound like the kind of guy I'd like to have a beer with (if I drank beer). And he's probably not the kind of guy whose team I'd like to support, either.
So, I guess I may have to pull a Charlie Tracy and turn my gaze southward (for a little while, at least).
Now what's the name of that ballpark along the Dan Ryan, U. S. Cellular Field?
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