To paraphrase the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield, "Chicago don't get no respect!" Chicago sports fans could certainly have the right to use that expression. When it comes to getting respect from national sportscasters coming to report on games with Chicago teams, it seems like a lost cause. They don't offer respect for our teams when they win, they tend to dismiss the winners and joke about the losers. Respect is not a word they find in their vocabularies.
And if that weren't bad enough, our city is also dissed by these same mavens. My thoughts on this subject came to a head a few weeks ago, when CBS sports was telecasting a Chicago Bears football game in the arena formerly known as Soldier Field. It was a game the Bears won and the announcers seemed to wonder how a miracle of that magnitude could have taken place with a team that wore Chicago as a part of their team name. In addition, the director or producer in charge of camera positions strategically placed his highest level cameras on the southeast edge of the field. Then. he pointed them in the general direction of Gary, IN. The Lake was foggy and the picture picked up by the cameras would have done justice to a film location in Victorian London where fog was essential to the plot.
Now, Gary is a nice place to visit if you're in the market for some fresh rolled steel, but even the most jingoistic citizen of Gary wouldn't claim that their skyline competes with Chicago's. So, as a result of this lack of respect, we had a nationally televised network broadcast of a game which, according to the experts, was won by some fluke play and the sheer luck of the Chicago team. But we did get some nice pictures of a fog-shrouded Lake Michigan and downtown Gary with an occasional panning shot of some of northern Indiana's gambling casinos.
Then, there was the broadcast of the World Series of Baseball. I watched all four games as the Sox defied all the pre-season odds makers and pundits and won one game after another. Yet, those expert announcers waited until there were two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning of the fourth game to acknowledge that the Sox had a chance of winning the series. Up to that point, they seemed to expect the Astros to turn everything around, win four straight games and take the trophy back to Houston.
We've had our share of winning teams. Every generation or so, we take home the big prize. A baby born when the Bears won the Super Bowl is now a working, voting member of society. Someone who attended the last Sox World Series appearance in 1959 is now probably being called "grandpa." And anyone who saw the Cubs play in their last World Series in 1945 is certainly carrying a Medicare Card. An exceptional time was the Michael Jordan era with the Bulls.
Yet, now, when Chicago teams show promise in the national competition for a winner, the network sports announcers seem to discount any possibility that they might actually come through and win it all. The most recent example placed Sox General Manager Kenny Williams as number two when he clearly deserved to be named General Manager of the Year by sportswriters.
When these guys, along with their female showpieces, come into town, they dine on Rush Street steaks, sleep in Gold Coast Hotels and ride in limos to whatever venue they're assigned to cover. But when the mikes are turned on, they always seem to think that the visiting team is a dream group that will give the locals their comeuppance. Too often, they're right. But with the Sox, and so far this year, the Bears, they have been wrong. Maybe the future even holds hope for a resurgent Bulls team and, dream of dreams, a winning Cubs nine on the North Side.
Sports teams aren't the only area where Chicago is dismissed. We call ourselves "The Second City" even though we're now third in size. And the rest of the world assumes this means we are second rate or second class. Chicagoans know that isn't true, but we have been fighting an uphill battle to prove that to the rest of the world. Since the days of Al Capone, Chicagoans who visit abroad and reveal their home town are greeted with "Rat-a-tat-tat" coupled with the motion of a Tommy Gun attack. We have world class commodity and mercantile exchanges but when it comes to announcing the day's financial results, we only hear about the NASDAQ or the New York Stock exchange—as if the price of corn and soy beans has no impact on the world's economy. I'd like to see some of those financial wizards dine out on a few stock certificates instead of corn fed beef. The list goes on and on. We have one of the world's great skylines and probably the most impressive architecture in the world, but when it comes to describing beautiful structures or buildings, we get pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge.
When Chicago finally gets the respect it is entitled to, we should bar these broadcasters and reporters from Rush Street and let them do their fine dining in beautiful downtown Gary. Some limos even sport Indiana license plates and there's a Holiday Inn in Gary that would give them a media rate on rooms. |
