In one of Sara Paretsky's books her main character, VI Warshawski, says that when she was young she snuck into Wrigley Field by climbing the vines. I used to sneak into Wrigley in the fifties, nobody really cared. But I never pretended to be a player, got on the field during batting practice and climbed up to the bleacher seats. (I would have preferred a box seat.)

Okay I did sneak into the demolished Chicago Coliseum to see the Chicago Packers by walking into the stadium with the Pistons. Although players weren't as big then as today you would think somebody would have noticed a couple of 5 and a half footers.

When I moved to Chicago in 1966, you could say I was primed to become a Cubs fan. I was used to losing. I was working at 70th and Damen; I should have been a Sox fan. They had won the World Series in recent memory, but that would have been simple, rooting for winners*.

That's a hell of a memory.

joe ricketts? i thought tom owned the club. am i missing something?

That's a hell of a memory.

Forget it, she's rolling.

Harv, Tom is the chairman, but all four Ricketts kids and both parents own chunks of the team.

That's a hell of a memory.

Hell, at Paretsky's age she can probably remember the ####### Temple Cup.

It always seems like the best response to yet one more "I'M LEAVING MY FANDOM" article is a succinct "Good."

I enjoy her writing, particularly how it makes use of the city. Not every Chicago author is going to include a chase scene at Lake Calumet.

Real life congruence with VI Warshawsky: I was getting booked one really, really hot afternoon down at District 5, I think it was 1986. I was in the process of getting fingerprinted and the Cubs game was on a tv that was in the squad room, but visible to me through some glass. If I remember right they were in the process of blowing a lead, I want to say that there was a Shawon Dunston/Leon Durham gaffe. I asked what the score was and made some off-hand comment about Dunston being over-rated, and the cops kind of looked at me quizzically. Once my fingerprints were taken they took me not into the not-air conditioned cell block but into the air conditioned squad room and I watched the rest of the game comfortably while waiting for bail to be posted. The Cubs lost, I got out shortly after the game ended.

The guys I was with, all of whom had been put into the cell block, wondered how the hell I managed it. In White Sox territory you criticize the Cubs, I shrugged.

Once my fingerprints were taken they took me not into the not-air conditioned cell block but into the air conditioned squad room and I watched the rest of the game comfortably while waiting for bail to be posted.

Are you Charlie Sheen?

joe ricketts? i thought tom owned the club. am i missing something?

No, you're not.

Great story, squatto.

I was getting booked one really, really hot afternoon down at District 5

Assaulting an umpire, I presume?

It always seems like the best response to yet one more "I'M LEAVING MY FANDOM" article is a succinct "Good."

Probably getting repetitive at this point, but I couldn't agree more.

I think some waxing and waning is to be expected. I don't watch every Leafs game like I used to (mostly because it's not on TV where I live now), but I'm still a fan. I still care how they do though, and I still think of them as my team. I can't even imagine no longer being a Jays fan. May as well ask me to imagine what it would be like to no longer be Canadian...or a narcissitc blow-hard. I think I love the Jays more now than when they were winning World Serieses. I'm a bit of an emotional pack-rat that way - I look forward to old age because by then I'll have a whole heaping full of cumulative cultural memory and baggage. I wouldn't want to lose any of it. Perhaps I'll feel different when I'm 60.

Never read her work, just her Wikipedia bio, but is she really a member of the 99%? Very successful author whose husband is a tenured professor at a private university...I suppose it's plausible that they are not members of the 1%, but if that's the case they're probably in the next 2-3%.

i didn't think much of the state helping the brewers get a stadium and worked hard to keep it from happening. failed. also think miller park as a venue is not my cup of tea since it has crazy shadows and took away the beauty of day games which to me in baseball is criminal

still follow the team. still root for the fellers

don't know if that is a contradiction.

don't know if that is a contradiction.

I doubt it, but you've fondly reminded me of Doug Pappas absolutely railing against the ludicrous sweetheart deal that Reinsdorf got for the first ten years or whatever it was that the park was open. I still picture him typing in a white hot rage as he described it. It puts Kenny Williams' whining about crowd size in perspective. The Sox never really had an economic incentive to push fans to attend for many years. Reinsdorf got his attendance money whether crowds came or not. Chickens come home at sunset, and he's reaping what he sowed.

Very successful author whose husband is a tenured professor at a private university...I suppose it's plausible that they are not members of the 1%, but if that's the case they're probably in the next 2-3%.

Not even close.

Ugh, New Comiskey pales only in comparison to the parking meters in #### that I loathe da mayor for.

And I had the same thought as Dave, I have to imagine she's in the 1%(Isn't it somewhere between 300 and 400K?) I imagine a lot of people in the 1% don't think they are.

HW - I loved County Stadium, much better than the airplane hanger they have now. My first car was actually an old brewers Bullpen car (given to a fan at the end of the season, a friend of my sister's won it and years later I bought it). Terrible car (Chevy Monsa, broke all the damn time), but I loved it and got plenty of looks and honks whenever I drove through Wisconsin. Made me a secondary Brewer fan - which I still am, though Bud almost broke me of that.

EDIT: The VI W books are OK. I vaguely rememebr reading a couple of them years ago. Didn't make much of an impression on me though.

if you go by income the top 1 percent cutoff looks to be around 400k

if you go by net worth it goes up quite a bit

bitter

agreed. county stadium on a june night was baseball at its best.

and the acoustics were wonderful. you could hear the crack of the bat in any part of the ballpark.

From: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/measuring-the-top-1-by-wealth-not-income/

The Times had estimated the threshold for being in the top 1 percent in household income at about $380,000, 7.5 times median household income, using census data from 2008 through 2010. But for net worth, the 1 percent threshold for net worth in the Fed data was nearly $8.4 million, or 69 times the median household’s net holdings of $121,000.

Some readers wondered if the 1 percent by wealth weren’t an entirely different group of people from the 1 percent by income. But there is substantial overlap: the Fed data suggests that about half of the top 1 percent of earners are also among the top 1 percent in the net worth category.

But it is the internet, so who knows.

county stadium on a june night was baseball at its best.

My one and only County Stadium experience was a Saturday afternoon game. Two co-workers and I drove in from Madison, and were astounded at the tail-gating. We were in the upper deck behind home plate. In the row in front of us were three heavy metal dudes. Black t-shirts, mullets, wallets chained to belts, etc. They were absolutely tanked when they got to their seats and matched us in the beer-an-inning sweepstakes. But while boisterous they were harmless, and having a ball. They'd jump up and yell "Dude hit a single!" and "Duuude! Awesome double play!" and the like. By the third inning one of them passed out. Sure enough, between innings the section got "Dude passed out! What a #####, dude!"

In the seventh inning one of them jumped up and yelled to the section "Oh man! Dude pissed himself!" Sure enough, when they got the guy conscious he shamefully made his shame down the stairs, never to return, with his black jeans blacker through the crotch. It was pretty funny.

Never saw her cheer.

in the 70's security would look the other way as fans brought kegs into the bleachers. as long as you let security have a few cups to sip you were fine

ahhhhh, the good old days. sometimes they really were better.........

I've been to Miller Park three times, and I like it well enough. My biggest gripe is that the sightlines are pretty bad for a lot of seats down the line - from where we sat the first time, I'd guess around section 210 or so, most of right field was hidden from us.

The shadows during day games look really bad on TV, but on the one day game we went to, they didn't seem so bad. Not that it seemed ideal to play in them, necessarily, but TV really exagerrates the effect of shadows in general.

Never did make it to County Stadium, and I don't know why, because I spent a couple weeks in Wisconsin every year growing up and my relatives are all Brewers fans.

I like Miller Park and I like the shadows as well. Gives off a cathedral vibe during the daytime.

I despise Miller Park. It reminds me of a convention center, and even when the roof is open it might as well be closed.

When I moved to Chicago in 1966, you could say I was primed to become a Cubs fan. I was used to losing. I was working at 70th and Damen; I should have been a Sox fan. They had won the World Series in recent memory

Did Sara come from an alternate universe where the Sox beat the Dodgers in '59?

county stadium on a june night was baseball at its best.

and the acoustics were wonderful. you could hear the crack of the bat in any part of the ballpark.

I only went to County Stadium three times from 1970 to 1992, and those loud cracks of the bat were what I remember about it the most. During batting practice the only park I remember hearing multiple echoes that loud was in Washington's Griffith Stadium.

Of course today the marketing geniuses have determined that casual fans would much rather be blasted by music from the moment the gates open than by the actual sounds of baseball, so the acoustics of today's parks are largely a moot point.

andy

did i ever bore you with my favorite roger clemens story? old county stadium. 1988. it's the bottom of the ninth and roger is still throwing bbs in a 2-2 game. joey meyer, of all people, lines an outside pitch by roger over the right field fence to win the game.

and instead of walking off the field clemens stands on the mound and screams at meyer on how he is a fat piece of #### and disgusting and that this hit will be the highlight of his life so he better enjoy it and roger's face was getting redder and he was spewing just an unreal amount of profanity. roger teammates all began to slow down and then stop and stare at their pitcher as he just verbally abused meyer around the bases.

that was one subdued home plate celebration. all the brewers were watching clemens out of the corner of their eyes as he finally walked from the mound toward the dugout still hollering at meyer.

rob deer kind of positioned himself between the crowd of brewers and clemens. deer was the only guy on the team who i think could have taken roger toe to toe. deer was a big sucker.

anyway, that is one of my favorite county stadium memories. the day roger clemens got beat by joey meyer and went insane

Of course today the marketing geniuses have determined that casual fans would much rather be blasted by music from the moment the gates open than by the actual sounds of baseball, so the acoustics of today's parks are largely a moot point.

This is my "get off my lawn" moment as well. I like listening to the sound of the event (baseball and hockey are the best for sounds) and be able to talk to the people I came with. Instead I get blasted by the wall of noise. I refuse to go to football games (well that and football is much better on TV than live).

found it.

august 9, 1988

anyway, that is one of my favorite county stadium memories. the day roger clemens got beat by joey meyer and went insane

That's a great story.

My one and only trip to old Comiskey was in 1986. Clemens vs. Jose DeLeon, who proved to be a Clemens killer. The Rocket came into that game as hot a pitcher as you could ever want to see. Clemens was staked to an early 2-0 lead and the wheels totally came off in the bottom of the 5th. With no outs the White Sox loaded the bases on three straight singles. My memory is that Clemens felt he was getting squeezed by the home plate umpire and his body language was not respectful at all. A ground ball fails to make a double play and Chicago scores a run. With runners on first and third with one out Cangelosi steals second. Steve Lyons hits a sac fly that scores the runner on third to tie it up. Baines hits a little squibber that Clemens botches - I think he tried to tag Baines initially on a grounder up the 1b line, or tried to tag Cangelosi coming from third, then made a tardy throw to first - and the runner scores to give the White Sox the lead.

Clemens goes absolutely apeshit. He's screaming at Tschida that he made the tag, and Tschida is barking right back. He gets tossed, which sends Clemens into an even deeper fury. He hurls his cap to the ground, spikes it and grinds it into the turf, his face redder than Stalin's hands. The crowd is going apeshit too. Don Baylor and Jim Rice eventually get to Roger and literally pick him up by the shoulders and feet and haul him to the dugout, kicking and screaming the whole way through the dugout and up the runway to the clubhouse.

Roger was big. Rice and Baylor were bigger. My word, those guys were gigantic and they manhandled Clemens like he was a tantrum-throwing toddler.

The floodgates open, Boston got creamed the rest of the game. I was with a bunch of the guys from the People's Law Office, and they gave me #### about it for the rest of that night.

Did Sara come from an alternate universe where the Sox beat the Dodgers in '59?

Well, she does write fiction for a living.

Did Sara come from an alternate universe where the Sox beat the Dodgers in '59?

Actually many White Sox fans became convinced that they were robbed of the Series victory in '59, as part of a plot by North Side Beatniks who also poured beer on Al Smith. So if she moved to Chicago in 1966 I can see her believing that.

Seconded #29 and #31. It was a really sad day whatever day it was I returned to Fenway to see that it too succumbed to the trend that I had seen building at other ballparks for years. I'm too young to be this cranky dammit.

To be fair, the '59 pennant was a pretty apocalyptic moment.

and instead of walking off the field clemens stands on the mound and screams at meyer on how he is a fat piece of #### and disgusting and that this hit will be the highlight of his life so he better enjoy it and roger's face was getting redder and he was spewing just an unreal amount of profanity. roger teammates all began to slow down and then stop and stare at their pitcher as he just verbally abused meyer around the bases.

Clemens goes absolutely apeshit. He's screaming at Tschida that he made the tag, and Tschida is barking right back. He gets tossed, which sends Clemens into an even deeper fury. He hurls his cap to the ground, spikes it and grinds it into the turf, his face redder than Stalin's hands.

Not to mention Game 4 of the 1990 ALCS.

Sounds like the feds could have gotten their conviction if they only knew the right evidence to present to the jury.....

roger clemens had a long history of being crazy on a ballfield long before mike piazza ever hit the big leagues. folks pointing to that as some kind of significant sign of anything are ignorant of clemens and his unique personality traits.

Having spent 100's of days at County Stadium, many as a peanut vendor, I'd concur with the remarks regarding the wonderful sounds of bats cracking during BP. I think the otherwise ugly corrugated metal on the facade really helped amplify the sounds. It was one of the best places to be as a little kid, teenager and young adult, that's all I know.

mrams

were you there the day hrbek hit two out on memorial day? i mention that because few batters hit the old scoreboard in right-center and thought you might be old enough to remember the last guy to do it. i am pretty sure hrbek was the last

off don august i believe. big old roundhouse curve that didn't do much

which kind of sums up august's stuff. ha, ha.

roger clemens had a long history of being crazy on a ballfield long before mike piazza ever hit the big leagues. folks pointing to that as some kind of significant sign of anything are ignorant of clemens and his unique personality traits.

One of the early The Best American Sportswriting volumes had a Clemens profile originally from the Texas Observer by a woman reporter. It was clear from the piece that he was more than a half a bubble off plumb. The most vivid image was Clemens and one of his good ol' boy factotums trying to freak the reporter out by having her watch a reputed snuff video with them, where a guy breaking into a place is torn apart by guard dogs. I was a big Clemens fan, and that took a lot of the luster off of my mancrush.

bah, it was july 4 1988

why do i have 1988 on the brain today???

if you go by income the top 1 percent cutoff looks to be around 400k

I have a few friends I'm pretty sure would become Republicans if I told them that. (not to imply that I have rich friends just commenting on how low that seems compared to public perception)

big

that's income.

not being cute but that is a distinction worth noting.

august 9, 1988

Fortunately, for Clemens, nobody much cared about his meltdown, because that was also date of the first night game at Wrigley Field.

I like Miller Park and I like the shadows as well. Gives off a cathedral vibe during the daytime.

That's a funny way to spell "greenhouse."

like with wrigley and the old 3 p.m. start times on a sunny day miller park seems to become a 7 inning game.

likely my imagination and hard to track unless someone has been doing it personally but the shadows just seem to kill hitters later in the game

sheets 18 strikeout game was on a day like that. and there have been others.

that's income.

not being cute but that is a distinction worth noting.

Definitely worth noting, but 8.4 Mil isn't very high either when you think about it. Guy owns a house in a nice neighborhood, a couple of rental properties and a good life insurance plan is probably knocking at the door, and he's not exactly swimming in doe.

I know at least two farmers who by income are smack in the middle of middle class who probably have north of 6 Mil in property. The 8.4 barrier is certainly higher, but there's a perception among the liberals I know that when we talk about the 1% we're talking exclusively about guys who drive Aston Martin's.

At the very least it invalidates a lot of the perception that these guys "kids are set for life and so are their kids". Some estimates put an average American at spending above $2 Mil in their lifetime, some as high as 2.7 Mil. Even with lope holes your dropping at least 2-3 Mil of that in taxes on transfer. If you have two kids thats two households each of which would need 2 to 2.7 Mil. If you lose 3 Million in taxes then one of the kids has to work. If you lose 2 they can both make it barely. Neither scenario leaves anything for the next generation. Just ruminating, my friends may be atypical in their belief that the entire 1% is composed of people whose fortunes would last into perpetuity.

Oddly enough, the Twins were known as a 5 o'clock team during those Puckett led teams. They didn't disappoint at County Stadium for BP.

I wasn't at the Hrbek game that July 4th, but I was at the Puckett 6-6 game later that August when he also robbed Yount of a HR at the CF wall.

Edit: Wait, that 6-6 game was in '87, not '88.

At the very least it invalidates a lot of the perception that these guys "kids are set for life and so are their kids". Some estimates put an average American at spending above $2 Mil in their lifetime, some as high as 2.7 Mil. Even with lope holes your dropping at least 2-3 Mil of that in taxes on transfer. If you have two kids thats two households each of which would need 2 to 2.7 Mil. If you lose 3 Million in taxes then one of the kids has to work. If you lose 2 they can both make it barely. Neither scenario leaves anything for the next generation. Just ruminating, my friends may be atypical in their belief that the entire 1% is composed of people whose fortunes would last into perpetuity.

I can't tell if you are trolling or if your tongue is stuck firmly in your cheek but the damned kids ought to be working for their money in any case. I don't have any real problem with anyone going out and earning however big a pile they can manage, more power to them. However, the whole concept of inherited wealth just chaps my ass. I have never understood why anyone should have the right to lie around and live a life of ease, just because their ancestors worked hard/got lucky and made a bunch of money. Get off your dead ass and work for a living like the rest of us.

I can't tell if you are trolling or if your tongue is stuck firmly in your cheek but the damned kids ought to be working for their money in any case. I don't have any real problem with anyone going out and earning however big a pile they can manage, more power to them. However, the whole concept of inherited wealth just chaps my ass. I have never understood why anyone should have the right to lie around and live a life of ease, just because their ancestors worked hard/got lucky and made a bunch of money. Get off your dead ass and work for a living like the rest of us.

Honestly I don't know where I come down on inherited wealth. I've got enough of an individual rights streak in me to where I see the argument that I should be able to provide for my kids after I'm gone and that the government doesn't have a right to tell me how much of that I can do. On the other hand I see your point clearly as well, that America is founded on competition so an entire sub-population shouldn't be allowed to avoid that. I'm torn because I fall relatively firmly in the 1%, to the point where I wouldn't have to work, but I've spent my entire life proving to everybody around me that I'm not a daddy's boy. I've taken crap jobs in landscaping and construction, and I've worked my entire way through law school. But dad didn't work his whole life just for himself, he worked a significant chunk of it for me and my brother. That has to mean something, I'm just not sure what and I'm not convinced that a 26 year old who's been a student his entire life should have a final opinion on something like that.

The whole point of my post wasn't about whether its right or wrong, just that perception isn't reality. I have to think that at least some people would revise their opinion on the 1% if they had a better conceptual understanding of how far $8 Million actually goes.

Clemens goes absolutely apeshit. He's screaming at Tschida that he made the tag, and Tschida is barking right back. He gets tossed, which sends Clemens into an even deeper fury. He hurls his cap to the ground, spikes it and grinds it into the turf, his face redder than Stalin's hands. The crowd is going apeshit too. Don Baylor and Jim Rice eventually get to Roger and literally pick him up by the shoulders and feet and haul him to the dugout, kicking and screaming the whole way through the dugout and up the runway to the clubhouse.

Roger was big. Rice and Baylor were bigger. My word, those guys were gigantic and they manhandled Clemens like he was a tantrum-throwing toddler.

The floodgates open, Boston got creamed the rest of the game. I was with a bunch of the guys from the People's Law Office, and they gave me #### about it for the rest of that night.

There's a very blurry pic of Baylor and Rice carrying Clemens off here. Above the headline. I remember that game well.

joe

hey, great find. thanks

no need to get an image of joey meyer. he was kind of gross.

There's a very blurry pic of Baylor and Rice carrying Clemens off here. Above the headline. I remember that game well.

Thanks! Man, it was only 26 years ago and I got all sorts of details wrong.* It was a play at first. It was the first base umpire. And DeLeon had just been acquired by trade for "promising outfield Bobby Bonilla".

*Detectives believe, etc.

anyway, that is one of my favorite county stadium memories. the day roger clemens got beat by joey meyer and went insane

This is what kills me about the Piazza bat-throwing incident being tied to steroids so often. The Rocket has a long and distinguished track record of being batshit crazy. Great story, btw.

that's income.

not being cute but that is a distinction worth noting.

Certainly. If you're earning $400k a year, paying 40% in taxes, and earning 7% on your investments, with $60k in annual expenses, it would take you 20+ years to amass $8.4 million in net worth. You can play around with those assumptions to suit your tastes, but my point is that it's easy to understand why a younger person making "1 percenter" income (or the $250k number that politicians and pundits often throw around) can look around and not feel like a member of the super-rich. You really need to earn that kind of money for a long period of time and manage your expenses, or earn a lot more money over a shorter time period, to accumulate the level of wealth that would put you in the one percent.

Guy owns a house in a nice neighborhood, a couple of rental properties

Does he or does the bank own them? Net worth of course being assets minus liabilities and $8.4 M in net worth is a lot of green. Or about 200 ARod PA's.

That said, yes, the main issue is really the .5% or the .1% but one thing the Occupy movement definitely has right is knowing that "1%" is catchier than "1/10th of 1%".