Wisch List

Today’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) The Bears look like toast. The Illini football team hasn’t won a Big Ten game in 16 straight tries. The Cubs and White Sox combined to lose 195 games, and it felt like 300.

Oh, and the Cardinals and Red Sox are in the World Series.

Yes, right now, it’s a pretty rough time to be a sports fan in the Land of Lincoln. But all is not lost. In fact, even as the temperature in Chicago starts to bottom out, there are some pick-me-ups on the local sports scene that are still warming my heart this week. And here they are:

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

From the Saturday, Sept. 19, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

Look up in the Windy City, and there’s a good chance you’ll spot the flag of Chicago flapping above you. Featuring a clean design of two blue horizontal stripes on a field of white, it includes four six-pointed red stars that signify Fort Dearborn, the Great Chicago Fire, the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition, and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

The latter, otherwise known as the World’s Fair and made famous again in Erik Larson’s fantastic book, “The Devil and the White City,” opened its gates on May 1, 1893. Over the following six months, more than 26 million visitors flocked to the 600-acre fairgrounds and 200-plus buildings, where they were experienced exotic animals, international cultures and curious new products and innovations from around the globe.

This Friday, 120 years after the close of the World’s Fair, the Field Museum (1400 S. Lake Shore Drive) will unveil its new exhibition “Opening the Vaults: Wonders of the 1893 World’s Fair,” featuring artifacts and specimens that the museum first shared during the Columbian Exposition, which also marked the Field’s grand opening.

The exhibit, which runs from Oct. 25 through Sept. 7, 2014 (learn more at fieldmuseum.org), is filled with objects that have rarely – or never – been displayed publicly since they wowed fairgoers more than a century ago.

Among them is a meteorite so feared that it was kept chained in a dungeon. With that oddity in mind, here are some other facts about the World’s Fair that you might not know.

Continue reading “Field Museum opening vaults to revisit 1893 World’s Fair”

Saturday’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) There was a time when Wisconsin football was Illinois football.

In fact, it was even worse.

Heading into the 1990 season, the Badgers hadn’t posted a winning record since 1984, and had won a total of just seven Big Ten games over the previous five years. Back during the 1980s, going to football games in Madison wasn’t even about football. It was about tailgating.

But then new head coach Barry Alvarez set out to change all that.

And he did.

Come 1993, the Badgers steamrolled the Big Ten, compiling a 10-1-1 record and making the school’s first Rose Bowl appearance in 30 years. Then out in Pasadena, Wisconsin beat UCLA 21-16 that was just the program’s second bowl victory in its history, but it set the stage for many more.

After that breakthrough season, Alvarez went on to win or sharetwo more Big Ten titles and capture another pair of Rose Bowl crowns, racking up a career record of 118-73-4 over 16 seasons and turning Wisconsin into a new pillar of the Big Ten along the way.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

My Oct. 18 column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) It’s been rumored that USC is interested in him.

In recent years, his name has been linked to open head coaching positions at both Penn State and Michigan. And last winter, as Notre Dame prepared for the National Championship Game, he was mentioned as a potentialreplacement if Fighting Irish coach Brian Kelly were to bolt South Bend for the NFL.

Yes, popular national opinion clearly has placed Northwestern’s 38-year-old Pat Fitzgerald among the game’s elite echelon of coaches.

And for years I’ve been trying to understand exactly why.

Because, when it comes to Fitzgerald’s reputation in Evanston and the reality of his record, the numbers simply don’t add up. I know, because this week I crunched them. And what I confirmed is that the digits leave Fitzgerald’s resume looking far more black-and-blue than purple.

But before we get into that, I’d like to point out that it’s not that I think that Pat Fitzgerald is a bad coach. I don’t. Rather, I think he’s a decent one, and believe that the former standout linebacker at NU is a very good fit for his alma mater’s football program. But I also think his legend in Evanston is very much outpacing the accomplishments of his teams.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

Tuesday’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) Unless you were, I don’t know, wearing headphones all day, there was no missing the news on Monday that it was the 10th anniversary of the Chicago Cubs’ so-called “Bartman Game.” And to mark the occasion, the headline above Rick Morrissey’s column in the Sun-Times read, “Cubs changed forever by Game 6 in 2003.”

“It has been 10 years since the sky fell on the Cubs,” Morrissey wrote, recalling that fateful October evening when unfortunate fan Steve Bartman’s palms met both horsehide and infamy. “If you think that’s overstating things, then you weren’t at Wrigley Field the night everything fell apart.

“That was the night the Cubs were five outs away from going to the World Series. It was the night they found out how far away they really were.”

I was there at Wrigley on that night, and I don’t think that Morrissey was overstating anything about the impact of Game 6. But I do believe that he perhaps did misstate things. Because, I don’t think the Cubs were changed by that epic NLCS collapse anywhere as much as Cubs fans were.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

From the Saturday, Oct. 12, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

The WISCH LIST

By Dave Wischnowsky

Back in August, I was out in Boston’s Back Bay.

Early one morning, I went for a jog through the neighborhood along Boylston Street, following the same path that leads runners to the finish line of the city’s famous marathon, which is also now the infamous site of the bombing that killed three race spectators and injured more than 260 others in April.

This day on Boylston, windows had been repaired. A new tree had been planted. And The Forum restaurant, outside of which the second explosion occurred, was preparing for its grand re-opening that same night. All around, buildings boasted blue-and-yellow “Boston Strong” signs and ribbons, promising that the city’s race and spirit will always go on.

Come Sunday, the strength of Boston’s lessons learned will arrive in Chicago as the city hosts its first marathon since that tragic event. Among the new safety measures adopted for the 2013 Chicago Marathon are more bomb-sniffing dogs, the clearing of any unattended items and the barring of un-ticketed spectators from the race’s start and finish lines.

It won’t quite be Race Day as usual, but as usual Chicago’s marquee race will go on, and in honor of it here are three things you might not know about the Marathon.

Continue reading “Chicago Marathon Running ‘Strong’ On Sunday”

Saturday’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) Manny Acta. Rick Renteria. A.J. Hinch.

A.J. Hinch?

If the names of the rumored candidates for the Chicago Cubs’ managerial opening don’t excite you now that the glamour pick, Yankees skipper Joe Girardi, has opted to stay in NYC, well, you’re hardly alone.

But are you really surprised?

Because, right now, the Cubs gig is far from a plum job desired by the managerial masses. In fact, so unable was the organization to offer Girardi a truly compelling reason to move back to Chicago that he never even actually spoke to the Cubs about the job. Girardi could see everything that the position was made of from his home in New York. Without a telescope.

With Girardi’s unsurprising snub in mind, my concern is that by firing Dale Sveum a year before his contract ended, Theo Epstein & Co. have really stepped in it. I have my doubts that they’re going to be able to hire the “right guy” this time around, either.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

Today’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) Well, Joe Girardi doesn’t want to come back to Wrigley Field.

But, hey, Sammy Sosa does.

No, not as manager. (I don’t think.) Although, with the dearth of big league talent that the Cubs currently have on their big league roster, Sosa could probably lose just as many games as the next guy.

What he’s not going to lose in Chicago, however, is love. After all, Sammy lost that a long time ago. But, not surprisingly, he’s still looking for it – in all the wrong places.

On Tuesday night, WGN-AM’s David Kaplan played an interview that he conducted with Sosa last week in Fort Lauderdale. During the chat, Sammy said that he’s willing to make peace with the Cubs organization in the hopes of returning to Chicago and behind honored.

For what, I don’t know, but during his interview Sosa said, “First of all, a lot of miscommunication and a few things that happened before. That’s why we haven’t got a great relationship with the organization. But I’m looking forward to one day, you walk in Wrigley Field and see my statue, see my flag.

“I don’t think they’ll find another player to put up the numbers I put up at Wrigley Field. I doubt it.”

They just don’t make PEDs like they used to.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

Today’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) What’s in a name?

Forget that. What’s in a job title?

At Northwestern University, it’s $16 million bucks apparently. Last Friday, Crain’s Chicago Business columnist Danny Ecker reported that NU trustee Christopher Combe and his wife Courtney have plunked down a cool $16 mil as a gift to the school, of which $10 million will endow Athletic Director Jim Phillips’ job.

And officially rename the gig as the Chris and Courtney Combe Vice President for Athletics and Recreation. Good luck fitting that on a business card.

“We share the value Northwestern places on educating student-athletes in the classroom as well as on the athletic field,” explained Mr. Combe, whose ego has to rival his wallet in size, considering that he actually wants to have a guy’s job named after him.

To each his own, even though I personally find the whole naming-rights-for-jobs thing to be odd and even a little risky. After all, can the job’s benefactor demand someone be fired from it if they don’t like the way their name is being represented? Regardless, the phenomenon is apparently nothing new at Northwestern, which already has christened women’s lacrosse coach Kelly-Amonte Hiller’s job as the “Combe Family Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach,” while Pat Fitzgerald is the “Dan and Susan Jones Family Head Football Coach.”

Continue reading  at CBSChicago.com …

From the Saturday, Oct. 5, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

Seeking their fourth manager in four seasons, the Chicago Cubs have a sales job on their hands this fall.

But is what they’re selling something that anyone actually wants to buy into, or is it nothing more than a chance to become yet another fall guy?

Ever since Cubs president Theo Epstein refused to give manager Dale Sveum a vote of confidence two weeks before ultimately firing him as franchise’s scapegoat for its 197 losses since 2012, rumors have swirled around the Windy City that the North Siders want Yankees skipper Joe Girardi as its next leader.

On Thursday, the Sun-Times’ Gordon Wittenmyer reported that multiple sources have said that the Cubs are indeed focused on hiring Girardi and making him one of the two highest-paid managers in baseball along with the Angels’ Mike Scioscia, who earns $5 million annually.

“Girardi, who fielded a contract-extension offer Wednesday from the Yankees, has said publicly and told those close to him privately that family considerations will play a large role in his decision to return to the Yankees or field other offers,” wrote Wittenmyer. “In other words, talking to the Cubs about an offer, sources close to him say.”

Now, I’d love to see Girardi – a World Series champion manager, an Illinois native, a former Cubs catcher and one of the classier ballplayers I’ve seen during my lifetime – come to Chicago. But if he does, I can’t help but think that he’s also a little crazy to do so.

Or a lot.

Continue reading “For Girardi to leave Big Apple, Cubs job lacks appeal”