Wisch List

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

My Life in Chicargo

The WISCH LIST
Oct. 3, 2009

This week has been a pretty complicated one for me.

After all, on Tuesday night, I ended the longest relationship of my life.

Eight years.

But, hey, don’t worry about me. I’ve already moved on to someone who’s younger.

And has a better body.

(No dents.)

Yes, after nearly 100 months of marriage and 137,762 miles of carriage, on Tuesday I traded in my reliable Hyundai Elantra and drove off in a brand-new 2010 Mazda 3. So far, things are going great. But the new girl still has a lot to learn about living with me in Chicago.

I mean, it’s been four whole days and she hasn’t even gotten a parking ticket yet.

She’ll learn.

Heaven knows, I have.

Of all the cities I’ve visited in this sprawling country of ours, I’d have to say that Chicago is one of – if not the most – pedestrian-friendly. I think many others would likely agree.

With public transportation, cabs and a good pair of shoes, you can pretty easily live in most of the city’s neighborhoods without owning a car. Plenty of people do.

I, however, am not one of them. I never have been, nor do I want to be. I like owning a car in Chicago, even with the (many) costs and (occasional) hassles involved.

Among my reasons are that having a vehicle gives me the freedom to easily escape the city whenever I please, makes grocery shopping a simple task rather than a daunting ordeal, and allows me to help out-of-town friends headed to Cubs games in my part-time role as a Wrigleyville Parking Guru.

It’s a title that’s earned via baptism by fire.

Meaning, you really get burned.

For instance, four summers ago, shortly after moving to Chicago, I learned a valuable – actually, let’s call it costly – lesson about neighborhood parking.

On one day each month, the city’s Streets & Sanitation Department sweeps one side of your street ($50 fine). And on the next day, they sweep the other side of the your street ($50 fine).

No, I was not fine.

And that was only the beginning of an education that’s seemingly cost me about as much as an associate’s degree.

Maybe a bachelor’s.

Because, since 2005, I’ve handled more tickets that the guys working the turnstiles at Wrigley Field. And just when I think I’ve figured out every way that I could possibly incur a parking violation, the city seems to conjure up a brand new one.

For Mayor Richard Daley & Co., issuing parking tickets is literally like printing money. There’s a reason, after all, why fines are paid to the Department of Revenue.

As a result, police are often quick to ticket even the slightest infraction. And, from parking with my bumper creeping into a crosswalk to parking 14 feet from a fire hydrant (rather than 15) to being fined for something called a “disabled curb cut,” I’ve been slighted.

Enough to get some of my tickets dismissed.

However, while owning a car in the city can at times dull the savings account, it does keep the mind sharp. Or, at least, active.

For example, every morning almost without fail the first thought that pops into my head when I walk out of my apartment building is, “Where the heck did I park?”

Who needs coffee to wake up when you have that?

As for my car, I do find it. Usually.

Although one day a few years ago, my car wasn’t where I swore it should have been. It didn’t seem to be in the general vicinity, either, so I became convinced that it must have been towed.

I went home, looked online and found a listing on a city Web site for the same model as my car that had been impounded in one of the city’s lots just the day before.

I dialed a number and told the woman who answered that I thought the city might have my car, providing her with the impound number I’d found online.

“That car was involved in a drug bust on the South Side!” she replied

Um, definitely, not mine.

I hung up and returned to the streets.

My car was parked two blocks further down the street than where I thought.

Thankfully, I haven’t “lost” my car since then. And it’s actually been months since I received a parking ticket.

Just last week, however, I opened my mailbox to find an envelope from the Department of Revenue inside. It was a ticket and photos of my car taken by one of the city’s controversial new red-light cameras.

Like I said, my new car has a lot to learn about living in Chicago.

And, apparently, so do I.

Sigh.

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

The Olympics are coming (I think) – is the future, too?

The WISCH LIST
Sept. 26, 2009

So, what will Chicago look like in 2016?

How about in 2116?

The former, of course, will have a great deal to do with whether or not the International Olympic Committee on Friday slips five rings on Chicago’s fingers and weds the Windy City to the 2016 Games.

The latter, meanwhile, probably depends on who your favorite science fiction filmmaker is.

And how much time you spent watching The Jetsons as a kid.

Olympic Games or no Olympic Games, though, I really have no idea what the Windy City will look like seven years from today, let alone a century from now. But thankfully, for our entertainment, a bunch of Chicago architects do.

And through Oct. 11, their visions of the city’s future – both near and distant – are on display at a captivating free exhibition entitled “Big. Bold. Visionary. Chicago Architects Consider the Next Century” hosted by Chicago’s Tourism Gallery, 72 E. Randolph St., and available online at www.burnhamplan100.org.

As part of a region-wide series of exhibits and events celebrating the centennial of Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett’s influential Plan of Chicago, the exhibition provides more than three dozen local architecture firms an opportunity to make their voices heard at a time when, thanks to the city’s Olympics bid, Chicago again is pondering the face of its future.

In 1909, Burnham – the legendary architect and urban planner who famously said “Make no small plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood” – and his partner, Bennett, laid out a 165-page Plan of Chicago that presented a comprehensive re-imagining of the entire region from Kenosha to DeKalb to Michigan City.

At the Tourism Gallery, that plan is lauded as “a vision for Chicago in the 20th century” that “established a precedent of dreaming big and thinking boldly that every generation of Chicagoans since has firmly embraced.”

Plenty of big dreams are indeed on display at the “Big. Bold. Visionary.” exhibition, which is organized into six categories: the lakefront, big plans, towers, catalysts, public appearance and transportation.

Some of the dreams are off the wall, such as architect Joe Valerio’s depiction of a 22nd-century Chicago in which the downtown is covered in a transparent blanket akin to a giant swath of Saran Wrap. Heat trapped beneath the skin would be exhausted through eight massive solar towers, with the rush of air powering a series of wind turbines.

Other ideas at the exhibition are less dark, but no less intriguing. They include an “Eco Bridge” envisioned by architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill that would extend as a two-mile breakwater into Monroe Harbor, creating on the lake “a grand new space, providing recreational opportunities and unparalleled views of the skyline from a central Eco-Tower.”

That’s a view of Chicago I’d like to experience. And last weekend at the Tourism Gallery, a silver-haired gentleman standing beside me agreed.

“This is so cool,” he said, referring to the entire exhibition. “Because some of this will happen … When you’re in a wheelchair, and I’m dead.”
Now, while that may be true for many of the exhibits, there are at least a few – in particular, those connected to a 2016 Chicago Olympics – that conceivably could happen while I’m still ambulatory and my silver-haired friend is, you know, still alive.

One such display called “Bend it like Burnham” envisions the lakefront of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan as the venue for the 2016 Olympics, while another imagines Chicago’s “New South Coast” and details a layout for an Olympic Village on the Near South Side.

By next Friday afternoon, we’ll know if such Olympic dreams have a chance of becoming a reality in Chicago. My gut tells me that they will. But if not, you can likely blame it on Rio, which I see as the only serious competition for Chicago in the race for the 2016 Games.

Here’s my thinking: With the 2008 Olympics having been held in Beijing and the 2012 Olympics set for London, the IOC won’t select Tokyo or Madrid. It’s too soon to return to Asia or Europe.

That leaves Chicago and Rio de Janeiro, which is viewed by many as the sentimental favorite because South America has never hosted a Summer Olympics.

I don’t doubt that Rio would be an excellent choice, but the city might be better suited for the 2020 Games. Keep in mind that Brazil already will be hosting the 2014 World Cup and that advertisers might be hesitant to pour money into another major sporting event in the same country just two years later.

By 2016, it also will have been 20 years since the United States last hosted a Summer Games (Atlanta ’96), and the U.S. likely is due.

In April 2007, I was at ESPN Zone in downtown Chicago when the Windy City was selected over Los Angeles as the U.S. candidate for 2016. That day, the crowd erupted as if the Cubs had finally won the World Series.

It was that loud.

My guess is that come Friday, Chicago will shout once again.

This week, in addition to my Wisch List column, I wrote a front-page news story for the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Chicago’s Olympic spirit running hot and cold

By Dave Wischnowsky
For the Daily Journal

CHICAGO — This past Sunday afternoon, the Magnificent Mile was teeming with both tourists toting their shopping bags and Bears fans touting their favorite team as they made their way toward Soldier Field.

But except for a few flags and bus stop ads promoting Chicago 2016, the buzz along Michigan Avenue regarding the city’s Olympics bid was at a low-key level less than two weeks shy of the International Olympic Committee’s selection of the 2016 host on Oct. 2.

“I had actually forgotten about [the Olympics announcement] until we got to the Chicagoland area,” admitted Sarah Conroy, 27, of Normal, who was in town with her husband for a friend’s wedding. “It wasn’t until we got to the hotel that I saw signs and thought about it.”

The attention paid to the Olympics in Chicago – and throughout Illinois – is expected to increase considerably this week. On Friday, the IOC will gather in Copenhagen to choose the 2016 host from among Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Madrid and Chicago.

The announcement, expected for between 11:30 and noon CDT, will be broadcast live in Chicago at Daley Plaza during a free pep rally that’s scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Other viewing parties may be held in the suburbs, according to a spokeswoman for Chicago 2016, but details are not yet available.

Earlier this week, talk show diva Oprah Winfrey announced she will join Chicago’s official Olympics delegation in Denmark. First Lady Michelle Obama is also on board for Copenhagen, while President Barack Obama is said to be keeping his travel options open. And all week long, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has spoken with increasing optimism that the city will emerge victorious in the Olympics race.

But, while Chicago’s celebrities and politicians may be enthusiastic about the 2016 Games, the question still remains: Are regular Chicagoans ready to embrace the Olympics, too?

The best answer might be both yes, and no.

“I think some people are still indecisive and not sure,” Nate Zaremba, 26, a resident of Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood said on Wednesday. “Especially among younger people who aren’t really sure how it will affect them.”

Zaremba said he supports the Olympics bid in large part because he believes it will provide jobs in construction and other industries.

“My thoughts are that it will be a good thing for Chicago,” he said.

A recent Chicago Tribune poll, however, showed that since February support among city residents for Mayor Daley’s Olympics plans had dwindled from 61 to 47 percent and that economic questions are the critics’ chief concern.

“I think I would like to see the Olympics come to Chicago,” said Steve Martin, a 22-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service and a city resident. “But, the cost, I guess that’s the big thing. I’m sure real estate taxes will go up. Almost every [Olympic host] city has cost overruns, and who’s going to be picking up the tab?”

Daley acknowledged the skeptics earlier this week, saying that there are “a lot of questions still being asked.” He also called his bid team’s plan “very, very fiscally responsible.”

In June, the mayor promised the IOC that city government would back its planned $4.8 billion games with an unlimited financial guarantee to cover losses.

The bid team plans to purchase $1.2 billion in insurance coverage against losses for running the games as well as push for private developers to line up as much as $4 billion worth of financial guarantees to protect against construction cost overruns on the proposed athletes’ village and sporting venues. According to the team, no Olympics in history has arranged for so many financial protections as Chicago has.

On Tuesday, prior to his departure for Copenhagen, Chicago 2016 spokesman and Bourbonnais native Pat Sandusky appeared on Fox Chicago’s morning show.

“We have a great plan that the Civic Federation, the [Chicago] City Council and even the IOC has said that is unlikely to have any risk to even tap into that insurance let alone beyond the insurance,” he said. “We’d have to be well over, north of $2 billion over budget to hit the taxpayer.”

Daley this week also trumpeted his belief that the Olympics will transform Chicago’s global reputation.

“You don’t realize the importance, the global importance that Chicago will receive,” he told reporters. “If you get this, it’s a major, major coup for the whole marketing strategy of Chicago.”

Sandusky declined on Tuesday morning to call Chicago a leader in the race, but did express optimism.

“I certainly don’t think it’s in the bag for any city,” he said. “This is a great race between four great cities. However, I think it’s natural going into final preparations to feel optimistic. I’m glad that the mayor does. I would think all mayors of all four cities would and should as they go into this …

“It’s going to be a sort of white knuckle ride before the end. We’ll all know Oct. 2.”

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Be like Mike? Let’s Cut(ler) the hype

The WISCH LIST

Sept. 19, 2009

When I was in high school, I owned a Nike T-shirt emblazoned with an image of Michael Jordan frozen in mid-jumper alongside the message: “He doesn’t live on Earth. He just shows up for practice and game days.”

Over the top?

Like one of MJ’s dunks.

But during the 1990s, that’s how it was with Jordan. The man was hype personified. Yet it never seemed over the top. Not really.

Reason being was that every challenge thrown Jordan’s way, he met. Every opponent, he overcame. And every barb tossed, he returned (including those saved for last week’s, ahem, highly spirited Hall of Fame induction speech).

On the basketball court, Michael Jordan could do anything, it seemed. Chicago loved his hype. I loved his hype. And with the bling of six NBA championship rings on his fingers, I understood every bit of where it came from.

This summer, however, I haven’t had that same understanding – not at all – regarding the adulation that’s been tossed at the feet of Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler like so many rose petals.

Before he had even risen to any occasion at all.

For example, last week, prior to the Bears’ regular season opener at Green Bay, Chicago Tribune columnist David Haugh shared a story borne of the Cutlermania that descended upon Bourbonnais earlier this summer.

“Five minutes before the Bears’ first practice of training camp on the campus of Olivet Nazarene,” Haugh wrote, “a member of Jerry Angelo’s staff knocked on the door of the general manager’s makeshift office.

“ ‘It’s time to go see our greatest work ever,’ he excitedly told Angelo.”

That Bears staff member was referring, of course, to Cutler, “who is to Angelo,” Haugh wrote, “what the Sistine Chapel is to Michelangelo.

“His greatest work ever.”

Well, I’m sorry, but Jay Cutler isn’t the Sistine Chapel. Nor is he Michael Jordan in shoulder pads. Certainly not yet, at least. And no matter how much Chicago has seemed to want him to be.

Now, this isn’t to say that Cutler isn’t a talented quarterback (he is) or that trading for him wasn’t a good move (it was). Nor is it to say that the guy can’t lead the Bears to Super Bowl glory (he could).

But how about we ditch the audacity of hype surrounding Cutler and let him, you know, actually do that first?

Or, for that matter, do anything.

With the way the Legend of Jay Cutler has been spun around these parts since springtime, though, you would have thought the guy already had hoisted a Lombardi Trophy – or three – in Grant Park.

Heck, even sportswriters in Wisconsin were buying in.

“Cutler is definitely the one,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Tom Silverstein gushed last weekend. “[The Bears] thought so much of him that on April 3 they sent [quarterback Kyle] Orton, two first-round picks (in ‘09 and ’10) and a third-round pick to Denver for Cutler and a fifth-round selection …

“The way fans in the Windy City see it, Cutler’s arrival marks the end of a cycle of mediocrity at quarterback that has plagued this organization for two decades. When he drops back to pass for the first time Sunday, he will carry the tonnage of many broken dreams on his shoulders.”

It turned out instead that Cutler broke a few new ones as he reduced his myth to mere reality with a 43.2 passer rating, four interceptions and a heartbreaking 21-15 loss to the hated Packers.

Not unlike Rex Grossman before him, Cutler’s biggest strength might be that he thinks he can complete every pass. And his biggest weakness might be that he thinks he can complete every pass.

On Sunday, the swift transformation from a pre-game King Cutler to an in-game Rex Cutler prompted a post-game commenter to vent on a Chicago Sun-Times blog:

“Well, this is what happens when people run out and place a person on a THRONE before they do anything,” the fan wrote. “Now, I guess a lot of people have gotten their feelings hurt … Oh, well.

“Chicago should’ve reserved its opinion on him like Green Bay did with [quarterback Aaron] Rodgers and then formed an opinion. BUT, oh no, too many of you fell IN LOVE right from the start and didn’t step back to look at the big picture.”

I hardly expect that the big picture of Cutler will show that he’s Rex Grossman, Cade McNown or the cast of other QB clowns that Chicago has suffered through for so long.

But before we decide what Jay Cutler is, let’s let him first show us.

Last weekend, a blog named “Jay Cutler Superstar” at the Tribune-owned site ChicagoNow.com pointed out how Cutler is the 23rd Bears quarterback since Jim McMahon and that “Michael Jordan was 23. Is this fate or what?”

That was written tongue in cheek.

Which, in regards to Cutler, is where we should keep ours for the time being.

Leave the tongue-wagging to Michael.

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Feel our ‘Paign, Gov. Quinn

The WISCH LIST

Sept. 12, 2009

Come this afternoon, I’ll hop in my car, point it south and zip down Interstate 57 to Champaign to root on my Fighting Illini in their home football opener.

The trip will be my first to the University of Illinois campus since the school’s admissions scandal blew up earlier this summer, resulting in buckets of bad ink and exposing a leaky administration’s clout-stained dirty laundry.

In spite of the mess, campus will look the same, I’m sure.

There will be fans tailgating across from Memorial Stadium. There will be plenty of orange on Green Street. And just off the Quad, the stately Alma Mater statue will still be standing with its arms wide open above the engraved message: “To Thy Happy Children Of Tomorrow Those Of The Past Send Greetings.”

Although right now, sending warnings might be more apropos.

Nevertheless, do I still hail Alma Mater?

Hail, yeah.

But that doesn’t mean I’m very happy with her right now.

And I’m not the only one.

“The University of Illinois is a super place, and it’s sad to see what’s happened to it,” said Lou Liay, 72, of Champaign, who served as executive director of the University of Illinois Alumni Association from 1983 to 1998. “I don’t know when we’re going to recover from (the scandal). It’s hurt the reputation of the university. I don’t know that it will hurt the students coming in or the quality of the university as long as we keep good faculty, but it has hurt.”

To wit, last week a Chicago Tribune poll found that 4 out of 10 Illinois residents believe that revelations about powerful individuals influencing the U. of I. admissions process have harmed the school’s academic reputation.

That damage can be repaired in time, but only if the university truly cleans house, changes the way it conducts its administrative business and gives alumni more of a voice in the process. Unfortunately, however, I don’t feel confident those changes are being properly implemented.

On Thursday, the six new members of the board of trustees appointed by Gov. Pat Quinn met in Urbana for the first time to begin untangling the school from its self-made mess. It’s a task made trickier by the fact that two of the alleged admissions-scandal culprits remain as trustees.

Last month, Quinn sadly became the first to blink in a stare-down with sitting Trustees James Montgomery and Frances Carroll when he opted not to fire them after they ignored his repeated requests for their resignations. The governor claimed he didn’t want to subject the state to a lengthy legal battle, which the two had threatened to pursue.

To which, I would have said: Subject us.

Quinn then compounded the situation when he appointed Christopher Kennedy, president of Chicago’s Merchandise Mart Properties and son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, and Lawrence Oliver II, chief counsel in charge of internal investigations for Boeing Co., as U. of I. trustees.

Those moves prompted Tribune reader Terry Bush of Evanston to fire off a letter to the editor that read: “Gov. Pat Quinn’s appointment of new University of Illinois trustees is a fascinating revelation of priorities and style. He’s added a Kennedy and the chief counsel from one of Chicago’s largest corporations and campaign contributors. I am sure glad that clout is no longer a factor in the selection of U. of I. trustees.”

I too was disturbed that at a time when politics need to be removed from the university, Quinn inserted a trustee from an enormously political family. And beyond that, while Kennedy may be qualified to serve as a trustee for a university, the fact that he’s studied only at private schools (Boston College for undergrad and Northwestern for his MBA) doesn’t at all show me it should be for a public university.

Neither Kennedy nor Oliver – who earned degrees from Purdue and Michigan State – have any apparent ties to U. of I., a painful blow for those who would like to see Illinois alums as Illinois trustees.

“That just hurt,” Liay said. “They have to be political appointments. I mean, there are 250,000 U. of I. alumni in this state.”

Of the four other new trustees appointed by Quinn, as well as reappointed trustee Edward McMillan, each at least is an alumnus of a U. of I. campus. That’s good. But what needs to happen is for six of the nine trustees, at minimum, to be selected through elections so the board is not so beholden to the governor. With all nine trustees currently appointed, it’s far too susceptible to politics and pressure.

In April 2007, Illinois House Bill 3289, which provided for the U. of I. trustees to be an elected body, passed the House by a vote of 113-1, but then got hung up in the State Senate.

That bill needs to be revisited. Because control of the University of Illinois should be in the hands of its alumni and the people of Illinois, not in those of politicians too easily tempted by cookie jars.

Hail, no.

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

Where’s Marla Collins? Well, she’s right here

The WISCH LIST

Aug. 29, 2009

Right now, Cubs fans everywhere are in hiding. But few of them – save, perhaps, Steve Bartman – can likely steer clear of the spotlight as well as the one woman who during the mid-1980s had it shining on her every afternoon thanks to the WGN-TV cameras at Wrigley Field.

Say, hello – or, even better, “Holy Cow” – to former Chicago Cubs ballgirl Marla Collins, who after all these years remains a fan of the Lovable Losers.

Even this season.

“Oh, yes,” Collins said with a grin, “I still like the Cubs.”

It’s now been 23 years since July 1986 when Collins, then 28 years old and the apple of many a Cubs fan’s eye, famously shed her pinstriped shorts and jersey to pose nude for Playboy magazine, only to be fired for breaking the “family-oriented spirit” of the Cubs organization.

Until this past Saturday, when she sat down with me during a breast cancer awareness fundraiser in Crystal Lake, Collins hadn’t done a newspaper interview in 10 years.

But, with the Tribune Co. (finally) finalizing a deal to sell the Cubs after 28 years of ownership, Collins took time to dish on her days as Major League Baseball’s first ballgirl and revisit her dismissal, still considered one of the most sensational management decisions made during the Tribune Co.’s colorful tenure.

While with the Cubs from 1982-86, Collins – and her short shorts – became so iconic among Chicagoans that, without even trying, she remains on the minds of many of them even today.

“Just a couple weeks ago, actually, my friends started calling me and saying, ‘Marla, you’re on the radio,’ ” said Collins, now 51. “They said that on Eric & Kathy (the WTMX 101.9 FM morning show), they were talking about me asking, ‘Where’s Marla? Where’s Marla?’ ”

Well, Marla is in Barrington, where she’s now the divorced mother of two daughters, ages 20 and 17. She works in downtown Chicago, conducting infant echocardiograms for a private doctor’s office. And, just like many Cubs fans’ memories of her, Collins’ own recollections of the Cubs remain as vivid as ever.

A native of Oak Lawn, many might not know that Collins actually began her baseball-related career at Comiskey Park, where the White Sox astutely recognized that men enjoy the combination of baseball, beer and pretty girls.

“I had a beer concession at Sox Park. I was the only girl who had a stand and so all the guys came there,” Collins recalled. “For some reason, during one game there were Cubs people at Sox Park and they met me and asked if I’d be interested in becoming a ballgirl at Wrigley Field when the Sox were out of town.”

Collins accepted the gig, which paid $150 a game but boosted her profile immeasurably, as Harry Caray & Co. gave her as much screen time as the ivy.

And it wasn’t only the fans that noticed her.

“After the first season, the Cubs moved me over next to the visitors’ dugout,” Collins said. “So every game, I’d have the ball boy coming up and handing me notes from players, asking me out. I’d look in the dugout, and there the guys would be waving at me.”

In addition to going out on dates with a handful of Cubs and once with broadcaster Steve Stone, Collins’ All-Star lineup of beaus in the ’80s included Keith Hernandez of the Mets, Steve Sax of the Dodgers and George Brett of the Royals, who actually visited Collins at her beer stand inside Comiskey just to ask her out.

Not long after joining the Cubs in ’82, Collins said she was approached by Playboy, but turned down several offers before finally accepting in 1985.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be a ballgirl forever,” Collins explained. “I actually was getting married and was going to leave the team after the 1986 season anyway. I knew the Cubs probably wouldn’t like the pictures, but they were tasteful. And the magazine was the September issue, which was towards the end of the season. But then, an early version came out on the West Coast in July.”

Cubs brass got wind of it, and even though Collins said her direct boss gave her permission to work with Playboy, she was summoned to Wrigley on July 22 and informed of her dismissal.

Apparently, the sex symbol the Cubs had created had become too sexy, prompting legendary Tribune columnist Mike Royko to write, “Of course it’s hypocritical. But hypocrisy is the very backbone of our sexual moral standards. Many of our outstanding bluenoses are secret lechers.”

Collins, for her part, said she wasn’t angry, but still feels the firing was unfair.

“I wasn’t mad. I accepted it,” she said. “But the Cubs knew what they were doing when they put me out there. They were the ones who wanted my shorts shorter.”

As for the media furor that ensued following her firing, Collins says, “I don’t know what I thought, but I didn’t expect that. I can’t imagine, though, what it would be like today. It would be crazy. It’s a whole different world with the Internet and everything.”

And, as for regrets, Collins says she has none. Well, maybe, that’s not entirely true.

She still hasn’t seen the Cubs win a World Series, after all.

“It’s going to happen,” Collins said. “It better, at least.”

For more on Marla, check out this CBS Channel 2 news story from 1984 when the Cubs were rolling into the National League playoffs. The video itself is interesting enough, but wait until the very end when you hear the line that Walter Jacobson drops.

Oh, Walter, how much we’ve learned in the 25 years since.

Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …

(Area) Code-Breaking in Chicago

The WISCH LIST

Aug. 22, 2009

Drag a finger across the screen of my iPhone and you’ll find its phone book crawling with 815s and 217s.

Keep on scrolling and you’ll come across 630s, 708s and 847s, along with a slew of big numbers from out-of-state that resemble Kevin Gregg’s August ERA as much as they do area codes.

Yet, just like the Cubs’ erstwhile closer, these digits belong to Chicagoans.

(Unfortunately, in the case of Gregg.)

Last week, the front page of newspapers in Chicago screamed with the story that the City of Big Shoulders has gotten too big for its britches in regards to phone numbers.

As a result, come Nov. 1, the North American Numbering Plan Administration (imagine working there) will bestow upon Chicago a third area code (872) to accompany its already existing prefixes of 312 and 773.

Now, while getting the 411 about 872 was interesting, the new code’s impending arrival isn’t nearly as newsworthy as when 773 went into service for Chicago’s northern, western and southern neighborhoods 13 years ago.

That’s because, these days, as anyone who lives in the Windy City knows, the relevance of Chicago area codes has been cracked by the popularity of cell phones.

Use myself as an example. Since 2005, when I moved to Chicago, I’ve technically been living in the 773 code. Yet, my cell phone has steadfastly remained an 815.

That’s the area code of Ottawa, where I was living in north central Illinois when I purchased my first cell phone back in 1999. And, of course, it’s the area code for Bourbonnais, where I’m proud to say I grew up.

In fact, except for a four-year stint in Champaign during college when I was a 217, I’ve been an 815 since the day I was born. I’ve never felt the need to change, no matter what the address on my driver’s license says.

And in Chicago, I’m far from the only one to take part in this, the biggest trend in codes since DaVinci.

“Area codes are becoming more about where you’re from – or where you went to college at – than where you live,” observed my younger brother, John, a fellow Chicagoan who also continues to represent 815 in the 773.

Like ATM cards, e-mail and reality television, cell phones have become a staple of our 21st century society. So much so, in fact, that I can’t think of even five Chicago friends in their 20s or 30s who still have a landline phone at their apartment or condo.

You either call their cell, or you don’t call at all.

That’s a far cry from 1947, when 86 Numbering Plan Areas (NPAs) were first assigned throughout the United States and Canada, providing area codes with their origin.

Back then, 34 states — including, Florida, Georgia, Maryland and Kentucky — had just one area code. Today, only 13 states still have a single code.

Illinois originally was assigned four area codes: 312 (Chicago and suburbs), 815 (Rockford, Kankakee, Quad Cities), 217 (Springfield, East St. Louis) and 618 (southern Illinois, not including East St. Louis).

Now, with the addition of 872, the area codes in northeast Illinois alone number 10: 312, 773, 872, 708, 630, 815, 847, 224, 779 and 331.

Yet, ironically, the more area codes we get, the less they matter.

According to the wireless industry group CTIA, at the end of 1996 – just after 773 was established in Chicago – there were 44 million total wireless subscribers in the U.S. By the end of last year, that number had swelled to 270 million.

As more college grads move to Chicago – and wherever else – with established cell numbers already in tow, I get the sense that in the future the importance of area codes will be something that can, well, just be phoned in.

I’d say the No. 1 reason behind the demise of area codes in Chicago is convenience (cell phone users don’t want the hassle of alerting friends to a new number), followed closely by ignorance.

Think about it. If you primarily use a cell phone to make calls, odds are you have very few numbers memorized any more. You simply locate a name in your cell’s phone book and press “dial.”

Myself, I can still rattle off the home numbers of my childhood friends. But, if I had to dial any of my buddies in Chicago off the top of my head, I’d be more clueless than the Cubs in October.

Because of those reasons, my friend Pat — a fellow 815er, who has lived in Chicago since 2005 — said he has no plans to ever go to the trouble of acquiring a new cell phone number, even if he moved to, say, Mars.

“Nah, that’s so much work,” Pat said. “And it doesn’t really matter. No one uses (cell) phones where you have to dial the area code anymore.

“And if they do … I don’t want to talk to them anyway.”

He was joking.

I think.

For seven years, I lived and worked in Ottawa, Ill., writing about its people, places and things. And, hey, I love the town. But it’s, um, not perfect. Although, as the local Visitors Center  says in its silly slogan and these clever O-Towners say in their hilarious spoof of it, Ottawa is Serious Fun. Serious.

The Cubs can’t seem to drive baseballs very well these days, but they’re doing a heck of a job driving nails.

And even though it’s still August, I’d say that the coffin the North Siders are building for their 2009 season is already almost complete.

Perhaps the Ricketts family should just turn Wrigley Field into a carpentry shop when they take over. Sammy Sosa could even come back to Chicago to work.

Yesterday, a friend of mine sent me an e-mail saying that this bunch of Cubs might be even more disappointing than the 2004 crew that maddeningly squandered a Wild Card lead in the final week of the season.

I argued to my buddy that the ’04 squad — which actually won more games than its famed 2003 counterpart — still ranks ahead of 2009 in my ever-so-lengthy list of Cubs-related frustrations.

And since I’m in such a nostalgic mood today (that’s sarcasm you hear dripping), I figured I’d share with you a column that appears in my book “Northern IlliNOISE: Tales of a Territory”. It was written five years ago when I vented my, ahem, considerable frustrations as the 2004 Cubs completed their tailspin while working as a columnist for The Daily Times in Ottawa, Ill.

So, you know, enjoy it. Or something.

Now entering Cubdumb

The WISCH LIST

Sept. 30, 2004

The (Ottawa, Ill.) Daily Times

Bought a new T-shirt last week.

Front of it reads, “CUBS. Always at the top …

“Or near it.”

Well, truer words were never spoken. Or, I suppose, printed.

Because, after Wednesday’s latest meltdown against the Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs — they of the easy final-week schedule … right? … right? — are no longer at the top of the National League Wild Card race.

But, oh, they’re near it.

Just near enough that they’ll probably continue to tease and torture their legions fans with the possibility of postseason baseball right through Sunday afternoon — before they blow it all in final inning of the final game of the regular season.

Either that, or they’ll just fall flat on their face and lose the next four.

Both ways would be, of course, typical Cubs — the only group of guys who break more hearts than “The Bachelor.”

Lovesick sucker that I am, I was at Wrigley Field Wednesday afternoon and watched the Cubs in all their gory as LaTroy Hawkins — perhaps the worst ninth-inning, two-out, two-strike pitcher in the history of baseball — turn another must-win into a mushed win.

Having lost 4-3 in 12 innings to Cincy, and with Houston knocking off the listless Cardinals (thanks a lot, St. Louis), the Cubs, along with San Francisco, are now a half-game behind the Astros — a team that has merely won 15 in a row at home and hosts the lowly Colorado Rockies for the final three games of the season.

Better put a stop on those Cubs-Braves National League Division Series tickets.

No, it’s not over yet — and I’m hoping beyond hope that the Cubs can somehow pull this thing out — but after watching the Cubs self-immolate with four losses in five games against the Mets and the Reds (the Mets and the Reds!), who can be optimistic at this point?

Certainly not a friend of mine in Chicago, who sent me an e-mail yesterday afternoon with the subject line: “I’m now a D.C. fan.”

There were plenty of other people searching for some kind, any kind of solace outside of Wrigley following Wednesday’s gut-wrenching loss. I felt bad when one poor guy at the crowded intersection of Clark and Waveland was forced to snap out of his misery-induced funk for a moment and hustle across the street as a bus bore down on him.

“I’ve already been run over by a loss,” he said to no one in particular. “I don’t need to get run over again.”

Trampled was the prevailing feeling in Wrigleyville on this brisk, it’s-almost-October afternoon as half its denizens walked in a daze, while the other half shouted into their cell phones, colorfully complaining about the Cubs’ ongoing collapse.

We’ve still got four more days of this stuff?

So caught up in the throes of agony is Chicago these days that on my drive up to Wrigley Field on Wednesday, one borderline hysterical guy called in to a radio station just to bemoan his life as a Cubs fan.

A hip-hop radio station.

All’s not lost, though. If the Cubs don’t make the playoffs, then, hey, at least our October calendars will be cleared up, and we’ll have more time to concentrate on other things.

Like, you know, the Bears.

Heaven help us.

All season long, I’ve stuck by and supported the Cubs — heck, I’ve seen them play in four different states since April — but right now I feel like Julius Caesar with a knife sticking out from between my shoulder blades.

Et tu, Dusty?

Come Friday, the Cubs play the Braves in yet another do-or-die contest. It’s a game that no person with any respect for their mental health and emotional well-being would ever think of attending. It’s a game suited only for masochists and complete gluttons for punishment.

It’s a game that I’ll be at.

Hey, what can I say?

I’m a Cubs fan.