IT'S DA BEST; CHICAGO BEATS ALL SPORTS TOWNS.Byline: Dave Caldwell Dallas Morning News Best sports town in the country? Easy. Chicago. If they had a contest, it would be no contest. Run through the list of every big city. Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. ? Pro football postponed. Dallas? Maybe if a team other than the Cowboys actually won a world championship. New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of ? Two words: Ice balls. Philadelphia? Two more words: The Vet. Atlanta? Tomahawk tomahawk [from an Algonquian dialect of Virginia], hatchet generally used by Native North Americans as a hand weapon and as a missile. The earliest tomahawks were made of stone, with one edge or two edges sharpened (sometimes the stone was globe shaped). chop - automatic disqualification. Cleveland? Ditto. Boston? When Bill Russell Noun 1. Bill Russell - United States basketball center (born in 1934) William Felton Russell, Russell left, so did the championships. Baltimore? Nice ballpark. Great crabcakes. Art Donovan Arthur Donovan, Jr. (born June 5 1925) is a former American football defensive tackle. He is the son of Arthur Donovan, a famed boxing referee, and the grandson of Professor Mike Donovan, the world middleweight boxing champion in the 1870's. . But no basketball or hockey, unless you count the Beltway Bullets and the Baltimore Skipjacks The Baltimore Skipjacks were a minor professional ice hockey team in the American Hockey League. They played in Baltimore, Maryland, at the Baltimore Arena. History The original Skipjacks team played one season in the Atlantic Coast Hockey League during the 1981-82 season. . Detroit? Take a hike - 30 miles up I-75. The Pistons and the Lions play somewhere out there. Houston? Sure, if you don't count all the teams that want to leave. Pittsburgh? Three Rivers Stadium • • [ - ugh. Washington? The Senators left town. Twice. Denver? No tradition. Miami and Phoenix? Same thing. St. Louis? Remember the St. Louis Hawks or the Spirits of St. Louis The Spirits of St. Louis were one of two teams still in existence at the end of the American Basketball Association that did not survive the merger with the NBA. They were a member of the league in its last two seasons, 1974-75 and 1975-76, while playing their home games at the St. ? Didn't think so. San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden ? Sushi and chardonnay at the refreshment stands? Come on. Seattle? Great coffee. Great salmon. Dungeon Dungeon - Zork of a stadium. By process of elimination The process of elimination is a basic logical tool to solve real world problems. By subsequently removing options that may be deemed impossible, illogical, or can be easily ruled out due to some sort of explicit understanding relative to the entire set of options, the pool of , that pretty much leaves Chicago. It even had a great nickname for a sports town before it even was a sports town - City of Big Shoulders. This is not a nickname you would come up with for, say, San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. . Chicago has everything you would want in a sports town: athletes, arenas, fans, tradition. Rating sports towns is tough because it is so subjective and everybody has an opinion. You can measure a city's sports interest by how big a percentage of seats is filled, but it is pretty much anybody's call. How about this call: Chicago meets every criterion you could have. You want your sports town to have professional teams in every major sport? Chicago does, with two baseball teams. And all of them play within the city limits, which is not just unusual, but unique. And none of them play on that infernal Astroturf at home. You want your sports town to win championships every once in a while? The Bulls win NBA NBA abbr. 1. National Basketball Association 2. National Boxing Association NBA (US) n abbr (= National Basketball Association) → Basketball-Dachverband (= titles pretty much whenever Michael Jordan decides to play. You want your sports town to have a ream of endearing, perennial losers to snuggle up to? Chicago has the Cubs. You want your sports town to have behemoths? Bronko Nagurski played in Chicago. Now, Frank ``The Big Hurt'' Thomas and Albert Belle do. Chicago also has the all-time behemoth behemoth (bē`hĭmŏth, bĭhē`–) [Heb.,=plural of beast], large, fanciful primeval monster, like Leviathan, evoking the hippopotamus mentioned in the Book of Job. of sports marketing - Dennis Rodman. You want your sports town to have exciting, rags-to-riches stories? Chicago has one of the best. Chicago's Big Ten Conference university, Northwestern (actually located in suburban Evanston), used to really stink at sports. All of a sudden, Northwestern started winning football games. The past two seasons have produced New Year's Day New Year's Day, among ancient peoples the first day of the year frequently corresponded to the vernal or autumnal equinox, or to the summer or winter solstice. In the Middle Ages it was celebrated among Christians usually on Mar. 25. trips. They lost both, but no one remembers that. Chicago has the most legendary player in sports history. No, not William ``The Refrigerator'' Perry - Jordan. A lot of cities would wait until an athlete dies before putting up a statue of him. Not Chicago. When the United Center went up a couple of years ago, they put a statue of Mike in front. But forget all that. Chicago has great food for sports. Hot dogs are OK at baseball games; grilled bratwursts are awesome. You can get great bratwursts in Chicago. Any kind of sausages made in Chicago are good. Chicago also has excellent sports bars. There is a famous place across Addison Street from Wrigley Field called the Cubby Bear. This is what fans in Chicago do: They get to Wrigley early, pay the $15 to park and walk to the Cubby Bear. The Cubby Bear also offers some diversity for Chicagolanders; the bar books country-and-western singers when there are no ballgames scheduled. Chicago has great weather for sports. There was the original Fog Bowl against the Philadelphia Eagles. When the wind blows out toward the lake, Wrigley Field becomes a missile-launching site. Want to see a 23-22 baseball game? Go to Chicago. The Phillies and the Cubs played one. Chicago has great sports fans, too, immortalized on stage and screen. Da Bulls and Da Bears came from a skit on ``Saturday Night Live'' based on some real bratwurst-eating and Old Style-drinking Chicago sports fans. Garth and Wayne from ``Wayne's World'' idolized i·dol·ize tr.v. i·dol·ized, i·dol·iz·ing, i·dol·iz·es 1. To regard with blind admiration or devotion. See Synonyms at revere1. 2. To worship as an idol. the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks. The movie comes out, and you start to see lots of Blackhawks jerseys for sale in sporting goods stores. Another generation discovers Stan Mikita. Chicago has one baseball team for each end of the city, each with a distinctly different personality. The tony North Side has the Cubs while the grimier South Side has the White Sox. Quaint Wrigley Field is located near a bunch of apartment buildings. Modern Comiskey Park is located near a bunch of railroad tracks. New York is the only other city with two baseball teams. Shea Stadium is in the flight path for LaGuardia Airport, and Yankee Stadium is in the flight path for the kids from the neighborhood who just slashed your tires. Chicago has the single-best place to watch a sporting event: the bleachers at Wrigley. There is a difference between the bleachers there and the bleachers at, say, The Ballpark in Arlington. For one, they really are bleachers, because half the games at Wrigley are day games. (They would have to call the bleachers in Arlington ``deep fryers'' if the Rangers played 40 day games.) Fans who sit in the Wrigley bleachers really are fans. Know how you can tell? They don't care what other people think when they take off their shirts. When an opposing player hits a home run into the bleachers, they throw the ball back. Chicago has the most annoying home-run caller in the universe in White Sox announcer Ken ``Put it on the boooo-ard!'' Harrelson. But it also has the all-time best baseball announcer, Harry Caray on WGN-TV. Sometimes things seem to slip Caray's mind these days, but you will never find a better reflection of the populace. He sounds like he is eating a bratwurst while he describes the action. When the Cubs play at home, Caray will take the microphone during the seventh-inning stretch and lead the fans in ``Take Me Out to The Ballgame.'' When the Cubs win, Harry practically has a coronary. CAPTION(S): 5 Photos Photo: (1-2-3) With quaint Wrigley Field, above, and the legendary Bronko Naguski, left, Chicago has tradition and history, not to mention Michael Jordan. (4) Harry Caray is arguably baseball's all-time best announcer. (5) Although he starred with the Detroit Pistons, Isiah Thomas grew up in Chicago. Daily News File Photos |
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