Lunch With Stuart At Old Chicago

I had a late lunch with my friend Stuart, seen in the photograph on the left, at the Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom in Lakewood, Colorado Monday afternoon. The bar area at the Old Chicago there is nice, but as for Lakewood itself, not so much. The heart and soul of that suburb is West Colfax Avenue. Drive down that street end to end along its Lakewood stretch, and you will never want to see Lakewood again. Stuart likes it there, but then again, he grew up in the suburbs, and so he sets a low bar. In any case, we caught up on my adventures in Florida, and what he has been up to lately, but I was surprised to learn that he has not been following the Cubs this season, even though he is a Cubs fan who grew up in the Northside suburbs of Chicago. He says he has been too busy, but in my opinion, it is because of the fatalistic attitude Cub fans have, knowing that no matter how good the team is now, they will blow it in the end. In any case, the Cubs are currently in first place in the National League Central, with a .595 winning percentage. 

On the other hand, my South Side heroes, the Chicago White Sox, are currently the second worst team in baseball, which is not a surprise, since they set a major league record for most losses last year. These days we current and former Southsiders just want to see them win an occasional game or two. Our expectations are low, as always. Meanwhile, our adopted hometown team, the Colorado Rockies, currently have the worst record in all of baseball, which is not a surprise, either, since the owners prefer to have the team run by relatives and pals instead of people who know anything about baseball. But Coors Field, where the Rockies play, is a great place to watch baseball, and many people here are originally from someplace else and like to go to the park and root for their old hometown teams. And so, attendance is still close to 3 million fans a year, which explains why ownership does not seem to care about wins and losses. And by the way, the photograph on the right is of the Comiskey Park scoreboard back in 1980, with Bill Veeck superimposed onto the photo.  Veeck, the legendary owner of the Chicago White Sox, was selling the team to Jerry Reinsdorf, who unfortunately still owns the team, and fans were saluting Veeck that day for everything he has contributed to baseball. If Reinsdorf ever sells the team, I doubt he will get a similar tribute.