The Littlest Major Market In Sports

  Let me ask you, mister and misses Chicago sports fan?  Are we really a major
market kind of sports town?  In light of the fiasco with the turf at Soldier Field
on Friday, I'm beginning to wonder.  Only in the great city of Chicago is there
an entity like the Chicago Park District; A fiefdom that dictates policy
to a charter NFL franchise like the Bears.  Where else in the NFL do you see
a set up like the Bears are in?  The Bears pay rent to a city entity and don't
even have jurisdiction over the playing surface.  An entity, that, by the looks of it,
seems oblivious to the wants and needs of their only high profile tenant.
This isn't a stadium deal or favor baking or quid pro quo style politics;
all the Park District had to do was water the very playing surface that they
won't let the Bears anywhere near.  Are we to believe that a bloated municipality
with unchecked power can't find the time to execute a simple, common sense task.
Does it take horse trading and other forms of political shenanigans to get the Park District
to actually do its job?  If you want to blame the Bears, blame them for not having
someone with the political savvy to get a real stadium built
in the first place.  Only in the great city of Chicago does a
preservationist group dictate reconstruction policy to a football
franchise.  Don't blame the Bears because Solider Field resembles
a toilet bowl, blame the bureaucracy that is afoot in the land of
Lincoln.  God forbid if the Bears were actually permitted to
completely tear down an aging and financially obsolete relic.
No no, the colonnades had to stay.  PRESERVATION PEOPLE.
Can you imagine this crap going on in say, Philadelphia?  Can
you imagine if some preservationist group emerged and told
the Eagles that they had to refurbish the old Vet and keep
the old AstroTurf for preservation purposes?  It wouldn't happen
in Philly and it wouldn't happen in Boston or New York because
it only happens here.  The Cubs are trapped within a financial sinkhole
of a stadium  because of an alderman with a god complex and a
neighborhood committee that needs a refresher course on the value
of the very ballpark they seem to view as a menacing eyesore.
Take the Cubs out of Wrigleyville and then we'll see what the
neighborhood committee and alderman Tom Tunney have
to say then.  My guess is, they'll be to busy crying over the
decrease, across the board, of every one's property values
sans Wrigley.  I wait for the day when a Chicago owner can
cut a check and buy the land and build a palace like new Yankee
stadium.  I wait for the day when a guy like Tom Ricketts is free
to buy the necessary land to create extra revenue streams.
I wait for the day when a charter franchise like the Chicago Bears
will have a stadium to truly call their own.  A stadium where
they can actually tend to their own playing surface, where
they aren't forced to live life in a space ship hovering above
the Lakefront.