Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1990-0414-009 / Wolfried Pätzold / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper on this holy day of sportsfandom recalls the autumn he spent looking at Chicago sports fans to try to see what made them tick. The lead for the cover story for the Trib’s Sunday magazine began: “What can you say about Chicago sports fans? Try this: Sports fans are losers. They pay millions of dollars to bottom-line corporations for the privilege of watching pampered overpaid prima donnas perform routine robotian feats for which a worshipful society has been training them since childhood………”
The article went on to list many other reasons that sports fans are “a social liability,” and it included reference to the English soccer fan who bit out a policeman’s eyeball.
Legwork for the piece made for an interesting time for the keeper with the likes of Michael Jordon and Mike Ditka still on the Chicago sports scene, and the finished product earned recognition in national “sports” writing competition.
Among the many things the keeper remembers was standing with ushers at the end of a Blackhawks hockey game when a fan next to him slapped his bloody forehead where a bent nail was imbedded, apparently having come from the slingshot of a “fan” somewhere up in the stands.
The keeper loves sports fans and cherishes many memories in their company, one of being in the Wrigley Field bleachers on a beautiful summer day when Bill Veeck happened to be there entertaining a group of rowdy sports fan friends and using the hole in his wooden leg as an ashtray.
