Cheap Seats
You gotta laugh (at) these guys
The Cubs’ losing streak ended at oh-for-14. But, hey, it took more than a couple of weeks for all those Heaven’s Gate jokes to die down, so there’s a lot of mileage left on the Cubs. Now that we can’t be accused of kicking a team when it’s down, we’ve ventured far and wide to give you an all-Cubs edition of Cheap Seats.
From our Bay Area bureau …
Tom Fitzgerald’s Top of the Sixth column in the San Francisco Chronicle writes: “There was a near-collision at home plate in the Cubs’ last game. One of their bats almost hit a ball.”
Across the street from Wrigley Field …
“Whaddaya mean, bad? We’re used to it,” said Mike Sette, bartender at the famed Wrigleyville watering hole, Bernie’s. “This ain’t Atlanta, where they win the pennant four straight years. This is the Cubs. People come in and say, ‘Looks like a long season.’ I say, ‘It always is.’ “
Never before, of course, have the Cubs been mathematically eliminated by April 20.
“When’s the last time you saw a runner get doubled off third base - on a line drive to first?” Sette asked. “When’s the last time you saw a catcher chase a hitter up the first-base line after a strikeout and let a guy steal home? It’s a very sad situation.”
From downtown Chi …
When the Cubbies fell to 0-6, Harry Caray’s restaurant dropped the price of draft beer from $2.25 to 45 cents a glass until the Cubs won a game.
A week later, when they still hadn’t won, Caray was telling manager Jim Riggleman to please win a game, because “I’m going to go out of business.”
Heading into last weekend, they were closing in on 40,000 of those 45-cent drafts, according to Grant DePorter, managing director of Caray’s. And that means this streak had cost Harry more than $70,000.
“We’ve had people take buses here from Iowa and Indiana,” DePorter said. “We’ve gotten calls from all over the country. This morning, a radio station from Toledo, Ohio, woke me up. Vancouver called yesterday. So it’s been great publicity.”
From the nation’s capital …
Edward Walsh of the Washington Post writes: “The Cubs last won a World Series in 1908, but eight-cent beer apparently was considered too steep a discount.”
From the mailbag of Bernie Lincicome …
Not the owner of Bernie’s, the Chicago Tribune’s acerbic columnist took this salvo from a reader:
“Mr. Lincicome:
“It did not take you very long to jump off the Cubs’ bandwagon. I hope you did not hurt yourself (ha!). When the Cubs are winning, are Cub fans “fools, masochists and repeat offenders?”
Bernie’s reply: “No, they’re great-grandparents.”
From NBC studios, downtown Burbank …
OK, Jay Leno, you’re up.
“Have you ever had nightmares about doing your taxes?” asked the host of The Tonight Show. “I dreamed the IRS took everything I had except my season tickets to the Chicago Cubs.”
He didn’t stop there.
“Today the Cubs installed a new pitching machine for batting practice - and it beat them, 4-1.”
And, finally, from inside Wrigley Field …
Best Northside banner of the week:
“Cubs when?”
The last word …
“Thank you very much, President Clinton.”
- Cubs manager Jim Riggleman, hanging up the phone in his office after the Cubs won their second game.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo