Rickettts' Jibber-jabber

Ah, the Ricketts family, so many working mouths, so few available feet to stick in.

 

The latest Ricketts unable to keep his trap shut is Nebraska governor Pete, who, in a Monday meeting with black community leaders to discuss a shooting in Omaha, started things off with the words “The problem I have with you people.”  But wait, there’s more.

 

Ricketts later tried to take it back by calling a black radio host to say “charge it to my head, not my heart.”  In other words, don’t take offense because I’m stupid.  But wait, there’s more.

Brother—and Cubs’ chairman—Tom came to Pete’s defense, calling him “a very respectful person, and if he offended anyone, I’m sure he did not mean to.”  Why the qualifier, Tom?  Your brother offended a whole bunch of people.  It sort of makes me wonder if the Wrigley Field marquee message of “End Racism” comes from the head, the heart or someplace else.

 

It’s a good thing the Ricketts bought the traditionally WASP Chicago baseball team.  They certainly wouldn’t make it on the South Side.  Say what you will about Jerry Reinsdorf—and I’ve said quite a lot—he’s been a decent neighbor to black communities surrounding Guaranteed Rate Whatever, just like the Comiskeys were back in the day, as were the Allyn brothers and Bill Veeck later.  Each one of those Sox owners may have been comfortable in the company of old man and bigot Joe Ricketts (though I doubt it, at least for Veeck and Reinsdorf), but Sox owners at least knew how to keep their opinions to themselves.

 

Black fans were attending ballgames at Comiskey Park as early as 1917; you might even find the letter online from a black fan to people in the South on just how exciting it was to be able to go to a game.  (I’m not saying fans couldn’t go see the Cubs, but it was a daunting bunch of streetcar rides from Bronzeville to Wrigley.)  Charles Comiskey also had an interesting relationship with the Negro Leagues.

 

The Sox left their home at South Side Park in 1910; their place was taken by the Chicago American Giants, who played there through 1940; my father once told me he climbed a telephone pole to watch the Giants play.  When the park burned down in 1940, the team moved to Comiskey Park.

Did I mention that the Negro Leagues’ All-Star Games were played at 35^th and Shields or that Joe Louis beat Jim Braddock there in 1937 to win the heavyweight title?  To me, this is all fascinating history.  To the Ricketts, I wonder if it’s history that got them looking to buy a team in a more, shall we say, amenable location.  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.