Perchance to Dream

History didn’t repeat itself in the Illinois General Assembly early Monday morning; it didn’t even rhyme. No, the Bears went home—wherever that is—empty-handed. Back in 1988, state house majority leader Mike Madigan employed an old trick as the clock approached midnight on May 31st, the yearly end to the legislative session in Springfield; Madigan literally stopped the clock on the assembly floor. This allowed Gov. Jim Thompson time to wrestle up the votes for a publicly funded White Sox stadium, technically, after the midnight deadline. That’s what the Bears and just about every Chicago sports and news journalist figured would happen again. Only they were wrong. What happened? Well, these are different times, and what the Bears wanted—the power to negotiate (more like dictate) their own property taxes for their proposed stadium/entertainment district in Arlington Heights—rubbed a whole lot of people the wrong way. You could tell by the lukewarm reception legislators gave to the idea. They had to be getting an earful from constituents back home. On top of that, the Bears were the Bears, mixing incompetence with arrogance as is their style. They threatened more than cajoled, and it blew up in their face. Now, the team has to decide if it really wants to relocate to northwest Indiana, where brown fields grow if they don’t exactly glow. I have a sneaking suspicion Chicago is back in play as a preferred stadium site. All it will take is jilting Indiana and Arlington Heights. If any organization can pull that off, it’s your Munsters of the Midway.