With sorrow offered to my former Chicago radio partner, the late Ryne Sandberg, why did a red-shirted security person let lunatics pulverize a chubby man in a Ryno jersey? And where were the other so-called security people on a Monday night in the Wrigley Field bleachers, which confirmed the city is wacko and why I saved my soul by quitting a lame newspaper after ramshackling the Cubs and White Sox.
Fat Ryno was swarmed by several Sox fans, including a silver-draped walloper who hit him at least 18 times and left him with a battered face and bloody lip. The red-shirted security man walked right past the one-on-one ugliness — maybe three feet away — and didn’t even try to save Fat Ryno from a slaughter, as his buttcrack was exposed. He also was blasted by another Ryno, oddly.
We noticed no police on the scene.
Just a thrashing.
All we see are beautiful photos from the North Side, courtesy of Marquee Sports Network, which shows Wrigley as the ideal place to bring a family. No family in its proper mind should sit in the bleachers, which is how I remember the outfield when Steve Bartman deflected a foul ball from Moises Alou. I also recall the South Side, where fans were ready to pounce on me along the third-base walkway after Ozzie Guillen — what a sweet guy — ran up to us during an ESPN pre-game broadcast with Dan Patrick and told me to get off the field.
Did Ozzie also plant nails in my car tires outside the stadium? All I know is that on the same night as Fat Ryno, Guillen described Pete Crow-Armstrong as “the white kid for the Cubs” in the Sox studio. What he does is provoke idiots, such as fans who still bombard my X account when I write his No. 13 jersey shouldn’t have been retired by the team. Fans at 35th and Shields always have been the sickest, including a father and his 15-year-old son — the Ligues — who leaped onto the field and attacked a Kansas City first-base coach. All Fat Ryno did this week was yap at the Sox dopes.
They spiraled into attack mode. Folks in that city love to say they have emotional control when following sports, far better than East Coast cities. Chicago is worse. Anyone watching the Cubs-Sox series was left with: (1) a warm feeling for PCA and his National League MVP chase; and (2) the viral brawl on social media.
Do not promote baseball — or any sport — as a warm experience if the security workers suddenly go AWOL. Real fans pay too much money. When they’re trying to watch a Crosstown Classic that actually meant something for a change, why were hundreds of people distracted by madness? The Cubs should give them refunds. Don’t count on it. That is the department of Crane Kenney, a business executive I never trusted because he has two last names.
Even Crow-Armstrong took time to address the brawl. “The fights in the stands are unfortunate and somewhat nauseating,” he said. “But you’ve got people in the stands competing, too. Aside from that, all jokes aside, too, it’s really good for the city having both of us playing the kind of baseball we are.”
Said Cubs manager Craig Counsell: “It looked serious, I will say that.”
No arrests were made in the bleachers. Police did arrest David Cregan, 41, who was charged with battery in a stadium bathroom. They found 25 grams of cocaine before a judge said, “He was at the Cubs game with 25 grams of cocaine?” Cregan was released and is due for a trial.
Who is shocked that cocaine becomes part of the baseball experience? Other than Lollapalooza, which has its own cocaine issues, the summer months invite problematic intruders who find the city freezing from October until May. They do coke. They beat up people in the john.
“The safety of our fans is always a top priority,” said the Cubs, who haven’t fired the red-shirted security person. “We work closely with our public-safety partners to respond to incidents at the ballpark and appreciate their partnership in addressing the situation.”
If nothing else, clowns, please read the news. Actress Hayden Panettiere died in cardiac arrest after a possible overdose. She once babysat a young man in Sherman Oaks, near Los Angeles.
“Hayden Panettiere babysat me. I had the biggest crush on her,” Crow-Armstrong said a while ago. “Yeah, I’d say she was the coolest one for me.”
One night later, he must look into the stands at a punchaholic maiming Fat Ryno. Please listen to PCA. “Nauseating” is among many applicable words.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.
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