“Play nice, gentlemen,” reads the note from a concerned GC addressed to Ben Schwartz and myself in the wake of the latest Cubs fan assault on class and decorum, a beatdown which reportedly cost outnumbered White Sox fan Robert Steele his eye. But as Ghandi once observed, “An eye for an eye and soon the whole world is blind, and a tooth for a tooth explains Ronnie Woo-Woo.”
The CSTB honcho needn’t worry. We can, in fact, just all get along. I haven’t met Ben yet, but I doubt he’s a violent racist shitbag hedge fund manager, despite championing the red, white and blue as he does. And I’m no mulleted, first-base coach-tackling buffoon – because when your team wins a World Championship more often than once a century, you just don’t get that motivated. Since Ben’s not the eye-kicking type, it’s not his job to answer for the retrograde brutality and abject cowardice that marks Cub Nationalism.
But who should? Is there no responsibility to be borne by the individuals who tacitly support a violent, media-manipulating organization built on superficial assent, ignorance and entitlement? Do Cubs fans have less or more responsibility for the wretched excesses of their regime than do Republican voters? And most importantly, can Mr. Steele get a Sox eyepatch somewhere?
Because I’d totally wear one of those.
Police said Boguslaw Czapla delivered the kick that cost Steele his eye, but in an interview Tuesday he denied he was at the party during the alleged brawl. He said he was away from the party for about an hour and that Steele had been taken to the hospital by the time he returned.
“I went to the liquor store to get a pack of cigarettes,” Boguslaw Czapla said Tuesday. “By the time I got back it was all over.”
Boguslaw Czapla acknowledged that he and his brother are Cubs fans but said he does not recall any discussions about the teams during the gathering. The Associated Press reported the party started out as a Sesame Street-themed birthday party for a 2-year-old girl.
Boguslaw Czapla said police took as evidence the boots he was wearing that night. “Hopefully, once they do whatever they do on them, [the boots] should come up clean,” he said.
Most of the people at the party”including himself and Steele”were drinking alcohol, Boguslaw Czapla said.
Jaroslaw Czapla, 31, the brother who hosted the party, was charged with misdemeanor battery and felony mob action, police said.
“No comment, thanks,” he said when he answered the door at his Huntley home on Tuesday.
A neighbor who said she has known Jaroslaw Czapla for about five years but who declined to give her name called him a good father and a hard worker. She also described him as an avid Cubs fan who once named a pet dog Wrigley.
Has Wrigley the dog been questioned?
With the vowels-to-consonants ration in the defendants names, I thought sure the report got the fans’ allegiances wrong. As for District Attorney Rob Warmoski’s summation of the charges — in short, I’m not putting these thugs on trial, I’m putting the whole North Side on trial! – he has been unable to ascertain what happened during the 30 minutes Boguslaw Czapla brothers was buying cigarettes. A Sox fan at a child’s birthday party would be deprived of Pabst for up to an hour, and who knows if the children were in any danger as they are at the Cell when police officers are beaten down by Sox fans. Mr. Warmoski may be comfortable with the facts as he sees them, but my investigation continues. Bogus Law indeed, Mr. W.
chicagoist had a take on this the other day. of course that was before last night’s festivities.
I have to agree with Ben, the idea of the Cubs having a fan base with any sort of diversity and a non-caucasian following seems highly unlikely.
Hey, those Brewers fans threw a beer! As a Wisconsin native, I can tell you beer is valued like water on Dune, and throwing one is tantamount to a death wish.
Ben
personally my favorite part was the thirty four year old who punched his sister in the mouth when she tried to intervene. a friend of mine works saturday afternoons behind a bar on clark between diversey and belmont and whenever i go in there i’m reminded that my love of baseball does not outweigh my disdain for most baseball fans.
that said i am going down to the cell next week and try to score some tickets when the bosox come to town.
I heard on espn the cubs are trying to send scott eyre to boston — I look fwd to manny’s first day in cub pinstripes, if only to see rob revise the ramirez v. Ramirez chart to a three-man dance.
i was thinking about this last night. that would be a monster meat of the order with manny, d-lee, and ramy ramirez.