Chicago Fans
A fitter augury cannot be imagined. The Chicago Cubs staggered out of Arizona with the worst spring training record in baseball; whereupon, Keith and Stacey Kramer of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, launched a newsletter dedicated to the tormented Chicago sports fan far from home.
Sluggo’s is owned by Norm and Sheila Lebovitz, who until 1985 ran the Chicago hot dog chains Sammy’s and Lemmy’s. “We’re a Chicago restaurant in San Diego,” Norm Lebovitz reported. “All our customers are Chicago. We bring our food in from Chicago. You couldn’t in here last night for the Cubs game. You couldn’t get in tonight for the Cubs game.”
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Lebovitz let us know that even though he’s 2,000 miles away, he’s hanging onto his five Bears season tickets. Putting aside the Kramers for the moment, we asked Lebovitz what he’s doing out by Coronado Bay if he’s so heartsick for Chicago; and he responded with a typically convoluted, half-apologetic refugee’s tale that boiled down to (A) opportunity and (B) February.
“Eight-one,” said Lebovitz.
He’d edited trade magazines in Chicago before taking a reporting job five years ago with Steamboat Today’s weekly predecessor, the Steamboat Pilot. Departing the lively Diversey-Halsted area for the Rockies, Keith found himself in unassuageable anguish.
Stacey Kramer made a second California swing in July to find readers; the Kramers expect to hunt more down in San Francisco during the NL play-offs; and next March they’ll work spring training in Arizona. It’s a hands-on approach to circulation that has less in common with normal journalistic practice than with basketball coaches recruiting prep all-Americas.
- Postal authorities refuse to allow The Social Evil in Chicago, a Study of Existing Conditions to be distributed by mail. The study had been made by the vice commission of Chicago, under the direction of the dean of the Episcopalian Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul.
