Photo by johnsadowskiii That cab fare increase we mentioned yesterday? Looks like it will happen next year. A judge froze $150,000 belonging to Tony Rezko in case he's ordered to forfeit some of his assets stemming from his recent conviction. State Senator James Meeks was able to get 1,500 people to participate in his protest outside of Wrigley Field yesterday. Meeks hoped to draw attention to what he calls inequality in school funding. More......

We all know the Wrigley Field tradition of throwing an opponent's home run ball back on to the field. It's a great one, even when performed by the joyless corporate VIPs who made Wrigley Field a quiet, soulless place to watch the game last night [author's note - I say that as a Cubs fan]. But there's throwing the ball back onto the field, and then there's being a sore-loser-jerkstore, as was the case with......

After all the huffing and puffing, a group of bar owners with establishments by Wrigley Field agreed to the controversial alcohol cut-off after the seventh inning of series-clinching games. In case you somehow missed it, today's bailout failure pushed the Dow to its biggest drop ever. Also, Lynn Sweet has a list of how Illinois' reps voted today. Seven Dems and two Republicans voted yes, four Dems and five Republicans voted no, and Jerry......

State Senator James Meeks, who recently led a controversial two-day boycott of Chicago Public Schools, is set to protest at a Cubs playoff game next week by surrounding Wrigley Field with 6,000 people to protest what he claims is a funding disparity between wealthy and poor school districts. But the city's most powerful White Sox fan is asking Meeks to knock it off. Said Mayor Daley: We waited 100 years for the Cubs to get......

Leave it to the city to throw a huge bucket of cold water on the Cubs first back-to-back division titles ever. They're asking bars and restaurants around Wrigley Field to observe a voluntary cutoff of alcohol sales after the seventh-inning stretch to keep post-playoff game celebrations from turning into... well, the 81 regular season post-game celebrations that preceded them. The boundaries for the cutoff zone are Sheffield between Irving and Newport, Clark between Irving......

The Cubs had another tough time with the Florida Marlins yesterday, losing 3-2 after 12 innings. The Cubs have only beat the Marlins once out of 13 games. It also continues a bit of a slump for the Cubbies, who have a 3-7 record for their last ten games, allowing the Milwaukee Brewers to move up to tie the Cubs for first place in the National League Central. Fans at Wrigley yesterday were also......

Initial bids on the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field were due Friday and word is slowly getting out now about who seems to have made the cut. Among those who didn't make the cut were Chicago Wolves owner Don Levin and the group led by Madison Dearborn Chairman John Canning. Canning's group was considered the odds-on favorite to win the bidding, in part due to Canning being a part-owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and a......

We're all getting over our excitement for the upcoming NHL Winter Classic on New Years Day. Blackhawks versus Red Wings at Wrigley? Hell yes, we say. But some of us are teeny bit more excited than others. For example, Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley. Quigley put together a resolution declaring January 1, 2009 as "Chicago Blackhawks Day" and designating Wrigleyville as an "Octopus-Free Zone." But our favorite part of the resolution? The clever Quigley tossed......

New Year's Day outdoors? That's how Chicagoist usually spends it—but on a Mexican beach. At least until the Rose Bowl kicks off. We're not quite so sure we'd want to spend it outside in Wrigley Field, which could be a little cold. On the other hand, watching two of the "Original Six" NHL teams face off in the open air does sound pretty damn cool. Standing inside temporary baseboards approximating where the rink will sit,......

If you have several hundred million dollars to burn and always wanted to own a storied baseball franchise, you'd better get a move-on: today is the deadline for submitting bids to buy the Chicago Cubs. Major League Baseball has approved ten owner groups to bid on the team while up to twenty bids have been made on Wrigley Field alone. The Tribune Company is accepting bids on assets including the team and the stadium both......

It's finally official: The Blackhawks will be playing the Red Wings at Wrigley Field on New Years Day at 12 noon. Exciting!......

I remember my first beer. Hopefully, so will this kid:......

A cleaning supplies company is holding a vote for the best bathroom in America, and two Illinois restrooms have made the cut: the bathrooms at the Signature Room in the Hancock building and the bathrooms at Brio, a restaurant in Rockford. We're up against such facilities as the one in Grand Central Terminal in New York, which, while relatively clean for a gigantic public bathroom, is also pretty nasty in the scheme of things. In......

We'll get to the All-Star lineups in a moment. First, who's stoked at the thought of hockey outside on New Years Day? The Tribune reports that the Black Hawks and Red Wings will face off at Wrigley Field in the follow-up to this year's amazing Penguins-Sabres matchup in Buffalo. It's yet another coup for the Hawks as they quickly climb back to respectability. Club President John McDonough lobbied NHL commissioner Gary Bettman for the game......

If there are two things that Cubs fans love, it's their ballpark and their booze. And since the vast majority of fans are opposed to the idea of changing Wrigley Field's name, Jim Beam is hoping its show of solidarity with fans will make them more open to changing their drink. The Kentucky bourbon brand erected a billboard across from Wrigley imploring, "Save our Ballpark's Name." The website listed on the sign, www.saveourname.com, includes......

Photo by Joshua Mellin Wrigley Field is in better condition than everyone thought. Now that the state buying the stadium is off the table, other possible buyers have been sent documents about the property. From the Trib: Sources indicated the books make no specific representation as to the condition of Wrigley Field and the work that needs to be done, even though the urgency of major capital expenditures on repairs and improvements was front......

The Blackhawks will be playing the Red Wings this January at Wrigley. Exciting! Initially, plans were to have the Blackhawks play a game at Soldier Field, and that could still be a possibility. [Comcast Sports, S-T, original photo by dwward]......

Oh, the ambiance of the Friendly Confines ... the ivy, the manual scoreboard, the giant columns blocking half the field for some seats. Well, that last one kind of sucks, actually. Like many ballparks built in the days before architects learned to cantilever the upper decks, Wrigley Field's lower level is rife with giant I-beams that can obstruct the view of the field. And who wants to get stuck behind on of those? Sure, there......

While fans may strongly disagree on which baseball team is better in this town, the consensus has been among most Chicagoans that Wrigley Field was the better ballpark -- even after the extensive renovations to U.S. Cellular have improved many of the less-desirable features of the park when built. We admit that we love the historic ambiance of Wrigley even if we are Sox fans -- we just go and cheer on the Phillies, Marlins......

On the same day he fired the guy who just might be the next Bulls head coach, Mark Cuban made an appearance at Wrigley Field. Unlike his past visits to the ballpark where he joined the drunks in the bleachers, this time Cuban sat in the Tribune Co.'s front row seats near the dugout -- which suggests this was more of a business trip. He has publicly expressed interest in buying the Cubs, and the......

"Goats don't move quietly ... Goats are really, really noisy all of the time. They are very vociferous about everything that you do or want to do or think about doing with them." Dr. Colleen O'Keefe, IDOA division manager for food safety and animal protection, on the mysterious pile of goat carcasses in Will County. [S-T] "It's hard to believe...the Department of Defense didn't have a backup plan. It seems they dropped the ball a......

If anybody wants to know why Chicagoist became a Sox fan, in spite of our North Shore roots, it's because of crap like this. The Cubs and their fans, who have actually had plenty of happy events to commemorate this year—a division title, unveiling of the Ernie Banks statue, their 10,000th win—are instead focusing on commemoration of the absurd and reminders of their loser legacy. All month long, the Trib's been running a special features......

Landmarks Illinois, "the state’s leading voice for historic preservation," released the 2008 edition of their Endangered Landmarks list today and, keeping with the same counting rules as the Big 10, the Top 10 list actually features 11 buildings. The last-second, list-expanding addition? Wrigley Field. The addition was made in response to the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority's interest in purchasing, and subsequently renovating, the stadium. In total, the city of Chicago has four buildings on the......

Photo by Emotional Baggage Claim, used with permission You can get a tattoo to show you love Wrigley and the Cubs, or you can run a stupid limerick contest to show you don't like the Tribune that much. [More pix of the tattoo here and here]......

While we here in the Chicagoist offices have taken exception to the possible re-naming of Wrigley Field, we have a much bigger issue with the possible new ownership of the park. From the get-go, we have opposed the sale of Wrigley to the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, the state agency that owns and runs U.S. Cellular Field. While we appreciate that the ISFA's actions in the late 80s kept our beloved White Sox from......

OK, some of you have already had enough of all the Wrigley Field naming rights talk. We understand. But new details give some answers as to how the naming rights might be applied and who some of the bidders might actually be. The Tribune reports that multiple companies might be involved in partial naming rights deals, which combined could bring in the same amount of money as a single deal for naming rights. Tribune officials......

"First Amendment protected" sign by JR1479 Part of the shenanigans involved with the Tribune selling Wrigley Field to the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority are renovations to the ballpark, which apparently are going to be so major that even with construction beginning immediately after the regular season ends, the Cubs might have to find a temporary home potentially well into the following season. Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney's choice for that move? U.S. Cellular Field. "To......

Mayor Daley sure is busy. Or at least chatty. Yesterday Mayor Daley said he asked the Cook County Board of Review to reopen the appeals process for a special two-week period, March 17-31, for homeowners who feel that their property tax has been assessed too high as a result of the downturn in the housing market. The City has given the board of review data about which areas have seen declining home values, and it......

So here we were, doing a little poking around some Chicago radio websites on a Saturday afternoon. One link leads to another, and all of a sudden we're on Chicago Tonight correspondent Rich Samuel's site, which we've discovered is a treasure trove of old Chicago media pictures, airchecks and video. And lo and behold, after all the chatter this week about Sam Zell selling just about everything relating to Wrigley Field, there's a Sam Zell......

Maybe he hasn't made Keith Olbermann's nightly list yet, but Sam Zell is quickly cementing his place among the "Worst People in Chicago" as he continues to antagonize Chicagoans since his takeover of the Tribune Co. Not content simply wanting to replace actual news with "profitable" features and celebrity news, Zell is working overtime to squeeze every last nickel out of the Cubs before he sells off the team. This week, he reiterated on CNBC's......