"One for the Road:" Happy Birthday Mike Royko

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 19, 2011 10:00PM

Today would have been Mike Royko's 79th birthday and we thought we'd honor it by showing the below video.

In April 1976, Royko penned a column for the Chicago Daily News where he took it to Frank Sinatra, who was in town to perform. Royko chided the Chairman of the Board for his entourage, the cops providing security for him and whether or not his hair was real.

Sinatra read the column and wrote a letter to Royko where he gave as good as he got. the highlights of the letter were Sinatra calling Royko "nothing but a pimp" and offering to let Royko pull his hair to see if he was wearing a hairpiece. "(I)f it moves, I will give you another $100,000; if it does not, I punch you in the mouth. How about it?"

The letter wound up being purchased at auction for $400 by Royko fan Vie Carlson, who later had the letter appraised on Antiques Roadshow. Guess how much they valued the letter?

Carlson, whose son is Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos, later planned to auction the letter on Cheap Trick's website and donate the proceeds to "her family, her church and the Salvation Army."