Jim O'Donnell: Is Churchill Inc. planning a quick 'Meigs Field' on Arlington Park?
YET ANOTHER OMINOUS CLOUD is drifting northward from Louisville regarding any possible future horse racing at Arlington Park.
And this one is right out of The Richie Daley Playbook.
Credible speculation is Churchill Downs Inc. will begin digging up the main track and possibly both turf courses shortly after the 2021 live season at AP concludes Saturday, Sept. 25.
Because it's private property and not the sort of demolition that would require any government permit, there is nothing the village of Arlington Heights or any other official agency can do to stop it.
Said Arlington Heights Mayor Tom Hayes: “We don't know of anything that would prevent the owner of the property from doing that type of work at that time.”
Such a Machiavellian move would be the first physical desecration of the fading orb and would significantly underscore the notion the tattered sport of jokers is finito at Arlington.
ITS CONCEPTUAL ROOTS track back to the notorious “Meigs Massacre” of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
That was the diabolical lakefront gambit by Daley in the wee hours of March 30-31, 2003.
To abruptly end an extended battle between his office and the state legislature over the future of Meigs Field, RMD dispatched city bulldozers with a police guard to dig large “Xs” in the airport's main runway.
End of Meigs Field. Daley's sole penalties were some appropriately bad press and a $30,000 fine from the Federal Aviation Administration for failure to provide notice.
The land is now the site of the lightly used Northerly Island concert venue.
Does CDI and CEO “Bunker Bill” Carstanjen have the sort of KY chutzpah to give the taxpayers of Illinois such a long-distance one-headlight salute?
If past performances are fortunetellers, the answer is a resoundingly imperious “Yes!”
NBCUNIVERSAL CEO JEFF SHELL claims his corporation will turn a profit on The Tokyo Olympics.
That's about the extent of any positive nonathletic news from The Games Fans Forgot.
With Shell's group working overtime to turn free TV viewers into subscribers of its streaming Peacock app for live coverage, net audiences are down 40% from the 2016 Rio Olympics and close to 50% from the 2012 London Games.
In any language, numbers like that spell “crater.” Not to mention a landmark demythologizing of all the quadrennial spectacle once represented.
Civic energizers contemplating bids on future Olympics should be taking note:
Saps only need apply.
ANY BOOHOOING OVER the end of The Cubs Dynasty That Wasn't overlooks a very important point:
Tom Ricketts and family gave the 2016 World Series champions ample opportunity to extend their historic heights scaling.
All — from Theo Epstein on down to selectively sincere songbird Julianna Zobrist — failed.
Baseball remains a funny game.
That is a far cry indeed from the gratuitous guillotining that Michael Jordan and mystical mates suffered at the net-zero whims of Jerry Reinsdorf.
Ricketts exits his family's initial decade of ownership karmically clean with the gods of modern MLB competitiveness.
Reinsdorf's Bulls remain haunted by “The Curse of the Breakup.”
STREET-BEATIN': As contracted last summer, Greg Olsen — who spent the first four of his 14 NFL seasons with the Bears — will debut on FOX's No. 2 team alongside Kevin Burkhardt this season. (Joe Buck and Troy Aikman top the roll call for the 20th straight year; steady climber Adam Amin (Addison Trail High, Class of ‘04) will again handle p-b-p on Team 3.) ...
Jaiden Fields — the younger sister of Bears rookie QB Justin Fields — is letting all know that her career goal model is NBC's Maria Taylor. Ms. Fields is a star softball player at Georgia, where she's also on the SEC Academic Honor Roll as a broadcast journalism major. ...
Industry analysts are still scratching their heads over how ESPN could land Peyton Manning for a role as analyst on its ESPN2 “alternative” coverage of “Monday Night Football” but not a prime seat in its shaky lead booth. Rumors remain rife he will be offered a minority share in the next ownership group of the Denver Broncos. ...
Just when you thought it was safe to tune in: Languid Len Kasper is drilling molars on White Sox telecasts while Jason Benetti is away calling baseball games of the Tokyo Olympics. Suburban Cleveland's very own Steve Stone — raised on Cotton Club soda pop and “Ghoulardi” — is doing all possible to make the Soxcasts goof-proof. ...
And, the great Taylor Bell, recounting a weekend Marquee remark by Jim Deshaies: “He looked into the Cubs bullpen to see who was warming up and said, ‘I don't know who that guy is.' I think we'll all be repeating that comment for weeks to come.”
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.