Jim O'Donnell: Online series about Arlington Park auctions is Kleenex reading for some
AS A GENERAL RULE, autopsy reports are not recommended reading for the "Headspace"/meditation crowd.
And some might say that Patti Davis did not produce merely a summary of institutional death posted on the respected "Paulick Report" thoroughbred racing website this week.
But the Chicago-based writer, editor and PR adjunct did craft the most detailed look yet at the six months of steady micro-desecration of Arlington Park that ended in January.
Titled "Going, going ... GONE! The Auctioning of Arlington Park," the three-part series is must reading for anyone interested in further grasping the cold, calloused ways of Churchill Downs Inc.
Arlington Park is now a cadaver awaiting final disposal. CDI and its Des Plaines casino somehow play on as major beneficiaries of the forces behind legalized gambling in the state of Illinois.
DAVIS DETAILS HOW The Grafe Auction Co. of Minnesota essentially tagged just about everything in and around the iconic racetrack beginning last summer.
Readers will learn:
• The cynical scavenging was broken down into 20 separate online auctions with most Mondays bannered as "Preview Day";
• Everything had a price, from expensive equine art once on regal display in Dick Duchossois's marvelous fifth-floor penthouse to stored cans of nacho cheese sauce well past their expiration date;
• The lone holdback was the "Against All Odds" statue - Edwin Bogucki's commemorative sculpture of the great John Henry vs. 40-1 shot The Bart on the wire in the inaugural Arlington Million (1981).
Davis reports that the bronze memento is likely headed for Colonial Downs, the CDI holding in Virginia that is scheduled to host what is now being called "The Arlington-Virginia Million" in August.
DAVIS WRITES WITH INSIDER AUTHORITY because she says she had the initiative to contact Judd Grafe - president of the auction company - well before the sell-off began.
The Arlington job was Grafe's first liquidation of a racetrack, according to Davis. "Its staff didn't know a paddock from a padlock," she writes.
So, with a background of more than four decades as a thoroughbred owner (her trainers included Chicago staples Wayne Catalano and Hugh Robertson), Davis offered her services to assist in the cataloging and organization of AP auction items.
Part 1 of her series is overview. Part 2 deals in dismayingly dissective detail. Part 3 is a stagger to a dispiriting finish line.
THERE ARE SIMPLIFICATIONS in her narrative. She never whips in any condemnation of CDI and the vaporous civic/business morality of CEO Bunker Bill Carstanjen and his oily rat pack. But that's also a point of perspective not shared by all.
Duchossois is aggrandized to an extreme. That despite the fact that had he and his family laid out a plan of business-savvy generational succession, Arlington Park would still be alive and racing as a global landmark and a regional point of identity.
Any real chance of that happening ended when first daughter Dayle Duchossois-Fortino and her husband Ed Fortino abruptly left the family racing business in 1992-93.
THE CREDIBILITY OF DAVIS' WORK is also bolstered by the deep-safetying of Ray Paulick. A former Chicagoan, he first flew his journalistic flag high as editor of The Blood-Horse, a legacied racing weekly initially published in 1916.
Since 2008, Paulick has resolutely built his daily online "Report" into one of the teetering game's gold standards.
The three parts of "Going, going ... GONE! The auctioning of Arlington Park" can be read at paulickreport.com.
It's not appointment reading for all.
But it is sure to be Kleenex reading for some.
STREET-BEATIN':
Credible report that CBS Sports chieftains are keenly concerned about the drop in quality of the on-air work of Tony Romo. He was a phenom out of the gate six seasons ago, then signed a 10-year, $180M extension and was repeatedly phoning it in this season. (Maybe he needs more money.) ...
A bold and intriguing move by Craig Karmazin and Chicago lieutenants if Dan McNeil and his "Radio Free Hammond" were brought into a pragmatic mix at WMVP-AM (1000). The Bears would undoubtedly have veto power but the checked-down broadcast partnership has to get something going. ...
A few years ago, the brilliant Jim Peterik ("Eye of the Tiger," "Vehicle") wrote and produced a self-proposed new theme song for the Bears. The tune went nowhere and will probably not be on the playlist when Peterik & Friends play Hey Nonny in downtown Arlington Heights Wednesday night. ...
If the NFL's Pro Bowl weekend continues its descent into the absurd, three years from now, Roger Goodell and Co. may be featuring a Baggo tournament between "Last Pre-Season Cuts." Today's flag-football classic gets to showcase Baltimore footnote Tyler Huntley and his goal-line turnover skills (ABC/ESPN; 2 p.m.). ...
And Ed Koren, on news that the Cubs' slap-schtick Marquee Sports Network will be adding coverage of Chicago Hounds rugby: "Aren't there any fresh Nebraska 4-H events available?"
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.