(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
very tough week on the northside [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-30
the passing of ryne sandberg, at a young 65, was very hard to take for, i guess, hundreds of thousands of people. that he was an excellent ballplayer was obvious from the first weeks he appeared in the cubs lineup in april 1982. after moving to 2nd base the next season, he maintained the highest standard of performance in the field and at bat for most of the next 15 years. almost the only variance occurred in his late twenties when he was asked to hit for more power, which he did, because his team needed it, even leading the league in homers one year, to the surprise of those who watched him from the beginning. i saw him play well over 100 games at wrigley, almost all on weekdays with modest attendance in the glorious pre-lights days (please listen to the full unexpurgated lee elia rant if you never heard it — and remember sandberg was on that team,) and i loved taking for granted that he would be in the lineup that day and play literally flawless baseball.
it was only years later, after he retired and became more garrulous and joyful in public that we realized that his relatively colorless and taciturn persona resulted from the demands and stresses of maintaining that performance combined with being a genuinely unassuming man. in the end, he had far too few years to bask in his family, his achievements, and the warmth he finally let himself feel from the appreciation of those who saw him play. cancer does suck.
then the news came that the villa palermo, a really good take-out place located in the relatively unfashionable 2100 block of devon ave is going out of business effective tomorrow. decent pizza, (chicago has pretty high standards pizza-wise) real good parms, wide menu, very reasonable prices. we’ll have to work hard to find a replacement. dave’s in evanston is really good, but the menu doesn’t have the scope.
i don’t have a good end for this urology, but, as i said before, endings are really tough!
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/30/2336003/-very-tough-week-on-the-northside?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
