In 1959, the Chicago White Sox made it back to the World Series for the first time since the infamous 1919 Series. After Richard J. Daley made everybody think the Soviets were invading, the team got to work getting ready for the World Series. All that time, they were being spurred on by this little ditty:
Earlier that year, Al Trace(a former Sox minor leaguer) wrote the lyrics, and was looking for someone to record it. Enter Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers, a country-comedy duo who were famed for releasing the jingles for the Roto-Rooter and Green Giant. The song was a hit at the time, but was eventually forgotten until June 2005. At that point, one of the employees of the Sox dusted off an old record of the song and decided to play it during a game. The act went over without a hitch, so now the song has made a return to prominence on the South Side.
Ever since the 1990s, the White Sox have had a distinctive way of welcoming their players into the game:
Released by the band AC/DC in 1990, Thunderstruck quickly caught on for all kinds of sporting events, as evidenced by the video above, as well as the fact that it was used by numerous other sports teams throughout the country.
When the White Sox made it back to the World Series in 2005 for the first time since 1959, they did so with yet another song in tow. However, whereas the last one had been specially composed for the team, their '05 song was one of the most iconic 80s songs ever:
The whole thing started out when some of the 2005 White Sox heard this song playing in a bar in Baltimore and liked the sound of it. As the season wound on, the team was looking for a rally song, and this seemed to fit the bill. After rolling through the playoffs and capturing their first World Series title since 1917, they went so far as to invite Steve Perry to their victory rally, where some of the players sang the song a capella with Perry.
For those of you who are somewhat newer arrivals to our blog-based journey through Chicago, you may not be aware of the fact that this blog has a Facebook page. This is where you'll find posts that are put there after I publish them, as well as pictures from various past blog entries. If you want to talk about things or suggest new ideas, this is the place for that as well. The address of the page is:
So go to the page, like it, and make sure to tell your friends to like it as well. And make sure to check back here later tonight, when I continue Fight Song Week with a little help from Captain Stubby and the Buccaneers...
In the 1940 NFL Championship Game, the Chicago Bears(led by the one and only George Halas) stomped the Washington Redskins to the tune of 73-0(yes, I realize that score sounds like something the Superfans would dream up, but I swear to you all that it actually happened). The Bears were on top, and they had announced their presence in a big way. Around this same time, somebody happened upon the long-disused nickname for the University of Chicago's football team, and figured it would fit well with the Bears. And so, the Monsters of The Midway entered the 1941 season with a good amount of swagger, a newfound respect from the rest of the fans, and to top it all off, a brand spanking new fight song:
Composed by Al Hoffman in the wake of the historic victory by the Bears, the song made another milestone. Through the writing of this tune, the Bears became the first NHL franchise to have a fight song, which certainly made a difference in the spirit level of their fans. In 1993, Bill Archer and The Big Bear Band recorded a new version of the song, which is the one still played today after every Bears victory.
Well folks, it's time for the first theme week of the year. I hope you guys enjoy this one!
It's game time at the Madhouse on Madison. The Blackhawks are taking the rink against any one of their many rivals in the National Hockey League. All of a sudden, a player takes a daring shot, and the shot GOES IN. GOAL! The crowd goes wild. The team celebrates. And reverberating from the sound system is the driving bass of a certain song that should be instantly familiar to all Chicago fans. Here, take a listen:
For those of you who still don't know what song this is(maybe you're new in town), it's called Chelsea Dagger, and it was originally released in 2006 by the Scottish band The Fratellis. The song was reportedly written about the wife of the lead singer of the group, who was an exotic dancer using Chelsea as a stage name. Add in the fact that the term 'Dagger' is Scottish slang for a woman of loose morals, and I think you can see where this is headed. The song ended up doing quite well for the band, eventually climbing to #5 on the UK charts.
The song found its way to Chicago in the Fall of 2007, when Rocky Wirtz assumed ownership of the team from his late father. In a bid to attract fans who had abandoned the team in droves during his father's miserly reign, Wirtz started looking for ways to enhance the fan experience. One of those ways was to add a goal song to every game. After combing through all the different examples, the team's people settled on this song. Initially, it didn't catch on, but then by the end of its inaugural season it had become as much a part of Blackhawks hockey as cheering through the National Anthem.
For an aside, Chelsea Dagger is not the first song that has been played by the Hawks either. In 1968, the Dick Marx Orchestra and Choir released "Here Come The Hawks!". And then in 2007, The Ministry & Co-Conspirators released "Keys To The City" as a gift to the Blackhawks organization.
In the early years of the CTA, there were numerous expansions and additions of stations. One of these new stations came about in 1907, when the South Side Elevated (the first elevated line in the city and the ancestor to today's Green Line) added on a service branch to Normal Park. This area didn't see too much traffic, except for the students of the Chicago Normal School, which was a local college. One of the most interesting things about this station was its design though. The station was the last stop on the line, but whereas with other stations you have the end of the tracks, then some sort of yard facilities for various trains(or in the case of the old Westchester station vast expanses of nothingness), the 69th street station simply dead ended into the street. Just one catch though: this station was elevated, which meant that you had an elevated track ending at the street, like this:
Over the years, the station's low ridership became evident, and major changes came in 1949 with the great Service Revision. First off, the station became unstaffed, with conductors collecting all fares onboard trains(because we were still almost 50 years away from farecards). Also, the station turned into a shuttle operation, with only a 1-car train coming into the station to take passengers back and forth to the mainline. Finally, the station's time came in January of 1954 when it(as well as the entire Normal Park Line) was closed due to extremely low ridership.
Since 1876, the National League ball club in Chicago had been known by names such as the Nationals, the Orphans, the Chicagos, the Colts, the Rough Riders, the Silk Stockings, the White Stockings, and even the Rainmakers. But in 1902, that all changed. On March 27 of that year, an insipid reporter for the Chicago Daily News penned an article about how the team was prepping for another season. This team was much younger and unseasoned than previous iterations, and the writer was looking for a way to impart that. He eventually used the line "manager Frank Selee will devote his strongest efforts on the team work of the new Cubs this year".
At the time that it was written, the moniker "Cubs" was just another nickname, and the team continued to be known under various other names for the next six seasons, such as the Panamas, the Spuds, the Zephyrs, and the Microbes. But when the 1907 World Series rolled around, the team was issued new jackets with the picture of a Cub on it. With that, the North Side team officially adopted the Cubs name. And even though we haven't quite maintained the winning tradition started in 1907, the team does continue to be called the Cubs today, 112 years after the name was first coined.
I was cruising the interwebs(aka: Facebook) today and happened upon this picture right here:
That is a picture of the establishing shot of The Breakfast Club, and while I will admit that at first I thought this might have been another Back To The Future situation(no matter what anybody tells you Marty McFly does notcome back to the future until OCTOBER 21, 2015) but then I went ahead and checked it for myself, and this is 100% true. Roll tape:
In the pantheon of films shot in Chicago, The Breakfast Club is a member of the Hall of Fame. It was one of the John Hughes Brat Pack films, which means that this is about as stereotypically 80s as you can get. Originally the studio didn't want Hughes to even direct the film, as they didn't feel him experienced enough(even though this was after Sixteen Candles had come out, so go figure.) Eventually they relented, and the film was shot. As had become Hughes' trademark, the film was shot in the Northern Suburbs of Chicago. This time the action took place at "Shermer High School", which was actually the decommissioned Maine North High School over in Des Plaines.
Built in the middle of a population surge in Maine Township, the school was built in 1970. After things had leveled off, the school district had too many schools and too few students. After a furious push by the other high schools in the district to stay open, Maine North was left the odd man out and closed after the 1980-81 school year. When John Hughes wanted to film his new film there, he was given access to the empty building to do so. After production on the film wrapped, Hughes came back again 2 years later to film Ferris Buehler's Day Off. Today the building still stands, and is in use as an office for the Illinois State Police, among other things.
