How Madigan left the Cubs in the dark
Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s grip on the state’s legislative process once delayed the Cubs’ quest for lights at Wrigley Field – and 30 years later, the Cubs are still feuding with politicians.
The Chicago Cubs are hosting World Series games for the first time in 71 years, and for the first time ever, those World Series games against the Cleveland Indians will be under lights at Wrigley Field Oct. 28, 29 and 30.
The Cubs were the last Major League baseball team to install lights when they did so in 1988. But most people don’t realize one reason for this delay was a powerful Springfield politician: Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.
After the Tribune Company purchased the team in 1981, a push to illuminate Wrigley Field began with pressure from Major League Baseball. Former Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley resisted installing lights after originally opting against it in 1941 in favor of donating the lighting equipment to the war effort. But as the league started to have night playoff games in the 1970s to maximize television viewership, lights became an issue for the Cubs, if they were ever to make it to the World Series.
How politicians blocked lights at Wrigley
Though the need for lights was real, Madigan and an ally in Chicago City Council made sure the Cubs wouldn’t have their way easily.
Before the Cubs could install lights, the owners needed permission from City Council … which was busy putting roadblocks in the team’s path.
Former Chicago Alderman Ed Vrdolyak, who also served as City Council president and chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party, led the fight in City Council to ban the installation of lights at Wrigley Field. Prior to that, a city ordinance passed in 1941 allowed the Cubs to install lights if they chose to do so, but banned any innings from being played after 8 p.m.
Vrdolyak was successful, getting a 42-2 vote to ban lights at Wrigley in 1983. The Tribune Company then proceeded to try to get the General Assembly in Springfield to override Chicago’s ordinance.
Vrdolyak’s political motivation behind the lights ban
Vrdolyak had one motivation to pass the ordinance in the first place: He wanted the Tribune Company to stop publishing editorial criticism of him.
And luckily for him and his vendetta against the newspaper, he had an ally in Madigan, as they were both Democratic Party leaders, and the Tribune’s desired Wrigley-lights-ban override failed in 1985. This was less than a year after the Cubs’ light-less World Series fiasco almost happened, when the team came one win away from advancing to the 1984 series and having to cede the home field advantage due to the inability to host night games.
Paul Lis, whom the Tribune Company hired as a lobbyist for the lights issue, said after the override failed that “certainly, (House) Speaker (Michael) Madigan’s consistent and persistent opposition to any limited schedule of night baseball during any regular-season games doomed the effort.”
In a blistering 1985 editorial following that legislative defeat, the Tribune called out Vrdolyak and Madigan, and was straightforward about the shenanigans going on.
The editorial board slammed Vrdolyak for his willingness to hold Cubs matters hostage to his quest for favorable editorial coverage:
“[T]he Cubs will be playing morning games on a sandlot in Gary…” before such a concession would be made.
And the editorial board was explicit about how vast Madigan’s power had become:
“Mr. Madigan made sure the Cubs weren`t successful in getting the state legislature to override the city ordinance preventing the Cubs from installing lights and playing some night baseball in Wrigley Field during the regular season.
“Mr. Madigan and his law firm represent a lot of people who end up doing business with state government. Largely because of the vacuum of leadership in Springfield, Mr. Madigan has obtained a position of extraordinary power in the legislature. You come by him or you don’t get by. And if your cause happens to conflict with that of someone closer to him that you are, forget it …
“To handle Mr. Madigan, you have to make some kind of deal. Take him some incense, myrrh, maybe some silk from the East and kneel when you go before his throne. Then maybe, just maybe, you`ll get lucky and he’ll throw you some scraps from his legislative table. That`s what everyone else has to do.”
A change in the political winds – and lights for Wrigley
Vrdolyak, a Democratic Party boss, was closer to Madigan than the Tribune Company was. So what changed in 1988 that got the Cubs their lights?
While Vrdolyak was an important Madigan ally in leading the Cook County Democratic Party in the ‘80s, Vrdolyak changed his party affiliation to Republican in 1987, becoming outspoken against then-Mayor Harold Washington’s fiscal irresponsibility, in particular a $79.9 million property-tax hike in late 1986. Suddenly an anti-tax Republican, Vrdolyak ran for clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County in 1988 and lost. He then ran for mayor in 1989 and lost in a landslide to Richard M. Daley.
A 1988 Illinois Issues article said that Madigan, who runs a law firm specializing in property-tax appeals in Cook County, “wants to ensure that whoever is mayor of Chicago after the 1989 and 1991 elections must deal with him… (he) fears the impact of Democrat-turned-Republican Ed Vrdolyak’s anti-tax talk …”
And thus Vrdolyak’s political career ended. When Chicago City Council passed an ordinance, with the support of then-acting Mayor Eugene Sawyer, allowing lights at Wrigley Field in 1988, Madigan did not make a peep.
Despite lights concession, Chicago politicians continue to make life difficult for Cubs
But even though the Cubs got their lights and have since been allowed to increase the number of night games the team hosts each season, the prevailing attitude of Chicago machine politics toward businesses – notably sports franchises – still exists today, taking different forms and new battles.
The Ricketts family, who now own the Cubs after purchasing the team in 2009, has been in a longstanding feud with aldermen led by Alderman Tom Tunney, 44th Ward, preventing the family from using their own money to renovate the ballpark and surrounding neighborhood.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported Oct. 3 that the Cubs were extending offers to aldermen and state lawmakers from Chicago districts to purchase Cubs post-season tickets – including for the World Series – at face value. The Cubs extended the same offer to Chicago politicians during their 2015, 2008, 2007 and 2003 playoff runs. City ethics officials, however, ruled Oct. 21 that aldermen cannot accept these ticket-purchase offers unless they perform a ceremonial duty – such as publicly welcoming the crowd, making a speech or throwing out the first pitch – at the game.
Most aldermen earlier this postseason, before the rule was in place, said they would take the Cubs up on this offer.
Other Chicago sports teams have faced similar pressure, and some have opted to deeply entrench themselves with politicians.
The Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, or ISFA, exists almost solely for this. The General Assembly created the politically stacked ISFA in 1987 to provide taxpayer funding for the construction and renovation of stadiums for professional sports teams. The ISFA owns and operates U.S. Cellular Field, which will be renamed Guaranteed Rate Field Nov. 1, and will be the party benefitting from the new money in the Guaranteed Rate naming deal. The ISFA also oversaw the renovations to Soldier Field in the early 2000s, and is still handing out taxpayer money to the Chicago Bears for that deal to the tune of $36 million just this year.
Former ISFA Chairwoman Perri Irmer, who served from 2004-2011, claimed in a 2013 lawsuit the ISFA exists as “nothing more than a cash cow puppet for (Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry) Reinsdorf,” not to serve its intended purpose of economic development through sports stadiums. And since the ISFA was created, Reinsdorf has made large donations to powerful politicians in the city and the state, including Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton, Attorney General Lisa Madigan and both former Gov. Pat Quinn and Gov. Bruce Rauner.
The Tribune Company likely would have got its way much faster had it followed Reinsdorf’s lead. Whether it’s lights, renovations or development, you have to play ball.
And it’s no surprise that Madigan would have the final say. In Madigan’s position as House speaker, which he has held for 31 of the last 33 years, he has used administrative rules to grow and maintain his power, making sure nothing passes without his blessing. By way of the House Rules Committee, he can decide which legislation can be heard and which can’t. He draws legislative maps, effectively allowing politicians to pick their voters, and has defeated every attempt at term limits to hold lifelong politicians accountable.
The Cubs – who have been playing baseball in the city since 1876 – have not been immune to Madigan’s control.
If the Cubs win their first World Series title in 108 years, the media will talk about overcoming curses, billy goats and decades of losing baseball, and any adversity that came with it. Battles with City Council and the state’s most powerful politician won’t be mentioned, but that adversity is something plenty of Chicago businesses and fans know all too well.