Chicago Bear Steve McMichael, whose Sunday night appearances on WMAQ-Ch. 5 are further proof of TV`s unceasing quest for the cerebral, has wielded knives, referred to ”fag bars” and his wife`s ”Kotex Mafia,” and verged on the anti-Semitic.
One might wonder what Carol Marin, the station`s well-regarded anchor, thinks of her bosses` rationalization of McMichael, a graduate of the James Watt school of comedy and catalyst of higher ratings-something about viewers getting the same sort of stuff on late-night TV.
”You just don`t purposely hire homophobes and sexists and then give them leave to do whatever they want,” she says. ”There should be no place for his gratuitous bashing of women and gays.”
– – –
Life`s more tranquil at New York`s Hotel Macklowe, site of the world chess championship between champ Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. It`s where one finds a situation to strike envy in the hearts of many reporters: a reporter with his own handy-andy, on-site copy editor.
The reporter is Robert Byrne, New York Times chess writer and a grandmaster who was a quarterfinalist at the 1974 championship.
He`s part of a different breed, writing stories that most readers can`t possibly understand. Like this paragraph in his Wednesday dispatch on the previous day`s match:
”For the third straight time with the black pieces against 1 d4, Kasparov chose the King`s Indian Defense, noted for its complex
counterattacking chances despite its allowing the opponent to control the greater amount of terrain. However, when Karpov repeated the flexible, delicately positional Gligoric Variation beginning with 7 Be3, Kasparov replaced the wild, adventurous play that led to a remarkable queen sacrifice in Game 3 with a quiet, though also offbeat, 7 . . . Na6.”
Pretty wild and offbeat, eh?
Byrne, 62, knows that his is a specialized audience but can`t be sure of a whole lot else. Nobody, he says, has a handle on how many Americans play the game and who they are.
”The American chess player is a mystery to even those in the community:
how often he plays, for instance,” Byrne says. ”We think the average American player won`t even join a chess club or go to a tournament. He probably plays once or twice a week with a crony. That`s about all we know.” ”But I do get letters from people who assure me that they`ve never even heard of the U.S. Chess Federation, but they ask sophisticated questions-the sort a weekend player couldn`t ask. Somehow, they got to be very strong.”
Byrne tries to describe a match in general terms for four or five paragraphs. Then he gets into specific moves and analysis, which can be hard when even cognoscenti argue about what happened.
Kasparov`s first win involved a move that stunned all and may be discussed for years. He was seemingly behind and made something out of what was presumed to be nothing. Byrne now realizes that Kasparov saw ”more profoundly than anyone the attacking possibilities” of a seemingly poor position.
His task is complicated by the matches` starting in early evening and proceeding close to, even past, his initial (”ridiculous,” he says)
deadline, around 10:45 p.m.
He must also come up with a diagram of a key moment in the match. But the computer on which he writes can`t be programmed to set up and transmit such a diagram.
So he takes out a pocket chess set and duplicates the key moment. It`s why the paper`s most chess-savvy copy editor, John Storm, is at his side to phone in details of the diagram as Byrne tries to finish his story.
”By getting the diagram out of the way, he`s giving the copy desk back at the paper a 20-minute head start,” Byrne says. ”Plus, if I did it myself, I`d really strap myself in trying to write my story.”
As soon as Storm finishes phoning in the positions, he rushes back to the Times office, which, luckily, is a few blocks away. He double-checks the diagram before it`s sent electronically to the composing room and, ultimately, to Times wire service clients that include the Tribune. He then awaits Byrne`s story.
”John has been doing a noble job,” says a grateful reporter.
– – –
On Sept. 29, 1989, the Tribune Chicagoland section included a photo of bystanders looking at damage on Cermak Road in suburban Westchester after a beer truck crashed into three cars, killing two people.
Now, a court case will determine whether the Tribune has to fork over crash photos it didn`t use.
The issue of whether a paper is protected from giving over such photos is old. Indeed, it has been resolved in written rulings in some states. New York and California say a paper is protected; Michigan says it isn`t. But the issue has never resulted in a written opinion in Illinois.
Dorothy Visk, administrator of the estate of Francis Visk, 67, of Elmhurst, who died in the crash, wants to see negatives of all photos taken by the Tribune. She wants them for a personal-injury case filed by her and relatives of the other victim that`s pending in Cook County Circuit Court.
The Tribune, in a response filed with Judge Thomas Hoffman, argues that the unpublished photos are protected by the Illinois Reporter`s Privilege Act and the 1st Amendment. In part, it cites the act`s seemingly broad protection of reporter ”sources” as including people, documents and photos.
– – –
The issue of women in football locker rooms has been chewed over, focusing on issues of player privacy and reporter access. Then, David Meggyesy threw a provocative thought this way.
Meggyesy is one of pro football`s most interesting, if lesser-known, figures. He`s a brainy and sensitive former St. Louis Cardinals linebacker who played for seven years and wrote a 1970 book, ”Out of Their League,” that was harshly anti-establishment. It was a chronicle of players used and abused by coaches, owners and doctors.
It helped make him an NFL heretic and counterculture figure of note. He turned his back on the game until he realized again his deep feelings for it. He joined the National Football League Players Association and now serves adeptly as its San Francisco-based western director, overseeing a bunch of teams, including the Bears.
”The locker room is a place where players have the quality of being able to share feelings and thoughts about an intense activity,” Meggyesy said during a trip to meet with the Bears at Lake Forest College (management wouldn`t let him into the team facility) and update them on association matters, including anti-trust litigation against the owners.
”But the space is routinely violated since these are athletes who are not seen as real people and who don`t have a say in the matter,” he said.
”How would (Bears President Mike) McCaskey feel if someone barged into his luxury box after a bad game, having just been knocked out of the playoffs? If you`re going to have accessibility to the locker room, then have it everywhere.
”We don`t do the same to (Mikhail) Baryshnikov, the New York City Ballet, a symphony orchestra, Sinatra or rock groups,” he said. ”But the players are seen as horses without brains.”
– – –
It was confounding. Chicago gossip columnists had gone 10 days without giving free publicity to a restaurant. Dramatically, the drought ended Wednesday.
The king, Irv Kupcinet, scored what can only be termed a triple double, a term heretofore used to describe a pro basketball player accumulating double figures in points, rebounds and assists in a single game. Now, it can be used to describe dining plugeroos involving more than one citizen.
The prose pro celebrating his 55th anniversary in the newspaper business displayed masterful economy in informing his large and loyal audience of Harry Caray and wife Dutchie ”engaging in a lively discussion about Oakland`s Jose Canseco at Gibson`s” . . . ”Lee Iacocca and his steady, Darrien Earle, spooling spaghetti at the Italian Village after the Notre Dame-Miami game”
. . . and ”Lyric Opera star Placido Domingo noshing at Carnegie Deli, now managed by Steve Fish, son of retired newsman Mike.”
A triple double, a publicist`s nirvana, without even resorting to mention of Brian Dennehy! He`s the actor whose dining had been detailed in recent weeks with a diligence normally associated with the National Weather Service tracking offshore storms. We fretted that Dennehy might be fasting or suffering from anorexia. Then came a fax:
”CHICAGO, Oct. 22-Brian Dennehy, star of the Goodman theatre`s `The Iceman Cometh,` joined attorneys from Chicago-based Ross & Hardies at Eccentric for a post-show dinner Saturday evening. Dennehy is a client of the firm, which is headquartered at 150 North Michigan Avenue and has offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and Somerset, New Jersey.”
