Uncle Adolph Turns 100

Last year, on the occasion of his 99^th birthday, I wrote a blog entry about my uncle Adolph. He turned 100 today, so I’ve excerpted much of that here and updated for the recent and not-so-recent past.

Adolph giving a blessing at my parents' wedding (with Grandma Helen),

Sept. 3, 1946



Adolph and my father were the sons of Isadore, a Romanian immigrant who arrived in Chicago around 1900, and Helen, whose parents came to the U.S. from Germany in the 1880s. They lived in the Van Dorn Apartments at 6054 S. Michigan Avenue until moving to 7430 S. Bennett Avenue in the early 1920s. Adolph attended Carter Elementary School at 5740 S. Michigan and Hebrew school at South Side Hebrew Congregation at S. Michigan and E. 59^th Street. The temple burned down during the 1920s but the Hebrew school on 59^th Street still stands. He graduated from Bryn Mawr School (the alma mater of Michelle Obama) and Hyde Park High School. Adolph enrolled in the University of Michigan and transferred after one year – he admits to have been homesick – to the University of Chicago (Class of 1930), where he also earned his medical degree. 

The Former South Side Hebrew Congregation school and Bryn Mawr School

As youngsters on the South Side, the boys became White Sox fans. Adolph attended his first Sox game in 1921 (the year after the eight members of the Black Sox were banned from baseball) and remembers that Red Faber pitched against Eddie Rommel and the Philadelphia Athletics, a 10-inning win on August 23. The Sox had four future Hall of Famers on the field that day: Faber, Eddie Collins, Harry Hooper and Ray Schalk. Adolph also saw the second-to-last time a pitcher started and won both games of a doubleheader, Urban Shocker of the St. Louis Browns, who defeated the Sox 6-2 in both games on September 6, 1924. Because the family didn’t have a car, they took the Wentworth Avenue streetcar from Bennett Avenue to the ballpark. He would wait 38 years to see a World Series on the South Side (thanks again for getting us tickets for Game 1), then another 46 to see his second.

7430 S. Bennett Ave.

Adolph received his physician’s license on July 31, 1936, which he retained for 53 years, and began practicing as a pediatrician affiliated with Michael Reese Hospital. He enlisted in the Army Medical Corps during World War II and served in the South Pacific. While there, Adolph played an instrumental role in the rebuilding of the Jewish temple in Manila after the end of the war. Returning to the South Side, he resumed his medical practice at the corner of E. 71^st Street and South Shore Drive, across the street from the entrance to South Shore Country Club (now the South Shore Cultural Center). He married Rosalind Munk in 1947, and they had three children – Jim, Bob and Cathy – and lived at 7411 S. Oglesby Avenue. After most of his patients’ families moved out of the neighborhood, the family pulled up stakes for the North Shore in 1963. He joined a group practice in Highland Park and worked at a clinic in Waukegan well into his eighties.

7411 S. Oglesby Ave.



I will always associate Uncle Adolph with the physician’s black bag, for his were the days of house calls. One such call was for me, when as a high-school freshman I was expecting the mumps after the gestation period from my brother was over. “This boy doesn’t have the mumps,” he said after a bedside examination. “He has the German measles.”  After three days, the German measles were gone and the mumps arrived, resulting in two weeks of missed school. The children of White Sox, including the sons of shortstop Luis Aparicio (see the personally autographed picture below), were patients on the South Side. My cousin Jim also became a pediatrician and, at his father’s urging took up a specialty; he became one of the world’s foremost pediatric oncologists and directly and indirectly saved the lives of thousands of children.

Luis Aparicio autographed picture



Except for his years in the Medical Corps, Adolph saw the Sox play every year until 2007. It was thus fitting that we were at the August 17, 2006, game vs. Kansas City, when the leadoff men for both teams hit home runs in the first and second innings. The scoreboard later posted this was a first in Major League Baseball history (and it hasn’t happened since). I turned to my uncle and said, “See, all these years you’ve been coming to the ballpark and you still see something new.”

In fact, learning new things is an important part of Adolph’s life. He reads extensively, uses the computer to surf the Internet and sponsors adult education programs at his synagogue. During the previous decade, after Rosalind passed away, he traveled extensively, including river cruises of the Amazon and Danube (a trip to the ancestral city of Iasi, Romania, turned out to be logistically impossible). When asked whether he dined at the same group table nightly on the Amazon trip, Adolph replied, “No, those are for the old people.” He still plays an excellent game of bridge and had a regular game, as well as a poker game, until a few years ago.

The past year has been a trying one for Adolph and the family. On June 10, Jim died suddenly while on his annual rafting trip to the Grand Canyon. Although he was a few months short of 63, he seemed so much younger to all of us. His funeral at North Shore Congregation Israel was virtually standing-room-only, and the University of Chicago held a memorial service a month later that featured the first and last time “Sholom Aleichem,” "Rockin’ Robin” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” – fitting tributes to Jim – were played on the Rockefeller Chapel organ. (For my take on Jim, please read http://brulelaker.blogspot.com/2011/06/requiem-for-doc-nach.html.)

With Jim and Adolph, 1988

Adolph has been always quite a Stoic, and he’s weathered this past year about as well as can be imagined. The downside of a long life is remembering those departed: father (1942), mother (1955), brother (1973), wife (1991) and son (2011). He still keeps his sense of humor: I called him after he attended a Sox game last season – almost 90 years to the day of his first game – to ask what he thought of the evening, a 10-2 Sox loss. “It wasn’t a bad game,” he said. “It was a terrible game.” He said he doesn’t think he’ll go to a game this season but perhaps we can arrange at least one visit and a tribute to a most loyal fan.

At Sox Park, July 30, 2011



So it's January 4, 2012, and best wishes to Uncle Adolph on #100. We're happy to be able to celebrate with you.

Power Lunches

I’ve had what one could call two power lunches, one real and one more in jest. I’d held off writing this entry but one of the participants has been in the news lately and another always is.

The first took place in the home of the Power Breakfast, The Loews Regency Hotel in New York City, in fall 1988. I was in the city for an awards ceremony and expected to spend time with the executives in our company’s New York office. They were all too busy upon my morning arrival, so I called my father’s 89-year-old cousin Rosalie to tell her I was in town. She was meeting a friend for lunch at the Regency, which her husband had owned before selling it to the Tisch family, and asked me to join them.

The 540 Park restaurant was elegant, to say the least (a turkey club sandwich will now set you back $22), with the tables well spaced for privacy and quiet conversation. Seated at the next table, over my left shoulder, were Mr. and Mrs. Armand Hammer. The 90-year-old chairman and CEO of Occidental Petroleum, which he joined in 1957 when it had three full-time employees, looked like a rather dour sea captain in his blue double-breasted blazer with gold buttons. His wife – the third Mrs. Hammer who would pass away the following year – needed assistance in cutting the meat on her plate, for which Mr. Hammer enlisted the aid of their waiter. I don’t remember them conversing much. Armand Hammer died in 1990, while still leading Oxy Pete.

We were finishing up lunch when the occupants at a table in the far corner stood up to leave. I was struck by a tall, attractive, impeccably dressed blond woman, who had been seated next to a gray-haired man with his back turned. He got up just after her, and I recognized the impeccably dressed Senator Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican candidate for U.S. President. Goldwater had retired from the Senate after declining to run for reelection in 1986 and spent a good part of his later life (he died in 1998) lamenting the rightward drift and increasing influence of Christian fundamentalists in the GOP. The companion most likely was the woman who would become his second wife (32 years his junior); he had become a widower in 1985.

The story wouldn’t be worth retelling except for the sequel. Upon returning to the office, the receptionist asked my about lunch. “It was very interesting,” I replied. “I had lunch with Armand Hammer and Barry Goldwater.” On my first day back in Chicago, one of the big office gossips said, “I hear you had a very interesting lunch in New York.” She thought I’d actually dined with them.

The second one – a real one – took place in 2006. After a Wednesday noon basketball game, my friend Jon asked if I were having lunch in the 2^nd-floor Grill Room. We usually don’t check up on each other, but this time he wanted to fill a table because then-Sen. Jon Corzine was coming to meet with him. Corzine at the time was head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), and he was soliciting a contribution from Jon, whose brother Corzine knew in Washington.

Four of us joined Corzine, and the main discussion topic was basketball, not politics. Corzine had grown up outside downstate Taylorville and had been a 6’3” walk-on forward on the freshman basketball team at the University of Illinois in 1965 (freshmen weren’t eligible for varsity sports back then). He said he would have played with us but was nursing a knee injury. Corzine then told us another basketball player – who would be receiving big DSCC support – was on his way in to join us: State Sen. Barack Obama, who had won the Senate primary election less than a month before.

Obama breezed in – he was already on a hectic campaign schedule – and pulled up a chair, declining lunch because of his limited time allotment. The talk again turned to basketball, and we invited him to both our lunchtime games and Jon’s Saturday game in the suburbs during the summer. As a novice to the big-time political arena, he told us Michelle had him on the “No Basketball List,” worried that an injury would hobble him and his campaign. I met him once again right after he announced his Presidential run and reminded him of the standing invitations; Obama laughed and said he heard Saturdays were “a great game” (he has a friend who plays) but he still hasn’t joined us.

His stay lasted only about 15 minutes, and people asked me for my take on him. Just from that short time basically shooting the breeze, I believed I was in the presence of greatness, just by the way he related to everybody around the table. I told people I thought he could beat Hillary Clinton for the nomination and anybody the Republicans would slate against him and only lament not putting money on it.

Despite being in the ticketed section in Grant Park on November 4, 2008, we were far back and could barely see the podium. It didn’t matter; we were there when the historic announcement was broadcast on CNN and the new First Family strode out to greet the celebrants. Just two years earlier, the man shook my hand, clasped my left shoulder, looked me straight in the eye and thanked my for the time. I think he’ll fare much better next year than Corzine did this year.

Lace 'Em Up and Get Out on the Ice

It’s outdoor ice-skating season, and Chicago has several attractive rinks. I didn’t make it to any last season but will soon be lacing up the Bauers and heading to Millennium Park. Ice-skating is a great way to exercise and take one back to youthful days.

Millennium Park ice rink

My brother and I learned to skate at age 6 the old-fashioned way: our parents somehow found two pairs of hand-me-down skates (I remember one being from a second cousin), which our mother put on and pushed us out on to the ice. In those days, the ice was natural, having been “flooded” by the park district with no barriers. The season lasted as long as temperatures remained regularly below freezing.

We had each other to flop around with and be teased by a few girls in our class who were already accomplished skaters. By the end of the day, without help or lessons, both of us were making good progress gliding along, as opposed to “walking” on the ice. I don’t think it took more than a session or two to join the other skaters going counter-clockwise around the rink.

Originally, the rink featured a warming house that was essentially a shack with a hot stove in the center. Despite there being bars around the stove, one winter my brother somehow managed to stick his rear end through the wide space between the bars to warm his wet pants seat. He stayed too long and ended up with a burn on one of his cheeks. A modern brick facility replaced the old warming house shortly thereafter.

Watts Park Fieldhouse

As accomplished skaters with growing feet, we required new skates almost every year. One such shopping trip took us to Mages Sporting Goods in downtown Evanston on December 1, 1958. On the way, we heard on the radio about a huge fire at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago. Upon arrival, the store was buzzing with the news, and we were particularly struck by the fact that many of the children were 9 years old, our same age. The fire resulted in the deaths of 92 students and 3 nuns.

The very active 1958-1959 season would be the last one for my extended skating career. Warmer winters and switching to basketball resulted in very few days at the rink in subsequent years.

The park district sponsored senior and junior hockey leagues in its weathered wooden-boarded rink off the main rink. For us juniors, there was no checking or lifting the puck, so only the goalie wore pads. We hardly looked like today’s kids. Our team, the Silverstreaks (we pulled the name out of thin air), won the four-team championship, edging out the Blackhawks, Rangers and Sputniks. We missed the medals ceremony – nobody informed us about it – and but still collected the silver first-place medals. I have several weathered clippings showing season standings and scoring, including one with “1 0 1” for GOP Presidential candidate Fred Karger.

Hockey medal, 1959

Skating races were another popular event, with heats for several age groups. I won the semi-final for 9 year-old boys, partly by knowing the post position meant the shortest distance around the oval. Lining up there again for the finals, I broke fast at the gun but not fast enough; the boy next to me cut in front and fell, taking us both down.

Skating races, 1959 (I'm on far right)

For years I owned a pair of leather CCMs with steel toes, the fashion for hockey skates. I took them to college and skated in the public rink in the Chestnut Hill section of Boston, but that was pretty much it. The skates remained in the closet for a number of years, taken out for skating with our daughter at McFetridge Sports Center and a friend’s birthday party at a Skokie ice rink.

Marisa at McFetridge Sports Center

The opening of the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink in Millennium Park in December 2001 provided a beautiful setting at an unbeatable price: free if you bring your own skates, $1 to rent a locker. As I prepared to resume skating again, I remembered something that bugged me in my youth. While gliding around the rink on weekends, I’d see old/older men in beat-up skates and vowed never to be one of them. My old CCMs would qualify me as just such a guy, so I headed to Sports Authority and purchased a pair of Bauer Impact 75s. They look exactly like the skates rented by the park district, which makes me look like an old dude in new skates. After my first time out, I learned to under-dress (coat goes in the locker) because one can easily work up a sweat.

Cold weather is expected this week, so now may be the time to go. Anybody out there care to join me and recapture a joy from your youth?

Dedicated Follower of Fashion

One finds he is getting old in many ways, the latest being that other than some expensive English-made shoes and a $10,000 IWC watch, I saw nothing interesting in the latest New York Times men’s fashion supplement. Despite rarely wearing one these days, I still look most closely at men’s suits. Even with several pages devoted to top designers, not one suit piqued my interest, other than to wonder who would buy most of them.

Even during the 1970s, the publishing industry – in which I toiled for the first 10 years of my professional career – didn’t require a suit and tie. I had a basic blue suit for weddings (my own included), funerals and a few special occasions. At one time I owned a blue-striped Haspel seersucker suit that was machine-washable. Fashion usually dictated when to buy a new suit, since they never wore out.

In contemplating a career change, I knew my new profession would demand a suit, so I began purchasing them at end-of-season sales. Other than finding something I liked for a decent price, two challenges loomed. The first was the drop – the difference in the coat size and the waist measurement for the pants, usually 6 inches – was always too small in my slimmer days, requiring massive alterations in the slacks. The second was my broad shoulders caused a bump running horizontally a few inches below the collar, which often necessitated two or three fittings to get it right. Luckily, I found a brand – Calvin Klein – and retailer – Baskins – that made a good fit. The tailor at Baskins who did his magic must have departed a few years later, so I switched to Bigsby & Kruthers, then the foremost suit retailer in Chicago. Buying on sale at the end of a season resulted in a wardrobe by several suit makers in some differing styles.

The perfect solution to my workplace haberdashery came shortly after starting at The Financial Relations Board. Samir Shasha, a nattily dressed native of Iran, suggested his custom tailor, P. Charlie, who visited Chicago several times a year. Charlie (not his real name), a native of India who lived in Hong Kong, took a suite in the Ritz-Carlton to meet with clients. His prices were reasonable, especially with the custom measurements eliminating hacked-up trousers and ill-fitting shoulders and permitting several choices in color and detailing. I eventually settled on one style (after ordering a few double-breasted models when they were in vogue twenty years ago): two-button ventless jacket, Armani-type lapels, flapless side jacket pockets, four functioning sleeve buttons (leaving the bottom one unbuttoned is a pretense I avoid), pleated trousers and 1 ¼-inch cuffs. My motto was, “I may not be the smartest guy in the office but I dress well.” Until Casual Friday hit, I had a regular rotation of five winter and five summer suits.

Between the casual revolution and being self-employed for 11 years, some of my remaining suits are more than ten years old. Each was made by R.M. Rock, who took over Mr. Charlie’s client list after he retired. Rock’s Custom Tailor is known for his Business School Tradition campaign, in which he markets to the top graduate schools of business across the country. The very few I’ve purchased lately now are slightly different; the top button is higher on the jacket, which now has flaps on the side pockets, and the trouser pleats are gone.

Today’s suits hold no interest for me. The current trend is jackets with side vents, which is fine if you have a small butt. Another is peaked lapels on single breasted jackets, especially on the skinny-cut models. Cuffs are gone, which make trousers look even worse if they are hemmed too short. The three-button jacket trends appears to be over.

I may someday be ready for an additional summer suit, but so far one new one and two older ones will do. Hope that new one isn’t my last one, if you know what I mean.

A Little Respect

Janet and her mother, Rebecca, taught a combined 70+ years in this nation’s urban public schools. When my mother-in-law started her full-time career in Brooklyn, she was netting out about what she was paying the sitter to take care of my brother-in-law. Janet began in 1973 as a day-to-day substitute, making $40 a day. We would wait for the phone to ring in the early a.m., find out if the school was within driving range (I worked in Skokie back then), then rush to get her to the assignment on time. Teaching back then was an honored and respected profession.

 

 

 

Teacher's Certificate, 1974



Both were lucky to retire at opportune times. By the late-1960s, the New York City Public Schools were in disarray, as the Ocean Hill-Brownsville crisis caused teachers’ strikes tinged with anti-Semitism – ironic in that there were Jewish quotas when Rebecca started three decades before. She retired in June 1973 and started collecting her pension. The city’s well-documented financial crisis began shortly thereafter, and subsequent teacher pension plans were not nearly as good. My in-laws moved to Florida one year later; with my father-in-law’s more modest pension and a lower cost of living, they lived a nice but hardly opulent retirement before each passed away in their late 80s. Thank you, Albert Shanker.

Janet heeded Rebecca’s advice: earn an advanced degree, become a specialist and get out of a 30+ children classroom. Her first master’s degree was in reading. Even as a specialist, she would spend hours outside the classroom grading papers, devising lesson plans and making progress reports (punching holes in Chicago Public Schools-provided forms with an official CPS paper punch). So much for the so-called “short day” for teachers. The CPS, in its inimical wisdom, did away with reading specialists a few years later, so Janet then earned a master’s in special education. Until her final year, when a new principal didn’t want the reputation as an easy grader, she received Superior ratings every year. Her service at the last school was long enough for her to teach two generations of students.

Janet's Classroom

In Janet’s case, full pension benefits kicked in at 34.5 years of service, paying 75 percent of the average salary for the last four years of service. She considered teaching longer, in order to get a higher pension (replacing a low earlier year with a higher last one for calculation purposes) and keep far superior insurance coverage. Janet opted to retire on time, but the prospect of working for what would have amounted to a full-time job at a 25 percent salary was only a minor consideration. She was tired of the ancillary day-to-day crap that made the education of children a third or maybe fourth priority in the CPS and the continuing disrespect shown to her profession.

Janet's Classroom

Teaching, like many service professions today, makes its reason-for-being almost secondary. For example, the top priorities for public relations agencies are new business development and agency profitability; serving clients comes somewhere after these. Tough luck if you’re good at what you do; the higher you get in the organization the less important it becomes. As for the argument that poor teachers are protected, I’ve seen plenty of poor PR practitioners kept on for any number of reasons.

In the CPS, the priorities are roughly the following:

1. Satisfying various mandates like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, most notably the emphasis on test scores.
2. Protecting your turf from incursions by fellow teachers (in Janet’s case keeping classroom teachers from dumping their kids on her without authorization) and principals’ dictates.
3. Following CPS regulations on filing reports and the like.
4. Educating children to become thinking, functioning members of society.

I’ve always maintained that Janet had three jobs: babysitter (simply keeping order), instructor (getting the children to become those thinking, functioning members of society) and socializer (teaching society’s mores in the absence of sorely lacking parental guidance). One would think you could get rich doing that. I’ve also challenged any number of people – directly and through correspondence – to try teaching in an urban public school and see what it entails. The badmouthing of teachers would drop significantly, although it may make no difference in Chicago because of continuing efforts to expand charter schools that hire non-certified teachers, pay them below-union wages and benefits, and don’t offer tenure. Thus comes my call for respect.

The current dust-up here is appalling for several reasons, the primary being the almost total lack of respect for CPS teachers by Mayor Emanuel and the new superintendent, Jean-Claude Brizard, along with their hand-picked school board. At first, they stated insufficient funds let the CPS out of paying a 4 percent raise. They then started beating the drums for a longer school day. Rather than meeting with the teachers to determine how best to implement programs uniform across the system for the 2012-2013 term, Rahmbo and The Blizzard began offering 2 percent raises and various other incentives to schools that would vote to abrogate their contract and opt for a longer day, either immediately or in January. Where, may I ask, is that money going to come from?

Luckily, most of the teachers wouldn’t bite – somebody with a son working for the mayor tried to tell me it was a success – and only a handful of schools took up the offer. This is due in great part to the leadership of CTU President Karen Lewis, the only black woman in the class of 1974 at Dartmouth College. Unlike the last CTU head, who basically served as Arne Duncan’s lap dog and found English to be more like a second language, Lewis is a strong and articulate leader facing a deck neatly stacked against the union by the mayor, the superintendent, the board and their cheerleaders at the Tribune. To twist a Seinfeld line, “Who wouldn’t love a longer school day?” The CTU is on board but, as a friend pointed out, Rahm has a sense of entitlement about this issue. It’s his way or the fucking highway, which is pretty much how he put it to Lewis during one of their chats. She sternly but politely came back at him, knowing the bully wasn’t going to get his way.

So here’s my advice, Rahm. Show some respect to the hard-working teachers and invite the best minds (plus Brizard) to sit down and map out a strategy for next year’s term. Given that student performances have shown little improvement during the last twenty years, despite the hype from Duncan and Paul Vallas, what’s the harm in waiting another ten months? But don’t ask Janet; she’s neither ready to forgive nor forget your attitude toward her and her colleagues. Common courtesy, you know, doesn’t cost one cent, and maybe you can contribute to restoring teaching to an honored and respected profession.

NOTE: After the threat of losing a lawsuit over unfair labor practices, the board agreed to halt its efforts to institute a longer school day during the 2011-2012 term in return for the CTU dropping its suit. Both sides will be meeting on how to implement a longer school day for the 2012-2013 term.

A Season Ends; A New Year Begins

As part of my speech at my daughter’s bat mitzvah twenty years ago, I noted that being Jewish and being a White Sox fan both involve large amounts of tradition and faith.  For example,  “As Jews we say, ‘Next year in Jerusalem,’ while as White Sox fans we simply say, ‘Wait ‘til next year.’” In 2011 and as 5771 becomes 5772, the end of the regular baseball season and the beginning of the Jewish New Year coincide almost exactly, making the perfect time to think a bit about both.

Sox fans started the season with high expectations based on solid starting pitching, a new left-handed power hitter and a pretty solid line-up both on the field and in the bullpen. I won’t rehash the disastrous start to the season, only to note through early June, I’d seen 7 wins and only 2 losses, which at one time consisted of half of the team’s home-park victories. During the week of May 16-22, I attended three games in five days, all with my cousin Jim and all Sox wins. The season was looking up, after seeing Mark Buehrle break the MLB record for most interleague wins with a 9-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers and former Sox hurler Jon Garland. By June 9, the Sox were now only 3 games under .500 and 5½ games out of first place. Then tragedy struck the next day.

Alex Rios crosses home plate vs. the Dodgers,

May 21, 2011

Jim, one of the world’s foremost pediatric oncologists, would miss the next homestand in early June for his annual rafting trip with former Camp Ojibwa young men in the Grand Canyon. Before departing, he told me after 15 years it would be his last, owing to various complications. While watching the Sox about to blow another game in the late innings, I received a call from my cousin Cathy. “Are you sitting down?” she asked. “Jimmy’s gone.” I knew what she meant. My first thought was an accident but it turned out to be most likely a heart attack.

Dr. Jim Nachman



Rather than refer directly to my blog item about Jim – “Requiem for Doc Nach” – I’m including a link below from a blog post by the mother of a former patient. Please read it; he was an incredible man, pure and simple. I proceeded to see the Sox lose 10 of the next 12 games, with final win coming on the second-to-last game of the season. Some were major blowouts, leading to early exits from the ballpark.

http://inspiredbyerin.blogspot.com/2011/06/james-nachman-md.html

Thus the season turned out to be a huge disappointment. Ozzie is gone, Buehrle’s probably gone and 2005 is a distant memory. I guess it’s fitting, since it pales in perspective to Jim being gone. The photograph below was taken at my second game back after Jim’s death, the first in his seats. After posting the photo on the Internet, stating I still couldn’t grasp Jim was gone, a friend gave some good advice: think in terms of “he won’t be here today.” I’ve thought that way in my five subsequent games in Section 126, Row 9; it helps but it still hurts.

Section 126, Row 9 Seats 1-4

Cathy is going to keep Jim’s Sox tickets for next season because the experience, she says, “is my life.” I know of what she speaks. Dad took me to my first Sox game either 53 or 54 years ago. Although we weren’t season-ticket holders, we attended a number of games every year, including the last one together behind the Yankees dugout on a sold-out Bat Day (see my November 2010 blog entry “The Major Gives Us a Day to Remember”). I had tears in my eyes after the final out at Comiskey Park in 1990, as I saw my life flash before me. That same year I attended the last Opening Day at the old ballpark with Jim (the only time in a suit and tie) and enjoyed many other games with him, including Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, the 2008 tiebreaker and Buehrle’s perfect game. I missed Jim’s presence when Buehrle basically said his farewells after last night’s game. Opening Day 2012, my third “new year,” just won’t be the same either.

View from Section 126, Sept. 13, 2011

This Rosh Hashanah thus becomes a time of more reflection. My uncle Alan passed away in July, after leading an almost entirely healthy 82 years, in California. I have two friends – Mitch and John – who are battling serious health issues. This provides perspective on what’s truly important in life. Given my various strokes of luck and good fortune, I am still very thankful at this holiday season. L'shana tova tikateivu v'teihateimu – sh'nat osher, bri'ut, v'shalom. I wish all my family and friends a happy, healthy and peaceful year. And a division title at the least would be nice too.

Far Away But Close By

During an earlier time, news that an airplane carrying a Russian professional hockey team crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 43 of 45 passengers, simply would be added to the list of such tragedies. With the internationalization of the game, during the past season I saw three members of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) play in Chicago and south Florida, as well as their newly appointed head coach serving as an NHL assistant coach. Ironically, only one was Russian. I’ve also seen another player in 2008 and two assistant coaches play for the Blackhawks.

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl

The fall of the Soviet Union brought players from Russia and Eastern Europe to the NHL in increasing numbers during the 1990s. For the 2000-2001 season, 87 Russians were playing fulltime in the world’s premier hockey league. The 24-team KHL, formed in 2008-2009 after the Russian Super League disbanded, quickly became the second strongest professional hockey league. Numerous circumstances, including financial incentives by the KHL, reduced the number of Russian players in the NHL to 27 (plus 10 from former Soviet Socialist Republics) in the 2009-2010 season.

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl was formed in 1949 and came from the Super League with 19 other teams for the inaugural KHL season. It finished third in the Western Conference in 2008-2009 but advanced to the finals before losing in seven games to Ak Bars Kazan. Lokomotiv was defeated in the Western Conference finals during the last two seasons and had made a number of roster changes for the start of the 2011-2012 season.

Here are those I’ve seen:

Brad McCrimmon. The long-time NHL defenseman played alongside some of the game's best, including Ray Borque, Paul Coffey, Chris Pronger and Nicklas Lidstrom. McCrimmon, 52, spent the last three seasons as an assistant coach with the Red Wings, where Marisa and I saw him behind the bench during the February 18, 2011, game vs. the Florida Panthers at the BankAtlantic Arena. He was about to coach his first regular-season KHL game.

Asst. Coach Brad McCrimmon (left) behind Ruslan Salei (#24), Feb. 2011

Ruslan Salei. The 36-year-old Belarusian also had a long NHL career, finishing a final season with the Red Wings in 2011. His slashing penalty at 19:38 of the 2^nd period led to the Panthers’ second goal, 5 seconds later. He was on the ice for the Wings’ winning goal at 12:28 of the final period. Salei played one season and part of another with the Panthers before being traded to the Colorado Avalanche for Karlis Skranstins in February 2008.

Ruslan Salei celebrates with teammates after Todd Bertuzzi's winning goal, Feb. 2011

Karlis Skranstins. I saw the Latvian defenseman play for two teams in one season and a third team last year. Skranstins, 37, played his first full NHL season with Nashville in 1999-2000 before being traded to the Avalanche four years later. He was with the Avs at the United Center for a game vs. the Blackhawks, shortly before being traded to the Panthers for Ruslan Salei. I attended a Panthers game vs. the New York Islanders less than two weeks after the trade. His final two NHL seasons were with the Dallas Stars, which included a game witnessed from the first row of the United Center in December 2010.

Karlis Skranstin (#37) skates behind Jonathan Toews, Dec. 2010

Alexander Vasyunov. The young Russian left-winger played 18 games in his only NHL season with the New Jersey Devils, including 4:16 in a December 2010 victory over the Blackhawks. Only 23 years old, he played with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl before joining the Devils’ American Hockey League team in 2008.

Josef Vasicek. His seven-year NHL career was almost over when he played for the New York Islanders vs. the Panthers in March 2008. The Czech center, 30, served two stints with the Carolina Hurricanes.

The most noted player on the team, Pavol Demitra, was a member of the Vancouver Canucks when I saw the team play the Hawks and Panthers during the 2009-2010 season but he sat out both games with injuries. The Czech center, 36, broke in with the St. Louis Blues in 1993. He had three 30+ goal seasons with the Blues.

Alexander Karpotsev and Igor Kovolev served as assistant coaches for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. Karpotsev played parts of four seasons in the early 2000s with the Blackhawks. His trade that sent Brian McCabe to Toronto in 2000 was one of the worst in team history, just behind the Esposito-Hodge-Stanfield trade to Boston. McCabe is still active in the NHL, having been the Panthers’ captain last season until being shipped off to the New York Rangers before the trade deadline. Karpotsev's final season in the NHL was a short one, 6 games with the Panthers in 2005.

Brian McCabe (#24) skates off the ice after Dennis Wideman's goal coming 5 seconds

after a slashing penalty to Ruslan Salei, Feb. 2011

Although this may seem harsh, Hawks announcer Pat Foley was spot on with his assessment of Karpotsev after a trade to the Islanders for a 5^th-round pick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iviLY1RvNc

Kovolev also had a disappointing career with the Hawks, having spent parts of two seasons in the minors six years after joining the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1997. The left-winger registered only 9 goals and 20 assists in 82 games in his first season with the Hawks. Kovolev returned to Russia and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl for the 2004-2005 season, retiring as a player after the 2009-2010 season.

The NHL was already experiencing the tragic deaths of three players during the off season, two by suicide and one by accidental drug-and-alcohol overdose, when the news of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl crash was announced. Because professional hockey has expanded far from the days when almost all of the pros were Canadian, a plane crash in Russia has wide-ranging and, of course, sad repercussions.