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Chicago Tribune
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Vintage Chicago Tribune: 6 activities people used to do in the city during the summer
There are activities we can't wait to experience here each summer — catching a concert in a park; watching Buckingham Fountain's majestic water display explode 150 feet into the air; taking a dip to cool off in Lake Michigan; swaying with thousands of others to the sounds of the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field; or just playing tourist in our hometown. Yet Chicagoans of another era had their own ways of celebrating warm weather that we just don't do today. Here's a look back at six of them. The first match in the sport of kings took place in Chicago, according to the U.S. Polo Association, at Lincoln Park in October 1879. 'For the benefit of the ignorant, polo may be described as shinney (pick-up game of hockey) on horseback, or, rather, ponyback,' the Tribune reported at the time. Onwentsia Club in Lake Forest, which fielded its first polo team in 1896, hosted an epic championship series that pitted the best players in the United States — one team from the East Coast and the other from the West — against each other in August 1933. The best-of-three tourney with spectator seating for 20,000 people was the brainchild of Chicago Blackhawks team founder and U.S. Polo Association executive committee member Maj. Frederic McLaughlin. West won the national championship 12-6. A smaller, faster form of the game called arena polo was played indoors for years at the Chicago Avenue Armory. Oak Brook Polo Club, which was founded by Paul Butler in 1922, and closed earlier this year, is considered one of the oldest of its kind in the U.S. It hosted the U.S. Open Polo Championship for 24 seasons. Prince (now King) Charles was part of a memorable match there on Sept. 5, 1986, when he and England's star player Andrew Seavill were both laid out on the ground after a collision. After a five-minute pause, both the player and the prince appeared to be OK. 'I liked the part when he fell, the best,' said Chicago-based political satirist Aaron Freeman. 'It's not often you see people who won the genetic lottery embarrassing themselves in public.' Before highways were plentiful and car ownership was common, Chicagoans headed to the city's docks to board steamships destined for Milwaukee; Mackinac Island, Michigan; or a variety of other lakeside communities. One such ship was the SS Eastland, which was chartered by Western Electric Co. on July 24, 1915, to transport about 2,500 employees and their families across Lake Michigan to a company picnic at 'the Coney Island of the Midwest' Michigan City, Indiana. Rare Eastland disaster photos discovered in Tribune basementAs people boarded the ship that morning at the Chicago River between LaSalle Drive and Clark Street, however, the Eastland began to list to its side. The ship overturned and within minutes 844 people — including 22 entire families and four members of the Eastland's crew — were dead. Chicago Bears owner George Halas was supposed to be aboard the ship. It was the deadliest day ever in Chicago and the greatest peacetime inland waterways disaster in American history. Several hundred performers — including Goliath the sea elephant — arrived in August 1931, to perform as part of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which became a fixture of summer in Soldier Field's parking lot for decades. Successive open-air 'floating hospitals' in Lincoln Park were built between the 1870s and the 1900s and offered excursions from the piers on Lake Michigan. In 1914, the Chicago Daily News offered to fund a more permanent sanitarium building. Opened in 1921, the impressive Prairie-style structure was one of several Lincoln Park buildings designed by Dwight H. Perkins of the firm Perkins, Fellows, and Hamilton. Perkins, an important Chicago social reformer and Prairie School architect, designed buildings including Café Brauer, the Lion House in the Lincoln Park Zoo and the North Pond Cafe. Vintage Chicago Tribune: Unexpected finds in Chicago parksThe impressive Chicago Daily News Fresh Air Sanitarium building was constructed in brick with a steel arched pavilion with 250 basket baby cribs, nurseries and rooms for older children. The breezes through the shelter were believed to cure babies suffering from tuberculosis and other diseases. Free health services, milk and lunches were provided to more than 30,000 children each summer until 1939, when the sanitarium closed. Major reconstruction of Lake Shore Drive led to the demolition of the building's front entrance. During World War II, the structure became an official recreation center for the United Service Organization. The Chicago Park District converted the building to Theatre on the Lake in the early 1950s. Today it's a lakefront restaurant and venue that hosts concerts and theater events. The rodeo originated in the Southwest as a way for ranchers to celebrate the annual cattle roundup. Promoters brought it to Chicago and other northern cites to capitalize on Americans' nostalgic fascination with the Wild West. From 1925 to 1929, Tex Austin presented rodeos first at Soldier Field and then indoors at Chicago Stadium — though rodeo competitions didn't end in Chicago after Austin's contest packed up and left for good. In 1927, Soldier Field hosted World Championship Rodeo. The sights and thrills of Austin's rodeos had a wide appeal. Women were half of the 35,000 spectators in Soldier Field on the opening day of the 1925 rodeo, the Tribune's society columnist reported. 'The shouts of approval that hit against the sides of the Field Museum and bounced back again were just as soprano as they were deep bass.' Rodeo competition also was open to women as well as Black people and Native Americans, when other professional sports were segregated or off-limits to them. Austin carried the rodeo far afield. He mounted shows in Madison Square Garden, Hollywood and London. His promotions went belly up in the Great Depression, and he opened a restaurant in Santa Fe. But going blind in 1938, he committed suicide. He left a note asking his wife's forgiveness and, on their coach, a stack of photographs of his rodeo days, a time when 'he appeared every inch at home.' Starting 75 years before Lollapalooza took up residence in Grant Park, the Chicagoland Music Festival claimed gaudy attendance numbers at the annual Soldier Field events, figures no longer possible in the renovated stadium. Like the College All-Star Game, Golden Gloves boxing, the Silver Skates Derby and numerous other events, including airplane and horse races, fashion and kite-flying shows, bowling tournaments and wrestling matches, the music festival was organized and sponsored by the Chicago Tribune. The newspaper wasn't shy about promoting its own events in its news pages — especially once longtime publisher Col. Robert McCormick took a liking to it. It's hard to say how much the Tribune's glowing coverage helped the festival thrive, but even accounting for some exaggeration and boosterism, and assuming the reporter was ordered to don his rose-colored glasses, that first Chicagoland Music Festival was a spectacle. Unlike most events, the Chicagoland Music Festival didn't start small and grow. It started big and became huge. About 150,000 — with thousands more unable to get in the stadium — watched the inaugural show Aug. 23, 1930. There were so many people, in fact, that spectators sitting on the sidelines impeded the drum corps' movements. The thrill — and the showmanship — started with the public address announcement: 'You are sitting now in the glow of 392,000 watts of light, and in order that you may have a standard of comparison, I will add that that is three times as large a volume of light as at any baseball game that ever was played at night. Friends, it is the greatest artificial illumination of a single arena in the world's history.' To which the Tribune reported: 'The people rapturously applaud these words. They are rising to the fact that they have come to a big show.' Before that first night was out, the crowd saw 21 marching bands and 16 drum corps, which entered the arena in one bombastic burst. They heard the festival band play the John Philip Sousa marches 'The Washington Post,' 'Stars and Stripes Forever' and 'U.S. Field Artillery.' Another highlight of the night was a 1,000-member African American choir singing the spiritual 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.' The climax of that first evening was the 'Hallelujah' chorus from Handel's 'Messiah,' performed by a combined 3,000-voice choir. While numerous famous singers and musicians played at the festival over the decades, including Louis Armstrong, Frankie Avalon and Mahalia Jackson, for many Chicagoans and their beaming parents, the highlight of the show was no doubt their own children. Thanks for reading!
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
US Open scoring: Does the USGA go too far, or are US Opens a true test of golf?
If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission. Pricing and availability are subject to change. It's not that the United States Golf Association wants to reduce the field at the U.S. Open to so many sniffling babies, getting beat up by gnarly rough, narrow fairways and fast greens. The stance of the governing body of golf in America, which sets the rules and also operates 17 national championships, including this week's tournament at the Oakmont Country Club, is to see who can rise above the weeping and wailing. Advertisement 'We're not trying to humiliate the best players in the world,' said former USGA President Sandy Tatum, after Hale Irwin won the 1974 U.S. Open at 7-over par at Winged Foot. 'We're simply trying to identify them.' The Oakmont Country Club south of Pittsburgh was built on farmland and offers golfers in the U.S. Open a stern test, despite the lack of water hazards or trees. That's never more the case than at Oakmont, that Western Pennsylvania beast that will host the Open for the 10th time, more than any course in America. Players, at least the ones who can park their egos and drivers at the door, accept that the U.S. Open will likely be the most difficult test of the year for them. What's so tough about Oakmont? There is no water. Many of the trees were removed during the last renovation. And the course is generally in as ideal shape as any major championship venue. Advertisement But it's a par-70, so two par-5 scoring opportunities are out the window. And it's long, this year playing at over 7,372. There's a 289-yard par-3 (No. 8), a 507-yard par-4 (No. 15) and a 632-yard par-5 (No. 12). Jim Furyk, Tiger Woods and Angel Cabrera (left to right) wait on the 18th green of the Oakmont Country Club after the final round of the 107th U.S. Open Championship on June 17, 2007. Players also have to contend with the "Church Pew Bunker," a massive fairway trap with rows of thick, high grass. That said, it's been a wet May in the area and rain might fall during the week. The USGA course setup crew is likely not able to greens rolling as fast as they would like (156 players are crossing their fingers) but it also means the rough will be thicker, deeper and wetter. How tough has Oakmont played? Tommy Armour won the first U.S. Open played at Oakmont in 1927, beating Harry Cooper in a playoff. They both shot 21-over 301 but with rudimentary equipment and a game that was still evolving in America, that was the norm for the period. Advertisement The first eight U.S. Opens were won with scores of 300 or more, with the highest total for a winner coming in 1901 when four-time Open champion Willie Anderson and Alex Smith went to a playoff after they posted 43-over 331 at the Myopia Hunt Club, near Boston. It wasn't until Smith shot 295 at the Onwentsia Club in Lake Forest Ill., to win the 1906 Open that someone broke 300 and won. Sam Parks Jr. nearly cut Armour's score in half when the Open went back to Oakmont in 1935, posting 11-over to win. It was another 18 years before the Open went back to Oakmont and Hall of Famer Ben Hogan had the first under-par winning score at 5-under. Five years before, Hogan set a record of 8-under to win the 1948 Open that wasn't matched for 32 years, when Jack Nicklaus shot 8-under at Baltusrol. Advertisement While Oakmont was tough, a player on his game could break par. Since Hogan's 1953 victory, six of seven winners at Oakmont have shot under par for the tournament. The lone exception was 2007, when heat and dry conditions super-charged the greens and Angel Cabera won at 5-over. What are the highest scores to win a U.S. Open, post WWII? Julius Boros wins second Open With brisk wind coming off the Atlantic Ocean and torturing the players at The Country Club near Boston, 43-year-old Julius Boros won his second U.S. Open and became the second-oldest Open winner. Boros, Jacky Cupit and Arnold Palmer survived the breezy conditions the best to make the 18-hole playoff with scores of 9-over par. That remains the highest 72-hole Open score since World War II. Advertisement Boros shot 70 to win the playoff, with Cupit posting a 73 and Palmer a 76. Hale Irwin survives at Winged Foot Irwin won the first of his three U.S. Opens with a 7-over 287, two shots over the immortal Forrest Fezler. Arnold Palmer contended in a U.S. Open for the last time. Irwin shot even par and 8-under to win his next two Opens. Irwin never shot under par for the week, shot 4-over on the weekend and still won. Tom Watson had a 79 in the final round and managed to tie for fifth. Back-to-back years of 5-over The U.S. Open years of 2006 at Winged Foot and 2007 at Oakmont produced champions who shot 5-over 285. Advertisement At Winged Foot, Geoff Ogilvy shot 72-72 on the weekend and won. He sat in the locker room and watched Phil Mickelson and Colin Montgomerie self-destruct on the final hole. Angel Cabrera posted a 69 in the final round to win in 2007 at Oakmont, and like Ogilvy, had to wait for the final group to finish before he knew he had won. That twosome was Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk, both of whom could have forced a playoff with a birdie at the last. How to watch the US Open June 11 Golf Central's Live From The U.S. Open 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Golf Central's Live From The U.S. Open 7 p.m.–9 p.m. June 12 First round USA Network, 6 a.m.–5 p.m. Peacock, U.S. Open All-Access 7 a.m.–5 p.m. Peacock, late afternoon play, 5-8 p.m. Golf Channel, Golf Central's Live From The U.S. Open, 8–10 p.m. Featured Groups, USGA App, Peacock, DirecTV, YouTube TV, 7:17 a.m.-1:02 p.m. June 13 Second round Peacock, 6:30 a.m.–1 p.m. NBC, 1–7 p.m. Peacock, U.S. Open All-Access 7 a.m.–5 p.m. Peacock, late afternoon play, 7 p.m.–8 p.m. Golf Channel, Golf Central's Live From The U.S. Open 8-10 p.m. Featured Groups. USGA App, Peacock, DirecTV, YouTube TV. 7:17 a.m.-1:02 p.m. June 14 Third round Golf Channel, Golf Central's Live From The U.S. Open 8-10 a.m. USA Network, 10 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Peacock, U.S. Open All-Access 10 a.m.–12 p.m. NBC, 12-8 p.m. Golf Channel, Golf Central's Live From The U.S. Open 8–10 p.m. Featured Groups, USGA App, Peacock, DirecTV, YouTube TV, times and groups to be determined. June 15 Fourth round Golf Channel, Golf Central's Live From The U.S. Open 7 a.m.–9 a.m. USA Network, 9 a.m.–12 p.m. Peacock, U.S. Open All-Access, 10 a.m.–12 p.m. NBC, 12 p.m.–7 p.m. Golf Channel, Golf Central's Live From The U.S. Open 7 p.m.–9 p.m. Featured Groups, USGA App, Peacock, DirecTV, YouTube TV, times and groups to be determined. What they're saying about Oakmont 'I think it just puts an emphasis on hitting the fairway and hitting greens. If you're a premier ball striker, you'll be licking your chops. You're legit in the fairway, in the first cut. It's pretty hard to be in the bunker and have an open shot to the green. If you're in the rough, it's very lie-dependent. For the most part, the only control you can have is if you keep it right in front of you. — Xander Schauffele 'It requires patience and discipline. If you just get lazy, like on any drive, any wedge shot, any chip, any putt, you can kind of look stupid pretty fast, especially at a place like this.' — Justin Thomas 'It seems like it's tougher this time around, but that's just maybe with the little bit of added length. It's going to make it a little more difficult. But yeah, somehow I figured out a way to get it under par. It was mostly the driving. Obviously even driving it in the fairway here, it's still really difficult, but I hit a lot of good drives and a lot of good iron shots. — Dustin Johnson on winning the Open at Oakmont in 2016. This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: US Open: USGA makes sure it's historically, the toughest major to win
