Windy City Weekend: Host Chat continues
You can catch more of Kevin this Saturday at Zanies in Rosemont. Purchase your tickets at kevinbozeman.com.
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'Chicago's game': 16-inch softball, created on Near South Side, celebrates 135th anniversary
16-INCH SOFTBALL:
It's one of Chicago's most unique sports, with a history that goes back to the late 19th century.
The game is 16-inch softball, and it has been a staple of Chicago's outdoor sports season for generations. Thousands of Chicagoans are familiar with this brawny cousin to baseball and 12-inch softball, played in parks and playgrounds throughout the Chicagoland area and celebrated as a Windy City tradition in movies like "About Last Night."
"The greatest thrill of my life was playing for my father's [16-inch softball] team," recalled Mike Royko, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Chicago Daily News, Sun-Times and Tribune during a 1982 interview with filmmaker Scott Jacobs. "I tell ya, the Pulitzer Prize doesn't even compare."
Like baseball and 12-inch softball, 16-inch softball is played within a baseball diamond with outfielders, infielders, a pitcher and a catcher.
But, as most Chicagoans know, unlike baseball and 12-inch softball, 16-inch softball is played without gloves. The catcher, the pitcher and everyone else on defense fields plays bare-handed.
"It's great because anybody can play it," said Paul Rowan, the president of the Chicago 16-Inch Softball Hall of Fame. "All you need is a bat and a ball."
This month, Chicago's quintessential game is celebrating its 135th anniversary, ironically on a day which is associated with football. Back on Thanksgiving Day in 1887, a group of students from Harvard and Yale created the game at the Farragut Boat Club on the Near South Side in Chicago.
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The students, who were visiting Chicago, were waiting at the South Side athletic club for ticker tape results of the annual Harvard-Yale football game.
"They were standing outside and heard Yale beat Harvard," Rowan said. "A Yale alumni got excited and threw a boxing glove at a nearby Harvard supporter. A reporter named George Hancock saw this and encouraged the students to tape the boxing glove in the shape of a ball, and then play ball with it. The game grew from there"
Roeper's Reviews: Spend or Save?
ROEPER'S REVIEWS: SPEND OR SAVE?
"Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3" - SPEND
One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's most popular team of superheroes is saying goodbye in their third and final film, in "Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3"
"Silo" - SPEND
In the new Apple TV+ movie "Silo", a community exists in a giant underground silo that plunges hundreds of stories deep. There, people live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them from the outside, toxic earth.
"Love Again" - SAVE
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In "Love Again" a woman is coping with the loss of her fiancé. So, she begins sending his old number "romantic texts"... only for the new owner of the number to become captivated by the beautiful honesty of her words.
"Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story" - SPEND
In the prequel series to the hit Netflix series "Bridgerton", "Queen Charlotte: A Bridgeton Story" follows the early life of Queen Charlotte.
SUPERDAWG ANNIVERSARY:
The legendary Chicago business, Superdawg is celebrating its 75th anniversary on May 9. The beloved Chicago-staple is family owned and operated to this day with all the nostalgia of a drive-in and car hop service.
An honorary street sign bearing the founders' names, Maurie and Flaurie Berman, will be unveiled.
Some of Superdawg's most popular items include its well-known Superdawg, along with its "Whooskidawg" which is their polish sausage and its Superonionchips, which are its unique, square onion rings.
It also has a Supercheesie cheeseburger, a Whoopercheesie double cheeseburger, a Supertamale, and Supershakes and Supermalts.