Karl Klockars

Beer and baseball go hand in hand like…well, hotdogs and oversteamed buns. They just nestle in together and hang out, melding together until they’re a big mass of goop. Enough Old Styles at Wrigley and you’ll swear you saw the Babe calling another homer over the right field wall, right before you slump out of your chair and wet yourself.

Wrigleyville changes its bar scene like investment bankers change vehicles – a Lexus this quarter, a Hummer the next; “_____ on Clark” this season, german bierstube the next, Irish O’Fakeys the one after that. No one blinks an eye when one sports joint closes down, only to reopen scant weeks later with newer versions of flat-panel TVs and some sort of gangster’s name on the marquis.

Down in Bridgeport it’s a completely different story. Nothing but asphalt as far as the eye can see around The Cell, which means parking is a breeze but it’s tough to stumble across a reasonably priced can of High Life. Which makes a place like Jimbo’s – otherwise incongruous from hundreds of other corner taverns in the city, another locals bar in a city that used to have one on each block.

From the Sun-Times:

“The biggest surprise for White Sox fans on Opening Day might not be a no-hitter thrown by Jose Contreras or a game-winning homer hit by Jermaine Dye. The biggest surprise could come in being able to have a beer at Jimbo’s.

The neighborhood bar at 33rd and Princeton — the closest bar to Sox Park — will be open when the Sox begin their season April 2. Many Sox fans thought the last beer had been poured there last season, because of a lease dispute.”

To which I say – hooray?

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been to Jimbo’s. It’s a nice place. Jimbo himself is friendly enough, cheap drinks, decent barfood menu, nice patrons from what I could tell. I stopped in there at 10am the morning of the big White Sox victory rally in November ’05. A couple beers made the wait for the parade of buses go by a lot quicker. I’m sure all the rest of the guys around me shirking their job duties would agree.

But does it require this much wailing and gnashing of teeth in its wake, and does it require a huge victory dance for its temporary return? A friend of mine lives around the corner – I’m glad he has a place to walk to that’s not a half mile away. Good for him. Other than that, is it that much of a victory?

Battling the powers that be to win your lease back, your life’s blood, your daily bread is a valiant thing. I’ll be the first one to admit that the bar’s been there since all of 1984, which seems like a decent amount of time to run a joint like that. Good for Jimbo, et al.

Maybe better than reopening an old joint would be a string of new ones. Where would you put them? I don’t know, put a big roof over the Dan Ryan. You’re doing enough work on it already, just put a big slab of steel across the top and give The Cell its own runway of bars. Call it the Cellway. Joan Cusack Avenue. Maybe a thin row of speakeasies along the train tracks on the west edge of the parking desert. Call me a dreamer, but I think there’s room for more than one lonely corner outpost.

Rather than cry and cheer over the trials of one lone (albeit beloved) drinking outpost, if it’s that important, certainly some ambitious entrepaneur could capitalize on the vacancy. Then maybe that part of Chicago won’t be an island of baseball fanatics surrounded by urban blight and general apathy. It seems sacreligious to suggest dragging a little bit of that Wrigleyville flair to the South Side…but maybe then people wouldn’t be terrified of going east of the El tracks.

There’s a bar in Wrigleyville, pretty much as far north as you can go without getting into condo jungle area, that for all appearances and purposes is the younger hip cousin of Jimbo’s. The Gingerman is a step or three north of the Metro and caters to a more rock n’ roll crowd but is only a line drive from a half dozen other meat markets and sports-merch Walmarts.

People come and go, listen to some tunes, play some free pool a couple times a week, watch some TV, have a couple drinks. Bands hang out there before shows – it’s a good place to buy an up-and-coming artist a drink before a set and maybe have some chit-chat before they get dragged to the subterranean SmartBar.

And yet, when The Girl and I wandered in for a pint and to watch the Cubs-Tigers game last season back…the place was vacant. A sweltering, bright sunny day, beautiful baseball weather, blue skies and echoes of organ music bouncing off rooftops. It’s a halfhour to the first pitch and every other joint is packed to the gills with screaming backward-hatted thicknecks calling for Detroit’s blood…

And there were all of two people in the Gingerman. Us. In air- conditioned splendor, enjoying the space, the attendance of the bartender, conversation about Michigan, and the view of watching passing-by men in open grey jerseys talk up their short-shorted baseball-ignorant girlfriends about pop flies and popcorn.

I’d rather hang out at the Gingerman than Jimbo’s, no offense. And I’m a Sox fan – so don’t start throwing around accusations of proximity all willy-nilly. But is it the closeness to the park, the history of a place, the feel of the inside, the parental attitudes of owners? And when the Gingerman goes down…is it going to be breaking news? Maybe I should start the petition signing early.

Not likely. Welcome back, Jimbo’s. Hope you get a few friends to play with down there. Play ball.