Michael Sneed

“It was certainly a first in front of the Ritz: a good-sized, sort of fancy tent astride two large industrial carts, all topped with a large Chicago Fire [soccer] tarp,” said a nearby resident.

It’s still a calumny Murdoch continues to poison the nation’s inkwell with fake Fox news; but I am ever so grateful for the day he was forced out the door of the Sun-Times, thus enabling this journalist to witness the golden age of Chicago’s two great American newspapers.

Just weeks before she is inducted into the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame, Loyola University’s Sister Jean spoke with Sneed about a childhood filled with family and exotic pets and a ministry devoted to basketball, kindness and faith in God: ‘We are never alone.’

First lady M.K. Pritzker gave columnist Michael Sneed a tour of the quietly elegant, Illinois artist-infused, dreamily redecorated mansion and exclusive details on the book she’s written about its history and secrets.

History has not forgotten Chicago’s Haymarket Square Riot, a peaceful labor protest that morphed into mayhem and death. However, history’s fading ink can lose heroes along the way, specifically Illinois Gov. John P. Altgeld and the famous Illinois poet Vachel Lindsay.

Obviously, there is no precedent for prosecuting a former U.S. president alongside enough fellow defendants to field opposing baseball lineups. But Chicago trial attorney Dan K. Webb remembers a Chicago trial with even more defendants.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s appointment of Larry Snelling as Chicago Police superintendent prompted a peek into this reporter’s aging notepad, a flashback to 14 or so former Chicago top cops I’ve known or covered since 1967.

The White Sox and Bulls owner says there were cross words between him and Wirtz just once: “I wanted to call the United Center restaurant ‘Rocky’s Place,’ and he refused.”

A larger, public goodbye is planned for Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz on Wednesday at the United Center. But on Tuesday, it was a love fest of the city’s movers and shakers, remembering their friend with laughter and a few tears.