The Royko Thread

Being an East Coast Guy, I read little of Royko until college, where my Chicago pals wouldn't shut up about him. I know better than to toss brickbats on a tribute thread, but suffice to say I found him to be an acquired taste at the time.

You could make a case that Mike McAlary was the closest thing NY had to Royko, without the humor, and I did enjoy his work.

 

I'm the same.
Read Royko and the incomparable Lewis Grizzard from the time I was a youngster until their passing.

 

Royko certainly had the benefit of writing before the days of political correctness....in that Daily News obit, he refers to lack of urban circulation this way:  "...in the city’s black and Latino ghettos, there is little interest in any newspaper."

Could you say that today?

 

Though liberal, the DN clearly had inner-city problems . . . the bulky foreign coverage left that sector cold . . .

 

when i was in college i was covering a game at ole miss, and picked up their student paper... they ran syndicated royko columns and it was under 'mike royko -- our favorite yankee'

that just cracked me up -- and still does

 

This is not meant to detract one bit from the praise heaped on Royko in this thread, all of which is richly deserved, but Royko did once find himself in a position similar to Ozzie Guillen regarding his use of the same term. The following excerpt is from a 1995 Wall Street Journal article which implied that Royko had become an insufferable bully, and discussed the circumstances of his 1994 drunk driving arrest:


Investigating officer John Manella grabbed Royko's arm. The columnist yelled, ``F-- you, fag, get your f--- hands off me ... '' according to a report filed by the Winnetka Police Department. An ambulance was summoned. ``Get away from me, what are you, fags? Why (sic) are you wearing those fag gloves for?'' he yelled at the crew.

Royko was handcuffed and brought to the station. Officer Ron Schimian asked if Royko wanted medical help. The 62-year-old columnist responded, ``What are you, Croatian? You f--- loser! What's your ethnicity, you fag?'' For the mug shot, he stuck out his tongue.

 

Yes, that is certainly similar to Ozzie Guillen. One person uses the slur multiple times, resists arrest, endangers motorists by driving while intoxicated, uses the same slur on the medical personnel who come to treat him, tries to insult someone else's ethnicity ...

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

 

Dye, just go away.

One of the best lines I ever read about Royko (and I forget who wrote it) was that "In Chicago, 'Read Royko' became an acceptable substitute for 'Good Morning.'"

 

The column from a couple pages back about the father taking his son to a Cubs game is pretty good but my favorite Royko Cub column is the one he wrote after the Padres knocked them out in 84. It captured absolutely perfectly how it felt knowing they had blown a chance at the series that year.

 

Yeah, but Royko wrote like a guy who might do that very thing. He was no phony.

Mariotti writes like a guy who has a pair of balls.

 

Now THAT's heartbreaking.