Fire will miss retiring defender C.J. Brown

C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire held its first practices in 1998 at the Moody Bible Institute field in Chicago, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire practiced that first season at the Bears' old Lake Forest College training facility, C.J. Brown was there, staying late with an assistant coach, solitary figures on the field practicing headers.

When the Fire played its first game as an expansion team at the Miami Fusion, C.J. Brown was there.

When 36,444 fans filed into Soldier Field on April 4, 1998, to watch the Fire's first home game, against the Tampa Bay Mutiny, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire won the MLS Cup in Los Angeles on Oct. 25, 1998, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire won the U.S. Open Cup a few days later at Soldier Field, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire lost the MLS Cup to Kansas City at RFK Stadium in 2000, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire played at North Central College in Naperville while Soldier Field was being reconstructed in 2002 and 2003, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire moved back to Soldier Field on Oct. 10, 2003, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire won the U.S. Open Cup, then won its first Supporters Shield in 2003, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire lost the MLS Cup to San Jose at the Home Depot Center a few weeks later, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire played its first game at Toyota Park on June 11, 2006, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire won the U.S. Open Cup in 2006, C.J. Brown was there.

When Dave Sarachan replaced Bob Bradley as coach, C.J. Brown was there. He was there when Denis Hamlett replaced Juan Carlos Osorio also, and for Carlos de los Cobos.

When Peter Nowak, Frank Klopas, Hristo Stoichkov, Chris Armas, Eric Wynalda, Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Brian McBride put on the Fire red jersey, C.J. Brown was there.

When Andrew Hauptman bought the franchise from Phil Anschutz in September 2007, C.J. Brown was there.

When the Fire needed a captain, a leader, a mentor, C.J. Brown was there.

When the media needed someone to comment about a difficult situation, C.J. Brown was there with an honest, thoughtful, insightful comment.

When the Fire needed someone to personify its motto Tradition, Honor, Passion C.J. Brown was there.

And now C.J. Brown is retiring after 13 seasons as the Fire's bedrock. The club will move on, but it won't be the same without C.J. Brown there.

Don't forget Kate:

We'd be remiss if we forgot to mention the retirement of the Red Stars' Kate Markgraf. While she only played a season for the Red Stars, the defender had a long, glorious career with the U.S. national team.

Party central:

The Fire and Section 8 Chicago will host a supporters party at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at The Pitch, 2142 N. Clybourn Ave., Chicago. The club will honor C.J. Brown upon his retirement, as well as team season award winners, such as 2010 team MVP Logan Pause.

The envelope, please:

MLS will start announcing league awards Thursday, culminating in the Nov. 19 announcement of the league MVP. Don't expect the Fire to win many awards; the club didn't get a lot of votes even from this hometown voter.

David Ferreira and Schellas Hyndman got my vote for MVP and coach of the year, respectively. Both are with FC Dallas.

Good grades:

The University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport has issued MLS its Racial and Gender Report Card. MLS gets another “A” for racial hiring practices and a “B-minus” for its gender hiring practices. It works out to a “B-plus” overall grade.

Hard times:

Sources have confirmed there were layoffs in the Fire front office this week.