Jim O'Donnell: Arlington demolition means hang time of the Bears is coming to an end

WHO WOULD CRY for a falling racetrack?

Beggar men. Thieves. Excessive sentimentalists.

People who sob at garage sales.

Someone recently jarted: "When will the next tearful column about Arlington Park appear?"

How could it not be now?

If nothing else, sentimentalists can certainly recognize windows at a wake.

FRIDAY HAD ENOUGH of a funereal feeling going already.

November temperatures. Boo Radley winds. Deconstruction skies.

Unseasonable gloom mixed with spinning shadows.

And then, at 11:40 a.m., young newshawk Chris Placek once again beat the posse with his post at dailyherald.com:

"Arlington Park grandstand demolition to begin today."

That was it. Here is a bulletin from CBS News. As the world turns.

WHO KILLED Arlington Park?

Not I, said the spirit of Dick Duchossois.

I was the one who miraculously breathed new life into its ashes. I was the one who, against all odds, sustained it into the tenth decade of my life.

And not I, said the ghost of Jim Thompson, the regional reaper for the Nixon Justice Department who later manhandled 14 years as governor of Illinois.

I was the one who told Dick Duchossois to hop on the first wave of Illinois Casino Cruise Lines back in 1990.

And he ignored me.

AND CERTAINLY NOT I, said Bunker Bill Carstanjen, the mercenary CEO of Churchill Downs Inc.

It is my fiduciary responsibility to deliver shareholder value to the corporation.

Even if operationally, we at CDI now have a string of muffed Kentucky Derbies.

We still have Rivers in Des Plaines, where dice don't need hay and oats. Slot machines don't ask for purse increases.

A dead racetrack will never come back to haunt you.

Will it?

AND THE "NOT I'S" roll on and on until the brain is too numbed by the task.

That could be because what Arlington Park was shall now and forever remain in the senses of the beholder.

To some, it was a pleasant summertime playland.

A sports entertainment alternative to be savored once or twice each year.

For the young at start, it was a Friday afternoon with a late first post to chase fashionables fillies.

Or at least look.

BUT TO OTHERS - in truth, tens of thousands over its 94-year run - it was a gateway to a gambling-addicted hell.

As a game of choice, horse racing is not constructed to be conquered over the long run.

Take away the mystery, take away the game.

But there are 60-year-olds and 70-year-olds still peopling remaining OTBs who have yet to get that final result.

People - who if full truth be known - are down a couple of homes in Inverness and more than a few relationships because they were going to "beat the races."

SO ARLINGTON PARK is dead.

And now come the Chicago Bears.

Awkward. Stumbling. Pedigreed to a modern reign of annual crumble.

They want tax breaks. They want public subsidies for infrastructure.

Their burnt orange-and-blue shall never see the garish domed sun of a Sunday in Arlington Heights if their will toward profitability and clumsy tries at civic intimidation don't prevail.

ON THAT FRONT, a prevailing truth among residents in the Arlington Triangle - Arlington Heights, Palatine and Rolling Meadows - is that the emerging public heroes of the fray are to be lauded.

That would include the vanguard of local school district superintendents who continue to hold that line against the toxic tax menace of the Bears.

Their names are: Lisa Small (Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211), Laurie Heinz (Palatine Township Elementary District 15) and Ken Arndt and Laz Lopez (co-interim superintendents of Northwest Suburban High School District 214).

Their keen communal prudence is most fully representative of the "ayes" of the impacted area populace.

Palatine Mayor Jim Schwantz and Rolling Meadows Mayor Lara Sanoica appear to be on the same high-plain train.

THE BEARS REMAIN WELCOME to develop the increasingly barren 326 acres that once did business as Arlington Park.

That is, as long as they quite affordably also move forward and pay their own way.

On an annual basis, the business socialism of the NFL has made the organization's profitability McCaskey-proof.

But real estate alpha David Trandel warned: "Without anything on that land, that is a diminished gateway aesthetic that should be acceptable to no one. The Bears are running out of hang time."

SO WHO WOULD CRY for a falling racetrack?

Brick by brick, echo by echo, an age passes.

The only certainty is that something will eventually rise on those savaged grounds.

And as Mick Jagger sang: "Sad, sad, sad ... but you're gonna be fine."

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.