It was not by accident that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s big-shouldered Tom Buchanan was “Tom Buchanan of Chicago.”
There have been exemplars of this mighty, striving figure across all Chicago sports—”Man of Steel” middleweight Tony Zale, scrap-happy hockey hunk Keith Magnuson—but the most indelible model was the Chicago Bears football team of the early 1940s, dubbed “Monsters of the Midway.” Even their intrasquad scrimmages were opportunities (echoing Sandburg) “to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.” Or, quoting a Chicago Tribune headline of the time: “Bear Practice Makes Trench Warfare Mild.” The franchise star was Bronko Nagurski, whose very name seemed to epitomize the bone-crushing power of the man. This was an Iron Age of iron men, and Chicago teams ever since have strived to live up to the brutish standards of their fore-Bears.
The city’s myth-makers were enthralled. Paul Galloway followed up in the Tribune with the thesis that Chicago—the city itself—was a Grabowski.
Let us now pause a moment in our narrative to acknowledge that: No.
Excerpted by permission from Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology, a collection of essays, poetry, and fiction out now from Belt Publishing. All rights reserved.
• They were total big-media darlings. First and foremost among these nascent TV stars was William “Refrigerator” Perry, a 325-pound rookie defensive lineman occasionally inserted—in a bit of Ditka gimmickry—as running back or receiver. His success on Monday Night Football led to appearances on Letterman, The Tonight Show, and The Bob Hope Christmas Special.
