Tales from the Windy City

Touchdown! NFL players earn big bucks, but one in six are bankrupt within 12 years of retiring from the field.

In popular culture, Chicago is home to Al Capone and the Valentine's Day Massacre, to John Dillinger and bank robbery, to Chess records and the Blues.

But the city's sporting legacy is just as rich in myth and legend.

There's a reason AIG have the All Blacks playing in Chicago. When they couldn't get access to the Meadowlands in New Jersey, which hosts the New York Giants and New York Jets in the NFL, Soldier Field was an obvious choice.

The iconic ground, the oldest still in use in the NFL, had the right capacity (63,000), the right time zone for NBC (it won't be too late on the East Coast or too early on the West), and Chicagoans love their sport. Chicago also has two semi-professional rugby teams, the Griffins and the Lions.

The likelihood is it isn't going to be much of a "match" in the truest sense - you need two comparable teams for that to happen, but all bar the most cynical are now coming around to the idea that this is going to be an "event".

Chicago is playing its part. There is signage around town, the locals have slowly warmed to the idea and, it seems, every expat in the country and some beyond have flown in to Chicago for a rare chance to see their countrymen.

They have flown into a hell of a sporting city, whose teams are as defined by epic failure as they are by success. They have five teams across the four major American sports: baseball's Cubs and White Sox, the NFL's Bears, basketball's Bulls and hockey's Blackhawks.

All of those teams are rich in history and laden with tales.

Here are five of the best.

1. The "Black Sox" Scandal

The Chicago White Sox are the gritty baseball team from the South Side, the wrong side of the tracks. In 1919, they were a very good team, led by brilliant left fielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and knuckleball pitcher Eddie Cicotte - you may know them as DB Sweeney and David Strathairn from the movie Eight Men Out - and duly won the American League and prepared to face the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series.

The White Sox had a problem though, in that they hated their owner Charles Comiskey. He was a man so famously tight it's said the White Sox were, literally, the dirtiest team in baseball because he refused to have their uniforms regularly laundered.

When the fixers came calling, the White Sox were willing to listen. Rumours dogged the best-of-nine series from the outset, when Cicotte lost the first game. Despite being overwhelming favourites leading into the series, money was pouring in for the Reds, who eventually won in eight games.

The following year a grand jury was convened and eight players were implicated. The case went to trial for fraud and although all the players were acquitted, the commissioner for baseball, the wonderfully named Kenesaw Mountain Landis, banned them for life.

The illiterate Jackson's guilt has long been questioned, as has been the veracity of the most famous line from the scandal. Upon leaving the courthouse, a kid supposedly looked up at Jackson and said "Say it ain't so", to which the baseballer couldn't.

The White Sox' 2005 World Series win was seen as a curse-busting victory, the first since 1917.

2. The Curse of the Billy Goat

Chicago's National League baseball team, the Cubs, play at one of the league's prettiest grounds, Wrigley Field, but their history is as wretched, probably more so, than their cross-town rivals.

Formed in 1870, the Cubs are the oldest professional sports team in America to have spent their existence in one city. But longevity and municipal loyalty has not delivered great rewards.

They have won just two World Series, in 1907 and 1908, and last won the National League pennant in 1945. It was this last World Series appearance that gave rise to the notion they are a cursed franchise.

Billy Goat tavern owner Billy Sianis bought two tickets for game four, one for him and one for his pet goat Murphy, but after a few innings Cubs owner PK Wrigley had them ejected for an "unpleasant odour".

Sianis reportedly said the cubs weren't going to win any more and he was right; they lost that series and haven't been back to a World Series since.

That looked like it was going to end in 1969 when the Cubs had a huge lead over the Mets, but in a crucial series at Shea Stadium a black cat ran on to the field and started circling the Cubs' Ron Santo before disappearing. The Cubs' season imploded after that.

Just when that curse was wearing off, along came Steve Bartman, a Cubs diehard who tried to catch a ball from the stands and ended up deflecting it out of the glove of outfielder Moises Alou. The Cubs, who were just a few outs from beating the Florida Marlins and going to the World Series, collapsed and lost the game and the series.

3. The Monsters of the Midway

Chicago might have two baseball teams, but it is generally considered, like most Midwestern cities, to be a football town. The Bears are one of the original charter teams of the NFL and have won nine championships, but just one in the Super Bowl era.

Their most successful era was the 1940s, when they won four NFL championships and their 73-0 thumping of the Washington Redskins in the 1940 championship match remains a record. This was the first team to use two running backs instead of one - the T formation - and their success gave rise to the nickname the Monsters of the Midway.

The sobriquet has stuck, though right now the Bears are more Paddington than Grizzly, coming off a 51-23 hammering by the New England Patriots.

It led to a front page in Tuesday's Chicago Sun-Times that carried a photo of a legendary defender of times past with the headline: "Where have you gone, Dick Butkus? How did the Monsters of the Midway end up a soft franchise run by Phil Emery, Marc Trestman and Jay Cutler?"

Ouch.

4. The Golden Jet hits 51

The All Blacks attending Tuesday night's Blackhawks home game would have seen a homage to legendary ice hockey player Bobby Hull, the long-time left wing who led the Chicago team - one of the Original Six NHL franchises - to the 1961 Stanley Cup and revolutionised goal scoring.

His blond hair and skating prowess gave him the Golden Jet moniker and in 1966 he became the first person to score more than 50 goals in a season, which earned him a seven-minute standing ovation.

Hull led the league in scoring a remarkable seven times in the 1960s.

His slapshot was clocked at 153km/h and he could skate as fast as 48km/h. Although he finished his career in Winnipeg, he is still revered in Chicago.

5. His Airness

The greatest of them all, Michael "Air" Jordan, changed basketball into an exclusively above-the-rim pursuit and in doing so propelled the once-maligned Bulls to six NBA championship wins.

In hindsight, the Bulls were lucky to get him. They had the third pick in the 1984 draft and although Houston would get superb value out of No 1 pick Hakeem Olajuwon, how must Portland regret choosing Sam Bowie over Jordan.

The Bulls scored two three-peats with Jordan in 1991-93 and 1996-98. They were separated probably only because Jordan briefly retired from basketball to pursue a dream of playing major league baseball, the only problem being that he wasn't very good.

In 1995, he put out a simple two-word statement to announce his return to basketball: "I'm back."

Curiously, the now-Charlotte Hornets owner did the same thing this week to announce he was joining Twitter. "I'M BACK! ... just kidding LOL. Trying out social media for the first time and sharing my day with you. Ready? #MJTakeover"

You only have to look at what people are wearing on their feet to realise Jordan's legacy in this city will never diminish.