Soldier Field gets thumbs down

Friday, Sept. 26, 2003 | 9:50 a.m.

NFL SNAPSHOT

All-time series -- Chiefs lead, 1-0.

Last time -- Kansas City won the lone meeting, 35-8, in Baltimore in 1999.

Notable -- The Chiefs are in the top third of the league in rushing defense and are one of only four teams that hasn't given up a touchdown on the ground. That's the highlight of this game, since Ravens RB Jamal Lewis leads the NFL with an average of 165 yards.

Prediction (3-0) -- Ravens 17, Chiefs 16.

-- Pittsburgh LB Joey Porter, on his signature kick at the turf, upon returning to the game last week after getting shot in the buttocks outside a Denver restaurant three weeks ago.

To the glee of Cleveland, there's a new Mistake by the Lake.

On a recent visit to the Windy City, from a comfortable Indiana Street loft, we viewed the Soldier Field design clash. The Sears Tower stood through ample windows straight ahead. To the right, just beyond a group of trees, lay the Lake Shore Drive stadium.

Good thing for the trees.

Other than certain contractors and political figures, there might not be a single soul in Chicago who approves of the renovations that were made to the legendary edifice.

It will be unveiled to the rest of the world before a national television audience Monday night, when the Bears play host to Green Bay. The Packers have won 16 of their past 18 games against Chicago.

"Have fun writing about the Bears' mistake by the lake," esteemed Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Downey wrote to us Wednesday, upon hearing about the subject.

The thought here was that we had come up with a clever original phrase when we compared the stadium to a cartoon meeting of the Jetsons and the Flintstones.

Not so. That was Downey's all the way.

So that's how Danny felt when he awoke with what he thought was a new melody, only to learn brother Keith, a thin wall away in the next room, had strummed it on his guitar the previous night in the 11th episode of "The Partridge Family."

Back to Chicago.

"The interior of the new Soldier Field is 100 times better, but the exterior is 100 times worse," Downey wrote to us. "It looks like Captain Kirk had to do an emergency landing and set down the Enterprise on top of the Roman Colosseum."

A futuristic toilet, someone called it. The Eyesore by Lake Shore, said someone else. Was the chief architect Frank Lloyd Wrong?

"If we started out to build the ugliest stadium in the country for the most money with the fewest alternative uses in the worst possible location," University of Chicago economist Allen Sanderson told a syndicated columnist, "we're pretty much there."

What triggered all this ire? First, to see it is to believe it, so turn the television to ABC about 6 p.m. on Monday.

Now, for a little background on the building that was constructed of concrete, with granite-textured cast stone facings and 100-foot-long classic Doric colonnades, to replicate ancient Greek and Roman stadia.

That motif doesn't exactly meld with aluminum, steel and glass, most of the gleaming new material.

To be sure, the interior of a stadium that was built between 1922 and '39 as a World War I memorial, at a total cost of $13 million, had become obsolete.

A lack of toilets had forced the use of portable units. For more than 50 years, until a 1978 renovation project, almost 75,000 bleacher seats, made of fir planking -- that's right, no arm rests or seat backs -- ringed the stadium.

Additional bleachers could be constructed for big events, and six-figure crowds attended Army-Navy, Notre Dame-Southern California and prep football games, and a controversial Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney fight, in the 1920s.

A wartime visit by President Franklin Roosevelt, in 1944, attracted 150,000, and 116,000 saw evangelist Billy Graham in 1962.

The Bears made it their permanent home in September 1971, when capacity was cut to 57,000 to accommodate season-ticket holders who wanted to be closer to the field.

Most of those seats, however, were in the end zone. Now, the new triple-deck seating plants 60 percent of the fans on the sidelines.

At quite a cost.

Soldier Field now seats 61,500, 5,500 fewer than its predecessor, making it the second-smallest stadium in the NFL. Of the $632 million bill, $432 million will come from tax revenues. The Bears paid the difference.

They might be paying for it, in other ways, for decades.

The 20-year-old RCA Dome, in Indianapolis, holds about 55,000. According to Creators Syndicate news service, the final tab for that versatile arena was $77 million.

Moreover, the cost of recent renovations to Lambeau Field, in Green Bay, came in at less than half of Soldier Field's tally, but it added 11,000 seats to the Packers' home. There are also more luxury boxes and more toilets at Lambeau.

There are more victories, too, to the north. Over the past 11 seasons, Green Bay has had a record of .500 or better all 11 years while Chicago has experienced three.

At least more fans will sit closer to that, uh, action.

"It would make a great new hotel for Las Vegas," Downey concluded in his review to us about his city's new space-age -- or is that Stone Age? -- monstrosity, "that's for sure."

Must be the Giants' bye week, was the first thought. Nope, they had a game Sunday at Washington, just 36 hours away.

No worries, though, for Shockey, who jetted back to the East Coast after spending a few quality, Cosmopolitan martini-filled hours partaking in the events surrounding Playboy magazine's 50th anniversary celebration.

Might Shockey, a good friend of Palms owner George Maloof, count Max McGee as a distant relative? McGee caught the first Super Bowl touchdown, from Bart Starr in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 1967, after an evening of carousing in Hollywood.

Seconds after a Green Bay assistant coach confirmed a bed check on McGee's hotel room, McGee, dressed in a suit and tie underneath the covers, bolted for the night life. Having caught only four passes all season, the 34-year-old receiver didn't think he'd play.

Then Boyd Dowler was injured, and Lombardi called for McGee, who was on the sideline talking with teammate Paul Hornung about his plans for a stag party in Las Vegas.

McGee hadn't even brought his helmet from the locker room, so he grabbed a lineman's dome protector. He caught that first TD pass and another one, finishing with seven receptions for 138 yards.

Giants fans in town might want to haul their Shockey jerseys, and a ready Sharpie, around this weekend because this is New York's bye week.

Cosmo, anyone?

That's one more TD than tight ends Mikhael Ricks (Detroit), Doug Jolley (Oakland), Tony Gonzalez (Kansas City), Kyle Brady (Jacksonville), Bubba Franks (Green Bay), Anthony Becht (N.Y. Jets), Chad Lewis (Philadelphia), Marcus Pollard (Indianapolis) and Sapp teammate Ken Dilger have combined to catch this season.

Sapp's other reception of '03 covered 14 yards for a first down.

Division hits

NFC: West -- Seattle is the only NFL team that leads its division by two games. South -- Atlanta has won the past six against Carolina, Sunday's foe, including the past two by a combined 71-0 score. North -- Of Detroit's projected top five CBs, only Dre Bly is healthy. East -- Dallas K Billy Cundiff, who tied an NFL record with seven field goals in that stunner over the Giants two Mondays ago, is slated to ride with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels today.

AFC: West -- Oakland WR Jerry Rice has made a habit of asking reporters if they know what was going on with the woeful team. South -- Colts K Mike Vanderjagt has nailed all 10 of his field-goal attempts and all five of his PATs. North -- The Titans have won two of the past three in Pittsburgh, so Steelers coach Bill Cowher is begging fans for noise Sunday. East -- Sixth-round draft choice Brooks Bollinger might soon relieve Jets QB Vinny Testaverde.

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