Today in Chicago History: Cubs manager Lee Elia delivers epic, expletive-laden rant

Chicago Tribune

29-04-2025

Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on April 29, according to the Tribune's archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
High temperature: 88 degrees (1970)
Low temperature: 31 degrees (2018)
Precipitation: 2.75 inches (1909)
Snowfall: Trace (2014)
1983: 'I guess I lost it,' Chicago Cubs manager Lee Elia told reporters April 29, 1983, hours after he made an epic rant ripping the team's fans — a three-minute tirade peppered with more than 50 profane words including 30 'F-bombs.'
Only a few reporters were present when Elia delivered the diatribe, but it soon became legendary after WSCR-AM 670 personality Les Grobstein captured it in full on his tape recorder.
1987: For the fourth time in his career, Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson collected five hits in a game. It was the first time he hit for the cycle in his 11-year major league career.
Dawson homered in the first inning, doubled in the third, reached on an infield hit in the fourth, tripled to right-center in the sixth and singled again in the eighth.
'The toughest at-bat was probably the triple, because the pitcher (Mike LaCoss) was ahead in the count, and you never know what pitch he's going to try to get you out with in that situation,' Dawson said after the game. 'It was a good pitcher's pitch, over the plate and on the way down.'
The Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants 8-4.
1997: Longtime Chicago columnist Mike Royko died.
'Royko, a vital part of people's daily lives, was the best newspaper columnist this city had ever known,' Rick Kogan wrote in 2017. 'He started writing a column at the Daily News in 1964, and when that paper folded in 1978, he moved to the Sun-Times and then to the Tribune in 1984 until his death.'
Royko wrote almost 8,000 columns in his lifetime — often penning five columns a week — with about half of those running on Page 3 of the Tribune, according to 'The Best of Royko: The Tribune Years.'
2015: The White Sox and Orioles met on a pleasant, sunny day for what was believed to be the first major-league game closed to the public, a result of security concerns after unrest in Baltimore surrounding the death of Freddie Gray, who was injured while in police custody.
The attendance went down in the record books as zero, but the ballpark wasn't completely empty for the Orioles' 8-2 victory over the Sox. Scouts occupied three seats behind home plate, photographers weaved their way through empty rows and 92 assigned seats in the press box were filled.
2021: 11th Ward Chicago Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson — the nephew of Richard M. Daley and grandson of Richard J. Daley — was indicted on charges he filed false tax returns and lied to the feds about loans and other payments received from Washington Federal Bank for Savings before it closed in 2017.
He was sentenced to four months in prison in 2022 after he was convicted of allegedly lying to bank regulators regarding loans he took out with a now-closed bank in Bridgeport.
The U.S. Supreme Court in March overturned Thompson's convictions on two counts and remanded the case back to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Also in 2021: Longtime 22nd Ward Chicago Ald. Ricardo Muñoz was indicted on 15 counts of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, allegedly spending cash from a political fund he controlled on sports tickets, travel and meals.
He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. Muñoz spent the money on Los Angeles Kings hockey tickets, hotel rooms, jewelry, women's clothing, iPhones, aerial sightseeing trips and skydiving excursions. Muñoz, who was alderman from 1993 to 2019, also transferred $16,000 to pay college tuition for an unidentified person, according to the charges. He was sentenced in 2022 to 13 months in prison.
Want more vintage Chicago?