Every year, around March, I tell my wife, my son, my friends and anyone else who will listen that the Chicago Cubs are going all the way, that they are destined to sweep through the playoffs and the World Series to erase 98, 99 and now 100 years of pain...

Twenty-five years ago, fabled columnist Mike Royko calmed his Uncle Chester by assuring him that Harold Washington had no intention of marrying his daughter.

Royko's missive appeared the day after Washington, a former state legislator and second-term congressman, captured Chicago's Democratic primary on his way to becoming the city's...