Quarterback Virgil Carter (7) and Wide Receiver Jim Seymour (85) working out on their home turf.

Fire!

Another professional sports team is about to begin life in Chicago, and for many citizens, the prospect is about as exciting as going down to the lakefront pilings and watching the grafiti harden.

The teams no longer seem to be the province of a newspaper's "toy department" but of the financial pages. Reserve clauses and pension vesting get as much play as designated hitters and tight ends, while the athletes themselves arebeing coddled more than toddlers in Kenliworth. Not that the owners are exempt from public contempt. Take Charlie Finley. Please

In Chicago, one has to wonder why the spoiled sports are allowed to get away with it. What have they done, except precipitate a collective plunge in our municipal jock stock? When it comes to winners on the field, court, or rink, the Second City is third rate at best, the record not amounting to what Kurt Vonnegut would call doodley-squat.

In the last 29 years, teams from New York City have won 14 pennants in baseball and three titles in basketball. Clubs from Boston have won a combined 14 basketball and hockey championships. Even Philadelphia produced a winner this year.

The Chicago Black Hawks last won a Stanley Cup 13 years ago, the Chicago White Sox a pennant 15 years ago, and the Chicago Cubs haven't as they say, grabbed the gonfalon since the year F.D.R unpacked his bags at Yalta. In 1947 the Chicago Stags were runner-up to Philadelphia in the N.B.A; that;'s it for pro basketball. The latest entry, the Chicago Aces of the World Team Tennis, opened their doors this spring by offering such names as Ray Ruffels, Sue Stap, Kim Warwick, and Janet Young, then wondered why no one showed up except the ballboys. As for scheduling conflicts, the New York Jets at least had the class to be preempted by Heidi, who admittedly has a great pair of hands; the Chicago Cougars were taken care of the biggest lightweight of them all. Peter Pan, for God's sake.

And in recent years, Chicago has not exactly been the city of big shoulder pads, either. The Bears took it all 10 years ago, with probably the dullest team to ever win a National Football League championship; an offensive drive consisted of flopping on a fumble on the opponent's 3-yard line. Seven years before that, the Bears were also in a championship game. They lost to New York, 47 to 7.

When the Chicago Fire takes the field against Houston at 8 o'clock Wednesday night in Soldier Field, it will be the first time Chicago has had two professional football teams since the Cardinals migrated to St. Louis in 1960. The last team to play regular-season night games in Soldier Field was teh Rockets-Hornets of the short-lived All America Football Conference (1946-1949), whose four year record was a none too enviable 11 wins, 40 losses, and 3 ties.

When it was announced that Chicago would have a team named the Fire, orgiastic tremors were felt around the rims of the city's copydesks. "Hot Stuff on the Sports Scene." "Fire Chief Hopes Flames Don't Go Out." Hot damn! Not only that, but the personnel director turned out to be, Bill Byrne, and one of the players signed was Curtis Sparks.

Headline hyseria aside, at least the timing of appears to be right for the Chicago Fire, inasmuch as the Bears in recent years have been acting more like the Backyard Briquettes. Combine that with the hauteur teh N.F.L club has taken toward more citizens-without-connections who have tried to buy a couple of tickets, and add George Halas' reputation as a kind of Silas Marner of the sidelines, and there would seem to be enough Bears-haters in town to be stacked over Soldier and Meigs Fields combined. Whether they will drop in to watch another possible loser is something else again.

Before getting down to business, the newcomers themselves managed to stick a little salt into the Bears' wounds. In the 17th round of the World Football League's college draft, Fire owner Tom Origer walked up and announced his team's selection: "George Halas." On the 36th round of the pro draft, the fire named Bear Quarterback Bobby Douglass - as a tight end.

At a press conference, Origer was asked if he had any Bears signed yet. "No," he answered. Did he want any? "Not particularly."

At a meeting of the B'nai B'rith sports lodge, Fire Wide Receiver Jim Seymour, a former Halas employee, declared: "We're for real. We could put a team on the field tomorrow and beat the hell out of the Bears." Someone in the audience put things in perspective by shouting: "What would that prove?"

The new season, and the new league, naturally have been viewed with considerable skepticism. For one thing, there was no foundation to the rumor that the franchise in Norfolk (since relocated) would be called the Virginia Slim Pickin's. Some observers have noted that the Chicago Fire's black-white-red emblem looks suspiciously like a death mask, and they point out that the composer of the team's victory song did a similar number in 1968 for Eugene McCarthy. A frequent contributor to the Tribune sports sections' letters column who calls himself the Fire Extinguisher has remarked that the only way the World Football League can succeed this summer in its televised "Prickly Heat Game of the Week" is to sign on Jonathan Winters.

The Chicago FIre is just one of several singluar-collective names in the World Football League (also known as the W.F.L or the "Whiffle.")

Still, for months before they came up with that inspiration, Houston's team had no name. As late as three months ago, it didn't even have a coach. And the Washington Ambassadors didn't have a stadium.

Houston finally got its coach (Jim Garrett, formerly of the New York Giants) and the Ambassadors got their stadium, but it was located in Norfolk, so they were now the Virginia Ambassadors, which didn't make sense, but that really didn't matter because the franchise was moved a few weeks later to Orlando, where they are now the Florida Blazers, which doesn't make sense either.

Predictably, the league has had other problems. The Jacksonville Sharks were asked by the state's tourist board to change their name for image reasons; the held firm after pointing out that other Florida teams have been called the Rattlers, Moccasins, Gators, and Barracudas.

For a while, it was debated whether a particular franchise should locate in Pennsylvania or south-of-the-border - which conceivably could have give us a team called the Mexico City Taco Bell. Philadelphia, surprisingly, was a winner, but soon reverted to form: The owner ran out of money, and the league ran him out. Eventually, another franchise was awarded to a group headed by Jack Kelly, past president of the Amateur Athletic Union, an ex-Olympic oarsman, and brother of Princess Grace of Monaco. (The W.F.L is definitely democratic; the president of the Hawaiians owns Sambo's restaurant chain.)

The original Boston franchise moved to New York, and the original Memphis franchise relocated in Houston When the Canadian parliament started making noise about barring U.S. footoball teams from The Dominion, the Toronto Northmen moved their club to Memphis and, without missing a beat, changed its name to the Southmen.

The league was founded by Gary Davidson, the 39-year-old California tax lawyer who also started the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association. His latest brainchild ceased to be a bastard in the eyes of players and fans on March 31, when the Northmen-Southmen signed the Miami Dolphins' Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield, and Jim Kick for the 1975 season - a three-year, $3.5-million package.

The preseason favorite in 1974 is probably Southern California, coached by ex-N.F.L star Tom Fears, who has been provided with such players as ex-U.C.L.A Running Backs James McAlister and Kermit Johnson and U.S.C Guard Booker Brown. Players switching from the N.F.L to the W.F.L next season beside the Miami Three, include Dallas' Craig Morton (to Houston) and Calvin Hill (to the Hawaiians), Oakland's Daryle Lamonica (Southern California), and San Francisco's Ted Kwalick and Jim Sniadecki (Hawaiians). And in 76', Birmingham will welcome home local hero Kenny (Snake) Stabler, onetime University of Alabama star now with Oakland.

The league is split into three four-team divisions(Chicago is in with the Detroit Wheels, Birmingham and Memphis). There are no exhibition games. Playoffs are set for Nov. 20 and Nov. 21, with the "World Bowl" title game scheduled the day after Thanksgiving in an ultramodern stadium being built just above - no jokes, please - Pearl Harbor.

"Dear Player," the mimeographed letter began. "We won't have a lot of time to get in shape before we open our season with Houston on the 10th of July. I would suggest if you have any desires in making the Chicago Fire football team that you report in the best physical condition you have ever been in. Do not come into camp fat and sloppy... This is going to be a tough training campe... The coaches are looking forward to seeing you."

They arrive in shifts - 150 of them - at the Fire's training camp at lake Forest College. They are not fat and sloppy, at least not physically so. Within a week, a third of them will be asked to check out of Roberts Hall dormitory. By the fourth game of the season - the deadline for the final size of the rosters - about 110 players will have cut themselves.

"Some kids think it's gonna be a snap," Spavital had said earlier. "They don't push themselves to get in shape. After we give them the conditioning test, they're so exhausted that when no one's looking, they leave camp. They won't tell ya. They wait until the middle of the night, and then they'll sneak out ... some of them. Some you couldn't run out with a stick."

Out on the field, there is the usual preseason talk about paying the price and giving 110 percent effort, and there are the broken chin straps and blisters and the grousing about tight-fitting helpmets. Calisthenics begin, and it is do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do time: Chuck Dickerson, the defensive line coach, who has the voice and gut of a Fort Leonard Wood drill instructor, tells the players to shape up.

Offensive tackle Steve Wright, who isn't due to report until several days later, is watching from the sidelines on his own time, dressed in faded jeands and a T-shirt that reads, "Be kinds to Animals - Kiss a Beaver." The next day he returns along with a group of 40 newcomers who stand around with their suitcases and apprehensions. Spavital yells over at Wright: "You ready to get your butt chewed?" "You ain't getting any virgin," Wright yells back. "We got some good people over there," Spavital retorts. "Don't contaminate 'em."

The afternoon practice session begins in a thunderstorm nd ends in mist. Equipment Manager Pat Marcucillo supervises the retrieval of the scattered pieces of gear. "After so many months of ordering stuff on the phone, all that desk work," he says, "it didn't feel real until we actually got in the locker room out here. There's a certain smell - the tape, the powder, the guys' body odor. Then you know it's time to play."

"I think July is a nice time to start," says Fire owner Origer. "I know I'm tired of baseball by the time it hits the All-Star Game, and I think people are tired of football by the Super Bowl in mid-January. That's why getting in early will be good for our league - getting a jump on things... Too much football on television? That's what they said before they put on the Monday-night game."

By June 1, the Fire had sold about 15,000 season tickets and was hoping to hit between 20,000 and 25,000. Origer would like attendance to average 30,000; anything less that that and he'll have done "a lousy job." If the number reaches 35,000 - "a minor miracle" - he thinks he'll break even. A 30,000 figure would mean a first-year loss somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000, which he consider about par. He hopes for crowds of 40,000 in 1975 and maybe 50,000 by the third season.

The club is going to all lengths with hoopla and promotion, and the reliance on commercialism has gone forward without so much as a fiery blush. The jersey modeled by Virgil Carter when he signed his contract was auctioned off by channel 11, Carling's Beer (hey, hey - red, white, and black colors) will be printing schedules and match books, local Cadillac dealers have cooperatively named one their hues "Chicago Fire Red," and even the cheerleaders' uniforms are embossed with the name of the sponsoring restaurant. ("That's all we need out there," someone sneered. "Broads in bowling shirts."

"This Wednesday night - if thunder and lightning don't wipe us out - will mark one of the most exciting events that Chicago has been treated to in many years," declares Al Lange, the team's executive vice president. "We hope to feature one of the biggest hot-air balloons in the world and a fire department thrill show at half-time, and there'll be clowns in the stands for the kids and a roaming Dixieland band. Later on we'd like to do a half-time show with gymnasts, and I'm trying to get that guy who dives off a tower into 18 inches of water. I just want people to have a ball and be tired when they leave the game.

"The quality of football will be substantial," he hastens to add. "I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to beef it up. But, as it is now, Christ, you walk into a football game, you get your seat, you fold your hands and get ready to be put to sleep. I really can't believe that the people of Chicago - who have been starved for something exciting - will be unresponsive to this."

Responses among the starved citizens will vary. But for the typical hungry Chicago sports fan, one wish is apparent: That the only clowns in Soldier Field these Wednesday nights be the ones in the stands.