The Chicago River Softball Throw

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The overstuffed dufflebag caught my eye.

I was making my usual rounds in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s currency markets. The bag was sticking out from under one of the trading desks. Almost a tripping hazard.

It was a dull day. I stopped to chat with the clerk at the desk. “What’s with the dufflebag,” I asked.

I didn’t really know this guy. But, he was willing to talk.

“Its full of softballs,” he replied.

“No way,” I countered.

He unzipped the bag a little. Sure enough the only contents were more than a dozen dirty balls.

Did he have a game later?

No. These balls had seen their last homer. They were being retired, he explained.

What was he going to do with them? That’s when I got my story.

In the late 1990s one of my assignments at Dow Jones Capital Markets Report was to write a “reporter’s notebook” every Friday. This was to be a purge of news tidbits acquired over the week. I turned it into a trading floor “news of the weird.” You’ve read some of these tales. The unpublished one about former Chicago Board of Trade Chairman Patrick Arbor’s daughter posing in Playboy magazine was a candidate.

In this case, he and a few friends planned to throw them across the Chicago River after trading ended. Hopefully, they would reach the other side. Those that didn’t . . . kerplunk!

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange building is bordered by West Monroe Street (on the south), South Wacker Drive (on the east), West Madison Street (on the north) and the Chicago River on the west. A “back porch”, really a wide pedestrian walkway, ran along the river side of the structure from Monroe to Madison.

The river is roughly 250-feet wide at this point. The average major leaguer could easily throw that distance. In Chicago, softball (the city’s favorite amateur sport) is played with a 16-inch ball. Heaving one of these melons that distance requires a good arm.

A successful toss would land on South Riverside Plaza. Less successful pitches might land on the tracks and platforms of Union Station. The trains ran under the plaza. A miss would end up in the river.

Somehow the exchange security got wind of this shennanigan. They were outside to shut down the fun.

The trading floor population is a wily bunch. They planned for this possibility. A boisterous crowd of onlookers convened at the Monroe Street end of the "back porch.” Their goal: distract security. The throwers set up at the Madison Street end. I joined the crowd.

Soon enough, balls could be seen arcing over the river. A few made it all the way across, surprising pedestrians on the plaza. Several landed in the train tracks. (I can only imagine the reactions of locomotive engineers and commuters on the platform.) Others splashed in the river.

Eventually, security realized they’d been duped. They ran to end the hijinks.

I never found out if all the balls were tossed. In the meantime, I witnessed an amazing display of throwing ability.

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This blog is about more than my experiences. It is intended to be a collective experience of working on the commodity markets physical trading floor. If you or someone you know has a story please let me know I’d like to include it in this ongoing chronicle. I can be reached at linton122@gmail.com

© Clifton Linton 2024