Chicago Publisher has 'Got Games' This July

By: Mark Fitzgerald On July 15, Gay Games VII, atten- ded by an anticipated 12,000 athletes from more than 100 countries, will hold its opening ceremony at Soldier Field. When it does, Tracy Baim, publisher of the weekly Windy City Times, will join the ranks of local newspaper publishers who successfully pushed for a grand civic project, a history that harkens back to and beyond Chicago Tribune Publisher Joseph Medill's campaign for the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibit.

Baim is so committed to the Games that just after Christmas she turned over her additional position as the paper's top editor to Andrew Davis, and began working mainly for the Chicago host committee.

Over the past two years, the Games have been a sort of competitive playing field between the Windy City Times and its chief gay weekly rival, the Chicago Free Press. The Windy City Times has printed letters and even a syndicated column by Rex Wockner opposing the Chicago Games. The main raps on the Games are that they have a history of losing money for the host organizers, and that the late start ? plus the competition from the "First World Out Games" in Montreal ? will doom the Chicago Games to second-class status.

Don't try telling that to Baim. Seven months before the Games, she says, the organizers already had 6,000 paid registrants, the first-ever pre-Games surplus in the bank, and dozens of sponsors, including the Chicago Sun-Times ? and the rival Chicago Free Press. The publisher asserts, "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show Chicago to the world."