Question Mark: Women’s Eggs Diminish With Age

Baby girls enter the world with enough of them to populate perhaps 40 small cities. A dozen or so years later, the first will make a debut of its own. And in the months and years to come, others will appear regularly, sometimes greeted with relief, other times with disappointment, perhaps most often with a touch of annoyance.

Abdullah Pope/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Not women's eggs, obviously.

Now, for women in the baby boom generation, they may be coming more sporadically, or not at all, signaling unmistakably that one time of life is over, and another begun. But what happened to all those eggs?

When girls are born, they have about two million eggs in their ovaries, nestled in fluid-filled cavities called follicles. That may sound like a lot, but consider that months earlier, when they were still in utero, they may have had as many as six or seven million eggs. Those eggs are still immature, and the proper name for them, by the way, is oocytes (rhymes with: nothing).

The first eggs to bite the dust were those in the fetus, which waste away. And by the time a girl reaches puberty, most of her remaining eggs have also deteriorated and been reabsorbed. If that sounds ominously like something from a “Star Trek” episode about the Borg, imagine if all those eggs had to take the customary path out of the body.

Even with the Great Egg Disappearance, girls enter puberty with many more than they will use, 300,000 or more. Each month, the body produces a hormone, FSH, which stimulates the follicles to prepare an egg for maturation and release.

With eggs backed up like bowling balls on a busy Saturday night at the lanes, the ovaries can afford to be a little wasteful, and as many as several dozen follicles are called into action. Then a single mature egg — usually, anyway — gets the tap on the shoulder and begins its travels to the uterus.

As for the maturing eggs that didn’t make the grade, there is no second chance. But they do not go out on their own. “Each month you probably lose a thousand or so,” said Dr. James T. Breeden, president of the American Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology. “There’s just a natural death of them.”

For all the eggs a woman begins with, in the end only about 400 will go through ovulation. While men produce sperm throughout their lives, over time the number of eggs declines, and they disappear with increasing frequency the decade or so before menopause. Those that remain may decline in quality. “When you have a thousand or less within the ovaries, you’re thought to have undergone menopause,” said Dr. Mitchell Rosen, the director of the Fertility Preservation Center at the University of California, San Francisco.

It’s true that women make far more eggs than they end up using, but men should not pass judgment. “They produce millions of sperm, millions,” Dr. Rosen said. “The whole process is not the most efficient in the world.”

Questions about aging? E-mail boomerwhy@nytimes.com

Booming: Living Through the Middle Ages offers news and commentary about baby boomers, anchored by Michael Winerip. You can follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming. You can reach us by e-mail at booming@nytimes.com.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 5, 2013

An earlier version of this article incorrectly described estrogen levels at the time of ovulation. They rise, rather than fall.

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Jewel to close 3 stores -- in Chicago, Aurora, Niles

Jewel-Osco plans to close three stores by April 5, the company has confirmed.

According to a company spokeswoman, Jewel has decided not to renew the leases of its stores at at 1270 N. Lake St., Aurora, which will close Feb.15., and at 8203 W. Golf Rd. in Niles, and 3940 E. 106th St., Chicago, which will both close April 5.

Some 300 employees will be affected, but they will have the opportunity to transfer to other locations, the spokeswoman said.

The decision comes weeks after Jewel parent Eden Prairie-based Supervalu said that it will sell the chain and four others including Albertsons to Cerberus Capital Management. The deal is scheduled to close this spring.

In an internal memo obtained by the Tribune, Jewel President Brian Huff told employees that "this decision was necessary to ensure our continued strength in challenging times," and "is not a result of or related to the recent transaction between Cerberus Capital Management and Supervalu."

eyork@tribune.com | Twitter: @emilyyork

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$5 million bail in 'exceptionally brutal' Aurora murder

She was beaten to death with a hammer, then burned beyond recognition. It's the first murder in Aurora in more than a year.

She was a hardworking teenager and loving family member, who wanted to become a police officer, former co-workers and relatives said Monday.

So when Abigail Villalpando didn't show up for her waitressing job Thursday, family members called authorities. They later learned that the West Aurora High School senior had been struck repeatedly with a hammer, her body doused with gasoline and set ablaze in a barrel in the backyard of an Aurora home. Her car was torched and left at another location.

The teen's remains were so badly burned that officials had to use dental records to identify her, authorities said.

Police charged three men in Villalpando's slaying, one for her death and two for concealing her homicide. Police said the victim knew the man charged with her death, but authorities did not disclose a motive in court. It was the first slaying in Aurora in more than a year.

The victim's brother, Ricardo "Ricky" Villalpando, 21, said he and his sister moved into an apartment together in September. Abby, as she liked to be called, wanted to be a police officer because of her love of children, and she planned to go to college after her summer graduation, he said.

"My sister was the most responsible 18-year-old I knew," said Villalpando, the oldest of four. "Everything she had — her car, her insurance, her clothes — she paid for on her own."

Ricky Villalpando described the suspects as his sister's best friends. They met in middle school, Villalpando said.

He said Juan Garnica Jr., the man charged with the slaying, was jealous that she was seeing someone else and was "obsessed with her."

Police have not talked about a motive.

The killing of Villalpando, who worked at Denny's, shocked those who respected her for her work ethic and buoyant personality.

Her sweet demeanor — which kept regulars coming back to the restaurant where she worked after school — made it almost impossible for those who knew her to comprehend her death.

"They can't understand why something like this would happen," said Ben Richter, manager at the restaurant where Villalpando worked for three years and where shocked customers called to express condolences. "She will be missed."

Garnica, 18, of Aurora, was ordered held on $5 million bail for beating Villalpando to death with a hammer Thursday, authorities said.

The two men charged with concealing the homicide are Enrique Prado, 19, and Jose Becerra, 20.

Villalpando was a caring person who had told family members she was trying to make some personal changes, said a friend of the family, Jose Ocampo.

"She was trying to change her life around," he said.

Villalpando transferred in mid-December from East Aurora High School, according to Mike Chapin, community relations director for School District 129.

Students at the high school were alerted of Villalpando's death in a morning announcement.

School officials spent the weekend preparing teachers and a crisis team of social workers and psychologists to help the 3,500-student population to cope, Chapin said.

"As long as any student needs assistance working through this, there will be resources," Chapin said. "It's a horrible thing for the students to even try to comprehend."

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Well: Expressing the Inexpressible

When Kyle Potvin learned she had breast cancer at the age of 41, she tracked the details of her illness and treatment in a journal. But when it came to grappling with issues of mortality, fear and hope, she found that her best outlet was poetry.

How I feared chemo, afraid
It would change me.
It did.
Something dissolved inside me.
Tears began a slow drip;
I cried at the news story
Of a lost boy found in the woods …
At the surprising beauty
Of a bright leaf falling
Like the last strand of hair from my head

Ms. Potvin, now 47 and living in Derry, N.H., recently published “Sound Travels on Water” (Finishing Line Press), a collection of poems about her experience with cancer. And she has organized the Prickly Pear Poetry Project, a series of workshops for cancer patients.

“The creative process can be really healing,” Ms. Potvin said in an interview. “Loss, mortality and even hopefulness were on my mind, and I found that through writing poetry I was able to express some of those concepts in a way that helped me process what I was thinking.”

In April, the National Association for Poetry Therapy, whose members include both medical doctors and therapists, is to hold a conference in Chicago with sessions on using poetry to manage pain and to help adolescents cope with bullying. And this spring, Tasora Books will publish “The Cancer Poetry Project 2,” an anthology of poems written by patients and their loved ones.

Dr. Rafael Campo, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, says he uses poetry in his practice, offering therapy groups and including poems with the medical forms and educational materials he gives his patients.

“It’s always striking to me how they want to talk about the poems the next time we meet and not the other stuff I give them,” he said. “It’s such a visceral mode of expression. When our bodies betray us in such a profound way, it can be all the more powerful for patients to really use the rhythms of poetry to make sense of what is happening in their bodies.”

On return visits, Dr. Campo’s patients often begin by discussing a poem he gave them — for example, “At the Cancer Clinic,” by Ted Kooser, from his collection “Delights & Shadows” (Copper Canyon Press, 2004), about a nurse holding the door for a slow-moving patient.

How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

In Ms. Potvin’s case, poems related to her illness were often spurred by mundane moments, like seeing a neighbor out for a nightly walk. Here is “Tumor”:

My neighbor walks
For miles each night.
A mantra drives her, I imagine
As my boys’ chant did
The summer of my own illness:
“Push, Mommy, push.”
Urging me to wind my sore feet
Winch-like on a rented bike
To inch us home.
I couldn’t stop;
Couldn’t leave us
Miles from the end.

Karin Miller, 48, of Minneapolis, turned to poetry 15 years ago when her husband developed testicular cancer at the same time she was pregnant with their first child.

Her husband has since recovered, and Ms. Miller has reviewed thousands of poems by cancer patients and their loved ones to create the “Cancer Poetry Project” anthologies. One poem is “Hymn to a Lost Breast,” by Bonnie Maurer.

Oh let it fly
let it fling
let it flip like a pancake in the air
let it sing: what is the song
of one breast flapping?

Another is “Barn Wish” by Kim Knedler Hewett.

I sit where you can’t see me
Listening to the rustle of papers and pills in the other room,
Wondering if you can hear them.
Let’s go back to the barn, I whisper.
Let’s turn on the TV and watch the Bengals lose.
Let’s eat Bill’s Doughnuts and drink Pepsi.
Anything but this.

Ms. Miller has asked many of her poets to explain why they find poetry healing. “They say it’s the thing that lets them get to the core of how they are feeling,” she said. “It’s the simplicity of poetry, the bare bones of it, that helps them deal with their fears.”

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Have you written a poem about cancer? Please share them with us in the comments section below.

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Boeing asks FAA to allow Dreamliner test flights

Aerospace giant Boeing Co. has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to let it begin test flights on its grounded 787 Dreamliner passenger jet.

The new plane has been grounded since Jan. 16 by the FAA because of numerous incidents and high-profile fires involving the onboard lithium-ion batteries. Investigators around the world are looking into the matter.

The company disclosed its request for in-flight testing Monday in an email.

“Boeing has submitted an application to conduct test flights, and it is currently under evaluation by the FAA,” said Marc Birtel, a company spokesman, who would not comment further.

The FAA is reportedly looking into Boeing request, but would not comment.

The 787's battery systems were called into question Jan. 7 when a smoldering fire was discovered on the underbelly of a Dreamliner in Boston operated by Japan Airlines after the 183 passengers and 11 crew members had deplaned at the gate.

The National Transportation Safety Board is examining what went wrong. On Friday, the NTSB released its seventh update on the investigation into the lithium-ion battery systems. It said it has begun CT scanning the battery cells to examine their internal condition.

In addition, the NTSB disclosed that a battery expert from the Department of Energy joined the investigative team to lend additional expertise to ongoing testing.

In a separate incident Jan. 16 involving a 787 operated by All Nippon Airways in southwestern Japan, smoke was seen swirling from the right side of the cockpit after an emergency landing related to the plane's electrical systems. All 137 passengers and crew members were evacuated from the aircraft and slid down the 787's emergency slides.

The Japan Transport Safety Board, the country's version of the NTSB, is heading the investigation into All Nippon's emergency landing and reported fire.

No passengers or crew members were reported injured in the incidents. But the recent events have become a public relations nightmare for Boeing, which has long heralded the Dreamliner as a forerunner of 21st century air travel.

The 787, a twin-aisle aircraft that can seat 210 to 290 passengers, is the first large commercial jet with more than half its structure made of composite materials rather than aluminum sheets. It's also the first large commercial aircraft that extensively uses electrically powered systems involving lithium-ion batteries.

Boeing's lithium-ion batteries are made in Japan by Kyoto-based GS Yuasa Corp.

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Sea Launch mission fails; rocket, Intelsat satellite crash in ocean

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Ravens stave off 49ers' rally to win Super Bowl 34-31

The Baltimore Ravens held off a furious second-half charge by the San Francisco 49ers en route to a 34-31 triumph in Super Bowl XLVII. It marked the Ravens' first title since the 2000 season, when they defeated the New York Giants, 34-7.

Coach John Harbaugh squeezed out a win over his younger brother, Jim Harbaugh, while the Ravens sent star linebacker Ray Lewis into retirement with another Super Bowl ring.

The game wasn't decided until 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sailed a pass incomplete toward Michael Crabtree on fourth-and-goal deep in Ravens' territory. Jim Harbaugh was animated in his disgust with the call, pleading for a pass interference penalty.

Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco paved the way for the Ravens, completing 22 of 33 passes for 287 yards with three touchdowns. Flacco did not throw an interception in the postseason.

Ravens kick returner Jacoby Jones tied an NFL record with a 108-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to start the second half. The play appeared to give Baltimore all the momentum, until a 34-minute power outage changed that. The delay appear to ignite the 49ers as they slowly chipped away at the lead and made it quite a game.

Kaepernick, who took the starting job away from Alex Smith midseason, showed the poise of a seasoned veteran. But his late-game heroics, including a 15-yard touchdown run, weren't quite enough.

Kaepernick's score was the longest for a quarterback in Super Bowl history. He finished by completing 16 of 28 passes for 302 yards with a touchdown and interception.

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Xbox Hoax Leads Armed Cops to Family

Members of a Florida family were shocked to be awakened in the middle of the night to find their house surrounded by police with guns drawn shouting at them to put their hands up.

Police Lt. Mike Beavers said the commotion was “very rare” for the small town of Oviedo, about 20 miles northeast of Orlando.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of it happening in our little town,” Beavers told ABCNews.com.

The frightened family did not want to be identified but recounted the ordeal to ABC News’ Orlando affiliate WFTV.

“I heard the doorbell ring,” the father of two told WFTV. “We couldn’t see anybody at the front of the door. All we saw was the rifle barrel.”

The man said he and his wife originally believed they were being robbed.

“They have rifles, they have guns, and I said, ‘Let’s get out of the house,’ so we ran down the hallway and got our two boys up,” the father said.

“We were told to freeze and put our hands over our heads,” he recalled. “They said, ‘We’re the police,’ so that was a big relief.”

What the family didn’t realize was that an Xbox hoax had led the Oviedo police to its house. The police said they were responding to a call from AT&T saying it had received online messages from a person who said he was hiding inside the house, claiming that someone had been killed there and that others were being held hostage.

But when police arrived, all they found was a very surprised and confused family.

Upon investigation, police learned that the confusion all started when an Oviedo teenager living in another house called police saying his Xbox had been hacked.

The teenager said the hackers had threatened to call in bomb threats to his home if he did not meet their demands for gaming information.

When the teenager refused, the hackers sent fake messages reporting the killing and hostage taking at the teenager’s former home. His previous address, where police showed up, was still connected to his Xbox.

The teenager did some of his own investigating, police said, and provided authorities with some possible identifying information on the hackers.

“The caller gave information to officers regarding two possible suspects, including IP addresses, Twitter and Facebook accounts and a possible name of one of the suspects,” according to the police report. “The information provided to the officers revealed that both suspects were located in different states.”

The information has been turned over to Oviedo detectives for further investigation.

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Beyonce brings electricity at Super Bowl halftime

Lights out? Blame Beyonce‘s electrifying performance.

If naysayers still doubted Beyonce‘s singing’s talents — even after her national anthem performance this week at a press conference — the singer proved she is an exceptional performer at the Super Bowl halftime show.

Beyonce opened and closed the performance belting songs, and in between she danced hard and heavy — and better than most contemporary pop stars.

She set a serious tone as she emerged onstage in all black, singing lines from her R&B hit “Love on Top.” The stage was dark as fire and lights burst from the sides. Then she went into her hit “Crazy In Love,” bringing some feminine spirit to the Super Dome as she and her background dancers did the singer’s signature booty-shaking dance. Beyonce ripped off part of her shirt and skirt. She even blew a kiss. She was ready to rock, and she did so like a pro.

Her confidence — and voice — grew as she worked the stage with and without her Destiny’s Child band mates during her 13-minute set, which comes days after she admitted she sang to a pre-recorded track at President Barack Obama‘s inauguration less than two weeks ago.

Beyonce proved not only that she can sing, but that she can also entertain on a stage as big as the Super Bowl’s. She was far better than Madonna, who sang to a backing track last year, and miles ahead of the Black Eyed Peas’ disastrous set in 2011.

Beyonce was best when she finished her set with “Halo.” She asked the crowd to put their hands toward her as she sang the slow groove on bended knee — and that’s when she the performance hit its high note.

“Thank you for this moment,” she told the crowd. “God bless y’all.”

Her background singers helped out as Beyonce danced around the stage throughout most of her performance. There was a backing track to help fill in when Beyonce wasn’t singing — and there were long stretches when she let it play as she performed elaborate dance moves.

She had a swarm of background dancers and band members spread throughout the stage, along with videotaped images of herself dancing that may have unintentionally played on the live-or-taped question. And the crowd got bigger when she was joined by her Destiny’s Child band mates.

Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams popped up from below the stage to sing “Bootylicious.” They were in similar outfits, singing and dancing closely as they harmonized. But Rowland and Williams were barely heard when the group sang “Independent Woman,” as their voices faded into the background.

They also joined in for some of “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It),” where Beyonce‘s voice grew stronger. That song featured Beyonce‘s skilled choreography, as did “End of Time” and “Baby Boy,” which featured Beyonce‘s all-female band, balancing out the testosterone levels on the football field.

Before the game, Alicia Keys performed a lounge-y, piano-tinged version of the national anthem that her publicist assured was live. The Grammy-winning singer played the piano as she sang “The Star Spangled Banner” in a long red dress with her eyes shut.

She followed Jennifer Hudson, who sang “America the Beautiful” with the 26-member Sandy Hook Elementary School chorus, an emotional performance that had some players on the sideline on the verge of tears.

The students wore green ribbons on their shirts in honor of the 20 first-graders and six adults who were killed in a Dec. 14 shooting rampage at the school in Newton, Conn.

The students began the song softly before Hudson, whose mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew were shot to death five years ago, jumped in with her gospel-flavored vocals. She stood still in black and white as the students moved to the left and right, singing background.

___

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Phys Ed: Helmets for Ski and Snowboard Safety

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

Recently, researchers from the department of sport science at the University of Innsbruck in Austria stood on the slopes at a local ski resort and trained a radar gun on a group of about 500 skiers and snowboarders, each of whom had completed a lengthy personality questionnaire about whether he or she tended to be cautious or a risk taker.

The researchers had asked their volunteers to wear their normal ski gear and schuss or ride down the slopes at their preferred speed. Although they hadn’t informed the volunteers, their primary aim was to determine whether wearing a helmet increased people’s willingness to take risks, in which case helmets could actually decrease safety on the slopes.

What they found was reassuring.

To many of us who hit the slopes with, in my case, literal regularity — I’m an ungainly novice snowboarder — the value of wearing a helmet can seem self-evident. It protects your head from severe injury. During the Big Air finals at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colo., this past weekend, for instance, Halldor Helgason, a 23-year-old Icelandic snowboarder, over-rotated on a triple back flip, landed headfirst on the snow and was briefly knocked unconscious. But like the other competitors he was wearing a helmet, and didn’t fracture his skull.

Indeed, studies have concluded that helmets reduce the risk of a serious head injury by as much as 60 percent. But a surprising number of safety experts and snowsport enthusiasts remain unconvinced that helmets reduce overall injury risk.

Why? A telling 2009 survey of ski patrollers from across the country found that 77 percent did not wear helmets because they worried that the headgear could reduce their peripheral vision, hearing and response times, making them slower and clumsier. In addition, many worried that if they wore helmets, less-adept skiers and snowboarders might do likewise, feel invulnerable and engage in riskier behavior on the slopes.

In the past several years, a number of researchers have tried to resolve these concerns, for or against helmets. And in almost all instances, helmets have proved their value.

In the Innsbruck speed experiment, the researchers found that people whom the questionnaires showed to be risk takers skied and rode faster than those who were by nature cautious. No surprise.

But wearing a helmet did not increase people’s speed, as would be expected if the headgear encouraged risk taking. Cautious people were slower than risk-takers, whether they wore helmets or not; and risk-takers were fast, whether their heads were protected or bare.

Interestingly, the skiers and riders who were the most likely, in general, to wear a helmet were the most expert, the men and women with the most talent and hours on the slopes. Experience seemed to have taught them the value of a helmet.

Off the slopes, other new studies have brought skiers and snowboarders into the lab to test their reaction times and vision with and without helmets. Peripheral vision and response times are a serious safety concern in a sport where skiers and riders rapidly converge from multiple directions.

But when researchers asked snowboarders and skiers to wear caps, helmets, goggles or various combinations of each for a 2011 study and then had them sit before a computer screen and press a button when certain images popped up, they found that volunteers’ peripheral vision and reaction times were virtually unchanged when they wore a helmet, compared with wearing a hat. Goggles slightly reduced peripheral vision and increased response times. But helmets had no significant effect.

Even when researchers added music, testing snowboarders and skiers wearing Bluetooth-audio equipped helmets, response times did not increase significantly from when they wore wool caps.

So why do up to 40 percent of skiers and snowboarders still avoid helmets?

“The biggest reason, I think, is that many people never expect to fall,” said Dr. Adil H. Haider, a trauma surgeon and associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and co-author of a major new review of studies related to winter helmet use. “That attitude is especially common in people, like me, who are comfortable on blue runs but maybe not on blacks, and even more so in beginners.”

But a study published last spring detailing snowboarding injuries over the course of 18 seasons at a Vermont ski resort found that the riders at greatest risk of hurting themselves were female beginners. I sympathize.

The take-away from the growing body of science about ski helmets is in fact unequivocal, Dr. Haider said. “Helmets are safe. They don’t seem to increase risk taking. And they protect against serious, even fatal head injuries.”

The Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, of which Dr. Haider is a member, has issued a recommendation that “all recreational skiers and snowboarders should wear safety helmets,” making them the first medical group to go on record advocating universal helmet use.

Perhaps even more persuasive, Dr. Haider has given helmets to all of his family members and colleagues who ski or ride. “As a trauma surgeon, I know how difficult it is to fix a brain,” he said. “So everyone I care about wears a helmet.”

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Battle between Cubs, rooftop owners is best viewed from sidelines

From the Super Bowl to the sandlot, just as surely as players give 110 percent, the math of sports is always suspect.

Sports isn't like other businesses. What other investment becomes more attractive because of its unpredictability? Revenue can always be accounted for, but what of ego, pride, loyalty, stubbornness or even the microns that separate a catch from a muff?

In no other industry does a perennial also-ran continue to see its value increase.

That's why it's a mistake to get too wrapped up in the dispute between the wealthy Ricketts family that owns the Chicago Cubs and the owners of buildings adjacent to Wrigley Field who have turned their rooftops into garish, outsize extensions of the bleachers?

If it's just money, there's a price — and if there's a price, there's a solution to be worked out. If it's a game, the drama is best enjoyed with healthy detachment because logic may or may not dictate the outcome.

Like a hockey fight, one or both combatants will eventually run out of gas, then will be penalized with the loss of time and opportunity.

"What we are trying to do is resolve this right now," Jim Lourgos, one of the rooftop club owners, said recently during a visit to Tribune Tower. "If you're in court on something like this, my feeling has always been that by the time you're in court, you've already lost."

Unless, say, you're trying to run out the clock. But enough with the sports metaphors.

At the center of this dispute, for those late arrivals to this fight, is a nearly 99-year-old ballpark long overdue for a rehab. Wrigley must be brought into the 21st century, in the interest of the team but also all those who benefit from its standing as a tourist magnet, including those peddling rooftop seats.

The Ricketts family is said to finally have abandoned its quest for taxpayer help in funding the project.

It is true other sports franchises in town have received taxpayer help to build facilities that enrich their owners, but every bad idea has to end somewhere. This would at last be consistent with the philosophy of patriarch Joe Ricketts, who has said he considers it "a crime for our elected officials to borrow money today to spend money today and push the repayment of that loan out into the future on people who aren't even born yet."

Rather than hitting up the cash-strapped city and state, the Ricketts clan instead wants help in the form of concessions such as a relaxation of landmark restrictions and city ordinances that limit such matters as the number of night games and ads in the ballpark. They also want to turn one of the streets into a pedestrian mall.

The rooftop interests, which kick 17 percent of their revenue back to the Cubs as part of a nine-year-old settlement with the team, are terrified the loosened restrictions will result in their views of the ballpark being blocked by advertising signs.

Never mind that Wrigley Field itself has many seats with obstructed views, thanks to support posts.

The rooftoppers have offered to put advertising on their building facades with the money going to the team and city. And they think they have leverage via the 2004 contract they signed with then-Cubs owner Tribune Co. (Yes, that's the same Tribune Co. that owns the Chicago Tribune and still has a small piece of the ballclub.) They think they can parlay this into an extension of their current agreement with the team to 2023.

But the contract allows that "any expansion of Wrigley Field approved by governmental authorities shall not be a violation" of the deal, which means if Mayor Rahm Emanuel gets behind the Ricketts, look out.

Rooftop owners talk about the taxes they pay, the people they employ, the money they've invested to make their businesses safe and viable, the character they add to the neighborhood.

The basic argument, however, still seems a little like when your neighbor with the big-screen TV decides to start watching with the drapes closed on what's become movie night at your house. It's bad form to complain that they not only shouldn't shut the drapes but should open the window and turn up the volume so you and the people in your living room you've charged $1 a head can make out the dialogue better.

At the same time it's hard to sympathize with the Ricketts family, which invested $850 million to acquire the team and ballpark, effectively creating a family trust that's a tax-efficient structure for protecting and eventually distributing wealth across generations. It's not as though these people didn't know Wrigley Field was in need of work or the deals in place with the rooftop clubs. They ought to be able to come up with the cash to make this happen, with or without advertising.

That deal is really something, though. For example, the contract calls for the Cubs to help hype them in a variety of ways, advancing the argument that the rooftop clubs are part of the appeal of Wrigley.

There's a requirement that "WGN-TV will show and comment upon the Rooftops' facilities during the broadcasts of Cubs games and the Cubs will request other Cubs television broadcasting partners to do the same." There's also a mandate for the team to "include a discussion about the Rooftops on their tour of Wrigley Field" and to include stories positive about the Rooftops in The Vine Line," the team's publication.

What you won't read in The Vine Line is that this fight, like the ballpark itself, is a fight over something that may increasingly be quaint in the coming decades. The Los Angeles Dodgers last week announced a $7 billion, 25-year deal for their own cable channel, following the example of the New York Yankees, which already have their own.

With that kind of money coming in via television, the pressure to make money from ticket sales may be relieved somewhat, turning the stadiums into glorified studios. But that may be too logical for sports. For one thing, it assumes that player salaries won't escalate in response as owners ditch their budgets in order to get an edge that may or may not materialize.

That's the thing about sports. You never know how the numbers will add up.

philrosenthal@tribune.com

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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