A glance at a New Orleans phone book shows only three Grabowski listings.

Web-posted: Thursday, February 13, 1997

he one time I was persuaded to drink a shot and a beer, I threw up. I prefer a good chardonnay, unless I am having red meat, which I seldom order because I fear cholesterol, at which time I have a cabernet."

"And if someone picked a fight with me, I would call the police first and my lawyer second. Or maybe the reverse."

But most Grabowskis and other Chicagoans understood what Ditka meant.

However, if he mentions Grabowskis in New Orleans, the natives might be confused.

A glance at a New Orleans phone book shows only three Grabowski listings.

That's no surprise, since New Orleans is not the kind of city that would attract Grabowskis or other Poles. Poles are not known to have a fondness for dining on things that have several legs and feelers.

As someone from Chicago once told a New Orleans gourmet: "You people eat things that we call the Orkin man for."

A check of phone books shows that there are twice as many Grabowskis listed in the suburb of Niles alone as in all of metropolitan New Orleans. In Chicago, about 100 are listed, and at least that many or more in our suburban phone books.

If anything, people in New Orleans might be confused or offended by any mention of Grabowskis, since the only well-known character with a "ski" name who is identified with that city is the fictional Stanley Kowalski in the play "A Streetcar Named Desire."

He was a crude, loud lowlife and when the play was first scheduled to open in Chicago, several Polish fraternal organizations tried to have it banned.

So Ditka will have to drop the Grabowski shtick or all those New Orleans bug-eaters will expect him to field a team that wanders around the field bellowing, "Stellahhh!"

But how will he personalize his team, which is already stuck with a name that, by football standards, is kind of pansy.

Because New Orleans is in the Deep South, you might think that he would strive to put together a group of real tough Bubbas.

But New Orleans, with its French quarter, music and easy-living style, is not really a Bubba kind of city.

A call to the sports desk of a New Orleans paper was answered by a guy named Pete, who said that when comics in that city talk about the natives, they refer to them as Boudreaux.

And Kerry Luft of the Tribune is from New Orleans and said that blue-collar types in New Orleans are called Bourgeois, Boudreaux, Thibodeaux or St. Pierre.

Which means Ditka has a problem. I just can't imagine him telling a gathering of sportswriters: "This is a real Bourgeois team. A bunch of hard-nosed St. Pierres."

That would not strike terror in the hearts of any opponents, unless they were a bunch of Thibodeauxes.

Whatever he does, with killer Bourgeoises or lunch-bucket St. Pierres, I hope he succeeds. And for more than sentimental reasons.

It should be remembered that football franchises today are as transient as old-time hobos.

We've heard Michael McCaskey threaten to move his bunch of McCaskeys to Indiana if the taxpayers don't build him a new playpen.

Which would be fine. He could move to Indiana and Ditka could bring the Saints franchise to greater fame and fortune in Chicago.

Then he could resume the Grabowski image.

A deal? Bears fans would take it tomorrow.

© 1996 Chicago Tribune