SOURCE: "Famed Chicago Columnist Mike Royko Dies at Age 64," Washington Post, April 30, 1997, p. B9.

[In the following obituary excerpt, Pearson recounts some of the "events" Royko staged as part of his career-long campaign to deflate Chicago institutions and practices.]

Mike Royko, 64, the Chicago Tribune's classically caustic, cantankerous columnist who spent 30 years lampooning the words and actions of the Windy City's high and mighty while serving as champion of such underdogs as the "common man" and the Chicago Cubs baseball team, died April 29 at a hospital in Evanston, Illinois.

He had a stroke while vacationing in early April in Florida and had undergone surgery for a brain aneurysm last week.

Mr. Royko, a lifelong Chicagoland resident, became something of a city monument, the king of newspaper columnists in a city where the craft has long been appreciated. He eventually wrote for three of the four major Chicago daily newspapers...