Could Jimbo's become a John Barleycorn?

You gotta be friggin' kidding me? That's the censored version of what White Sox fans said when I told them the real reason clout-heavy landlords didn't renew the lease for Jimbo's Lounge -- the closest tavern to Sox Park in Bridgeport.

Get this: Building owners Ray and Donna DeGrazia had plans to put a Cubs bar there. 

The DeGrazias were set on letting their next-door neighbor, Sam Sanchez, who owns John Barleycorn bars in Wrigleyville, Lincoln Park and Schaumburg, bring his brand of Cubs-friendly establishments to the heart of White Sox country, recent court filings show

Sanchez told me the bar he had planned for Bridgeport wouldn't have been a White Sox bar, explaining with a chuckle that John Barleycorn "stays neutral" in the Cubs-Sox rivalry.

Yeah, right. Everybody knows John Barleycorn is a North Side joint that attracts . . . those kind of people.

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