Watch out for the one with your name on it.

Time for the old “clinging to life” metaphor. A cop trying to break up a fight got his head beaten in instead. There’s nothing in this Chicongo Trib report that indicates a suspect is in custody. (We’re linking to the Print version of the article because the main page is infected with the AdChoices spam malware).

A Chicago police officer was hit in the head with a baseball bat while trying to break up a fight in the West Englewood neighborhood, according to authorities.

The officer is in serious condition at John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County. Sources have said that the officer’s vital signs have improved since he was first hospitalized.

He was hit about 12:40 a.m. in the 5700 block of South Winchester Avenue. According to police sources, the officer was hit on purpose while trying to break up the fight possibly involving “dozens” of people and police are looking for “multiple” people in connection with the incident.

via Cop hit in head with baseball bat – chicagotribune.com.

There’s one reason it’s better when criminals use a gun rather than a baseball bat or other impact weapon, or a knife or other edged weapon. And that is that the criminal usually retains the gun for future use, increasing the probability that he’ll ultimately pay the judicial price (however discounted these prices get for volume “buyers”) for the crime.

Conversely, cheap weapons like, say, a baseball bat, tend to be thrown away. So while it’s a lead-pipe lock that this particular assaulter will wind up in the brig — his level of impulse control makes it a certainty — he won’t wind up in the brig for this, unless Chicago cops caught a break. (The Chicago FOP confirms that no one is in custody).

Our go-to guy for Chicago inside baseball (no pun intended, because if it was we would be sick, sick, sick) is Second City Cop, and he notes that “the Officer is improving slowly and looks to have a bit of a recovery ahead of him” as part of a roundup on violence against Chicago coppers last week (wow.  2CC’s bosses in HQ might think he’s paranoid, but his department’s beat cops have real enemies).

“So, one of my cops got beaten brainless, and another used for target practice, but hey, I had an MAIG event. What can I say, Bloomie had an open bar!”

2CC also wants to know why a cop would be working in a one-man radio car in the notorious West Englewood area. His commenters may have answered that, indirectly, by pointing out that the city’s boozy stumblebum Superintendent, Gerry McCarthy, hasn’t bothered to visit the hospitalized cop. (Maybe if they guy’s family wheeled a keg into his room McCarthy would come. But maybe, they are better off without him).

In another event in gun-free Chicongo, in fact, a few blocks from the bat battery, someone fired up a CPD unmarked car. McCarthy blames this, like all his failures, on other people — specifically, if ranchers in Wyoming, retirees in Florida, and office workers in Virginia didn’t have a right to buy guns, felons in the Southside wouldn’t be a problem.

Ask the guy in the Louisville-Slugger-induced coma whether felons without guns are a problem. When he comes around. Meanwhile we have a whole room of guns without felons, no problem. But McCarthy says that makes us the problem.

Then again, he’s an alkie. When he opens his yap, at least half the time it’s the booze talking anyway. The other half it’s himself. Good luck figuring out which is which; they’re both stupid.

If you know McCarthy, you know his one real achievement in NYPD was winning a drunken streetlight-shooting competition (see #6 on the list) with other bibulous cops. Does he have an alibi for the car shooting?