Chicago

CHICAGO – It boils down to this: Do sports fans want to attend the Games of the XXXI Olympiad in Los Angeles or in Chicago for Da Games?

It’s likely not a question the United States Olympic Committee asked as it comes to a decision – to be voted on and announced April 14 – on which city to recommend to the International Olympic Committee as the nation’s candidate to host the 2016 games. But it should be.

The fact is both cities will have stadiums, pools and Olympic villages. And it’s not like one doesn’t have enough room for the whole 26-mile marathon. So that leaves the experience each city offers fans when they’re not watching all the running, swimming, twirling and shot putting.

And that’s where Chicago has it all over L.A. From hot dogs to high rises and comedy to culture, there’s no comparison.

Start with the food. There’s the Chicago hot dog and the Chicago beef sandwich. There’s also the pizza. Deep dish pizza was invented here – a 1 1/2 inch thick pie loaded with sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, onions and green peppers. For pizza with salmon caviar and something called dill creme fraiche, turn left at Michigan Avenue and go, say, 2,000 miles.

Sure, there’s nothing unique about a Chicago hamburger. But the “cheezborger” is a different story. The Billy Goat Tavern that inspired the famous Saturday Night Live skit still serves cheezborger and in at least one location, “no fries, cheeps.”

That leads to another difference between the two cities. Los Angeles may have far more celebrities, but many came from Chicago – particularly the funny ones. John Belushi, Bill Murray, Steve Carrell, Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and the late Gilda Radner all started at The Second City comedy club.

And while more celebrities live in Los Angeles, when they have something to say, they come to Chicago to say it to Oprah Winfrey.

Then there’s the look of the city. From the massive Merchandise Mart (it has its own ZIP code) to the Wrigley Building to Union Station (think the baby carriage scene in “The Untouchables”), Chicago loves its architecture and public art.

And with its neoclassical Field Museum and the Bears’ Soldier Field – at least until a remodeling job made it look like a spaceship landed on it – Chicago looks not only like it should hold the games but held the original version.

“It all looks like it came out of ancient Greece,” said actor Joe Mantegna, a Chicago native who now lives in Los Angeles.

Chicago also has the tallest building in the United States:the Sears Tower, and there are plans for one that will be taller still.

Finally, there’s the sports. “Dodger fans show up in the fourth inning and they leave in the fifth,” said Joe Canale.

Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES – Flash forward to the summer of 2016. You’re at the Olympics and you’ve just finished watching a thrilling day of athletic competition.

Unwinding from all that excitement, you could top it off by lounging on the soft white sands of a Malibu beach before strolling up to a little seaside bar filled with tanned, toned movie star look-alikes.

Or, you could step off the gritty brown rocks that pass for sand along the shores of Lake Michigan and be blown headfirst into the water. (They don’t call it The Windy City for nothing.)

That stark difference exemplifies why Los Angeles should be the U.S. candidate to host the 2016 Games.

Sure, Chicago is a nice city, with tall buildings, a big, picturesque river they paint green every St. Patrick’s Day and a cool downtown stitched together by a cute elevated train.

But Los Angeles has an abundance of what should really matter to the members of the U.S. Olympic Committee who decide Saturday which city is the American candidate for the Games: perfect weather and beautiful people who know how to flaunt what they’ve got.

Famous people are everywhere in LA-LA Land, making movies, TV shows, recording albums, getting arrested, checking in and out of rehab (sometimes on the same day).

Cruise the streets of Los Angeles and you might run into Tom Cruise. Or, if you’re traveling by car, you might really run into Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Halle Berry, Haley Joel Osment or Matthew Perry, just a few of the famous who have had their share of fender-benders on the streets of L.A. in recent years.

There are so many celebrities here that even other celebs are impressed.

“(Quentin) Tarantino lives here! (Bob) Dylan lives here!” says Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, sounding far more excited than should a guy who’s sold 75 million records.

Stewart made a 7 1/2-minute “Battle Olympia” film celebrating the eccentric charms of his adopted city. It’s been used as a promotional tool by the local Olympic committee.

Los Angeles is so celebrity-filled that walking around it is like being on a giant film set. A set, one might add, where the thermostat never needs to be adjusted because when summer rolls around it’s virtually always 80 degrees and bone dry. On any given summer day, Chicago could be 50 degrees or 100. And humid.

What’s more, when it comes time to actually host the Games, organizers likely will want some big, muscular guy in a toga to light the Olympic flame. They’ll need somebody who looks a lot like the guy who starred in those “Terminator” films, someone who can bellow out, “I’ll Be Back!” in a voice like Conan the Barbarian’s.

No problem. That guy actually lives right here in town and doubles as the governor of California. Arnold Schwarzenegger. is just one of the many quirky, iconic characters who make L.A. what it is: a place everybody in the world wants to check out.

“We even have Beckham now,” notes humorist Stan Freberg, a lifelong resident, referring to the soccer heartthrob.