Today’s peek into the bizarre
world known as Tribune sports is the page-one column, “Bears see a culture of
winning in Cubs,” notable for two reasons.
First, it links the only two teams the Trib really cares about. Second, well, it’s downright bizarre.
And I don’t mean that Cubs’
manager Joe Maddon takes up much of the column extolling first-year Bears’
coach Matt Nagy. Right now, Maddon is
trying not to be Captain Smith of the Titanic.
You wish him well, but you don’t want him talking about you, unless
maybe you’re Captain Turner of the Lusitania.
I don’t imagine the writer of the
piece knows about either captain, or the history of the families of the teams
he’s writing about. The Bears project
amiable dysfunction in the person of principal owner Virginia McCaskey while
the Cubs are an evolving study of the feudin’ Ricketts. In the latest email dump courtesy of
Deadspin, any Ricketts’ sibling not named Tom seems to resent any publicity
sent the way of all Ricketts named Tom.
This on top of old man Ricketts showing himself to be pretty much of a
racist and the entire family demonstrating a penchant for wanting to crush all
opposition to plans for what the area around Wrigley Field should be. Just ask Ald. Tom Tunney about that.
The column’s right to link the
Bears and Cubs, though; they’re part of the tapestry that is Chicago sports’
ownership. The grandchildren of Charles
Comiskey so hated one another they let the team slip out of family control, and
let’s not forget the Hawks’ Bill Wirtz, who both feared and resented his son
and successor, Rocky. As for Jerry (White
Sox) and Michael (Bulls) Reinsdorf, there you have an object lesson in the
difficulties some people have in finding their butts with their hands.
They’re all one big happy family.
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