Lap-dog Journalism

Bears’ tight-end Cole Kmet suffered a season-ending knee injury Thursday night against the Patriots. What kind of knee injury I don’t know because nobody wants to say or find out. Go on the Bears’ website, and the only two things you’ll find are Coach Ben Johnson’s press conference from Friday where Johnson confirms Kmet’s season is over and a roster-move, also from Friday, that Kmet has been placed on the IR. As ever with the NFL, they decide what’s newsworthy and what isn’t. All of which is to be expected. What gets my head shaking in disbelief is how meekly the Chicago media goes along. No updates on Kmet anywhere that I could find. Kevin Fishbain did a story in The Athletic today that assesses Kmet’s value to the team. OK, but what exactly happened to him? Fishbain doesn’t say. To which Coach Johnson, Bears GM Ryan Poles and everyone else in the NFL would respond: Good boy.

Buddy Downer

If I needed a reason to root against the Brewers, ex-owner and -commissioner Bud Selig provided one when he crawled out from under his rock Thursday to call for a salary cap, just like he did in 1994, which led to a strike and him cancelling the World Series that year and, in a way, the steroids’ era that followed. The now 92-year old Selig sounded like an old dog unable to learn anything new, or even remember the mistakes he and owners committed 32 years ago. I’m not as old as Selig, but I do forget things sometimes. How many MVP and Cy Young awards did Selig win again? What year did he hit for the Triple Crown or throw a perfect game? How many fans go to a game looking at the owner’s box instead of the field? How many?

Night-night

Last night, Michele and I went to watch our son-in-law coach his high school team in the state playoffs (not good), so I had to tape the World Series. We didn’t get home till close to 10 PM. The Rays-Brewers’ broadcast started at 7. It took me maybe fifteen minutes to zoom through everything. The first pitch was at 7:17, which means I saw the last nine minutes or so in real time. Yawn. Commercials plus relievers makes for boring baseball. By my unscientific count, there were two minutes of commercial per half-inning. That’s 32 minutes of ads. If the Rays win on the road tonight, that would go to 36 minutes, give or take. Also figure about two minutes for each time a reliever comes in during an inning. That happened three times last night, so another six minutes. Also figure all the ads flashing onscreen during the game itself. The human mind can only take so much. Did I mention relievers? Somehow, the starters for both teams went five innings, after which came the parade out of the respective bullpens, four relievers for the Rays, three for the Brewers. The human mind can only absorb so much. Oh, Brewers 3 Rays 2.

Imagine

The announced attendance for last night’s Bears-Patriots’ game at Soldier Field was 60,520, which looked to be full house to me. Fans wore their Mike Ditka tribute outfits and/or mustaches and had plenty to cheer about in a 30-24 Bears’ win. Long story short, they’re a good team if Caleb Williams is under center. I wonder what the McCaskeys were thinking when TV cameras showed the crowd. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there were also plenty of shots of the nearby Chicago skyline. Talk about picture-perfect. Does any of that happen with a Bears’ stadium in Arlington Heights or, perish the thought, Hammond? It would be nice to know how many traffic accidents are the result of Bears’ games. Consider what tailgating plus three hours of drinking inside Soldier Field will do to a person. I would like to see projections for the number of accidents with a stadium in Arlington or Hammond vs. Chicago. If the Bears have those numbers, they’re not sharing them, and they should. My guess is either alternative site will have more accidents because access to public transportation will be lower. Right now, fans can either walk from Soldier Field or take an Uber downtown; from there, they can take the subway or Metra home. Arlington and Hammond might each have one rail line, but that’s about it. All those fans who made it home last night, would they driving from Hammond (oh, what skyline shots there would have been, of the steel mills and refineries)? My experience driving home from Valparaiso University after visits to Clare was white-knuckling it until we crossed over into Illinois. Interstate 80 or 90? Pick your poison, and I don’t drink. What did Jonie Mitchell sing, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone? Last night, Soldier Field looked as close to paradise as Bears’ fans will ever get.

Nothing to See Here

It must be a thing with Reinsdorf teams on the rebound (pardon the pun for team #2). The White Sox started the regular season losing three to the Brewers; things gradually got better after that. Maybe the same will hold true for the Bulls. They copied the Sox by laying an egg for their season opener. The Sox lost 14-2, the Bulls got blown out in Toronto by the Raptors, 135-92. Now, let’s see if they can turn things around. Rookie forward Caleb Wilson, the foundation for this latest rebuild, scored sixteen points, which isn’t bad, unlike the nine turnovers. Yikes. Wilson teamed with Matas Buzelis, who scored seventeen points with six rebounds, so, there’s that at least. I’ve got a whole season to learn what is basically a new roster to with a new coaching staff. Maybe by April it will have been worth the effort.

Failure to Communicate, Contd.

Eagles’ quarterback Jalen Hurts was allowed to play in London on October 11 even though the team knew he had a blood clot in his calf. Back in Philadelphia, Hurst underwent further tests that showed the clot had moved to both lungs. This more-serious condition means he won’t be able to play for the rest of the season. Did the team gamble on a star player’s health? Was it safe to let him fly, either to or from London? There might be any number of relevant questions to ask, not that it would matter. Because neither the Eagles nor the NFL have any intention of answering them. Rather than address the situation head-on, the organization trotted out head coach Nick Sirianni address the media by his lonesome on Monday. This is how he explained things: “I’m not a medical expert. I lean on our guys in all these situations. I’m a football coach. I lean on our medical experts in every situation. I have full trust and full faith in them. It’s not just me that has major care for our players. It’s them as well.” The above quote came from the NFL Notebook in Monday’s Sun-Times. The same quote, minus the “I’m not a medical expert” line, appeared in a story Zach Berman did in Monday’s The Athletic. Why Borman or an editor dropped that sentence from the quote beats me. But the quote in Borman’s story went on to include this line: “And so we are all there, and I’m glad to be part of an organization that cares about the guys the way our guys do.” How pathetic on multiple levels. You send out a person who admits he lacks the training to explain the situation; you don’t make the injured player available for comment; and Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, defends the Eagles’ handling of Hurts’ injury. A fox would show more concern for the occupants of a hen house than the NFL does for its players.

Bye-Bye

So, the Guardians weren’t a team of destiny, after all. And Jose didn’t produce when he was needed him the most. Rays 7 Guardians 3. Tampa Bay takes the ALCS in six games and moves on to the World Series against the Brewers. More on this small-market, small-payroll tilt later. For now, consider how the Guardians made just like the White Sox and lost the same way. Cleveland went with an opener, followed by seven relievers. And, how did that work? See above for score.