Speech Patterns

For someone who detests the way New Yorkers act like they invented the game of basketball, I admit to a bromance with Long Island native Billy Donovan. Why can’t all coaches, regardless the sport, talk like Donovan? Ever since Mike Ditka was fired, the McCaskeys have sought ought masters of word salad to coach the Bears, the only exception being Lovie Smith, who enjoyed letting the media know how much he detested them. Now, we have Mickey Eberflus. By this time next year, it’ll be another Eberflus. The White Sox had their Ditka in the person of Ozzie Guillen. No more of him for Jerry Reinsdorf, whose idea of the perfect manager was Mickey Mouse, except for his inability to win a game. As for Will Venable, we’ll see. As for Craig Counsell of the Cubs, yeah, he acknowledges his team’s faults, but that’s about it. Back to Donovan. This remark in yesterday’s Sun-Times, about his team’s defensive woes, was typical: “I always say it comes down to the physicality part, to loose basketballs, to taking a charge. I mean, we’ve taken two charges all season [over fourteen games]. For our team as small [as the Bulls are compared to the competition], somebody’s going to have to put their body” on the line. Well said, and more of it, please.

The Sounds of Silence

The recently-formed Women’s Professional Baseball League has announced plans for a six-team league starting in 2026. As the father of a female athlete who started in baseball before jumping—or being pushed—to softball, I can only wish them well, but… According to an AP story on the league that ran in the Sunday Sun-Times, stats for 2023-24 show some 473,000 girls playing high school softball vs. 1,300 in baseball. That gives you an idea as to the uphill climb the idea of women playing baseball faces. Here’s another—crickets from MLB. No mention of MLB on the WPBL website and no mention of the WPBL on mlb.com. What, Rob Manfred and friends are afraid of a little competition?

Help Wanted

Imagine this. Yesterday, the Bears were down by one point against the Packers, with 35 seconds left in the game and the home team on the opposition’s 30-yard line. They ran the ball for two yards, let the clock run down to three seconds and attempted a field goal. What would Tom Brady have done with those 35 seconds? I ask because Brady was part of the broadcast team. I’m pretty sure he said there was time for still another play after the run, but I really would’ve like to see was the look on his face and his body language as the Munsters decided to let the clock run down for a 46-yard field goal attempt by Cairo Santos. Guess who missed? Guess who lost, 20-19? Forget Brady. What would any good team have done? Do you think Joe Burrow or Josh Allen would’ve handed the ball off? Matt Stafford or Jared Goff? No, but the Munsters did because, as soon-to-be ex-coach Mickey Eberflus put it in the postgame press conference, something bad could’ve happened if they had run another play. Play not to lose, and odds are you’ll lose. Which brings me to one of my favorite quotes, that the Bourbons of France learned nothing in exile and forgot nothing when restored to the throne. Same goes for Eberflus and the people who hired him.

Bush League

MLB still likes to refer to itself as “the national pastime.” I wonder why. The Rays have announced they’ll play next season at Steinbrenner Field, the Yankees spring-training site, while repairs are made to the roof at Tropicana Field. Hurricane Milton did a number on it back in October. Meanwhile, the A’s will play the next three seasons at Sutter Health Park in suburban Sacramento while their new home is being built in Las Vegas. Capacity at Steinbrenner Field will be 11,000 and 14,000 at Sutter Health Park. The mind boggles. Games 3-5 for the 1959 World Series between the White Sox and Dodgers drew 276,750, or over 90,000 a game. On three separate occasions during the regular season, the original Yankee Stadium drew crowds in excess of 80,000. But that was then, and this is now. Act bush league, be bush league.

Like Father, Like Son

We were a family of White Sox fans, passing on the pain from one generation to the next. So, when the Sox decided to leave WGN Ch. 9 after the 1967 season, my dad went out and bought a converter box so we could watch our heroes on UHF station Ch.32. A clear picture was beside the point. Then-owner Arthur Allyn thought that by moving the games to a new station, he could get his team more exposure. That worked in so far as the broadcast schedule increased (I think), but not that many fans went out and bought converters. From then on, the Sox wandered through a broadcast desert while the crosstown-rival Cubs had WGN all to themselves. And when WGN went to cable, the Cubs went nationwide. You’d think Jerry Reinsdorf would follow the adage of “Once burned, twice wary,” but, No. Reinsdorf took the Sox and Bulls to a new regional sports network with Danny Wirtz bringing the Hawks along because he doesn’t know any better, I guess. Only Comcast, the biggest cable provider in these parts, can’t agree with the Chicago Sports Network on the carriage fee. So, rather than stream CHSN at $19.99 a month per team (or $29.99 a month for all three), I went out today and bought an indoor antenna that will allow me to pick up CHSN from WJYS-Ch. 62, a UHF station. Here’s looking at you, Dad.

Don't Come Crying

Baseball franchises are divided between the haves and have-nots, real and pretend. You can put the Yankees; Mets; Red Sox; and Dodgers in the former and most everybody else in the latter. How to explain mlb.com, then? Go on the website, and it’s Juan Soto, all day every day, just like it was Shohei Ohtani last offseason. If not Soto, then the next top-rated free agent. Scott Boras and his fellow agents must love how the daily barrage of stories creates a fan frenzy to sign their clients, yesterday if not sooner. Fast-forward to the end of the next collective bargaining agreement, and you can bet ownership will be crying poor, even though its publicity machine—and mlb.com is nothing if not a publicity machine—treats free-agent signings like an auctioneer working a gullible crowd with money to burn. So, if Soto gets his $700 million-plus contract, don’t come crying to me, and be careful about passing the cost onto your fan base. The peasants are grumpy these days.

What a Coincidence

Wow. On the same day the Bears did something they hate to do—fire a coach in-season—they did something they love to do. The Munsters showed offensive coordinator Shane Waldron the door at the same time it was reported the team is reconsidering a site just south of Soldier Field for their new stadium. In other words, they were willing to let go of someone who showed he was absolutely clueless about to build an offense around rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, and this after only nine games. In McCaskey Land, that qualifies as the speed of light. But, again, what a coincidence that move happened on the same day as those reports about the old Michael Reese hospital site suddenly looking pretty good to the Munsters. If true, that would be the second city site to go with the original Arlington Heights site. Of course, any such interest is predicated on government ponying up $2.5 billion, give or take, for the project. Only in Chicago, only with the Bears.