Sea Change(s)

Woe onto those poor Bears’ fans who drank the Kool-Aid in August and convinced themselves that their beloved Monsters of the Midway wouldn’t stink too much this year under new coach John Fox.  But it’s hard to lie to yourself after your team gets skunked 26-zip in Seattle to start the season at 0-3.  What did Forrest Gump say again?  Oh, right, stupid is as the McCaskeys do.

In sports, there’s change and there’s change in the wake of constant losing.  Allow me to explain.  The Cubs were uneven under the 28-year ownership of Tribune Company—very good a few times, but mostly mediocre or a cut above.  Once the money stopped flowing in (think of the cash wasted on Milton Bradley), ownership signaled they wanted out.  Enter Tom Ricketts in 2010.

A good rule of thumb is a new owner is the most likely to gut things, or force a change in a team’s culture, as they like to say.  Ricketts hired Theo Epstein, got serious about renovating Wrigley Field, and now finds his team in the playoffs, or whatever the tilt between wildcard teams is.  The Houston Astros, sold most recently in 2011, have followed the same gut-the-franchise plan, to a possible playoff spot.  The next week will tell.

The Blackhawks have done like the Cubs, only without selling the team; they made use of the Grim Reaper instead.  After Bill Wirtz died in 2007, his son Rocky took over the organization and brought it out of the Middle Ages; the first of three Stanley Cups started three years later.  The thing of it is, the younger Wirtz was willing to act like Tom Ricketts while the McCaskey family insists on proving they’re one vast, bad gene pool.

And Jerry Reinsdorf?  With both the White Sox and Bulls, Reinsdorf started off like Ricketts, an owner with a plan.  Front offices and coaching staffs were realigned, old homes were jettisoned for “state-of-the-art” facilities and new talent was drafted and/or signed as free agents.  But Reinsdorf is pushing 80 and acting more like Bill Wirtz in his dotage.  I’d buy the White Sox and turn things upside down a la Ricketts, but I can never get that Powerball right.

But it could be worse.  The Sox could be owned by the McCaskeys.