Lesser of Two Evils

 In a way, it’s great how both Chicago teams are dominating their respective leagues going into the second week of May.  The Cubs have the most wins in major-league baseball with 24 while the White Sox are two behind that number.  Why, there was so much baseball in today’s Tribune sports’ section that the Bears were bumped to the back page.  Outrage, I say.

And it is, because despite all the fun Chicago baseball fans might be having right now, sports are a business.  Some Bears’ official woke up this morning to see where that Trib story ran and was unhappy.  Odds are Halas Hall will launch some kind of media counterattack.  You don’t mess around with them, Jim.

At least the Bears have weight to throw around.  Pity the other spring/summer sports around here.  We live in a zero-sum world, where media coverage is finite, so many minutes and inches of column space allotted on a daily basis.  The Tribune usually runs a six-page sports’ section.  To cover the Cubs and White Sox, something has to give.  Hello, professional soccer.  Goodbye, coverage.  Hello, WNBA….

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred was in town last week, if only to have everyone fawn over him.  But Manfred was nice enough—and savvy enough—to say how great it is for both Chicago teams to be doing so well; he even entertained the possibility of a Crosstown World Series come October.  But if he were being honest, Manfred would’ve admitted MLB has a default preference for all things New York and Boston, as evidenced by yet another MLB broadcast of a Yankees-Red Sox game.

Mother’s Day in the Bronx, what we all want to experience.  Right, Commissioner?  But if I have to pick between being inundated with Chicago baseball stories in season or Chicago football stories out of season (is there such a thing for the NFL?), I’ll go with option number one any day.  Sorry, Fire and Sky fans, but it’s a zero-sum world.