Stop Before You Win Again

Somebody needs to tell the Bulls all this winning is messing with the rebuild plan, the exact contents of which seem to have been leaked to certain members of the Chicago media.  The same day a sports’ columnist advised readers not to lose sight of the big picture—and Bulls’ management not to hold onto certain veteran players—Nikola Mirotic hit eight three-pointers in a 119-107win over the Pacers on Friday night.  That’s ten wins in twelve games, for anyone who’s counting.

I did a quick check to see that the 6’10” Mirotic doesn’t turn 27 until February.  But given the unforgiving nature of rebuilds, that marks him as a veteran who has to go.  So, again I ask, in exchange for what?  If Mirotic (alone or with another under-30 Bulls’ veteran like Robin Lopez or Justin Holiday), is shipped to a good team in exchange for draft choices, the odds are the draft choices won’t be all that high, unless the good team has a #1 choice from a bad team.  If I recall correctly, the Bulls were hoping to get a #1 from the Celtics, who had it from a deal with the woeful Nets, in exchange for Jimmy Butler, but that never happened.  Teams just don’t want to give up high draft choices.

Then what?  Trade Mirotic in a salary dump?  He doesn’t make all that much at $27 million, and who exactly would you be looking to sign later on?  Not another Dwayne Wade, I hope.  Trade Mirotic for mid-level draft picks?  OK, but there’s no real guarantee there.  Anyone remember Marquis Teague?  I didn’t think so.  Trade him for bench players?  Anyone remember Cameron Payne?

What the Bulls should do is sit tight through the next two games, against the Wizards and Trail Blazers, Sunday and Monday, respectively.  Both teams are above .500, and Washington in particular has been a tough opponent the past few years.  If the Bulls drop both games, then tank away.  If they split, don’t be in such a rush to make any deals.  And, if they should happen to win both games, they might want to consider the rebuild more done than not.  Just sayin’.

In re Leadership, see "Kindall, Jerry"

I was going through the Tribune sports’ section yesterday when I ran across a rather interesting comment by a college football player.  It seems that some of the Missouri coaching staff has left for greener pastures, the timing of which may have upset team chemistry, as evidenced by a 33-16 loss to Texas in a bowl game.  Former offensive coordinator Josh Heupel and offensive-line coach Glen Elarbee were long gone—as in a month—before the final snap in the Texas Bowl on Wednesday.

Defensive end Marcell Frazier put it this way:  “As men they have to look in the mirror. They let a whole bunch of teenage boys down.” 

Wow, a college athlete who believes in the notion of sportsmanship.  The NCAA talks about that all the time, but I bet they won’t be asking Frazier to repeat his comments for a commercial.  No, it wouldn’t be self-serving enough.

Career .213 Batting Average

All I ever kreally new about Jerry Kindall is that he was an ex-Cub and he had a crappy Strat-O-Matic card with the ’65 Twins.  But there proved to be ever so much more.

After reading this week that Kindall had died at the age of 82, I went on baseball-reference.com to look at his stats.  In answer to the question how Kindall lasted nine years in the majors with only a career .213 BA, he was a bonus baby, as they were called back then.  The Cubs signed Kindall June 30, 1956, and he appeared in his first major league game the next day.  According to then-current rules on bonus signings, the player had to stay with the big-league club for two full years, so Kindall was available the next day to pinch run in a Cubs’ 7-0 win over the Braves.

He didn’t get his first at-bat until July 25 in a game against the Pirates at Forbes Field; ironically, it came in the same inning he pinch ran.  Down 4-0 in the eighth, the Cubs scored seven times to take the lead.  Kindall, who ran for Don Hoak who’d started the inning with a pinch single, struck out against Roy Face in his first major league at-bat.  The Cubs being the Cubs back then, they went on to lose the game in the bottom of the ninth on a walk-off, two-run inside-the-park homerun by Roberto Clemente.  At least Kindall took part in an exciting game.

My guess is that Kindall always carried the “bonus baby” promise with him during his stints with the Cubs, Indians and Twins; if nothing else, it probably kept him in the majors long after other .213 hitters would have been sent packing.  Not that Kindall was a baseball bust.  No, he hit his stride when his playing days were over and he became a college coach.

Kindall headed up the baseball program at Arizona from 1973 to 1996, winning the College World Series in 1980.  Indians’ manager Terry Francona played on that 1980 team and told the Associated Press, “In a nutshell, he taught us not only to respect the game of baseball, but respect the people in the game.  That was the most valuable lesson any of us learned.  He taught us how to act and treat people.”

Not a bad eulogy for a career .213 hitter.

The Odd Couple and other Bulls' Musings

The Bulls started their season a god-awful 3-20.  Then, Nikola Mirotic—he of the punch in the face from Bobby Portis—returned to the lineup and started guaranteeing victories.  That actually worked seven straight times, until a two-game losing streak courtesy of visits to Cleveland and Boston.

This is where you’d expect the Bulls to go back to tanking-mode.  A sure sign of a mediocre or worse team is giving back at least half the wins following a streak.  Never in my memory of any sport has a team followed a ten-game losing streak with a seven-game winning streak.  Oh, and this one rebounded from their two losses with two straight wins and counting.  The Bulls are now tied for seventh-worst record in the NBA at 12-22.  So, what’s going on?

Some form of weirdness, for sure.  A front office that last year thought adding Dwayne Wade and Rajon Rondo was a good idea turns around and looks to have executed a promising rebuild, all in one season.  Gone are Wade and Rondo as well as Isaiah Canaan, Michael Carter-Williams and Anthony Morrow, replaced by the likes of Kris Dunn, Lauri “the big Finn” Markkanen and David Nwaba.  Throw in a few holdovers from last season, including Jerian Grant and Paul Zipser, count down the days for the debut of guard Zach LaVine (acquired with Dunn and Markkanen for Jimmy Butler), and all of a sudden you have a team with depth.  It’s like GM Gar Forman and his boss John Paxson found a stash of smart pills, that or they did right by bringing in former Bulls’ coach Doug Collins as a senior advisor.  Either way, watching Bulls’ basketball in December has been a lot of fun.

And interesting.  This week in a game against the Bucks, I caught Mirotic and Portis laughing and talking to one another, if only on the court.  I also saw coach Fred Hoiberg on the sideline yelling at his players and motioning them to hustle down court, which is part of his run-and-shoot offense.  For the first time in three years, Hoiberg actually has a roster reflective of his philosophy.  What took so long?  That’s a question for the ages.  Will it last?  We’ll see in the weeks ahead.  One move by Hoiberg hardly anyone has commented on is his going stretches without a center.  It’s either three guards and two forwards or vice versa, all depending on how you count Mirotic.  With Markkanen a seven-foot forward, you can get away with that.  Better yet, it’s working.  

And, what of the rebuild?  Personally, I hate that term when it’s applied to any sport other than baseball.  A rebuild implies multiple seasons of losing so a team can draft talent and develop it.  But you don’t develop talent in the NBA and NFL like you do in baseball.  There are no real minor leagues for the other sports.  The NBA developmental league doesn’t really count because night after night everyone is trying to shoot lights-out; they’re not working to improve their skill set to become better passers, rebounders or shot-blockers.  In the NBA a first-round pick basically is expected to step in and perform from the start, at the very worst as the first guy off the bench.  Anything less and the prospect turns suspect by the start of his second season.  It’s not fair, but that’s how the game is played.

All of a sudden, the Bulls have drafted and traded right.  They really don’t need to trade Justin Holiday and Robin Lopez, the elder statesmen on the team at 28 and 29, respectively.  Forget the “rebuild” manual; it hardly ever works in basketball.  Instead, enjoy the run, hope that it continues, and cross your fingers the front-office dysfunction is past. 

The State of Human Existence

In this part of the universe, the sooner you realize you live in a Bears’ world, the better—or not.  The bite is that it doesn’t matter because all the media here knows is Bears-Bears-Bears, 24/7.

Given the American fixation on football, this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.  I’m sure other parts of the country are the same way, the difference being that New Englanders are a whole lot happier being bombarded with Patriots’ news, 24/7.  Heck, 49ers’ fans have a franchise history that could pretty much go toe-to-toe with the Bears’, and their rebuild leapfrogged over ours with the acquisition of a good, young quarterback to go with a good, young offensively-minded head coach.  And what is Chicago media fixated on?  Why, the John Fox death watch, of course.

Think about it.  Going into the last week of the 2015 regular season, no one outside of the White Sox fan base cared whether or not Sox manager Robin Ventura was returning.  Ventura’s stepping down and Rick Renteria replacing him registered as a mere blip on the Chicago sports’ landscape, rendered nearly invisible by college and, yes, Bears’ news (along with the Cubs’ run to the World Series).

Maybe I should consider getting my news off my iphone; that way I could structure what if any sports to get.  That sure beats the Sun-Times, which adorned its back page today with a big picture of a scruffy-bearded Fox, to be followed by seven pages devoted to pro and college football.  (Technically, the Bears fall under the “pro” category, though I think the semi-pro Owls from the 1960s could give them a run.)

Due to its “broadsheet” format, the Tribune could afford to be generous and fit in Bulls’ and Blackhawks’ stories to go along with its near half-page photo of quarterback Mitch Trubisky.  You see, Trubisky is the bright future and Fox the soon-to-be-discarded past.  I hope so, because a universe devoted to so much crappy football isn’t one I want to live in, not once you factor in the cold and the snow.

Oh, My!

Announcers used to be known by their catchphrases.  With Red Barber, it was “Oh, Doctor!”; Jack Brickhouse, “Hey!  Hey!”; Harry Caray, “Holy Cow!”; and Hawk Harrelson, “You can put it on the board, yes!”  Nowadays, good announcers are content to sound smart.  The rest just try to sound like Bob Costas.

Dick Enberg, who died last week at the age of  82, belonged to that older group of announcers, as evidenced by his signature “Oh, my!”  Enberg called just about everything in sports but seemed to like baseball most of all.  According to his obituary in the New York Times, he grew up wanting to play right field for the Detroit Tigers.

Enberg was good enough to receive the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame for his work.  “I loved acknowledging the subtle arrogance of Hall of Famer Rod Carew’s drag bunt,” he told a Cooperstown audience in the summer of 2015.  “The sleight-of-hand of Brooks Robinson magically reducing doubles into 5-3 putouts.  The towering arc of a Ted Williams mortar shot deposited in the bleachers high.  The classic confrontation of the best hitter against the best pitcher and the immaculately executed ballet of a double play.  I love the double play.”

Oh, my.  Yes.

Nose Count

Nose Count

Back in the day, they would call yesterday’s steady snow and nippy temperatures “Bears’ weather,” which would make the home team play all that much harder and the fans root with ever more heart.  On Christmas Eve 2017, the now 5-10 Bears played hard enough to beat the now 0-15 Browns by a score of 20-3.  The no-shows amounted to 17,539 fans, a figure to leave any Scrooge—or McCaskey—of an owner grumpy, to say the least.

The snow didn’t do any favors for Mitch Trubisky, either.  Inclement weather was the perfect excuse for “coach” John Fox to keep the ball on the ground; Trubisky attempted only 23 passes on the afternoon, completing 14.  I can imagine the Bears’ “brain trust” (sorry about all the qualifying quotes, but it is the Bears) holding its breath, old man Halas spinning in his grave, each time Trubisky dropped back to throw.  And I can imagine the collective smiles after each of the 24 times he handed the ball off.  As for the seven times Trubisky took off on his own, no doubt the soon-to-be unemployed coaches shrugged their shoulders and said, “Well, at least he didn’t throw the ball.  That’s dangerous.”  Just look at Tom Brady, or Jimmy Garoppolo, who started and won for the fourth straight time with the 49ers.  No sir, we don’t want to overthrow that pigskin.

As a social Bears’ fan (I do it instead of drinking) at best, I envy if not outright resent the attention allotted to an absolutely atrocious team—five pages in today’s Tribune sports’ section alone.  The McCaskeys bear out that old adage about there being no such thing as bad publicity.  They keep misrunning their team, the media keeps calling them out, and they keep on owning the team.  At least they didn’t have that many ticket receipts to count yesterday.  That’ll pass for a good lump of coal.

Softball Flashback

This being Christmas Eve, you wouldn’t think I’d be having a travel-softball flashback, but it came ahead of Santa, anyway, courtesy of the Tribune Travel Section.  The trigger had nothing to do with softball per se.

No, it was a story on “Underground America: from holiday lights to a salt museum, subterranean surprises await.”  The first stop on our underground tour was Hutchinson, Kansas, with its 175 miles of salt caves some 650 feet below ground.  To the best of my knowledge, there are no softball fields down there.  Above ground, though, is another story.

After Clare’s junior year of high school, which featured a nice .425 batting average, the new travel coaches pushed to go to the end-of-season nationals’ tournament in Hutchinson for reasons they never bothered to explain.  In some ways, this would have been perfect, because these two guys tossed my daughter into the proverbial hole that summer.  But at least it didn’t happen in Kansas.

Parents and players rose in revolt, so we ended up spending a week in Salisbury, Maryland.  That’s where one of the coaches felt the need to tell Clare she’d never hit in college.  That’s what you call real leadership (just kidding).  So, as I watch the snow gently falling on a late Sunday morning, I can only hope that guy ended up in Hutchinson, way down in Hutchinson, that is.

That's Entertainment

NBC Channel 5 in Chicago did a sports’ feature last night on a 13-year old figure skater who wants to go to the Olympics, not 2018 but the 2022 Games in Beijing.  The whole thrust of the story was that here’s a kid with drive.

Thanks to TiVo, I was able to pause it to get a pen and paper and take notes.  The girl is being schooled on-line, whatever that means, so she can practice six days a week three hours at a time; she also has off-ice practice sessions three days a week.  Does she have the time or inclination to learn where Beijing is?

Every parent of an aspiring artist or athlete has to decide how best to balance their kid’s interest with the other things in life.  Ultimately, the question of how far do you go encouraging a youthful passion has to be raised and answered.  For us with Clare, the answer was “pretty far,” but never to the point that softball trumped school.

I pitched batting practice until my elbow popped (and kept going for close to ten years more); hit grounder after grounder to my little infielder, then fly ball after fly ball to my bigger outfielder; drove her to practice; warmed her up; found money for outrageously expensive bats and other equipment; and served as all-around confessor and coach.  Michele had her own set of responsibilities, each one equal to what I did or more.  But through it all, Clare had to have her homework done and see that school offered an education, without which there can’t be a future.

On-line classes?  No, thanks.  Exposure to the arts and sciences?  Of course.  We wanted a daughter with good power numbers and an even better ACT score.  Maybe the family of that Olympic hopeful feels the same way.  Maybe that part of the story got cut.  Maybe.

The CD Shuffle

I may want to hold onto our 2011 Ford Fusion for as long as possible.  It has a CD player that holds six at a time, which allows me to be my own Sirius station.  I’ve burned 40-plus CDs over the years, and the thought of having to switch over to an iPod fills me with dread.

The thing is, every CD is organized around a theme or certain artists or bands; there’s a CD for every mood (of which I must have around 40).  I put three in last week, and, not only do I get the music I want, each CD comes with a creation memory.  The one that has Desmond Dekker and Johnny Rivers on it is so old it came from Napster.  That was a Father’s Day gift Clare gave me right after she graduated from eighth grade.  I played “Israelites” and “Secret Agent Man” for the first time on the way to a travel tournament in Wilmette.

The CD with the Doors, Canned Heat and Jefferson Airplane debuted on our drive to nationals in Kansas City, sophomore year of high school.  On the drive over, we had our own “Deliverance” moment in southwest Iowa; always be careful where you stop for gas.  We survived and were able to enjoy the coming-out party of the “Bambina,” who tied for first in the homerun-hitting contest.  Light My Fire, indeed.

“My 20^th CD,” as that one’s titled, was done in 2012, when Clare was again a sophomore, this time at Elmhurst.  Michele and I listened to Bruno Mars, Florence and the Machine and the Lumineers on our way to Davenport, Iowa, one February weekend to watch Clare and her Bluejays open the season in a dome, actually a repurposed indoor driving range; nothing is ever too good for women’s sports.  Anyway, I’d just had an infected tooth removed the day before and was walking around with a cartoon-sized swollen jaw.  Trust me, watching my daughter hit beat taking Vicodin.

And I’m supposed to give up these CDs in the name of progress?  Not yet.

The Bah Humbug of Stephen Strasburg

Teams hold fan conventions in the off-season to keep interest high—this will be the year, that won’t happen again.  Players and front-office people make nice, everybody has a good time.  No one is really supposed to make news at one of these things, but that didn’t stop Stephen Strasburg.

The Nationals’ star right hander used his team’s fan convention last week to say he’s inclined to skip pitching in any more All-Star games, the next of which just so happens to be in Washington.  Apparently, the extra effort threw off Strasburg’s routine at last summer’s game, to the detriment of his arm.  At least Strasburg thinks it did.

The 29-year old, whose injuries have included Tommy John surgery in 2010, said, “I was on such a good program with the training staff and massage therapists; I was in this routine.  Then all of a sudden you’re asked to throw, potentially pitch, maybe not, but not have any access or ability to really stick to your routine.  Once that’s over, it’s like right back into it: bullpen, day off, game.  I just know that little lapse, for whatever reason, it pushed me back a bit.  It started making my arm hurt.”

How do you tell a player fearing injury he’s wrong?  Dizzy Dean suffered a broken toe in the 1937 All-Star Game and that threw off his mechanics leading to arm injury and a shortened career.  Of course, it would have been nice had Strasburg cited Ol’ Diz as precedent for his thinking.  It also would have been nice had Strasburg addressed fans directly.  If not at the All-Star Game, when and where can they expect to see him?

Strasburg almost didn’t pitch against the Cubs in the NLCS in October because of the flu, or what Dusty Baker thought was the flu when he said Strasburg wouldn’t be pitching, only he did pitch (and won).  Fans want to see their heroes conquer adversity, to be like Michael Jordan and overcome food poisoning to win the big game.  In the end, it’s what they’re paid to do.  The All-Star Game isn’t the postseason, but strike out six batters in a row, and see what that does to your earning potential, to say nothing of your reputation.  If you’re too afraid to seize one stage, will you know when to seize another?

Continuity

I’m old enough to remember party lines (and our neighbor Mrs. Kats, who always seemed to be on the phone when I wanted to use it), so the whole idea of cell phones is still pretty remarkable to me.  Monday night, we’re streaking down the Tri-State Tollway when Michele calls Clare, and I’m trying to keep my head in the 21^st century.

It didn’t help when Michele put Clare on speaker phone; she had baseball news.  The Red Sox had re-signed first baseman Mitch Moreland to a two-year deal.  “You know what that means,” the White Sox shadow GM said.  “They’re going to keep Abreu.”  And she was happy about that.

Part of what I love about baseball is continuity in the face of business logic, which dictates the comings and goings of players.  If continuity at a position doesn’t exactly defy that logic, it still delays the inevitable, and that’s fine by me.  I like it when the same guy’s been at his position for ten or more years.  We’re thinking about you, Paul Konerko.

With the White Sox, shortstop has been the one position where continuity really sticks out.  Consider that from 1932 to 1970, or from the time Mrs. Kats was young to when I graduated high school, the Sox had all of four starting shortstops—Luke Appling, Chico Carrasquel, Luis Aparicio and Ron Hansen.  That’s it, minus the two years Appling lost to military service during World War II and the one season Hansen lost to injury (to be replaced by that local legend, Lee Elia).  I mean, teams can go through four players at a position in a single year.

With Frank Thomas, Konerko and Abreu, it feels a little bit like Appling et al.  I don’t know if that’s good for business, but it’s good for fans like my daughter and me.

Just Comepensation

Frank Lary and Tommy Nobis both died last week.  I remember them from when I was growing up.

Lary was a pretty good right-handed starting pitcher with a career mark of 128-116 in a career that spanned from 1954 to 1965.  He went 28-13 against one team in particular, which led to his nickname as “The Yankee Killer.”  The White Sox acquired Lary from the Mets in July of 1965, and he pitched in fourteen games for them.  Ironically, the Sox lost those three games he appeared in against the Yankees.

For some reason, I remember a story in the paper from the end of the season about the status of various Sox players.  Lary said he wanted to pitch another year.  He didn’t.  His career ended a year before Tommy Nobis’ began as an NFL middle linebacker.

Nobis was the Atlanta Falcons’ first-ever player and played his entire 11-year career with Atlanta, from 1966 to 1976.  Many critics put him on a level with Dick Butkus, but Nobis hardly appeared on Sunday games in Chicago for me to make a comparison; if the networks were going to show a crappy team, the Bears got dibs.  Nobis died at the age of 74.  His wife said she told him that the Falcons were in the Super Bowl this past February, but she couldn’t be sure he understood what she was telling him.

The average MLB salary in 2017 was $4.47 million versus $1.9 million in the NFL.  Given the violent, debilitating nature of football, it should be the other way around.  Judging by Frank Lary, baseball players would still come out ahead, by a lot.

Consequences

The thing about life is that it comes with consequences because of what we do and fail to do.  The silver lining for Bears’ fans is that, no matter how screwed up life might seem, their team is even worse.

For purposes of discussion, let’s say that a good NFL team starts at the quarterback position and ends at kicker.  Two weeks ago, the 1-10 49ers faced off against the 3-8 Bears.  Las Vegas money was on Chicago, which didn’t stop our hometown heroes from losing by a score of 15-14.  San Francisco started Jimmy Garoppolo for the first time in that game, and Garoppolo responded by throwing for 293 yards.  Garoppolo didn’t throw for any touchdowns, but he moved the ball enough for ex-Bears’ kicker Robbie Gould to kick five field goals, including the game winner with the clock winding down.

After three straight wins, the 49ers are now 4-10, just like the Bears.  The difference is they have a young coach—Kyle Shanahan—who likes to throw the ball, a good young quarterback (one the Bears wanted last offseason but were too afraid to trade for with the Patriots) and a kicker who may be headed for the Hall of Fame (Gould had six field goals yesterday, including the game winner against Tennessee, yes, with the clock winding down.  In the last three weeks, Gould has gone 15/15 in field goals and is 46/48 since the Bears released him at the start of last season.)

Now, tell me, what do the Bears have?  They have a young quarterback who might be good, but you can’t tell for sure because the “coach” hates to throw the ball.  And we know they don’t have a real kicker.  So, Merry Christmas, Bears’ fans.  At least you’re not the McCaskeys.

Rumor Has It

Poor P.T. Barnum, he was born way too soon.  If he didn’t coin the saying “There’s a sucker born every minute,” Barnum lived his life that way.  Why, today P.T. could be a billionaire peddler of fake news.  At the very least, he could do quite well just off of baseball rumors.

Manny Machado traded to the White Sox any day now or Bryce Harper signing with the Cubs next year—take your pick.  Let’s start with Machado.  Why would the Sox trade some of that young talent they worked so hard to acquire for a player in his free-agent year? And why would they trade for someone who doesn’t want to be a Gold-Glove third baseman anymore?  Why would they risk ruining team chemistry by telling incumbent shortstop Tim Anderson to take a hike and play third or centerfield?  Why would they try and sign Machado for the $300 million or more he’ll want after signing Anderson to a paltry six-year, $25 million contract extension?  Wouldn’t that be asking for a whole lot of understanding from Anderson, who to his credit climbed out of a god-awful offensive and defensive hole last year to have a nice season?  Tell me, I want to know, and the rumor ain’t saying.

As for the Cubs, money seems to be the perfect fertilizer for pie-in-the-sky thinking.  Since the North Siders are now a money machine, certainly they can afford Harper.  Never mind that he might want more money than Machado.  (The other day, I heard a talking head say it could be in the $400-$500 million range.)  Yeah, just eat Jayson Heyward’s contract.  Really, just eat $184 million?  Wouldn’t that mean Harper would cost upwards to $700 million?  If you keep Heyward, where does he play?  If the outfield becomes a game of musical chairs, who loses, Kyle Schwarber or Albert Almora?

Call me old fashioned, but I like rumors based on at least some facts.  (Unless the White Sox really are pushing for Machado, consequences be damned.  In that case, heaven help us all.)  And I may be old fashioned, but why not develop your own stars instead and then reward them generously when the time comes?

Charlie Hustle

One of the arguments for allowing PEDs’ users into Cooperstown is that the HOF already has plenty of bad characters.  Ty Cobb was a racist, and a whole bunch of players took amphetamines.  To which I say, Fine, that was then and this is now.  You have to start somewhere.

So, I guess I’ve finally come down against ever putting Pete Rose into the Hall.  Not even a big asterisk on his plaque would be enough now, not with sexual assault on top of gambling.  Back in September, Fox Sports let Rose go from its baseball broadcasts over allegations that in his playing days Charlie Hustle had sex with underage girls.  Rose’s defense, such as it was, consisted of admitting a relationship with a 16-year old.  Hey, that’s the age of consent in Ohio, and Rose claimed they never had sex out of state.

Rose filed a defamation suit against John Dowd, who made the initial underage-sex allegations public back in 2015.  (The 16-year old tidbit came from a statement Rose himself released during legal proceedings.)  The suit was dismissed in federal court yesterday.  If Cobb is one Cooperstown mistake too many, Rose would only be another.

The Winter Olympics are Coming!

You can tell the 2018 Winter Olympics are getting close by the related stories creeping into the NBC nightly news, both local and national.  Any day now, I expect to see a piece on the Chicago connection to the snow and ice that will be used in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The winter Olympics have always been a hard sell for me, all that snow and ice part of a cold, white death.  (Note: I’m past the age of thinking a fall on the ice is a minor mishap.)  Ever since I was a kid, I’ve looked at the Olympics as a sign that spring training was near and nothing more.  Sorry, 1960 and 1980 U.S. hockey teams.

And with Sochi being the “PEDs Games,” what assurances do we have that 2018 will be any different?  And with Rio being the latest installment in the “bribe the Olympic officials to get the winning bid” saga, what assurances do we have that, two years from now, we won’t be reading the same about the games in Pyeongchang?

I know, professional sports have their own PEDs scandals, and who knows what betting scandals await as pro teams locate to Las Vegas?  But at least I can tell myself, and on a good day believe, that baseball is on the up and up, PEDs-wise.  On bad days, I can think about my daughter hitting the daylights out of baseball and softballs, no bribe required. 

Small Wonders

At 3-20, the Bulls were the worst team in the NBA, but that was then and this is now.  The 7-20 Bulls are now the second-worst team in the NBA, ahead of the Atlanta Hawks.

As much as I want to snicker over this “rebound,” it is kind of nice.  The Bulls have a jerk-free roster, and a lot of players who really hustle.  For example, there’s Punchin’ Bobby Portis and undrafted second-year guard David Nwaba, both of whom are intent on squeezing talent out of desire.  Good for them.  Kris Dunn, one of the players acquired in the Jimmy Butler trade, also falls into that category.

And then we have prized rookie Lauri Markkanen, the 20-year old 7” forward from Finland by way of the University of Arizona (one year).  Markkanen has incredible three-point range and looks to have a really solid NBA career ahead of him, if he can stay healthy, that is.  Remember what I said about the perils of declaring for the NBA too soon and having to play against the big guys before a body has time to develop?  Well, Markkanen has missed the last two games with back spasms.

Maybe if he had stayed at Arizona….  

On the Throne Again?

What passes for baseball wisdom has the Yankees back on top of the baseball world because they went out and traded for Marlins’ slugger Giancarlo Stanton, he of the 59 homeruns in 2017.  Put Stanton with Aaron Judge, the “thinking” goes, and you have a pennant winner.  Allow me to ever-so-modestly disagree.

For openers, consider team chemistry.  The Judge-Stanton combination may not be the second coming of Maris-Mantle (which had its tensions), not when you factor in a $325 million contract that might make a second-year player more than a little envious (to say nothing of his teammates).  And who’s going to play right field, given that both Judge and Stanton did last year?  In eight years, Stanton has played one game in center field and thirteen as a DH.  Last I heard, it’s not a good idea having two outfielders in right.

Speaking of eight years, Stanton has never played on a winning ball club in the majors.  Tell me, at what point do you stop feeling sorry for him and start wondering if he’s part of the problem?  Take a look at the under-30 talent on the 2017Marlins: Stanton with his 59 homers; Marcell Ozuna (312. BA, 37 hr, 124 RBIs; Dee Gordon (.308 BA, 114 runs scored); Christian Yelich (.278 BA, 100 runs scored); Justin Bour (.289 BA, 25 hr, 83 RBIs in just 429 at-bats).  And they only went 77-85?  Hmm.

With all the hoopla over Stanton, people in need of a reality check might want to take a look at Yankee pitching.  The pinstripes are a tad thin in starting pitching.  Only three starters reached double figures in wins, and one of them, C.C. Sabathia, is a free agent.  Stanton and Judge will help win those 10-9 games, sure, but what about 1-0 and 3-2 contests?  Didn’t closer Aroldis Chapman have arm trouble on and off last season?  Hmm.

On top of Stanton having to adjust to a new team, all the Yankees are going to have to adjust to a new manager with Joe Girardi gone.  Yankees’ GM Brian Cashman must think the world of Aaron Boone, or why else would he have hired Boone to replace Girardi?  Cashman doesn’t seem concerned that the next major-league game Boone manages will be his first.  Hmm.

So, with all due respect for the talking heads on the MLB Network, I won't be making way for that new Yankees’ dynasty just yet.

Clare's Dad

Michele and I went out to breakfast Saturday morning at a Cheers-like place, where everybody knows your name, sort of.  We were sitting at a table not far from the cashier when an older gentleman went up to pay.  I recognized him as a teacher from Clare’s high school and a volunteer softball coach.  I waved, but he had no idea who I was.  Then I shouted, “Clare’s dad,” and he came right on over.  Talk about humbling.

There was a “Star Trek” episode once where the Enterprise went back in time to the 20^th century.  Poking around the upper atmosphere of Earth, the good ship caught the attention of an Air Force fighter pilot.  One thing led to another, and the pilot was taken onboard as his jet disintegrated.  Captain Kirk and company wanted to get back to their own time, only there was a problem.  Their new passenger had done nothing remarkable or history-changing in his life but for one thing—he fathered a child who went on to become a famous space explorer.

That makes me the dad in this scenario.  And did I ever mention that Clare wanted to be an astronaut at one time?  We even visited the Johnson Space Center.

By Any Measure

Last week, Bears fans had to face up to the reality of how bad their team is after it lost to the San Francisco 49ers.  Today, Cincinnati Bengals fans have to face up to the reality of how bad their team in the wake of yesterday’s 33-7 loss to the Bears.

It’s nice to see the Bears’ coaching staff finally decided to let quarterback Mitch Trubisky be Mitch Trubisky and allow him to throw 32 times, some of them even downfield, and it’s nice to see a team with a coach worse than John Fox.  (Maybe Fox and Marvin Lewis will switch jobs this offseason.  You never know.)  What really caught my eye were the no-shows at Paul Brown Stadium, some 13,000 at kickoff and just about the entire stadium midway through the fourth quarter save for family, friends and travelling Bears fans.

Of course, it’s a publicly funded stadium, so Bengals ownership is protected against the full brunt of a fan revolt.  Before taking sides, I need to know whose idea it was to have cheerleaders and name them the Ben-Gals (get it?), no less.  If that’s popular with the fans, then they get what they deserve.

Ball of Confusion

The Philadelphia 76ers finally traded Jahlil Okafor, the third pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, to the Brooklyn Nets.  It is, as they say, a cautionary tale, though one where the lessons aren’t all that clear.  Or maybe they are.

What’s plain to me is the risk for athletes who turn pro too young.  Okafor was nineteen when the 76ers took him.  Think about that for a second.  How does a nineteen-year old rookie go up against the likes of Dwight Howard or LaBron James or Marcin Gortat?  Okafor stands 6’11”, which made him a big fish at Whitney Young High School or Duke even, where he played a year.  But nineteen-year olds in the NBA find the pond a whole lot bigger, Kevin Garnett (and who else, really?) excepted.

Had he played longer at Duke, Okafor could have given his body a chance to mature, but no such luck.  Instead, he started banging under the basket with the big boys and came away the worse for it.  Okafor appeared in 53 games as a rookie, followed by 50 games last year; both seasons were cut short by knee problems.  This year, it wasn’t so much physical setbacls as a front office tired of waiting for a player to grow up.  At Duke, Okafor wasn’t known for driving around campus at 100 mph; as an NBA rookie, he found the need for (too much) speed on the streets of Philadelphia.  Another two or three years at Duke, and Okafor might have left with his priorities right.  We’ll never know.

  For me, the temptation is to say baseball is superior to basketball, given that MLB has very few nineteen-year old players at the big-league level.  But to be honest, there are a whole bunch of kids in the minors, where they get into all sorts of trouble.  The difference is most baseball players don’t have the kind of money to spend that Jahlil Okafor did.

There’s an old joke about first prize in a contest being one week in Philadelphia and second prize being two weeks.  Nowadays, second place would be getting traded to the Nets.  It’s a wakeup call, if only Okafor is mature enough to answer it. 

Practice Makes Perfect

With her fiancé Chris on the road recruiting for Elmhurst football, Clare slept over for part of the week.  I know the ghost in the house was happy for the visit, because our daughter is very considerate and always leaves the light on for him in every room.  Alright, maybe I was a little happy, too.

Naturally, we went hitting one night at Stella’s.  At 7 PM on a cold Tuesday evening, there were a total of six people there—a 12-year old and his hitting instructor (maybe an older brother), a 14-year old and her father and a 26-year old with her father (depending on her mood, Clare might list me among her hitting coaches).  My kid didn’t do too badly.  She went twelve tokens good for 120 pitches and put the bat on every one, with just one foul tip.  You know, if she practiced, she might be really good.  Oh, wait, she did and was and may still be.

Our reward was coming home to a nice dinner of piping hot chili.  (By the way, kudos to the person who invented oyster crackers.)  “How many of your co-workers went hitting today?” I asked.  But we all knew the answer to that already.  I think I even caught the ghost smiling.

Fantasyland

Disgraced former baseball player Rafael Palmeiro says he’s contemplating an MLB comeback at the age of 53, and you have to wonder, What’s he smoking?  That, my friends, is a clever drug reference to remind you that back in 2005 Palmeiro told a Congressional committee he didn’t do PEDs, only to have a drug test show otherwise a few weeks later.  What a note to end a career on.

So, I’m guessing part of this notion stems from the same arrogance that encouraged Palmeiro to think he could get away with the lie if not the drugs.  The rest of it must come from a very strong sense of self.  Palmeiro obviously feels he can do better than Minnie Minoso, who had two at-bats at the age of 54, resulting in a foulout and a groundout.  No doubt Palmeiro thinks he can do better than Minoso and, for that matter, Julio Franco, who played 23 seasons in the majors and another two in Japan before running out of gas at age 48.

I wonder if this fantasy has gotten so far as to identify a team that would want a 53-year old former PEDs user.  There wouldn’t seem to be much of a market for one in the real world.

Compare and Contrast

Bulls’ head coach Fred Hoiberg is the Bears’ John Fox with better language skills.  Unlike Fox, Hoiberg can speak in concise, grammatical sentences.  So, he can—and does—say that his team stinks, why it stinks and what the players need to do to get better.  He just can’t follow through.

The Bulls are in the midst of a ten-game losing streak.  Three games during that streak they’ve coughed up leads of at least 17 points, like last night’s 98-96 choke job against the Pacers.  By choke, I mean they were outscored by 16 points in the fourth quarter.  In his postgame news conference, Hoiberg said his team “played really good, hard, unselfish basketball,” just not for the entire 48 minutes that comprise an NBA game.  That, my friends, is how you end up with a 3-20 record.

Hoiberg also said he was “proud of the effort guys came out with.  We’ll have a good film session, [and] try to figure out how to close out games.”  Here’s a clue, everyone—try playing defense.  A hallmark, if you can call it that, of Hoiberg’s two-plus seasons coaching the Bulls has been the middle-school defense.  Two or three defender chase after the ball like a bunch of sixth graders all the way to the hoop, only to look surprised when the ball ends up in the hands of an open player, and there’s always more than one.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me for going on to three seasons now, shame on me.

And Fred Hoiberg, Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf, John Paxson, Gar Forman….

Winter Gibber

A columnist in the Sun-Times today took it upon himself to fan the flames of Ohtani Mania.  Not only did he refer to the “Babe Ruth of Japan” who comes with a 100 mph fastball, but he found a reason why Shohei Ohtani would want to play for the Cubs.  It’s manager Joe Maddon, of course.

It seems that Maddon wanted to experiment with the two-way player idea when he managed in the minors but couldn’t get the OK.  So, why not indulge Maddon then, on the big-league stage?  Let me count the ways.

First, where are you going to put Ohtani, given that he projects as a corner outfielder in the National League (as opposed to an American League dh)?  Team president Theo Epstein has Kyle Schwarber, his human good-luck charm, in left and Jason Heyward, his $184 million albatross, in right.  Tell me, where does that leave Ohtani?

And when will sportswriters stop talking about Babe Ruth and start considering the physical challenges involved in trying to pitch and hit fulltime in the majors?  Can a body hold up over the course of a season?  Calling Dr. (Mike) Marshall, calling Dr. Marshall, or any other kinesiologist with an understanding of what athletes put their bodies through.

But, hey, it’s December and a guy has got to fill his column up with something.  Too bad it’s so much gibberish.

Truly, Nothing to See Here

Train wreck, natural disaster, nightmare on steroids—these are your 3-9 Bears, where “legacy” ossified into “stupidity” a very long Halas time ago.

Sunday’s game against the now 2-10 49ers is the latest case in point.  For reasons that were never fully articulated, the Bears cut Robbie Gould, their best-ever kicker, at the start of the 2016 season.  Since then, Gould has made 36 of 38 field-goal attempts for the Giants and 49ers, including five in San Francisco’s 15-14 win over whatever it is John Fox “coaches.”  That’s John Fox, as in the guy who said after the game, “We felt good about the block we had on a potential field goal.”  Block, what block?  Somebody reel Fox back in from whatever universe he’s inhabiting and tell him Robbie Gould the ex-Bear made five frickin’ field goals for the win.

About this time last year, Bears’ GM Ryan Pace in true broken-clock fashion finally got it right about incumbent quarterback Jay Cutler, that it was time for an upgrade.  There was even talk about trading for Jimmy Garoppolo, Tom Brady’s then-backup with the Patriots.  Garoppolo is only 26, hails from the Chicago suburbs and attended Eastern Illinois University.  Talk about your feel-good stories, and Garoppolo did not disappoint in his Soldier Field debut Sunday, going 26/37 with one interception for 293 yards.  Only he did it in his first game as a starter for San Francisco, who managed to swing a trade for him where Pace could not or would not.

Mitch Trubisky is supposed to be the Bears’ quarterback of the future, though what year—or decade even—no one can say for sure.  It would seem logical that developing a quarterback would include having him throw the ball, which Trubisky did all of 15 times against a miserable 49ers’ defense.  Trubisky has yet to come out throwing, and he treats over the middle of the field as a very dangerous place to put a football.  Once upon a time, a McCaskey must have stumbled face-first there the way to the bathroom.  How else to explain why no Bears’ quarterback ever frequents the area?

Ideally, the Bears could go on stinking from now until the end of time or that point when their fans finally rise up in revolt.  What I hate is that the front office and ownership are protected from experiencing the full brunt of the stupidity of their moves.  You see, the Bears play in Soldier Field, a publicly owned facility, and they have themselves a real sweetheart of a lease.  As long as fans keep coming, the McCaskeys don’t care.  On Sunday, there were a little over 8,000 no-shows.  Once that figure triples, the dumbest ownership in Chicago will finally start paying attention.

Of course, the McCaskeys won’t know how to fix the problem.  They never do.  

Just a Little Bit

It doesn’t take much baseball to keep me going in the offseason.  A line or two of Transactions tiny-type, and I’m good for the week.  That the White Sox signed catcher Wellington Castillo to a two-year deal should tide me over to Christmas.

The move leads to all sorts of questions for a fan to ask:  How many catchers will the Sox keep next year?  Does signing Castillo have anything to do with the possible trade of Jose Abreu?  Does this mean the rebuild is moving quicker than anticipated or right on time?  Does this mean the Sox have soured on Zack Collins, their purported catcher of the future who hit a combined .224 in high A and Double A last season?  When was the last time the Sox had a catcher with a major-league best 49 percent caught-stealing rate for the past season?

The questions are the fun part; the realization that either Omar Narvaez or Kevan Smith will probably be moved is a reminder that baseball is a business.  Personally, I was pretty happy with both catchers last year.  Narvaez hit .277 and Smith .283 with a combined 44 RBIs to Castillo’s 53; and by the end of the season, they were actually throwing out a fair share of baserunners.  The odd man out looks to be Smith, who bats right handed (Narvaez hits left handed), in which case that’s too bad.  Smith put “Szmydth” on his jersey for Players Weekend last August.

Szmydth is the name Smith’s paternal grandparents used when they came over from Poland.  It was a nice gesture, one that any Bukowski could appreciate.   

Ever-blowin' Smoke

There’s an interesting story in today’s NYT sports’ section, “He’s Not Babe Ruth.  Really,” about Shohei Ohtani.  It seems that nobody in Japan compares Ohtani to the Bambino.

After reading it, I went on the MLB website, and you’d swear Ohtani—through no fault of his own, mind you—isn’t so much the second coming of Ruth but the reincarnation thereof.  On the left side of the screen was a list of notable free agents topped by, guess who (with picture)?  On the right side was a list of stories, starting with “Ohtani recruitment spices up Hot Stove.”  You don’t say.  And in the center was a series of rotating pictures starting with, well you can pretty well guess, can’t you?

And if you click on to the picture in question, you can watch GM Dick Williams of the Reds say how much his team wants Ohtani.  The way MLB is touting Ohtani makes LaVar Ball look milquetoast tame.  If Ohtani crashes and burns, shame on MLB.  If he can survive the media carnival, good for him.     

A Few Questions First

Back forever ago, we fourth graders at St. Gall peppered Sister Jerome Marie with questions about what qualified as a mortal sin and what would happen if we got hit by a bus on the way to Confession to confess said sins. (The good news was we were in the clear because we were acting on the intention of freeing ourselves from sin.)  So, the following Shohei Ohtani questions are asked for fourth-graders everywhere.

If Ohtani starts for an American League team, is he both pitcher and DH?  If only a pitcher and the DH later plays the field and Ohtani is still pitching, does he hit?  As a pitcher, can he hit for the DH in order to take advantage of a lefty-righty matchup?  Does that mean the team then loses the DH?  If Ohtani comes off the bench to pinch hit for the DH, can he then go in to relieve?  What happens to the DH?

Inquiring minds want to know.   

You Can Bet on It

In an Iowa cornfield somewhere the Black Sox are smiling, or will be if the Supreme Court rules in favor of loosening federal restrictions on sports’ betting.  And odds are the court will be inclined to let states regulate that gambling—excuse me, gaming—activity as they see fit.

I’ve felt, literally, the consequences of gambling; somebody once grabbed my butt when I volunteered at Monday bingo at our parish; the proceeds went to Clare’s grade school.  I survived, but came away with some unpleasant memories, of the troll dolls and other lucky charms players used, of how down-and-out so many of the people looked and how totally out of place one well-dressed woman seemed.

Eventually, Monday bingo at our parish went the way of the Latin Mass; too much competition from video gaming.  Indeed, when I pick up hot dogs or Clare and I go hitting, there are video slot machines begging to be fed.  And just this week, I drove by a parking lot where a casino-bound bus was parked.  I couldn’t tell how many seniors had gotten on the bus, but I did see one man working his walker ever so slowly to the door.  No doubt, the driver would make sure to help him up the stairs.

If sports betting becomes the latest panacea as the perfect, painless source of tax revenue, maybe they can install bookie joints or whatever the euphemism is at all the pro sporting venues, college ones, too.  Like I said, the Black Sox will be smiling.  

Abandon Ship

Good teams—think the A’s or Yankees with Reggie Jackson on the roster—will fight from time to time.  Bad teams—think just about any Bears’ team—fight all the time.

It happened up at Halas Hall just this week, receivers Josh Bellamy and Tre McBride going at it loud enough for reporters to hear; McBride was then cut the next day.  “Coach” John Fox said the decision to let McBride go was “just kind of churning the roster” over, which 3-8 teams can be expected to do.  Fox also dismissed the contretemps as something “that happens all the time” in the NFL.  “I just think that room [where it happened] is closer to y’all than I probably would have designed it.”

That makes perfect sense.  After all, if a ship is sinking and the alarm goes off, people will realize the ship is in fact sinking.  But it you can keep from sounding that damn’ bell, why maybe everyone can go down to Davy Jones’ locker without being any the wiser.

That’s what passes for a plan with the Chicago Bears.