The Enemy Within

So, now I’m caught up with all four episodes of “The Last Dance,” including, especially, the one on Dennis Rodman.  Talk about your textbook deal with the devil.

 

For their first three titles, the Bulls lacked a strong-rebounding center (think Will Perdue and Bill Cartwright).  Horace Grant stepped up to do the necessary dirty work, but he was gone by the time of the second three-peat.  (This is one of the areas the documentary could explore.  Jerry Krause let a 28-year old Grant walk, getting nothing in return.  It seems the Bulls’ GM was considerably better at building a contender than maintaining one.  Keep Grant, and you don’t need Rodman.  Sign Grant to an extension early on, and at the very least you can flip him for younger talent and/or a draft pick.  But I digress.)

 

The thing about Rodman is the self-destructive urge that raged inside him.  He didn’t simply risk injury to an opposing player; he seemed perfectly content hurting himself in the process.  If ever there were a dirty, masochistic athlete, it was Rodman.  The wonder is he didn’t seriously hurt Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen and himself during practice.

 

So, yes, the Bulls won another three championships with Rodman.  The question is, at what cost?  Admittedly, I seem to be in the minority here.  I want my championship teams filled with as many good citizens as possible.  No Dennis Rodmans, please, no Aroldis Chapmans.  I mean, Carl Everett is bad enough.

Whispers

Whispers

 

Listen hard enough, and you’ll hear the voice of former Bulls’ announcer Jim Durham in the background on ESPN’s “The Last Dance.”  Durham did Bulls’ games for eighteen years, from Dick Motta to Phil Jackson, from close to a championship with Norm Van Lier and Jerry Sloan to the real thing with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.  “Here’s Michael at the foul line, the shot on Ehlo…GOOD!!”  Durham left in a salary dispute.

 

Announcers may matter more in Chicago than other cities.  If so, blame Jack Brickhouse and Harry Cary.  Brickhouse was such a homer, to the point you were too embarrassed to go there anymore.  And that was just with baseball.  When he called Bears’ games with Irv (That’s right, Jack!) Kupcinet, Brickhouse entered a world all his own, where punts and passes were forever confusing the play-by-play man.  As for the pre-stroke Caray, he was a mean human being who wielded a microphone like a club, never caring even once whom he hit or injured.  To listen to Caray was to take part in the crime.

 

So Durham was a godsend.  So was Wayne Larrivee, who did the Bears for thirteen seasons before the Packers snatched him up.  And, of course, John Rooney, who always let the faithful know, “That’s a White Sox winner!”  Larrivee says the Packers were his dream job even as a kid, so I can’t pin his loss on the McCaskeys.  And yet you wonder how they could let someone like that go without intervening to make an obscene offer to keep him.  Listen to Larrivee, and you come away impressed by his mix of concision and excitement and, yes, objectivity while still coming across as a fan.

 

Did I mention Rooney left in a salary dispute after the 2005 Championship?  The fight was more with the radio station than management, but still you have to wonder.  Why would teams let two such iconic voices as Durham and Rooney go?  The silver lining with Rooney is that he was teamed with Ed Farmer.  I’d say he rubbed off on Farmer in all the right ways.

But now Farmer’s gone, too.  I need a voice I can trust, one that’s dependable, distinct and honest.  We can only hope.     

Jenga, Giolito, Gibson

Clare called yesterday afternoon.  Rumor has it we may take a walk together soon, appropriately masked, of course.  But the call was all baseball.  My daughter had seen a YouTube interview with White Sox pitcher Lucas Giolito and told me she was forwarding the link.  It’s not quite visiting the elderly, but close.

 

Anyway, I went online to watch pro softball player—and all-time NCAA softball record holder for homeruns—Lauren Chamberlain interview Giolito over a game of Jenga.  Don’t ask; once your reach a certain age, that kind of stuff is dumb.  God forbid we ask people to possess the skills to talk to one another across a table.  To their credit, Chamberlain and Giolito can converse, so I guess it could’ve been a lot worse, and I don’t mean the Jenga tower collapsing early on.

 

What really impressed me was Giolito’s answer to a question, about the one pitch he’d most like to steal from anyone.  Without hesitating a second, Giolito answered, “Bob Gibson’s slider.” That meant not only did a pitcher from 2020 know who Gibson was, so did my daughter, at least to the extent she knew I’d be impressed that Giolito had a clue.  Of course, as soon as Clare mentioned it, I digressed into how my sliders gave her a problem at the ages of ten and eleven.  No good deed goes unpunished, my child. 

But I am happy she called, and I am happy Lucas Giolito has a clue.

Catching Up

After last night, I’m just two episodes behind the rest of the world in watching “The Last Dance” ESPN documentary on Michael Jordan and the 1997-98 Bulls.  Now someone tell me why Jerry Reinsdorf consented to be part of this.

 

I ask because Reinsdorf comes off as the smug jerk he was back then, not caring about what other people had to say about Jerry Krause, his choice for general manager. Reinsdorf was right to let Krause build a team around Jordan, wrong to sit by and let him then destroy that creation.

 

Maybe Reinsdorf was too busy doing his own destroying to notice.  He talks about the seven-year contract he negotiated with Scottie Pippen, the one that at its end left Pippen the 122^nd highest paid player in the NBA.  Reinsdorf apparently told Pippen he wouldn’t sign the contract himself, as if that absolves him of blame for helping create the resentment Pippen would feel as he saw other players making more, ridiculously more, money than him.

 

Reinsdorf and Krause could’ve renegotiated the contract once they saw how it was affecting one of their star players, but, No, Mr. Reinsdorf does not renegotiate.  Too bad he didn’t offer an opt-out, either.  A form of one freed the White Sox of the malevolence known as Albert Belle after just two seasons.  Renegotiating or an opt-out would have been the right thing to do, but what does right have to do with being a sports’ owner?

 

Lucky for Reinsdorf there’s no baseball season; reporters would be crawling all over the owner’s box at Guaranteed Rate Whatever seeking comment on the documentary.  Rod Stewart’s right—some guys have all the luck, and Jerry Reinsdorf’s one of them.

 

I watched both episodes with Michele, and I know my daughter is watching with her husband Chris.  It’s interesting how the same thing affects two people—in this case, mother and daughter—differently.  My wife, whom I once took to see Rudolf Nureyev perform, remains in awe of Jordan’s artistry.  Clare, I think, appreciates Jordan’s dedication to his craft, but she doesn’t wish now any more than she did as a six-year old to “be like Mike,” as the commercials urged.

 

I watched Jordan and the Bulls, so my child did, too.  We also watched Frank Thomas and the White Sox together.  Only one star made an impression on her, and it wasn’t the one with a career .202 batting average in the minors.   

Ten, More or Less

By drafting Notre Dame tight end Cole Kmet on Friday, the Bears now have ten players on the roster at that position.  The more the merrier, I guess, or, if you’ve got ten, you’re admitting you got none.

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I want Kmet to succeed.  He’s a local kid who went to high school across the street from my brother-in-law’s house in the northwest suburbs.  I won’t hold that against Kmet any more than I do his attending Notre Dame.  Stuff happens.

 

Kmet, an admitted Bears’ fan, told reporters that his Bears’ favorite player growing up, at least until they traded him, was another tight end, Greg Olsen.  Talk about weird karma.  One of the reasons the Munsters have ten tight ends right now is because they let Olsen get away.  How Bears.

 

The GM twice removed drafted Olsen in 2007.  Olsen was a solid B in his four years here.  If his stats weren’t overwhelming (20 TDs total), keep in mind he was playing for Lovie Smith, who hated the passing game the way the devil does holy water.  Then, the twice-removed GM sent Olsen to Carolina for a third-round draft choice which he packaged into a deal with the Dolphins for wide receiver Brandon Marshall.  OMG.

 

In other words, a team that has hated passing since the beginning of time trades away a solid player—Olsen went on to catch 39 TDs during his nine seasons with the Panthers—for an emotionally fragile player who functioned best when the offense focused on him.  How Bears.

 

One of the ten tight ends, recently signed veteran Jimmy Graham, could, with luck, serve as a mentor to Kmet.  Fingers crossed.  Otherwise, the current GM will have made yet another bonehead move for a franchise with a storied history of them.

 

Unwanted Reminders

The reminders keep coming, whether or not I want them, which I don’t.  If only they’d oblige.

The first has attached itself to the lakefront trail; I keep thinking about when I can get back on.  The trail is an extraordinary, 36-mile blend of nature and the built environment.  Lately, nature has been having its way due to the high water levels of Lake Michigan.  Parts of the trail have been damaged by storms, but I’m more than happy to walk my bike over affected areas.

 

But, if and when the all-clear comes, I won’t be able to bike the trail without memory of something else.  A nursing home I pass by all the time has been hit hard by COVID-19, with ten residents dead so far.  People who may have watched me ride by are gone, and I never knew to give them a second’s thought, a wave even.

 

Former White Sox pitcher Bart Johnson is different.  I’ve thought (and written) about Johnson from time to time, and now he, too, is dead, passing away at the age of 70.  I will forever be 18 to Johnson’s 21, when he went 12-10 for the Sox.  Johnson appeared in 53 games as a starter/reliever, a role that basically has ceased to exist in baseball.  Maybe 178 innings was too much for a pitcher so young, or maybe the desire to earn Harry Caray’s praise made him overthrow, or both.  What could’ve been a very good career lasted eight seasons and totaled 43 wins against 51 losses.

 

Johnson endured two seasons of what I imagine were injuries and what I distinctly recall as Caray’s constant criticism.  He bounced back in 1974 to go 10-4 with a 2.74 ERA as a starter only.  I saw him pitch once that year, a complete-game, five-hit 3-0 shutout of the Indians.  I sat in the upper deck behind home plate, not far from Harry Caray in the radio booth.  Harry was probably at his two-faced best that day.

 

Johnson went on to scout for the Sox for seventeen years, 1980-97.  Outside of the single season spent in the minors with Oakland at the end of his career, Johnson spent 28 years with the Sox from the age of 18.  Johnson died three days ago, but so far the Sox website has been too busy with bracket play (?) to notice.

 

I almost envy them their ignorance.

Some Not-so-random Thoughts

Both the Red Sox and the Astros cheat, but the Astros get punished harder.  Why do you think that is?

 

Cynics might say both punishments meted out for electronic sign-stealing are nothing more than pulled punches.  Correct me if I’m wrong here, but Commissioner Rob Manfred didn’t rule the 2017 and 2018 World Series wins by the Astros and Red Sox, respectively, were free of cheating, did he?  I mean, if the Red Sox were caught cheating in the Fall Classic, that would sort of force Manfred’s hand, now wouldn’t it?  Come down hard on one of the darling franchises in all of sports?  Cynics wouldn’t hold their breath. 

 

No, what they’d do instead is say the old expansion team took the bigger fake punch.  Yes, I know the commissioner said the Sox didn’t cheat as much, and you can’t punish general manager Dave Dombrowski because he’s the ex-GM.  But you wonder, don’t you?  At least I do.  The Red Sox lose one draft choice, the Astros four.  If cheating is so bad, shouldn’t the punishment of both teams be equivalent?    

 

One more thing—all the suspensions Manfred handed down were for the 2020 season.  What if there isn’t one?  Do all these guys get to come back or circulate their résumés in 2021?  If he has the power to amend his rulings, the commissioner needs to indicate the suspensions runs for the next 162 regular-season games played, however long that takes.

A Slap on the Wrist

Shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of the Black Sox were born too soon.  If they were around today, the baseball commissioner would’ve issued at most season-long suspensions before letting all eight players get on with their careers.  And that’s assuming an arbitrator let the punishments stand.

 

I’d argue the difference between what the Black Sox did vs. the Astros and Red Sox is more one of degree than kind, but MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred obviously feels otherwise.  Manfred ruled on the Red Sox stealing signs in 2018 and laid virtually the entire blame on the team’s video replay system operator.  It’s rulings like this that turn people into conspiracy nuts.

 

Manfred said his summary he didn’t find that the team’s coaching staff, front office or “most of the players on the 2018 Red Sox knew or should have known” what was happening.  Yeah, right.  This guy was acting all on his own, passing information to a “limited number of Red Sox players only.”  May I suggest a new team mascot, like an ostrich in a Red Sox jersey? 

 

The commissioner goes on to say that the team’s front office “took more than reasonable steps to ensure that [all] its employees…adhered to the rules.”  Then why penalize the team its second-round pick in the upcoming draft?  And, again, no players punished for cheating, just the video guy suspended for a year?

 

That sound you hear comes from the Black Sox collectively spinning in their graves. 

April 21st

The avalanche of pleasant memories held off till late, after 8 PM, when I checked to see what was on the MLB Network.  Good decision.  They were showing “The Natural,” and that got me to thinking about who to cast in any possible remake.  Thanks to the attention he’s getting over on ESPN with “The Last Dance,” Jerry Reinsdorf would be perfect in Robert Prosky’s role as The Judge.  Yes?

 

Then I saw they were going to run a “classic” MLB game.  Lo and behold, it was April 21^st, 2012, White Sox at Mariners.  Boy, do I remember Philip Humber’s perfect game for the Sox, and I only heard the last inning or so. I remember other stuff even more.

 

Clare and her Elmhurst teammates were playing at Carthage College up in Kenosha.  It was decent weather for Wisconsin, maybe 50 degrees with sun.  This was the best Elmhurst team Clare would play on, the perfect blend of under- and upperclassmen.  The Bluejays won the first game, 3-0, to push their season record to 20-10, 4-3 in conference.  In game two, Clare had two RBIs on two doubles in a game that saw a 4-0 lead turn into a 7-4 loss.  Oh, well.  If we had swept Carthage, it wouldn’t have made the next weekend as exciting, when we qualified for the postseason for the first time in fifteen years.

 

Anyway, everyone was in a decent mood on the drive back, Clare texting Michele about Humber.  I put the game on the radio, so I guess we listened together in different vehicles.  I’d found a supper club to have an early dinner at, and the game was over by the time we pulled into the parking lot.  Poor Humber, he never seemed to trust his stuff, sort of like a pitching version of Conor Gillaspie.  It was a nice place, by the way, with white tablecloths and relish tray.

 

A week later, we were back in Wisconsin, all the way up to Appleton for a frigid, nonconference doubleheader at Lawrence University.  Clare hit a ball 260-270 feet that day, longer than I’d ever seen anyone do in softball.  Six days later, she hit a ball even further in the playoffs.

 

Thank you, MLB Network, for setting off this particular avalanche.

A Better Idea

The Tribune had an AP story today on the possible fallout of COVID-19 on college sports.  Should athletic department budgets shrink, certain sports could be cut.  What a surprise.

 

And then there was the idea floated by former Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe to divide athletics into money-making “spectator sports” and “participation sports,” only one of which would get scholarship money.  Now, what sports do you think would qualify?  From what I can see, by “participation” Beebe basically means “intramural.”

 

I have a better idea—let’s divide college sports into “major violators” and “minor violators.”  Penalties would be imposed for breaking NCAA regulations; school- and team-conduct rules; and that thing we call the law.  Just for fun, contact the analytics’ crowd to come up with a scholarship formula that rewards good behavior and punishes bad.

 

Softball and baseball and, yes, tennis and golf might finally get a decent number of scholarships.  How ’bout it, guys?    

The Weight

No parents in their right mind would allow a child to root for any Chicago sports’ team, not unless they want to teach lessons about suffering.  I turn my daughter into a White Sox fan so she can carry around a burden including the Black Sox; the feuding Comiskey clan; clam-digger uniforms; and Adam Dunn.  She’s entitled to say:  Thanks, Dad.

 

And this “The Last Dance” documentary on the 1997-98 Bulls places Jerry Reinsdorf as king of the bad owners.  The McCaskeys are merely incompetent, a label that could never be placed on Reinsdorf.  Oh, he’s competent, all right, with a mean streak that could’ve come straight from old man Daley.  Oh, and when it comes to backing his general manager, blind beyond belief.

 

The documentary reminds fans that not only did Jerry Krause think he was more important than coach Phil Jackson, he could find a suitable replacement just like that.  Krause had his man before he even dumped Jackson, and that would be Tim Floyd.

 

Let me tell you about Coach Floyd.  In three-plus seasons, Floyd amassed 49 wins to go with 190 losses, which comes out to a not-so-robust .205 winning average.  In nine years with the Bulls, Jackson put up 545 wins and 193 losses for a .738 winning percentage.  Jackson never won fewer than 47 games a season with the Bulls; it took Floyd into his fourth season here to reach that total.  At the risk of repeating myself, Reinsdorf backed the wrong guy.

And we’re not even talking about his role in bringing the 1994 baseball season to a halt.  Such is the history of team ownership in Chicago.        

 

 

Some Guys Have All the Luck

How does Ryan Pace keep his job as Bears’ general manager?  Is he a secret McCaskey or something?  I just don’t get it.

 

On Friday, Pace cut tight end Trey Burton, a big free-agent signing in 2018.  Now, he’s gone, replaced by Jimmy Graham, who just happens to be five years older.  Oh, and Burton was never a starter with his previous team, the Eagles.  Not that that stopped Pace from signing him to a four-year contract worth $22 million guaranteed.

 

Burton was good, a solid B, his first year as a Bear, then got injured in the playoffs in January 2019 (right before the Munsters were to play the Eagles, no less).  And last year he was a forever-injured bust, and now he’s gone.  You can put his signing right up there alongside that of Mike Glennon, another scrub signed to be a starter who couldn’t.  And Nick Foles?  It makes you wonder.

 

At the risk of apples and oranges, consider what happens with other Chicago franchises in similar situations.  Kenny Williams signed Adam Dunn, and that pretty much got him kicked upstairs with the White Sox.  The two-headed monster in the Bulls’ front office formerly known as GarPax was finally put to rest earlier this month after giving fans the likes of Rajon Rondo, Dwayne Wade, Jabari Parker…Did Jim Hendry ever live down signing Milton Bradley for the Cubs?  He sure didn’t get another GM job.  But Pace is the Energizer bunny who just keeps going no matter the mistake.  We could talk drafting Mitch Trubisky here, but won’t.

 

You want to find underutilized talent?  Fine, then study how the other guys do it.  Again, apples to oranges, I know, but the White Sox sure did well with Adam Eaton.  It basically cost them Hector Santiago to get him and netted Rick Hahn Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez when it came time for the rebuild.  Anthony Rizzo batted all of .141 with the Padres in 2011, but that didn’t keep Theo Epstein from going after him.  Why?  Because Epstein and Jed Hoyer did their homework, that’s why.

 

If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that Pace could learn from his mistakes, at some point, in what looks to be a job for life.  One can only hope, about the learning, not the duration.

He Said What?

He Said What?

 

I took the loss of Comiskey Park harder than most.  Just by being her, Clare brought me back to the White Sox, but nothing could bring me back to the Bulls for a good, long time.  Which is another way of saying I may have been the only person in and around Chicago who wasn’t rooting for Michael Jordan and the Jordanaires during their six-championship run in the ’90s.  So, no, I won’t be watching “The Last Dance,” ESPN’s documentary on that last championship season of 1997-98.

 

But I would like to know one thing, if Jordan is telling the truth about Jerry Krause.  According to His Airness, the Bulls’ GM told coach Phil Jackson that “we could go 82-0 and he would never get a chance to come back.”  Prove that, and you prove Jerry Reinsdorf backed the biggest loser of all time.  No, I take that back.  Prove it or not, Reinsdorf backed the wrong person.

 

Yes, Jordan’s Bulls were getting old.  With that sixth ring in hand, Jordan was 34, Scottie Pippen 32 and Toni Kukoc 29.  That said, Jordan was the greatest player of his era, able to elevate the play of those around him like no one else before or since.  You think he didn’t want a seventh ring, or an eighth?  You think he wouldn’t have willed himself to more if the chance were there?

 

But Reinsdorf backed his general manager over the sport’s Babe Ruth and Casey Stengel (don’t tell Jackson I compared him to Stengel, OK?).  How’d that go?  I’ll tell you how.  With Jordan retired and Pippen traded, the Bulls won 13, 17 and 15 games over their next three seasons, and they have yet to return to the NBA Finals.

Jordan taking on Father Time would’ve been one great sports’ stories of all time.  It didn’t happen, and that will forever be on Jerry Reinsdorf.     

 

Just Wondering

I see by a story in today’s The Athletic that a fight may be brewing between MLB players and owners over pay.  Right now, both sides have agreed to a prorated pay formula based on the length of season, should there be one.  But that agreement was predicated on the assumption there would be fans in the stands.  Playing in otherwise empty venues will mean even less revenue, and owners are the type who always want others to share their pain.

 

The temptation for fans may be to say, That’s their problem.  Don’t be so sure.  I can see a scenario where owners and players unite in a push to charge fans to watch or listen to games.  Imagine the ad campaign:  “Do Your Part, Like Us” or “Rickey Henderson Can Steal, Not You” or “Help Keep Us Out of the Poorhouse.”  OK, not that last one, but baseball will make it plain that fans have an obligation to pitch in these troubling times.

 

At which point I may have to decide how baseball is worth to me, both in the literal and figurative sense.  Here’s hoping it never comes to that.         

 

The McCaskeys and Mark 12:41-44

 Last week, the Bears announced they were giving $1.92 million (including the $250,000 from several weeks ago) to help in the fight against COVID-19 in Chicagoland, and I almost felt I had misjudged them, but not for long.  You see, I read about Rachel Ray in today’s Tribune.

 

The food-and-talk-show host is well past her ratings’ prime; I remember going over to my mother’s when Clare was in grade school and we all watched Ray on television.  Anyway, Ray is donating some $4 million to the war effort, if you will.  If Rachel Ray can pony up that much, why not the Misers of the Midway?

 

Why?  The answer may lie in Mark 12, 41-45.  Jesus is watching a group rich people make contributions, as well as a poor widow, who managed just two coins of little value.  “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury.  For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

Something for the McCaskeys to consider, and better sooner than later.

After the Low-hanging Fruit, Then What?

New Bulls’ boss Arturas Karnisovas did the expected Monday when he fired Gar Forman as team general manager.  Now what?

 

I ask because coach Jim Boylen, that moose in the headlights, is still around.  While Forman was being made to walk the plank, the Bulls released a statement from Boylan welcoming Karnisovas to the team while praising Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf for making the hire.  Either Boylen is a lot more clever than anyone thought, or he has friends in high places.  My guess is that a .317 winning percentage indicates #2.

 

It just hit me why I wanted Boylen to succeed—at first he reminded me a lot of Ed Badger, who coached the Bulls, 1976-78.  Badger was every bit the gym rat Boylen ever was, including a fifteen-year stint as head coach at Wright Junior College in Chicago before moving on to become an assistant with the Bulls.  Talk about dedication.

 

Badger took over a Bulls’ team that went 24-58 the year before and managed twenty more victories in 1976-77 and a playoff berth against eventual NBA champion Portland.  The next year the team regressed to 40 wins, and Badger left to coach at the University of Cincinnati for five years before returning to a the NBA and a long run in a number of front offices.

 

Jim Boylen, Ed Badger, both blue-collar coaches.  But only one knew what he was doing.  Now, does Karnisovas?              

 

 

I Told You So

One of the best parts of being a parent is to utter those four simple words, “I told you so.”  I’ve never made a habit of this, so, when the occasion does come around, I enjoy it, more so when my daughter more or less agrees.

 

That just happened with an email Clare sent, with a link to a recent story by Tom Verducci in Sports Illustrated, asking “Is Velocity Overrated?” while assessing the cost to a pitcher from constantly throwing hard.  Verducci notes that seven of the twenty-one hardest-throwing pitchers from 2018 have had Tommy John surgery.  Verducci may also be the first sportswriter to admit that Noah Syndergaard’s fastball looks great but doesn’t accomplish all that much.

 

What Verducci doesn’t touch on is how analytics has elevated speed as the building block of pitching.  To the numbers’ crowd, the answer to swinging hard is throwing hard (and, of course, vice versa).  One hole in the story is that it considers the fastball only.  Has the average velocity of sliders gone up?  I’ll bet they have.  Whatever a pitcher throws nowadays, it’s supposed to be hard, even changeups.  Oh, to be able to go from 100-plus MPH “down” to 90.

 

Maybe a magazine piece with stats and graphs will inaugurate change, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.  Baseball is such a herd-mentality game that change is resisted across the board, until it isn’t, at which time it is again.  ERAs used to be enough to judge a pitcher’s effectiveness.  Now, it’s more dependent on speed guns.  Tell me, Tommy John was who, again?  

Some Free Market

One of Arturas Karnisovas’s first hires as new head of basketball operations for the Bulls was J.J. Polk as a team v.p.  A story in last week’s The Athletic described Polk as a “salary-cap expert” for the Pelicans, his former team, while nbcsports.com referred to him as one of New Orleans’ “salary-cap specialists.”  This is not the kind of talent I would want to be on the receiving end of. 

 

In the real world, where pro-sports team owners make the piles of money required to buy a franchise, businesses mostly howl in protest over government oversight of the marketplace.  Let the market decide, CEOs and their media mouthpieces chant, let the market decide.  Only not when it comes to the business of sports.

 

No, then owners want government involvement 24/7, provided they dictate the terms.  Show me an owner who’s ever spoken out against publicly-funded stadiums or antitrust exemptions for his sport, and I’ll show you proof of alien life on earth.  Owners are no different—or less hypocritical—on the subject of salaries.

 

In the real world, CEOs will take any amount they can get away with it.  In the sports’ world, the CEO-turned-owner will do everything in his power to put a cap on player salaries, hence the special talent and importance of Mr. Polk.  NBA and NFL players are fools to accept salary caps, and the only thing that makes MLB’s soft cap, aka the luxury tax, palatable is that it goes to subsidize financially-constrained franchises, and even then I wonder. 

 

If the Yankees could spend $300 million or $400 million on salary a year, would that really put the Royals or Pirates out of business?  Or would it only be a matter of time before the NY Post blared headlines about the “BRONX DUDS” following a very expensive 100-loss season, followed by extreme fiscal prudence practiced by the Steinbrenner clan?  Personally, I’d like to find out.

 

I also wonder if the NBA’s salary cap doesn’t have at least one unintended consequence, viz., encouraging the one-and-done decision by teenaged players?  Baseball allows talent to develop over seasons.  Just one example from last year is Evan Marshall of the White Sox, who bounced around with three teams from 2014-18.  Then, out of the blue with the Sox, Marshall posted a 2.49 ERA in 55 appearances out of the bullpen.  The right hander didn’t even make it to the majors until the age of 24.

 

If you haven’t established yourself in the NBA by then, let alone the age of 29 like Marshall did last season, you become little more than salary cap fodder for J.J. Polk and his brethren.  They work their numbers’ magic to gather up enough money to sign the next can’t-miss talent in the draft (just like Zion Williamson in…New Orleans!) and roll the dice.  Anthony Bennett or Jabari Parker, anyone?  Or how about a high school star like…Eddie Curry?

 

Who knows, maybe if the NBA were more like MLB and had a real minor-league system instead of the college—and, on occasion, high school—pipeline, the Bennetts and Parkers could develop more slowly into courtside versions of Evan Marshall.  Or not.

 

But either way, owners should not be allowed the protection of salary caps.  What they don’t want done to them in the real world they shouldn’t get to do in the sports’ world.

Just Lucky

Clare mentioned it to Michele, who mentioned it to me, about timing and luck, I guess.  Some people have it, some people don’t.  Consider our family dentist with two boys.  They’re both catchers, one in high school and the other in college.  COVID-19 has taken a season away from them.  For the high schooler, there won’t be another year added on.

 

Clare said she can’t imagine losing her senior year in high school, although any of the other three would be just as hard, I suspect.  But, yes, senior year was special.  That child of mine was named one of the hundred best softball players in Chicagoland (thank you, Sun-Times); colleges came calling; and she hit ten homeruns.  Let me tell you about the last one.

 

We were in regionals, two runs down in the bottom of the seventh.  The first batter for Morton lifted a ball that just barely made it over the fence, so, now we’re down by one.  Up next is the Bambina, who lifts one over fence and basketball courts into the school parking lot to tie a game we won a few batters later.  Here’s the thing—that homerun came against the daughter of a D-I coach who had shown no particular interest in my child.  His mistake.

Validation like that gets carried through life.  Why else would Clare be mentioning it almost ten years after the fact?  Those catching brothers may get their chance, next year, but it can never happen this spring.  We were just lucky that way.     

 

Different, Not Better

For all you fans of watching athletes function in unbearable humidity, take heart, for baseball may indulge your fondest wish.  For you fans of watching athletes wilt under an unrelenting sun that gives off a “dry heat,” fear not that you are forgotten.  Baseball may give you what you want, too.

 

All of which is to say the “brain trust” of major league baseball has come up with another idea to play this season.  According to a story by Bob Nightengale in yesterday’s USA Today, for one year the National and American Leagues would give way to their spring-training counterparts, with teams divided equally between the Florida-based Grapefruit League and Arizona’s Cactus League, each with three divisions and heaven knows what kind of postseason structure.  Be still my beating heart.

 

The big advantage of this plan is it throws an extra two MLB stadiums into the mix, assuming Tropicana Field and Marlins Park qualify as major league.  Nightengale also mentioned the possibility of all thirty teams adopting the DH.  That should send the pretend-purists howling.

 

How this idea improves on my suggestion of an Iowa/Illinois/Wisconsin/Indiana or Pennsylvania/New York grouping of D-I college field beats me.  But if the big thinkers keep throwing ideas out there, something more sensible than playing in insane conditions has got to stick.  I think.  

Of Old Dogs and Leopards

Well, all that losing Ha finally paid off for the Bulls.  No, they didn’t net the #1 pick in the upcoming draft, and they haven’t turned the proverbial corner in their rebuild.  But losing breeds apathy, and apathy leads to a drop in attendance, and a drop in attendance leads to red ink, and that the Bulls don’t like.  If nothing else, though, it’s something they understand.

 

So, Bulls’ owner Jerry Reinsdorf and his COO son Michael have gone out and reportedly hired Arturas Karnisovas to be the team’s new head of basketball operations.  The highly regarded Karnisovas will be leaving Denver, where for the past three years he was general manager of the Nuggets.

 

Talent has never been the top priority in front-office hires for either Reinsdorf team; with both the White Sox and Bulls, it’s always been about loyalty first.  Larry Himes had an extraordinary eye for talent as Sox GM, drafting the likes of Alex Fernandez, Jack McDowell, Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura.  But to work for the House of Reinsdorf  requires a certain willingness to genuflect, and that Himes never developed.  So, out he went.

 

Jeff Torborg proved to be a pretty good manager, but I suspect he was another underling who got the genuflecting thing wrong.  Ditto Ozzie Guillen (oh, did he ever).  Ironically, the Bulls had two of the greatest non-genuflectors of all time in Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson.  They stayed around until Reinsdorf-trusted GM Jerry Krause convinced his bosses to let him dump both player and coach; Krause was certain the Bulls would keep on winning after a slight adjustment period.  That slight adjustment is 22 years and counting, I think.

 

You’ll know how much power Karnisovas has and to what extent the Reinsdorfs have changed by what they allow him to do with members of the old front office.  GM Gar Forman is as good as gone, but that doesn’t mean anything; he’d been rumored for some time to be on the outs with ownership.  Now, what about team VP John Paxson, advisor Doug Collins and coach Jim Boylen?

 

Karnisovas can probably finesse his way around Collins and Paxson, who’s expected to become yet another senior advisor.  But Boylen, he of the last-second timeouts in blowout losses?  If Karnisovas lets Boylen stay, the Bulls are still bust.  

Some Like It Hot

Want something badly enough, and that’s just how it’ll happen, which seems to be the case with major league baseball.

 

MLB is considering an idea for how to play the 2020 season, in Arizona with ten minor-league complexes plus the Diamondbacks’ Chase Field.  The attraction of rendering the Cactus League plus one into the MLB base is that, according to the Associated Press, all of the complexes are about fifty miles apart.  In contrast, the Grapefruit League fields are spread throughout Florida, as much as 225 miles apart.  So, there’s that.

 

Did I mention the heat?  Come summertime, the thermometer usually tops 100 degrees in Arizona.  That would require some very early, and very late, games.  Might I suggest middle of the night, while we’re at it?

 

The ironies abound, starting with the absence of fans at games.  For decades, owners have pointed to declining attendance at a home field as evidence of their need for a publicly subsidized replacement, and now all of a sudden they’re willing to play to empty seats?  That’s rich.  So’s the clubhouse situation.

 

Players were forever complaining about how small the clubhouses were at Comiskey Park and, until recently, Wrigley Field.  How’s a guy going to reach his full launch-angle potential without a nice weight room?  But now, all of a sudden, the players will settle for a locker and, once those run out, maybe a nail on a post.  Again, how rich.

 

I think a better alternative to Arizona lies to the north.  There should be enough good college fields in Iowa/Illinois/Wisconsin/ Indiana with Chicago as a hotel headquarters or Pennsylvania/New York with Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and NYC serving as residential hubs.  Better to play where the corn grows as high as an elephant’s eye as opposed to all those cacti.

 

Maybe they could even play a game in the vicinity of the Elysian Fields in New Jersey.  Now, that would be neat.

At What Cost?

I was a college freshman on that Sunday in November of 1970 when Tom Dempsey kicked a game-winning, 63-yard field goal for the New Orleans Saints.  Dempsey set a record that stood for 43 years.

 

The kick came as time expired, turning a one-point lead for the Detroit Lions into a jaw-dropping two-point loss.  Detroit defensive tackle Alex Karras was on the field trying to block Dempsey’s kick, although the level of effort is debatable.  This is no knock on Karras or any of his teammates on the field at Tulane Stadium that Sunday.  Dempsey’s attempt was six yards longer than the record of 56 yards, set seventeen years earlier.  But stuff happens.

 

Karras was an interesting sort, deadpan funny and always willing to poke fun at himself.  He retired from football after the 1970 and embarked on a fairly successful career as a comic actor.  I think I saw him early on in his new career, talking about Dempsey to Johnny Carson.  Dempsey was born without toes on his right, kicking, foot, something Karras pointed out in cruder fashion than would be tolerated today.  I think Karras was going for the effect, saying this guy with that handicap daring to kick a football that far, against me.  Dempsey did, and Karras  conveyed a sense of disbelief as personal as it was endearing.

 

Dempsey died last week from the Coronavirus, at the age of 73; he had been struggling with dementia for several years.  Karras was 77 at the time of his death in 2012; he, too, suffered from dementia.  A career in football comes with certain costs, none of which will be mentioned much, if at all, during the upcoming NFL draft later this month.  It was a hell of a kick, though.   

Programming

There was a tiny item in the Tribune Sunday sports, just six lines that I almost missed, about the NBA and ESPN working to put together a show.  A select group of players would take part in a H-O-R-S-E competition.  And people would pay to see this why?

 

The answer is simple, because sports’ networks are desperate for new programming.  At some point, viewers are going to have their fill of old golf, or baseball or basketball or football or hockey, no matter how “classic” the game or tournament.  (Do they even bother to run old soccer?)  And, when that point comes, my friends, the various sports’ channels will turn into one big house of cards on a windy day.

 

I probably would’ve passed over the H-O-R-S-E news if not for a story by Kevin Draper in last week’s NYT; it appears cable customers already are starting to ask what kind of sports they’re getting for their monthly cable charge.  Given that the answer is nothing new, the demand is building for refunds.  I know I’d like my Comcast bill to be $8.25 lower.

 

That’s what Comcast—or perhaps you say Xfinity—is charging me for stale sports.  God help anyone who needs to watch old golf; I can barely stand ten minutes of Hawk Harrelson doing a 2005 White Sox game.  I wonder how people who wanted the Cubs’ Marquee channel like paying for filler programming.

 

I imagine all the businesses involved in this money-grab publicize what they do to be good corporate citizens in a time of crisis.  Well, as soon as they stop charging sports’ fans for repeats, I’ll be among the first to sing their praises.

Blank Backwards, Per Usual

I promise to stop talking about the Bears after this.  Really.  It’s just that sportswriters, with nothing better to do are jumping on the Nick Foles’ bandwagon.  Guys, a little perspective.  Please

 

The journeyman quarterback doesn’t make the team better all by himself, but a good team with a solid offense in place—and ditto on defense—can put a journeyman quarterback to good use.  Does anyone out there remember Earl Morrall, who had a ho-hum NFL career until he landed on the Colts in 1968?  Baltimore needed a fill-in for the injured Johnny Unitas, and did the 34-year old Morrall ever deliver, leading his fifth pro team to a 13-1 record (before a rather famous loss to Joe Namath and the Jets in Super Bowl III). 

 

It’s worth noting Baltimore went 11-1-2 the year before Morrall’s arrival; that’s a little different than the 8-8 Bears Foles is coming to.  Morrall played for one more NFL team, the Dolphins.  In 1972, Morall went 9-0 with Miami.  Did I mention that was the year the Dolphins ran the schedule, 14-0 in the regular season and 3-0 in the playoffs?  Do you know who coached Morrall in both Baltimore and Miami?  Don Shula, that’s who.  Now, compare Shula to…

 

For those fans who break out into a sweat having to go back fifty years, fine.  Then consider Matt Cassel who went 10-5 for the Patriots in 2008 subbing the injured Tom Brady.  Once Brady got heathy, New England shipped Cassel off to Kansas City, where he went 19-28 over the next four seasons.  You could say those Chiefs weren’t those Patriots.

 

Not that the Bears would care.  No, all they want is to catch lightning in a bottle, somebody like Alex Smith, who went 38-36 for the 49ers before going 50-26 in five seasons with the Chiefs.  In fact, the Munsters considered bringing in the soon-to-be 36-year Smith old before ultimately settling on Foles.  No doubt the “brain trust” at Halas Hall thinks Foles will be the next Smith.  Maybe, but Smith had Andy Reid as his coach in KC. 

 

And the Bears have who again?

Would I Lie to You?

How does Bears’ GM Ryan Pace look at himself in the mirror every day?  One eye closed, or both?

 

I ask because Pace finally ’fessed up to the obvious—the Bears are no longer in love with Mitch Trubisky as their starting quarterback.  Ever since the end of last season, whenever he found the nerve to speak in public, Pace declared Trubisky to be his man behind center.  Then, Friday, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, Pace goes on a conference call with reporters to declare an “open competition” between the embattled Trubisky and the well-travelled Nick Foles, now on his fifth team in an eight–year NFL career.  Journeyman cuts first-round draft pick:  This is how Ryan Pace and Bears’ ownership do business, always have and always will.

 

Maybe Pace does more than close an eye or two to get through the day, like cross his fingers when declaring his faith in Trubisky.  That, or he just lies standing up.

Bear Down, Matthew 25, 31-46

And you shall know them by how they act in a crisis, or otherwise.  I give you the McCaskey family, that is, if you want them.

 

The Misers of the Midway have contributed all of $250,000 in the fight against COVID-19.  I’m willing to bet Robert Kraft of the Patriots spent more this week sending the team jet to China to pick up 1.2 million protective masks for use in Massachusetts.  Or consider JJ Watt of the Texans and Kealia Ohai, soon to be playing with the Chicago Red Stars, knock on wood.  Together, the couple has donated $350,000 to corona-related food relief efforts in the Houston area.

 

But the keepers of the Halas flame prefer to pinch pennies while demanding their pound of flesh from Bears’ fans.  In case you’ve missed it with the crush of other, more important, news, the Munsters are not among the NFL teams to postpone the deadline to get season-ticket payments in.  Oh, if anyone out there is facing financial difficulties, the team wants you to call, and they’ll work something out on a case-by-case basis.  I wonder what the vig on that will be.

 

As to the relevant section from the Book of Matthew, Christ extols the righteous for feeding, clothing, visiting and welcoming Him during the course of their lives; for that, they are to enter the kingdom of Heaven.  Hearing this, the other folks ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?”

 

The answer has something to do with the “least ones,” the kind of people who don’t register much with the McCaskeys.   

 

Ed Farmer

Longtime White Sox radio announcer Ed Farmer died Wednesday at the age of 70.  No cause of death was given, but Farmer suffered from polycystic kidney disease which would have killed him if not for a kidney his brother Tom donated in 1991.

 

For Ken Harrelson, the White Sox were an acquired taste, which the Hawk managed to develop over decades in the TV booth; no doubt, a nice paycheck helped.  But with Farmer, the White Sox were a birthright that comes to any South Sider, and Farmer always let the world know he hailed from 79^th and Francisco.  He dreamed of being a pitcher for the White Sox, and so he was, from 1979-81.

 

As broadcasters, both Farmer and Harrelson would be called “homers,” which is about as helpful as saying both Andrew Jackson and Bernie Sanders are Democrats.  Here’s the difference:  Hawk never was heard to say a discouraging word.  But Farmer was more like my father, critical yet loving, though probably with an easier sense of humor.  I once heard the Hawk sing the praises of Casper Wells, who hit a modest .167 for the South Siders in 2013.  Ed Farmer knew better than to insult the fans’ intelligence.

 

Chicago is a Catholic town.  Some people wear their faith like a big bright badge—think the McCaskeys—while others just let it show.  That was Farmer.  If the game was on a Sunday, home or away, he’d casually mention attending Mass in the morning.  What he didn’t talk about—and what marks him again like my father, another South Side person of faith—was his health.  I had no idea until reading the obituaries Farmer took as many as 56 pills a day in order to function.    

 

Farmer loved to tell stories, one of which has always stayed with me.  When Clare was in first grade, parents were required to donate service hours at her school; my job was delivering groceries on a Saturday afternoon so many times a year until I’d done my time, so to say.  The school got a percentage of the tab as part of a special fundraising program.

 

I’ve done some quick research, and it was probably March 26, 1999, a Saturday.  Naturally, I had the Sox game on the radio between deliveries.  Farmer was telling a story about Cal Ripken Sr., one of his coaches during a cup of coffee with the Orioles in 1977.  Ripken was talking, and talking, to a group of pitchers while smoking.  “Not an ash from that cigarette fell to the ground, friends,” Farmer recalled.  Ripken had died from lung cancer a day earlier.

 

It was probably late May in 2002 that Clare and I shared an Ed Farmer encounter.  She had the day off of school, and I’d managed tickets for a Sox day game.  We got to the park incredibly early, which is how my daughter likes it.  If someone asked her to come early and sweep the stands or mow the lawn, the girl would be outside the gates at the crack of dawn.  So, she was in her element walking around, looking around.

 

All of a sudden, there appeared Ed Farmer approaching us.  I pointed him out to my daughter, “That’s the Sox announcer.  Go get his autograph.”  And that’s exactly what she did.  All I know is he gave it in such a way that she remained a fan from that moment on.  Clare always would say how listening to Ed Farmer made her happy.  Yes, it did.

Cancelled or Postponed

If only as a parent, I respect Olympic athletes.  I mean, who do you think was driving them to all those club and varsity meets in the dead of winter?  That said, I’ll do fine without watching two weeks’ worth of swimming and gymnastics this summer.

 

Same for Wimbledon, though my wife and daughter may feel differently.  For as long as I can remember, come the women’s finals, my two Serena Williams’ groupies were glued to the screen.  Little changed when Clare moved out.  What was once said about the latest point, game or set was now texted.  The telephone call waited for match’s end.

 

The Tribune noted today that the two-game, Cubs-Cardinals’ series set for June 13-14 in London has been cancelled.  The real question is, why was it ever scheduled?  People flying in to watch such events aren’t what you would consider typical fans, though I’m sure that’s the demographic the Ricketts are shooting for on the North Side.  And does Commissioner Manfred really think he can grow the game in merry old England?  The last English-born player to make it to the majors was who, again?  Bobby Thomson doesn’t count, by the way.  The Staten Island Scot was born in Glasgow.  (Answer: pitcher Chris Reed.)

 

What nobody seems to be paying much attention to is kids’ baseball.  Pony Baseball has postponed the beginning of its season to at least May 1, Little League to May 11, and I wouldn’t hold my breath on either of those dates.  The possible cancelling of youth baseball should worry the commissioner a lot more than any London sojourn.

 

My daughter is an inveterate fan of the game because she got to play it as a kid (and would love to work for one team in particular, hint, hint).  I’d like to think the two of us didn’t need baseball to bond over, but it sure helped along the way.  One more reason for youngsters not to play the game is, eventually, one more reason for adults not to attend games.

 

In Chicago, that is, not London.  

Clarity of Thought and Purpose

Clare called Tuesday night.  I was barely able to say Hello before she started in.  “Here’s the subject for your next blog post,” she pretty much yelled loud enough to be standing next to me.

 

The subject of my daughter’s ire was the NCAA, that organization so good at charging ant hills while staying out of the way of mountains.  As many of us were wondering, the NCAA did in fact grant an extra year of eligibility to D-I spring athletes, whatever the sport, with individual schools having the final say; real show of strength there.  As for the rest of it, you’d have to read the press release and probably find someone to translate it before it made sense.

 

From what I could tell, fifth-year seniors will be placed in a special category best labelled “Don’t expect the same level of financial assistance as last year, guys.”  Or, as the NCAA put it, schools won’t be required to provide aid “at the same level awarded for 2019-20.  This flexibility applies only to student-athletes who would have exhausted eligibility in 2020-21.”  That kind of flexibility sure sounds like a screwing.

 

But, hey, schools can apply to a special NCAA fund to get extra athlete scholarship money.  While they’re at it, maybe the schools can ask the poohbahs why they didn’t come out with a statement along the lines of this: Every student on a spring sport 2020 roster has an extra year of eligibility through the 2024 season.  The presence of extra players in each of the next four years will require scholarship aid the NCAA will provide because it’s all about the student-athletes.”

 

Right?