Gale Sayers

Words fail to describe Bears’ great Gale Sayers on a football field. “He ran like the wind”? Only the wind can’t change directions the Sayers could. Like Mercury? Like Hermes? Please. The only way to appreciate Sayers in all his jaw-dropping artistry is to watch clips of his runs; remember when you saw those runs live; or both. Anything else is a waste of time. The only comment of any value said about Sayers was spoken by the man himself: “Just give me eighteen inches of daylight. That’s all I need.” Amen. Sayers died last week. The obituaries were a reminder to anyone who’d forgotten just how petty an organization the Bears are. At one point when his playing career was over, Sayers contacted every NFL team for a front-office job and received zero offers. Shame on them, and shame most of all on the team that employed him in the first place. Repeat after me, “how Bear.” Paul Sullivan in the Tribune noted that the McCaskeys let a strike player wear Sayers’ number 40 in 1987 and were ridiculously slow in retiring it. Michael McCaskey, team president at the time, said it was hard “because of our long history and how many numbers have [already] been retired.” On the scales of football talent, how many Michael McCaskeys would it take to equal one Gale Sayers? A hundred? Or am I giving McCaskey more gravitas than he deserves?