Grrh!

When the Bears drafted Notre Dame tight end Cole Kmet in 2020, Chicago media went nuts. You couldn’t find anyone to say a bad thing about the kid, who also happened to hail from northwest suburban Lake Barrington. The consensus seemed to be that the Munsters had themselves a second Ditka, only more socially refined. So, I open up today’s Sun-Times to read, “Bears have to find out if Kmet is the answer at tight end.” Huh? So it goes on the Bears’ beat. Reporters fall in and out of love with players and coaches. It isn’t so much a honeymoon as a reprise of “Fatal Attraction.” If greatness means the ability to overcome coach Matt Nagy’s “offense,” then Kmet isn’t a great player, and who is? You really get a feeling Nagy wouldn’t know what to do with Walter Payton or Gayle Sayers, let alone Kmet. Too much was made of Kmet when he arrived last year and Justin Fields this season. The sports’ media needs to do their job and leave the cheering to fans. I won’t hold my breath.

Out of Sight...

If I were baseball commissioner (now, there’s a thought), everything would be different, at least until the owners fired me. There wouldn’t be any of this hiding in the shadow of football, that’s for sure. It’s times like these I think the game is owned and played by idiots. The owners have instigated a “defensive lockout,” thereby killing the hot-stove league. And, has anybody heard a peep out of the players lately? Have they taken to the airwaves and social media to explain their stand on issues? You must be kidding. No, both sides are content to play a game of chicken, out of the spotlight. Let college and pro football reign supreme, as if it didn’t already. No hot stove, no rumors, no fan conventions on account of COVID, no reason to think baseball. And when both sides finally do sit down for serious negotiations, do you think ticket and concession prices will be on the agenda, or the length of games? The chances of that, my friend, are slim and none. No, baseball will continue to slouch along the same path that it has for the past thirty years of so, one side vilifying the other, both sides oblivious of what fans think or where they’re turning their attention to. But, hey, out of sight out of mind. And, to these clowns, that’s a good thing.

John Madden

Former coach and NFL broadcaster John Madden died yesterday at the age of 85, and his passing has been met with an avalanche of praise. And yet. Madden was the Raiders’ coach in August of 1978 when safety Jack Tatum’s tackle of Patriots’ receiver Darryl Stingley broke two vertebrae in Stingley’s neck and damaged his spinal cord. Tatum made the tackle helmet-first. Accounts say that Madden was distraught by the injury that left Stingley paralyzed; visited Stingley regularly; helped with the logistics of his rehab; and was a regular presence in Stingley’s life from that point on. The injury may even have been the precipitating event that led Madden to quit coaching at the end of the season. And yet. And yet Madden never talked about it, as far as I know. In all his thirty years of doing games, I never heard talk about that injury or allude to it in any way during a broadcast. I never heard him call for cleaning the game up or protecting players from grievous injury, and I never heard him call out a player for a dirty hit. But he was always entertaining. It must be me.

Trying to Get There

Here’s a true confession—I never rooted for the Bulls during the 1990s. Jordan Rules, Last Dance, I always wanted them to lose. South Siders are known to hold a grudge. For me, it was Jerry Reinsdorf tearing down Comiskey Park and going on rich man’s welfare; God forbid he use his own money to build a mall. Yes, I also rooted against the White Sox in the 1993 playoffs against the Blue Jays, so credit me with consistency: one owner, two teams, one grudge. But having a child who loved baseball and Frank Thomas—not necessarily in that order—changed me over time. Only Clare never really cared about basketball, and that allowed me the futile pleasure of rooting against Superman and his supporting cast (Yes, I’m talking about you, Scottie). Old habits are hard to break. I laughed as Jerry Krause replaced a dynasty with a who’s who of dysfunction. I never warmed to Derrick Rose or Tom Thibodeau. For Jim Boylen, see Krause, above. But things change, or can, if you let them. I would now rather see the Bulls win than not. How good are they this season? At 21-10, they have the second-best record in the Eastern Conference, 2-1/2 games behind Brooklyn, and they own the fifth-best winning percentage in the league. So, there’s that. Billy Donovan looks like he knows how to coach and the new front office how to rework a roster. Anybody miss Lauri Markkanen? As ever, injuries could disrupt things, and age. Center Nikola Vucevic is 31, power forward DeMar DeRozan 32; bodies wear down over time, especially once they hit the age of 30 (don’t I know?). But shooting guard Zach LaVine—averaging 26.4 points per game—won’t be 27 until March; point guard Lonzo Ball is 24; and rookie Ayo Dosunmu has another month of being 20. So, there’s that, too. All in all, color me intrigued, slowly intrigued.

Perfection

I watch the Bears for two reasons: 1) it gives me something to fill up the time when I’m on the exercycle; and 2) it’s a way to get back at people I don’t like who root for other teams. Yesterday, the planets aligned, and both reasons came to pass in a Bears’ 25-24 win on the road in Seattle. I won’t reveal the names of those disagreeable Seahawks’ fans, but I will point out the irony of winning a game behind a quarterback who was so 2020. With the end of the 2021 season in sight, the Munsters gave Nick Foles his first start of the season. And this Sunday? Maybe they’ll pick a name out of a hat. But it won’t belong to Russell Wilson, whom the Bears’ “brain trust” wanted bad, only to be rebuffed and then going with rookie Justin Fields in the draft. Wilson turned 33 at the end of last month, and he looked every day of it on the field against the Bears. By beating the team with the quarterback they wanted with the quarterback they didn’t want anymore, the whizzes of Halas Hall pulled off matching 5-10 records for two struggling franchises. How quintessentially Bear. And let’s not forget soon-to-be ex-coach Matt Nagy, who in the postgame talked about “emptying the cup,” whether a “full cup” or “half cup,” because “when we all empty our cups,” there’s a “damn’ good chance” of winning. I’m going to miss Nagy gibber. Just kidding. He can exit stage left, cup in hand, anytime he wants.

More Minoso

Clare came through with two perfect Christmas gifts. It’s as it she read my mind. That, or I gave specific instructions to her on what to buy. I mean, an unused ticket from October 4, 1964, A’s vs. White Sox? I went with my dad that day, a Sunday, to see the Sox win their 98th game of the season, a 6-0, complete-game shutout by Bruce Howard in a game that took all of 1:45 minutes to play. I can still remember Tommy McCraw circling the bases after a walk, then a wild pitch, then two throwing errors, courtesy of Dave Duncan and Nelson Mathews, respectively. That made for nine wins in a row. Too bad the Yankees won one more game to clinch the pennant. The Sox signed Minnie Minoso that spring for his third tour with the team; they released him in July, on what would be my future wife’s ninth birthday. She was a Cubs’ North Side heathen and probably had no idea who Minoso was. Some forty years later, she knew enough to stop him on the street in the Loop to ask for an autograph. That picture will go with the one Clare gave me, a headshot of Minoso in 1960. I have this memory of a fathers-sons game, maybe Father’s Day 1964 or another day that season; it’s my first real memory of Minoso. Not so much him as his son, Orestes Jr., looking sharp in his White Sox uniform, all pinstripes and Old English SOX on a diagonal across his chest. We were the same age, but I didn’t go on to play minor-league ball with the Royals and Sox the way the younger Minoso did. If my dad bought me a hot dog that day, it cost 35 cents, or three dollars in today’s money, and, if he treated himself a Hamm’s, that sent him back 45 cents, or four dollars. How long has it been since beer was that cheap at the ballpark? The ticket Clare bought me is (was?) a lower deck box $3, or $26.90 today. All I can say is that, if you had box seats in the lower deck at Comiskey Park, you could pretty much touch the players, “obstructing” posts be damned. I already have two “phantom” tickets, printed in case the Sox did make the Series. Both, for upper deck boxes, were priced at $12, or $126.90 today. I’d have paid it in a heartbeat, and maybe my dad would have, too. Did I mention that I hate the Yankees?

Bear-ly Hilarious

This could only happen with the Munsters. Not only are they going to start their third-string quarterback tomorrow in Seattle, he’s a player the front office either could not or would not move at the beginning of the season. In McCaskey World, never rule out spite as a motivation. The Munsters acquired Foles in 2020 as a possible alternative to Mitch Trubisky (talk about a knack with quarterbacks), but, when Trubisky played himself out of the starter’s role, Foles wasn’t any better, going 2-5. Better yet, he and head coach Matt Nagy clashed to the point that Foles was practically begging to be traded during training camp this season. Now, he’s starting because Justin Fields and Andy Dalton are injured. One of two things is going to happen—Foles throws for 300+ yards with three touchdown, or he throws fifteen passes, completing eight for seventy-five yards. Odds are it’s going to be number two. Any takers?

Christmas Gifts for Deep Pockets

If a certain somebody comes through for her father, he’ll be getting a Minnie Minoso print off a negative he bought. The only thing better, maybe, would be the first print off the negative, and who’s to say it won’t be? Regardless, I like what it shows, Minoso in an unguarded moment. This is the kind of stuff I look for on eBay. Because I happen to root for a franchise steeped in mediocrity, memorabilia prices tend to be low, relatively speaking. There are exceptions, of course. Back in spring, I had my eye on a wire photo of Old Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium, 1956. The White Sox were in town, so Yankee management brought in people like Ted Lyons and…the spy, Moe Berg. My God, Berg in a Sox uniform. Why didn’t I just pay the $96? Otherwise, anything Berg will cost you, like $5,000 (or best offer) for a head shot. Berg and Babe Ruth in Seattle on their way to playing in Japan in 1934 (when Berg may have slipped away from teammates to do some spying for the U.S. government)? That, my friend, will set you back $3,500, unless you come up with a best offer the seller can live with. Someone is trying to sell two snapshots, one each of Ruth and Lou Gehrig, at Comiskey Park, probably 1927. Cost? $8,500, or best offer. The second most expensive Ruth photo now on eBay, is going at $30,000 obo. It also shows the Bambino at my ballpark. I wonder how the Babe would feel about his most expensive pic going for $50,000 while someone has priced a snapshot of a sixteen-year old Gehrig holding what looks to be the family dog at $499,999 obo and never mind the rip. Jackie Robinson? The man who integrated major-league baseball tops out on eBay at $8,500 obo. Make of the price differential with Ruth or Gehrig what you will, and know this—fans must’ve taken a ton of photos with and of Robinson on National League fields. My guess is those photos have been passed on from one generation to the next. Someday, that might change and there could be a bumper crop of Robinson pics available on eBay. Just don’t ask me the price. Willie Mays tops out at $15,000 from somebody who’s also trying to get $12,500 for a ticket stub from the 1926 World Series (good luck with that). Me, I’ll be happy to keep hunting for pics of White Sox players, more often anonymous than not, in a ballpark I can’t seem to forget. But I should’ve snapped up Moe Berg when I had the chance. He hit .287 for the South Siders in 1929, you know.

Nuance

The Bears’ beat writer for the Tribune did a letters’ column today in which he defended the organization. More evidence that we live in strange times. A letter writer dared to ask, “When will Bears fans get an organization that cares as much as we fans do?” The answer basically was, they already do. It’s more a question of the organization making wrong—and heartfelt—decisions. But wait, there’s more. Fans should know, “There are more nuanced ways to be critical of ownership and senior leadership at Halas Hall than saying they don’t care as much as you do.” Since when do the McCaskeys get nuance? The reporter didn’t say.

Measure of Futility

Both the White Sox and Bears won on October 10, the Sox over the Astros, the Munsters over the Raiders. The Sox season ended the next day, when Houston eliminated them in the ALDS. The Bears have kept playing, if only in the most technical sense of the word, and in all that time since have one more win. Only in Chicago. Back in January, the Bears’ brain trust, and there’s an oxymoron for the ages, talked about collaboration and being on the right track. Team president Ted Phillips gibbered on about how the “foundation is in place”; GM Ryan Pace and head coach Matt Nagy were “both solution-oriented”; and said brain trust was “expecting improvement this year.” With a little bit of luck and effort, the Munsters can win half the games they did when Phillips put his foot in his mouth. Only in Chicago.

Send in the Clowns

The Bears are now 4-10 on the season after losing last night 17-9 to the Vikings at home. That puts them in Abe Gibron territory. And, just like those very bad Gibron teams, this one played good defense, with Minnesota quarterback Kirk Cousins sacked four times; Cousins netted a mere 87 yards on twelve completions. There’s some of the suffering you say Jesus promises, Kirk. But these are the Bears, who went out and hired Matt Nagy as an offensive guru, and what did the guru accomplish last night? At the 59:59 point of the game, three points, that’s what. That literal last-second touchdown the Munsters managed didn’t even rate an extra-point attempt. Gibron was fired forty-seven years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same. If and when Nagy gets let go, the deed will be done by the same family that thought hiring Abe Gibron made sense. That’s how circus people think, I guess.

Searching for Heroes

I may be asking for too much. Really, why should athletes be any different than fans? Ignorance, like misery, loves company. I saw in the paper today that Vikings’ quarterback Kirk Cousins is an anti-vaxxer. Sorry, had COVID, know its real. Also, too much education. I understand individual liberties do not trump (you decide if there’s a pun there) the public good. In other words, the two dolts I saw at the grocery this morning didn’t have the right, God- or Constitution-given, to walk down the aisles maskless because there is no right, God- or Constitution-given, to infect others. I keep waiting, but no sport seems to have generated a COVID equivalent of Bob Feller, who enlisted in the Navy the day after Pearl Harbor. Unlike Joe DiMaggio, Feller saw combat, and plenty of it, aboard the battleship USS Alabama serving for over two years as a gunnery captain. Feller didn’t complain about missing out on virtually four seasons during the prime of his career and most likely another 100 wins to add onto the 266 he totaled. “I have no regrets,” he once told a HOF publication of his decision to enlist. “The only win I wanted was to win World War II.” I’m not suggesting Feller was a saint; if he had been, he would have voiced early support for baseball breaking the color line. But he still did something important that affected his career and could have cost him his life. And Kirk Cousins? Well, he is risking his life.

Black Hole

The Bears constitute a black hole for Chicago sports’ media—venture too close, and you get sucked in. Pretty much everyone ventures too close. Our gaffe-prone Munsters generate multiple TV shows; no sportscast dares ignore them the way it would mediocrity from other Chicago sports’ teams. The local PBS station includes a weekly in-season segment during which former Bears’ offensive lineman James “Big Cat” Williams breaks down every game, no matter how bad it might have been. Today, the Tribune ran “Disorder. Dysfunction. Disappointment,” an in-depth look at McCaskey World. What do I mean by “in-depth”? The story jumped from the front page to three—count them, three—full inside pages, each one with four columns of print and relatively few pictures. Nothing, not Donald Trump or climate change or the latest city-hall crisis, gets that kind of coverage. But at what cost? The Sunday sports’ section runs only eight pages, with the Bears basically sucking up nearly half the available space. Print journalism is in a zero-sum hell these days. If something gets in the paper, something gets left out. You wouldn’t know looking at the Trib there are high school sports going on. The Bulls and Hawks were made to share one page with Illinois and De Paul basketball. If Christ came back the same day the Bears played, it wouldn’t make the Trib. And you wouldn’t be able to read about it online.

Back to the Future

And what were my daughter and son-in-law doing last night? Why, finding a way to watch North Central College go for back-to-back NCAA D-III football championships, of course. Somehow, I doubt Clare minded that North Central lost to Mary Hardin-Baylor, 57-24. Old grudges die hard. Michele asked me last week how North Central stays good in sports, and I told her, “They work at it.” Every athletic program starts off as a broken clock, bound to get it right at some point, if just for one season. The difference between North Central and Clare’s (and her husband’s) alma mater of Elmhurst is that one school built on its initial success and the other didn’t. It’s a choice. During Clare’s four years, her Blue Jays always played the Cardinals tough, even though they lost more than they won. We were eight-deep playing a program probably double that. You should see North Central’s athletic facilities. Elmhurst shares its home field with the local park district. In comparison, North Central is Yankee Stadium, and the Rams’ new home . North Central had a number of fifth-year seniors, courtesy of COVID; they came back for a chance to repeat. Now, they face life like Clare and Chris had to. My son-in-law went from graduate assistant at North Central (!), then Syracuse, to assistant coach at Elmhurst to high school social studies’ teacher/o-line coach; Clare walked on, if you will, at Northwestern University, where she’s doing quite well in administration at the Kellogg School of Management. Ask them, and they’ll likely tell you their stint as college athletes prepared them for what comes after graduation. If they’re lucky, the same will hold true for the kids at North Central.

There But for the Grace of God

If things had gone differently, the Bulls might have drafted power forward Zion Williamson. But luck was with them, and Williamson went to New Orleans in 2019. In his first two seasons, Williamson suffered knee and thumb injuries that took him out of the Pelicans’ lineup for some to much time, and that was before he broke his right foot this summer. He was ramping up for his season debut only to feel soreness in the foot. Now comes news Williamson received a “biologic injection” in the fracture area that will, fingers crossed, promote healing. Then it’s four to six weeks of wait-and-see, which is not the same as four to six weeks until he can play. I must be the only person in the world who looked at Williamson and saw all sorts of problems where everyone saw a ton of talent, if you’ll pardon the pun. I see that he’s no longer listed at 6’7”. An inch shorter matters because he’s carrying at least 284 pounds on an even smaller frame. Read about the 21-year old, and you read about conditioning issues. Those I knew about, but not Williamson’s rumored frustration with the state of the team around him. I’m guessing management is pretty frustrated, too. I think college athletes in basketball and football are best served staying in school a minimum of three years; this way their bodies and skills have a chance to grow under controlled circumstances. (Drafting high school baseball players makes no sense to me whatsoever.) I read where the Pelicans’ front office has complained to the NBA about the beating their star player has taken since he’s stepped onto the pro court. And they thought he could avoid that why, exactly? The best the NBA can do is its one-and-done rule. I doubt anything else would survive a court challenge, and I’m surprised one-and-done has lasted this long. To paraphrase my father, people six times three (as in years) are adults and can do what they will. But it comes with consequences.

Cautionary Tale

Because the Bears’ news cycle must be forever fed, sportswriters are noting just how difficult a team rebuild will be on account of the salary cap. GM Ryan Pace can’t seem to help himself. First, he drafts the wrong players. Then, when they fail to develop, he tries to fix the problem with free agents, often overpaying for them. Anyone seen Danny Trevathan lately? The result is a roster filled with expensive mediocrities, which is not exactly the formula for winning football, assuming the McCaskeys care about such a thing. Today, I read in The Athletic how both sides in the baseball lockout aren’t expected to meet again until after the holidays. I imagine the owners are dreaming of ways to sneak a salary cap into any final agreement. Consider what that would mean for fans. They could either watch their team screw up like the Bears or listen to their owner site the salary cap for not pursuing any free agent or keeping a player from going that route. Owners in all sports should be made to face the consequences of their actions and not lean on players for protection against their own stupidity. Unfortunately, that’s the case with the Bears and all of the NFL. Shame on the players for allowing it to happen. Baseball’s soft cap is bad enough. Anything more and the players’ association will have committed a major blunder at the bargaining table.

The Bears' Way

The Bears went into this season intent on improving their offensive line, which explains their pick in the second round of the 2021 draft. Only their pick had back problems in college and missed training camp because he needed surgery. Wait, there’s more. He saw his first meaningful action of the season Sunday night in Green Bay. How did the rookie do? Not so good, judging by the four penalties called against him. I’m not naming names because that would be cruel and unnecessary. No athlete wants health issues, and the health issues explain the poor performance, at least in part. What matters here is this is how the Bears operate. They target players other teams hold back on, and get burned in the process. Think Mitch Trubisky, Kevin White… And now the media, trained to devote attention to the Munsters 24/7-365, are finally getting around to quoting head coach Matt Nagy at length. How to put this? With Nagy, less is always better. Four seasons in, and all he does is talk rah-rah. What to do? The first inclination is to say blow the whole thing up, but do you trust the McCaskeys to know how to light the fuse, let alone buy the right dynamite? I don’t.

Roland Hemond

In all probability, the White Sox can still call Chicago home because of the work of two of its general managers, Frank Lane (1949-1955) and Roland Hemond (1970-1985). Lane engineered the Go-Go Sox, Hemond helped keep the Sox from going to Milwaukee or Seattle. According to his SABR biography Lane moved some 690 players in just over 400 deals. For the Sox, he acquired Luis Aparicio, Nellie Fox, Minnie Minoso, Billy Pierce and Sherm Lollar. That’s three HOFers, if you’re counting, and one HOFer in waiting. Lane fueled a first-division resurgence for the Sox that stretched from 1951-1967. One of his successors, Ed Short, drafted a bunch of players Hemond would put to good use. That group included Bucky Dent, Brian Downing, Terry Forster and Goose Gossage. Hemond traded for Dick Allen, a move that revied the franchise for several seasons in the early ’70s. By the time Bill Veeck reacquired the team in 1976, the Sox were operating on a frayed shoestring Veeck did little if anything to improve upon. So, Hemond was forced to trade away young talent rather than lose it via free agency. The thing of it is, with the exception of shipping off Forster and Gossage to the Pirates for Richie Zisk, Hemond got young talent in return. Bucky Dent netted LaMarr Hoyt as well as Oscar Gamble (who teamed with Zisk to form the foundation of the South Side Hitmen of 1977 fame) while Brian Downing brought Richard Dotson in return. After Jerry Reinsdorf led a group that bought the team from Veeck in 1981, Hemond had money to work with. This allowed him to buy Greg Luzinski from the Phillies and sign Carlton Fisk as a free agent; Luzinski and Fisk would form the heart and soul of the 1983 division winners. Hemond also had a way of identifying players undervalued by other teams. Think Scott Fletcher, Rudy Law and Vance Law, among others. In addition, Hemond also had a knack for finding value in the scrap heap. He signed Eric Soderholm (later traded for Ed Farmer) and Ron Kittle as free agents, as in nobody else wanted them, while acquiring the likes of Jim Kaat and Tom Seaver. Did I mention that Hemond hired Tony LaRussa in 1979 to manage the Sox? Jerry Reinsdorf is on record as saying his biggest mistake was firing LaRussa. No, it wasn’t. His biggest mistake (outside of razing Comiskey Park) was firing Hemond, only to replace him with Hawk Harrelson as general manager. Talk about your classic brain cramp. Hemond died Sunday at age 92. I wasn’t even a glimmer in my parents’ eyes when Frank Lane was hired, an incoming college freshman when Hemond and Chuck Tanner both went to work on the South Side. Time flies. How I wish it didn’t.

Appearances

Ditching his visor for a watch cap, Matt Nagy sure looked like a football coach on the sidelines for the Bears in Green Bay, just like the Munsters looked like a team, for half a game, at least. Amazing, though, how a 27-21 lead at halftime turned into a 45-30 loss. How Bears. And Nagy, who went into high gibber mode after the game. “That first half, when you coach and you play that first half the way we did, that’s what it’s all about. That’s why we do what we do.” Need more? OK, try, “When these guys play like that, that’s why we do it.” (Nagy quoted in today’s The Athletic) Like when like that, Coach? The first half or the second half? I’m just a casual fan, but it seems to me that a coaching staff is dedicated to winning games, not half a game.

Buzz Before the Slaughter

The Bears’ record presently stands at 4-8, which comes out to a .333 winning percentage for all you math whizzes out there. If the Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs or White Sox played seventy percent of their season winning at a .333 clip, you’d need an electron microscope to locate the coverage. In the bizarro world of Chicago sports, with the Munsters, it’s wins be damned, full coverage ahead. Yesterday, the Sun-Times devoted 12-1/2 pages of its expanded “Sports Saturday” section to the likely beatdown the Bears will likely receive from Aaron Rodgers and the Packers tonight in Green Bay, on national television, no less. Meanwhile, the Tribune devoted two full pages today to a “Matt Nagy Timeline” in today’s paper. Can’t read? Well, turn on the TV or radio for you share of Bears’ coverage. Gluttons for punishment welcome. I heard rookie quarterback Justin Fields say he likes being the underdog, in which case he’s definitely playing for the right team. My guess is the first play from scrimmage for the visitors will be a bubble-screen right, and it’ll all go down from there. Of course, Fields, Nagy and company could prove me wrong and do that “band of brothers” thing Nagy is always alluding to. But I doubt it.

GIfts

The Princess, aka my daughter, says she can’t wear wool because it irritates her delicate skin. So, off we went to the mall this morning to exchange all the wool and shop for other things. I liked it better when I ran otu to Sports Authority and picked up some batting gloves for her. Speaking of gifts, I was probably lucky to buy that negative of Minnie Minoso when I did back in November; now, everything Minoso comes with a HOF surcharge attached. I gave the negative to said Princess, who will have it developed into an 8”x”10” for me. It’s a head shot of Minoso striking for its introspection. This is the ballplayer caught in an unguarded moment. I have a baseball with Minoso’s autograph on it, right next to one from Luke Appling, with Walt Williams’ and Billy Pierce’s to the left of “Luke.” Hoyt Wilhelm, Luis Aparicio and Moose Skowron all share a panel of their own; as ever Bill Veeck is off by himself. I need to get Paul Konerko’s someday. What a gift that would be.

Context

Sometimes, the ballpark made the player. Think Babe Ruth and Yankee Stadium or Wally Moon and the Coliseum. Other times, the ballpark provided context signaling city, team and player. Think anyone at Wrigley Field. Think anyone at Comiskey Park, but, most of all, think Minnie Minoso. The connection between player and ballpark was made obvious again this week with all those clips showing what made Minoso a fan favorite on the South Side. With No. 9 in home pinstripes, he could only be hitting, running, sliding in the confines of the Baseball Palace of the World. The arches, church-window like in form, showed the world that here was a green cathedral, as Philip Lowry would have it. This week, somebody on eBay sold a snapshot of Ruth batting at Comiskey Park in July of 1925. You can tell it’s Ruth from the silhouette, the ballpark from the arches in the background. According to the seller, Ruth was about to hit a homerun. He did it often enough in Chicago that Charles Comiskey expanded the park for the 1927 season by extending the upper deck around the entire perimeter. If Comiskey couldn’t assemble a Murderers’ Row of his own, he could let Sox fans watch the Bronx version when it came to town. Two weeks ago, the Sox assembled a kind of memorial to Minoso—in the parking lot the site of Minoso’s ballpark. There were no arches to provide a familiar backdrop, just plenty of asphalt.

Figures and Figurers

Jayson Stark argued in Monday’s The Athletic that Dick Allen belongs in the Hall of Fame (Golden Days Era committee members thought otherwise) because, well, because Edgar Martinez got in with stats that Stark believes in. And what are those? Why, OPS+ and wRC+, of course. For you dinosaurs out there, that’s on-base and slugging percentages adjusted to the player’s home ballpark along with weighted runs created adjusted for important (and who gets to decide what’s important?) external factors. So, Martinez, so good a third baseman he spent most of his career DHing, got into Cooperstown not on account of World Series Rings (zero), 3,000 hits (2247) or 500 homeruns (309). No, he was a career .312 hitter with great OPS+ and wRC+ numbers. Stark is fine with that. I’m not. Oh, and you have to look at Allen’s most productive years, that being the period from 1964 to 1974. If you do that, he has a better OPS+ than Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey and Frank Robinson, and a better wRC+ than those three. And who would you rather have on your team? According to baseball-reference.com, Allen also has a higher OPS+ than Joe DiMaggio. How interesting. Allen managed 100-plus RBIs only three times in his career; DiMaggio did it nine times. But shame on me for not using the “modern metrics” Stark cites to show what a “historically special force” Allen was. Yeah, right. I keep thinking of a comment made about Ginger Rogers, how she did everything her dance partner Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels. To me, that’s Minnie Minoso paired with Jackie Robinson, breaking a barrier without the benefit of his own culture or language. Now, compare Minoso’s “old” stats to Allen’s. That’s a Hall of Famer. For my money, so are Maury Wills and Billy Pierce, both passed over by the Golden Days Era Committee. But not Dick Allen.

Gibber

I had a teaching assistant who came up to me after class one day and said, “You shouldn’t use weasel words.” She was right. We should all say what we mean and mean what we say. That’s impossible with Bears’ coach Matt Nagy, unless he means the gibberish that pours out of his mouth. I think he does, which is bad enough. I also think it was the very quality of his gibber that attracted the McCaskeys in the first place, and that’s so much worse. Nagy spouts nonsense virtually every time he steps to the podium. Sunday’s loss to the Cardinals was no different. Here’s Nagy in yesterday’s Sun-Times on his quarterback throwing four interceptions: “There’s no stat in the NFL for interceptions that occur that aren’t on the quarterback, but there probably should be.” Why “probably”? There should be or there shouldn’t. And let’s say there was. Then you’re merely shifting blame to ham-handed receivers. Either way, it’s your team that’s screwing up, Coach. Or how about this gem (also in the Times): “Four turnovers are going to hurt. Our guys know that, and they care.” Where do you even start? Lastly, this “Knute Rockne minus the winning” declaration, as reported in yesterday’s Tribune: “The only thing we can do is keep fighting and sticking together. I know it can sound old. I know it can sound monotonous. I gotcha. But when you’re in these moments, when you’re in that locker room together and you’re fighting together…we’re always going to give it everything that we’ve got. That’s all we can do, no matter who we’re playing.” And if giving it everything you’ve got leads to four interceptions, then what? Nagy wants fans to believe a band of brothers inhabits the Bears’ locker room. He’s incapable of seeing it’s more like a band of Stooges.

Scenes from a Rainy Sunday in Early December

Mass was at eleven, with baptism to follow. Six minutes after kickoff, the Bears were down a touchdown to the visiting Cardinals; the game started at noon. Several stories would note fans at Soldier Field were too wet and miserable to get behind chants of “Fire Nagy!” A little before Leo’s welcome into the faith, I asked a friend to check on the Hall of Fame vote; nothing till night, he answered. I was betting on Minnie Minoso if for no other reason the New York Times had done a story on him not long ago. Clare booked a room in Forest Park for a post-christening brunch. The Bears kept falling further and further behind; four interceptions from your quarterback will do that. The food was good, and dessert, too. As ever, my daughter insisted on taking a picture of the cake before allowing it to be cut. Her son will learn this is a thing with his mother. We got home, I read the papers. Around seven, Clare texted that Minoso had gotten in. So did Jim Kaat. Miracles never cease.

Picking Sides

So, MLB owners have engaged in what Commissioner Rob Manfred calls a “defensive lockout” of players because people “need pressure sometimes to get to an agreement.” Didn’t Marlon Brando say something along those lines in “The Godfather”? A few random observations, if you will, starting with MLB.com—good to know the site is a conduit for ownership and nothing more. It posts a letter to fans from Manfred but none from the other side. Did anybody think to ask? And the FAQ on negotiations starts with, “Simply put, we believe that an offseason lockout is the best mechanism to protect the 2022 Championship Season.” Using the first person pretty much destroys the illusion of objectivity, guys. And I don’t want either side invoking “the fans.” As if the two of you care. Nobody in baseball called to check on me when I came down with COVID-19 last December or had a colonoscopy in June. I’m pretty sure that if there isn’t a “Make A Wish” photo opportunity, neither teams nor players can be bothered to give a damn’. Hey, guys, when, if ever, will the cost of a game be on the agenda? But neutrality is a tricky business, as Woodrow Wilson learned long ago. Manfred says he’s concerned about maintaining competitive balance; yes, it would be a bad thing if the small- and medium-market teams vanished. But do the owners really think the players want that to happen? Really, really believe it? In that case, they’ll have little choice but to continue the lockout until they break the players’ union. Good luck with that. Here's my thing. Jerry Reinsdorf led a group that bought the White Sox for $20 million in 1981. Today, Forbes puts the value of the team at $1.68 billion, not bad for a team that’s won all of one World Series in forty years under current ownership. What exactly has Reinsdorf done to increase his team’s value? Sign Carlton Fisk? But didn’t he also collude to keep Fisk’s salary down? The owners want a salary cap by whatever means possible using whatever euphemisms they can get away with. The players should counter by demanding a cap on capitals gains for when teams are sold. Anything over a set amount could go to maintain “competitive balance” just like the owners and their mouthpiece want.

Silly Silly

The looming lockout by MLB owners has led to all sorts of silliness in these parts. For example, I saw the suggestion somewhere that the White Sox move Time Anderson to second base and sign Javy Baez to play short; I’d love to listen in on the conversation between Anderson and whoever got stuck giving him the bad news. And that’s not to be confused with the story pushing for Anderson to be traded to the Yankees. Yup, it was a New York fan site. A lot of people also want the Sox to go after Nick Castellanos, because of all those World Series rings, I guess. And what about the guy I saw on Twitter having second thoughts about shipping off Nick Madrigal to the Cubs? Like I said, it’s silly season out there. Oh, how it pains me to agree with the course of (in)action taken so far by GM Rick Hahn. Barring surprises (and how Hahn loves to pull those on the media), the Sox will either trade for a second baseman and/or right fielder or promote from within. Yes, yes, a million times for option number two. Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets showed great promise as rookies this year. I’d rather see what they can do next season than tie myself to a big contract with Castellanos. Ditto at second base. Danny Mendick is sound defensively, along with the recently resigned Leury Garcia, and there’s a ton of middle infield talent in the minors. You draft players to develop them, right? I’d rather see Hahn gamble on what he’s developed vs. what he could get in a trade, especially if it means losing Vaughn or Sheets. Everyone else in the twitter-verse wants to spend other people’s money, me, I want to hold onto it. Oh, the time will come to spend. But spend the money sewing up Lucas Gioilito and Michael Kopech, not Matt Scherzer or Clayton Kershaw. Develop your own talent, then reward success, that’s my motto. Still got money burning a hole in your pocket? Then overpay Carlos Rodon for two years. Problem(s) solved.

Sowing and Reaping

The chants of “Fire Nagy!” just won’t quit: Bears’ games; Bulls’ games; Blackhawks’ games; and, unfortunately, a suburban high school football game where Nagy’s sons are on the team. Never have the peasants been so aroused to anger. And the Bears’ Eddie Jackson doesn’t like it. The veteran safety has complained “fans have got to understand” booing doesn’t help anything. If only Jackson understood, and I don’t mean fans’ frustration. It’s more than that. The situation in Chicago is the byproduct of pro football being lord of the land, a 24/7 enterprise pretty much in-season and out-. I honestly don’t know how this came to be; I’m a baseball guy, always have been, always will be. But the national pastime got caught and lapped by a 1920s’ upstart. The NFL has fostered an environment where “the team” is everything. If the commercials are to be believed, wearing the team’s merchandise is an act of faith, and I do mean faith. As strange as that may be to someone like me, it’s no weirder than televising the annual NFL combine or the draft. Maybe other teams invite fans down to the field during training camp, aka Family Fest; whether or not they do, it’s taken on a meaning akin to that kid sharing his Coke with Mean Joe Greene. The very fact that people still remember an ad over thirty years old speaks volumes and kind of explains it all. No other Chicago team has engendered the passion the Munsters have since at least Super Bowl XX in 1986, and maybe long before that; I didn’t always pay attention to that sort of thing. I do now, just like Bears’ fans finally care about performance over promise. At the beginning of the season, McDonald’s was running commercials featuring Nagy delivering a pep talk to employees. Other seasons, and this was par for the course. This year, finally, things have changed. The ad’s disappeared, and fans aren’t putting up with Halas Hall crap anymore. That’s what Eddie Jackson and the other Bears’ players need to understand

More of the Above

Yesterday proved tough on my daughter, who was going back to work and sending baby Leo off to daycare. I provided some diversion by answering a question she called with: What’s up with Matt Scherzer? By that, Clare meant why did the Mets sign the 37-year old right hander to a three-year deal for $130 million, complete with an opt out after season two? “Wasn’t he injured during the playoffs?” my little one asked. No, it was just arm fatigue that kept him from taking the mound in game six of the NLCS that saw his then-Dodgers’ team eliminated by Atlanta. But, hey, it ain’t my money, because if it were, I’d be spending it in different ways than the Mets. The New Yorkers might be better off rebuilding the Polo Grounds. Why not, if you’re going to sign a bunch of players north of 30? Free-agent signees Starling Marte, Mark Canha and Eduardo Escobar will all be 33 come Opening Day 2022. If Scherzer isn’t too fatigued to start (and if it isn’t too cold at Citi Field) to start March 31 against the Nats, that will give New York a starting lineup with at least four out of nine players heavy on the experience, you might say. Or old. Then again, the Rangers reportedly have signed shortstop Corey Seager to a ten-year deal; Seager will be 38 when his contract expires. He and Marcus Semien could be the All-AARP middle infield of the mid 2020s and beyond. You’d think there’d be an analytic or two that predicts decline.

Hand to Head, Scratch

If reports are correct, ex-White Sox infielder Marcus Semien has signed a seven-year, $175-million deal with the Rangers. Good for Semien, by all accounts a very decent human being, less so for the Rangers and MLB. A few more deals like this, and owners will be pleading for a hard salary cap. Stop me before I sign again. Semien turned 31 in September. There aren’t many older players starting at second base; all I could find were Eduardo Escobar (32) and DJ LeMahieu (33), both of whom played more games elsewhere. Where does Semien play in three years? It won’t be shortstop, where he proved to be a better second baseman. Third? OK, but how many 34-year old third basemen are there? First? Probably, assuming he keeps putting up big power numbers. DH? Only if he wants to. (See Eloy Jimenez.) The Rangers have a new stadium they want to fill; they figure Semien will help them do that. Only he’s a career .256 hitter who in nine seasons has batted over .261 just once (.285 in 2019). Me. I would’ve overpaid for three years, four tops, but that might have been impossible given how Scott Boras is Semien’s agent. Then I do without. But I don’t own or general manage a team. Too bad those people who do keep making decisions they’ll come to regret.

Looking Backward

The appearance of a grandchild may have something to do with it, or just the aging process. Either way, with sports I find myself looking increasingly backward than ahead. As for the Bears, can you blame me? Why bother with a bad team full of anonymous players when I can think of bad teams that had the likes of Gayle Sayers and Dick Butkus on them? The Bulls don’t look to be nearly as helpless, yet where are Jerry Sloan and Norm Van Lier, or Bob Love and Tom Boerwinkle? I read The Athletic; hold my nose and look at MLB.com; plow through two sports’ sections daily, all in pursuit of baseball news. Only every story I read of a possible lockout or how much this free-agent shortstop will sign for leaves me feeling slightly more alienated from a game I’ve loved since childhood. Maybe it’s age, and my grandson will see baseball for the sport while being oblivious to the business. I was like that once. I get as much baseball out of eBay as anything. Most every day I check for “White Sox press photos”; “Comiskey Park photo”; “1930s [and 1940s and 1950s] White Sox”; “Moe Berg photo [and Minnie Minoso]”; “White Sox 1962 ticket stub”; and a few other categories. Never once has a labor dispute gotten in the way. A few weeks ago, I bought a negative of Minnie Minoso from 1960; for Christmas, I asked Clare to develop it as an 8”x 10” photo I’ll frame; with luck, he’ll be in the Hall of Fame by then. I also bought a White Sox yearbook from 1954, a year I would’ve been toddling about our South Side bungalow. The Comiskey family still owned the team, and, if you believe Arch Ward—he wrote the copy and was the sportswriter who came up with the idea of the All-Star Game—that team was close to toppling the hated Yankees. I didn’t know Ferris Fain had his own fan club. In Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy wrote the story of a young man who fell asleep one day in the late nineteenth century only to wake up over a hundred years later. Lucky for him all the problems of the world had been solved during his time asleep. I’d be happy to wake up and find the Sox starting a homestand against Casey Stengel and his crew. Until then, there’s eBay.

Compare and Contrast

Shakespeare must’ve been a big sports’ fan back in the day. I mean, why else would he have written “ we few, we happy few, we band of brothers,” if not as a motivational tool for use by the coach of his favorite team? That phrase, or some derivation thereof, has probably been a locker-room staple from the second those words were first uttered onstage at The Globe Theater. Of course, when Matt Nagy goes into his “band of brothers” mode, he sounds like he’s trying to rally the Keystone Cops, cue the Benny Hill music. Billy Donovan of the Bulls, though, has it down pat, maybe because he perfected it during those twenty years he spent as a college basketball coach. Plus Donovan throws in a certain “Happy Warrior” vibe that helps fans forget the bad old days of ex-coach Jim Boylan. Nagy addresses a press conference, and he talks in circles. Donovan, he keeps it short and simple. That in itself won’t win a championship, but it sure is refreshing.

So?

The near-hapless Bears beat the hapless Lions (really, three consecutive offensive penalties, twice?) yesterday in Detroit, 16-14. For a change, the Munsters won in the final seconds, with Cairo Santos kicking the decisive field goal as time expired. Matt Nagy, a dead man walking if there ever was one, said after the game how proud he was of his players, how they rose above all the distractions to win. Nagy forgot to mention that his coaching, or lack thereof, is the root cause for those distractions. And they’re not going to go away anytime soon, until Nagy does, that is. If the coach wants a shot at redemption, he won’t have long to wait. The Munsters face the Cardinals and Packers on back-to-back Sundays, starting December 5. Take care of business at home, then beat Green Bay at Lambeau Field, and we can talk redemption. Just don’t hold your breath.

Chump Change

The NFL and Rams’ owner Stan Kroenke have decided to settle a lawsuit filed by St. Louis groups protesting the team’s move back to Los Angeles in 2016. The defendants decided to settle after failing to keep the lawsuit from approaching trial. And the cost? The NFL walked away from St. Louis for $790 million. That might seem like a lot of cash, but the powers that be thought it was less than what a guilty verdict would have cost them. Imagine a league having that much money to get rid of a lawsuit. It makes you wonder why football needs a salary cap.

True Colors

Friday nights, my father often walked or drove over to Talman Savings and Loan, at the corner of 55th and Kedzie, to cash his check from work. I liked to tag along. On the way out, we might pass a member of the Salvation Army. My father would smile, make a donation and give me the copy of War Cry that had been handed to him. He liked the Salvation Army for how it went about its business without drawing much attention. My father hated anything that hinted at self-promotion. On Sundays at Mass, he didn’t use the collection envelope. Instead, he’d fold paper money over and over again until it was no bigger than his thumb nail. When the usher came to our pew with the collection basket, it was impossible to tell what, if anything, my father was putting in. That’s how he liked it. If I’m his son in more than just appearance, my father probably felt about the charity activities of rich people the way I do—give until it hurts, don’t let anybody know. Of course, Chicago sports’ teams do just the opposite. It seems that every penny that gets donated receives oversized media coverage. Oh, how our teams love to boast of their generosity. I just checked online, and both the Cubs and White Sox have posted pictures that make them out to be the saviors of Thanksgiving Day dinner. I suspect the Bulls, Hawks and Bears are doing the same. And, since it’s the start of the holiday season, how about some pictures of players visiting area hospitals to give out gifts? If only the Sox were still playing, fans could indulge in that “split the pot” raffle, with the team portion going to charity, don’t you know? So much giving by our teams, the letter to the editor in yesterday’s Tribune would seem out of character, if only the giving were heartfelt. No, what matters is the bottom line, that and the over-under. By signing their names to that letter, the owners of the Sky; Bulls and White Sox; Cubs’ and Hawks admitted as much. The above teams, unless they’ve stated otherwise and I’ve missed it, are all interested in on-site sportsbooks, for the fans, of course; the Tribune recently ran an editorial opposed, not for moral reasons, mind you, but as a way to provide a kind of monopoly to a big city casino, should one ever get built. And I thought Bingo was bad. All these moguls wanting to take yet more money out of the pockets of their fans, how unsightly. Especially now, with all the attention being paid to players doing charitable things in the name of their teams. Maybe the Sky et al can bankroll a gambling addiction facility among their future charitable enterprises. With my dad, it was just the Salvation Army and church.

A Rogues' Gallery

Matt Nagy is toast, the only questions being when the Bears’ coach gets tossed and who does the tossing. The peasants want to see GM Ryan Pace get the boot, too, if only they can locate what rock he’s hiding under. How did it come to this? I’m glad you asked. Long story short, the Bears are an organization that has never moved beyond their founder-coach George Halas or the man he anointed as keeper of the flame. I mean, of course, Da Coach, Mike Ditka. His Ditka-ness would still be growling on the sidelines if he hadn’t gotten distracted with endorsements for everything under the sun, and I do mean everything. The Bears after Ditka are a lot like France after Louis XV, all flood no high ground. Dave Wannstedt took over for Ditka in 1993 and lasted six years, until a .417 winning percentage did him in. Wannstedt resembled Nagy in his rah-rah approach, with a strong dose of intensity thrown in; he looked a little crazy after losses. This may be a Chicago thing. The Bulls’ Doug Collins was the same way. One more year at the helm and Collins might have suffered a total breakdown. Ditto for Wannstedt in Chicago. Miami suited him a whole lot better. Following Wannstedt was Dick Jauron for five years and a .438 winning percentage. Jauron was just a guy who caught lightning in a bottle (13-3 in 2001) one season and not much else the other four. Jauron was succeeded by Lovie Smith, who hung around for nine years while amassing 81 wins and a .563 winning percentage. Make no mistake about it, Smith was a defensive genius, only that affected his approach to offense; it was like he couldn’t wait to get his defensive unit back on the field quick enough. So, naturally, the front office goes out and gets him Jay Cutler to build his offense around. Oops. Oil and water do not mix. Then again, neither did Marc Trestman and a head coaching job. Smith’s successor lasted all of two weird seasons. If Trestman had walked into a press conference wearing a cap wrapped in tin foil, nobody would’ve been surprised. Trestman was so bad people probably didn’t notice what a miserable human being his replacement John Fox was. Fox combined Smith’s disdain for the media with an inverse Midas touch—nearly everything he touched turned into a loss, as evidenced by a three-year .292 winning percentage. And that, my friends, is how Matt Nagy came to stand at the podium as Bears’ coach.

What Goes Around Comes Around

The McCaskeys love that Chicago is a football town. Like I said yesterday, “baseball hat” means Bears’ cap in these parts. Unfortunately for the heirs of Halas, they’re clueless on how to how a football franchise. Any ownership not collectively asleep at the wheel would have thought long and hard about giving head coach Matt Nagy a fourth season. Even if that ownership decided thumbs up, I doubt they would have jabbered on about how important collaboration is to a team. Yesterday, Nagy’s Munsters fell to 3-7 after a 16-13 loss to the visiting Ravens, playing without star quarterback Lamar Jackson. Not to worry. Second-stringer Tyler Huntley made his first-ever start and led a touchdown-winning drive after the Munsters went ahead with 1:41 left to play. What’s the kids’ song? Right, We All Fall Down. Well, that’s the Bears’ defense in a nutshell, allowing back-to-back winning scores in the final seconds of a game. There’s just so many examples of ineptitude on defense, on offense (hello, Justin Fields), from coaching (tell me again, no, tell the Munsters, what timeouts are for), I wouldn’t know where to start. After the game, a defeated-looking and -sounding Nagy said something about how his “guys are battling,” as if that matters. Nagy’s tendency to talk in cliches heavy on the feel-good may have been affected by the way he was treated coming off the field by fans. Some shouted, “Fire Nagy!” while others accused him of committing an act that police won’t tolerate in public. The peasants, fed on stories of glory about Da Coach and His Boys or the great warriors of the past (Butkus, Grange, Payton, Sayers, repeat), see only incompetence set before them, not a good thing where football is the talk of the town. Nagy should be gone by season’s end. If the Munsters lose to the winless Lions on Thanksgiving, he will be. And GM Ryan Pace, who shows himself during the season less than Dracula in the daytime? I doubt he can collaborate his way out of this mess.

You Are Getting Sleepy, Very Sleepy

The Tribune had a holiday gift insert in today’s paper, so I took a look. You never know; there could be a stocking stuffer, or more. Right now, I have my eye on some Wedgwood coffee mugs on eBay. Blue Pacific, a perfectly named pattern to counteract Chicago gray. Anyway, I was thumbing through the guide and saw the recommendation for “baseball hat”; it was a Bears’ cap. There, my friends, is a perfect example of the hold a less than mediocre sports’ franchise exerts over the good people of Chicago. We really do deserve better.

Man-splaining

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred addressed us commonfolk Thursday on the state of labor relations between management and labor. Management’s mouthpiece, er, the commissioner admitted owners could lock out players next month, but not to worry. “Honestly, I can’t believe there’s a single fan in the world who doesn’t understand that an offseason lockout that moves the process forward is different than a labor dispute that costs games.” But doesn’t a lockout move baseball one step closer to games being lost, after which a season, in part or whole? Isn’t the wiser course for both sides to sit down and bargain until they have an agreement? Doesn’t locking out one side tempt the other side to sit there, arms folded, tongues stuck out, until the cows come home? The commissioner didn’t say.

MVP*

So, Shohei Ohtani and Bryce Harper won the MVP Award in their respective leagues. Without casting too many aspersions, if these two are the cream of the crop, I’d hate to see the mere mortals who play the game. The thing is, they’re not the best, not if stats count as much as sabermetrics. Ten hitters had more than Ohtani’s 100 RBIs, topped by Salvador Perez with 121. My vote would’ve gone to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who hit .311 with 48 homeruns; 123 runs scored; and 111 RBIs. Compare that to .257; 46; 103; and 100 for Ohtani. Not only did Guerrero put up better numbers, those numbers counted for something, with the Blue Jays missing the playoffs by all of one game. Ohtani’s Angels went 77-85, textbook also-rans. But Guerrero didn’t post a 9-2 record on the mound, and the voters must’ve been impressed with Ohtani for doing that. I saw it as more of a sideshow. Harper is another headscratcher. How do 84 RBIs and 101 runs scored translate into a most valuable player? Juan Soto and Austin Riley both had more of each. Or take Freddie Freeman, with his 120 runs scored to go with 83 RBIs. Oh, and his team won the World Series while Harper’s Phillies faded down the stretch. But Harper had a league-leading 1.044 OPS, like that mattered. If adding on-base and slugging percentage leads to a magic number, then Guerrero should be the AL MVP with a second-best in baseball OPS of 1.002. Go figure. I can’t.

Maybe This Time, Contd.

Well, that didn’t take long. A month after the National Pro Fastpitch women’s softball league suspended operations in August, a new league—Women’s Professional Fastpitch—was announced a month later. Maybe things will go better this time around, but I wonder. A league press release from October said the WPF was “aiming for six to eight teams for their inaugural season,” which is slated to run from June to August. Wouldn’t it have looked better to hold off on announcing the league’s formation until franchises had been lined up? And how many games can you play in two months.? Fan interest would seem to depend on the length of schedule as well as quality of play. You can have one without the other, but the game will never catch on with fans. Right now, women’s sports in Chicago is enjoying…attention, something it’s never really had before. The Sky won the WNBA Championship last month, and the Red Stars are in Saturday’s championship game of the National Women’s Soccer League. I mean, you actually see stories where before there was nothing, and I do mean nothing. Chicago supported pro softball for as long as the NPF was around, with the Bandits usually going deep into the postseason. But softball remains the stepchild of women’s pro sports. I don’t know what will change that, outside of more games played, longer basepaths and a pitching rubber moved back a good ten feet or so. I guess will see starting next summer.

Maybe This Time

Believe it or not, I was too young to see Minnie Minoso in his prime. My only real memory of him, outside of the Bill Veeck stunts in 1976 and 1980, was when he returned to the South Side for a third time, a cup of coffee in 1964. I was too young to understand, Minoso was too old to make an impression. But that didn’t stop me as an adult from seeing that No. 9 deserved, deserves, enshrinement in Cooperstown. This is pretty much an article of faith for any real White Sox fan, not that HOF voters care; they’ve passed over him too many times to count. And now he’s up for reconsideration as part of the “Golden Days” ballot (really, you couldn’t come up with a better name?). This time may be different. Why? Because the NYT says so. How nice of them. Consider the headline from Monday’s story: Baseball Gets Another Chance to Honor a Legend. And this sentence: “ The Hall of Fame is considering Minoso again this off-season, reviving one of its most curious candidacies.” Curious how, you might ask. That the East Coast didn’t see what was obvious from the start to Sox fans in Chicago? Yeah, that is curious. Minoso broke barriers like Jackie Robinson did, only he didn’t have the benefit of English as a way to express himself as Robinson could. Being Black and Cuban constituted two strikes against him. Not playing in New York earned him strike three. Consider Minoso’s rookie year stats from 1951: 173 hits; .326 BA; 112 runs scored; and 76 RBIs. Yet Minoso finished second to the Yankees’ Gil McDougal for Rookie of the Year. Now, compare McDougal’s stats: 123 hits; .306 BA; 72 runs scored; and 63 RBIs. You mean to tell me the East Coast fix wasn’t in? Minoso finished fourth that year in the AL MVP vote that Yogi Berra won with fewer hits and runs and only twelve more RBIs. Four times Minoso landed fourth in MVP balloting, and three of those times he had a solid case for being first. Berra won in 1954, despite Minoso having the better WAR, 8.2 to 5.3. Roger Maris in 1960? Really? Yes, so it would be nice if that part of the baseball establishment east of the Alleghenies would get on the Minoso bandwagon. Better late than never.

Wasted Space

Today’s installment of “All Bears All the Time” that has taken up residence for what remains of the Chicago Tribune’s sports’ section, we have this page-one gem: Rookie OT finally in pads. Offensive lineman Teven Jenkins, the Munsters’ second round pick, is healed—maybe—from back surgery and ready to show what he can do. How Bears, to draft someone other teams shied away from because of concerns over his health, and how Chicago media, to treat the appearance of a player at practice as a major event. Truly, only in the Land of Halas. Can it get worse? In fact, it already did. Yesterday, the Trib devoted a full page to “a look at the 7 newest NFL stadiums, from capacity to best amenities.” Only the story offered absolutely nothing on what most fans would consider amenities, e.g., parking, concessions, seating and sightlines. Do fans really care about this playing surface or that retractable roof? The Trib staff seemed to think so. For some reason, the story listed the construction cost of each stadium without mentioning the level of public subsidy. I guess if you’re not going to talk about the cost of parking, why bother with the cost of construction? Or a sense of the size of the new revenue stream, or where it goes, or…

Knowing What's Important

There used to be two kinds of people in these parts—those who shopped at Sears and those who employed people who shopped at Sears. My family belonged to the first group. Sears is a dead store walking these days, that is, if you can find one still open; the last one in Illinois closed after business hours yesterday. When Sears mattered, the company operated in excess of 3,000 outlets. My parents were both the children of immigrants, and they were raised to believe it was a sin to waste money. (And it is, yes?) Because Sears offered value, my parents shopped there for the items that helped a blue-collar family feel middle class. It didn’t hurt that Sears also offered a discount to Chicago firefighters like my father. Sears employed a sizeable workforce to staff those 3,000 stores and offered a generous pension plan, if only to keep the unions away. (Yes, in many ways Sears was what Amazon is, except for the generosity shown workers.) As an adult, I never thought to work for Sears or buy my clothes there, but appliances? Where else would you go? Julius Rosenwald was the creative genius behind the company. He captured material dreams to put in the Sears Catalog; what couldn’t be bought out of this paycheck would wait patiently on page 523 for the next. Rosenwald also pioneered the freestanding Sears store. I have memories of going to the first one ever opened, part of a vast network of Sears-owned buildings on west Arthington in Chicago. This was far from our house on the South Side, but my parents would drive anywhere for a good bargain. Rosenwald was also a philanthropist whose support made possible the Museum of Science and Industry; ironically, there’d be no U-505 without Julius Rosenwald. Or those nearly 5,000 “Rosenwald schools” built in the early decades of the 20th century Whatever education African Americans got in the Jim Crow South was in large part made possible by schools that Rosenwald helped finance through a matching-grant system. For Southern states, this no doubt felt like a win-win, having a Northerner—and a Jew, no less—defray the cost of educating Black children. For those children, it was a win-win. For Rosenwald, it was more a matter of duty. If only Jeff Bezos understood. Yesterday, Sunday, the Tribune did a frontpage story on the closing of that last local Sears’ store. It consisted mostly of comments from passersby and reminiscences of the reporter; there was nothing on Sears as an economic engine or on Rosenwald the philanthropist. The Sun-Times didn’t even bother, unless the story was so small I missed it entirely. But the Trib’s sports section was a real revelation, nearly four full pages devoted to the 2001 Bears. That’s right, a 13-3 Bears’ team that did absolutely nothing in the playoffs and reverted to mediocrity (4-12) the next season. Such is the power of the Munsters of the Midway. They can get the news media to confuse the important with the ephemeral. We get what we deserve, I guess.

Don't Touch That Dial

I know, I’m like a dog with a bone because I won’t let go. But I think I might if I can just get sports’ talk radio out of my system. Going back to my drive from Madison, the best thing about listening to “The Score” were the commercials. That’s right, any kind of plug for anybody or anything was better than listening to two toddlers babbling on, all the while confusing noise with speech. One ad in particular, for the only woman on-air talent at the station, stood out. It was a clip from her show, and she was talking about the Bears. She offered reasoned, intelligent analysis, stuff you might disagree with but not at all consider dumb. Keep in mind the ad played on a show where the two dimwits were throwing hosannas at the Rams for signing wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. And what’s wrong with that, you might ask. Well, first they brought up what you might call Beckham’s baggage of antics, only to dismiss it because the Rams are so committed to winning blah, blah, blah, and Beckham and newly acquired Rams’ linebacker Von Miller are friends, blah, blah, blah. Here’s the thing. A frat-boy atmosphere permeates sports’ talk and draws listeners with the exact same mind-set; a serious female broadcaster doesn’t stand a chance unless she wants to start making disparaging remarks about an obnoxious listener’s penis size, or lack thereof. She could, and maybe even should, but I doubt that would stop the frat boys from calling in, tweeting, texting and whatnot, all with the same misogynistic message. The Score used to have a woman on the broadcast team, and she gave as good as she got, until she was axed in a cost-cutting move last year. Her successor, sort of, is also doing TV sports, and this is where it gets interesting—there’s a long history of women local sportscasters. They’ve all been highly respected and have had long runs. Maybe it has something to do with TV sports not having call-in segments.

Walk Away?

Is it me, or are sports teams making it harder for fans to cheer for them while retaining a shred of self-respect? This has been going on for a while, I think. At the very least, it dates to the public funding craze for stadiums. If fans want to keep their teams, they have to agree to become the most generous landlords known to humanity. Or we move. Did I mention personal seat licenses? Bears fans are learning they’re not transferable should the Munsters move into a new stadium in Arlington Heights. Let’s not forget PEDs, while we’re at it. How any Cardinals’, A’s or Giants’ fan can not be upset over the apparent or admitted steroids’ use by Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire is beyond me. In Chicago, Cubs’ fans were spared having to confront the validity of Sammy Sosa’s stats, thanks to Sosa making a fool of himself every time the issue of PEDs is brought up. Kryptonite knocks out Superman, the P-word does the same to Sosa. Over on the South Side, we have a manager seemingly oblivious to the PEDs’ usage of Canseco and McGwire when he managed them. See No Evil LaRussa—that’s what Tony LaRussa’s HOF plague should have on it, with a monkey shielding its eyes. And now we have the situation in Las Vegas, where the Raiders are stinking up the joint, at least for anyone who has a conscience. First, coach Jon Gruden is forced to resign for comments racist, homophobic and misogynistic made in emails while he was between coaching gigs. (Class guy that he is, Gruden is now suing the NFL for letting those emails go public.) Now, they’ve gotten rid of their two most recent first-round draft choices. Why? Because they had no choice. One posted a video of himself waving a gun and threatening to kill someone; the other was involved in a high-speed car collision that did kill someone. Las Vegas was made to cough up $750 million in public funding for a new stadium and the “privilege” of having owner Mark Davis move his team from Oakland. Was it worth it? Why does Davis get to keep his team in the wake of such gross incompetence? At what point do you stop following a team and just walk away? It’s a question for these times.

Landscape and Wasteland

Life has been happening a lot the past few weeks, which is as a good an explanation as any for why I had to drive to Madison, Wisconsin, twice over the course of three days this week. I didn’t expect to see so many dead deer on the side of the road once I crossed over into Packer Land. Clare drove me yesterday so I could pick up a relative’s SUV. It started off typical Midwest November, with gray skies, cold in the air and rain to wash it all down. The rain stopped around Rockford—home of Cheap Trick, you know—and the sky offered hints every now and then of showing some blue. That passed for hope. We talked a little of this, a little of that, life, death and why the Sox didn’t offer Carlos Rodon a qualifying offer. As a parent, you learn to appreciate your children in their adulthood. I still can’t get over how well Clare drives. Then again, she had an excellent teacher. How well I remember the question, “Dad, which one is the gas, again?” All good things come to an end, and that started when we found the SUV; so began the drive back. As a rule, I try not to touch other people’s stuff; that includes mirrors, seat settings and radio stations. Not mine, I just want to get home and have next week better than this one. I turned the radio on for reasons other than boredom; the Wisconsin countryside rolls in a most delightful fashion, with a dash of farm animals and fall color to keep one’s interest. Illinois is flat, but that’s OK, too; it feels like you can see forever, which gives rise to thoughts of eternity and whatnot. But too much reverie can lead to distracted driving, so the radio it was. What a waste. My great misfortune was to have a Chicago sports-talk station on, two “personalities” offering what the station website calls “in-your-face Chicago sports talk with great opinions, guests and fun.” Only for the near two hours I listened, there was none of that. To call the on-air duo “adolescent” would be grossly inaccurate. “Infantile” was more like it. One guy thought it was “cool” to sit so close to Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban, in town Wednesday night with his team playing the Bulls. Cuban has really helped make the NBA what it is today, you know. And there was a near-endless digression on the taunting call in Monday night’s Bears-Steelers’ game that probably sealed the Munsters’ loss. That was separate from the near-endless, adolescent, puerile treatment of remarks superagent Scott Boras made at the baseball general managers’ meeting this week in California. Boras likes to hear himself talk; these guys do, too. They played all of Boras’ cutesy remarks about his clients, of Kris Bryant being like Sean Connery; Nick Castellanos as “ol’ St. Nick” bringing presents by way of his bat; Carlos Rodon, “the thinking man” of a good pitching staff. I swear the guffaws between snippets stretched from the state line to Cook County. Then, they played what Boras had to say about the current state of baseball, which apparently is very bad because of the bonus-pool system that’s been in effect since 2012. From what I can tell, Boras thinks teams should pay huge bonuses to players who then flame out or get injured early on. Isn’t that what used to happen, and isn’t that how the current system came into existence? Neither Boras nor the two radio hyenas considered the possibility. Mercifully, the trip came to its end. I got the SUV to its owner, someone I’ve known since I was eight years old, back in the days of JFK. We talked a little, and then Clare drove me home. Her son was waiting for her. He’d been in Grandma’s care all day. And life kept happening.

Instant Karma

I’m starting to think that the only way to win a sports championship in Chicago is by deal making, as with the devil, and he never plays fair. Take a look at the Cubs. They break a 108-year championship drought in 2016, and then what? Theo Epstein has all but disappeared; ditto Joe Madden managing the Angels. Do you think any of those free-agent ex-Cub core people—Baez, Bryant, Rizzo, Schwarber—is going to add a second World Series ring? I don’t. The Bears are another perfect example. The last, and only time, the Munsters won the Super Bowl was in 1986. Anyone care to venture how long ago that was? The cost of that deal seems to be in the form of ownership. The team will forever be controlled by the McCaskeys. Read it and weep (and at some point, you may want to do the same with the Ricketts). And now we have the Blackhawks, winners of the Stanley Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2015. Everything is suddenly, and maybe irrevocably, tarnished in light of the Kyle Beach allegation surrounding former video coach Brad Aldrich. The scandal has cost Stan Bowman and Joel Quenneville their current jobs, if not their careers. In true Chicago fashion, the curse may include “forever” ownership: Ricketts, McCaskey, Wirtz, what a rogues’ gallery. The Hawks have gotten off to a terrible start, so bad that a 13-year, 535-game home sellout streak ended last month. After going 1-9-2, they fired Jeremy Colliton as head coach, which got me to thinking about the White Sox. Maybe Charles Comiskey made a deal with the devil to win championships in 1906 and 1917, maybe not. Either way, the Black Sox scandal devastated the franchise. Recent scholarship argues that Comiskey was anything but a tightwad and the active fixers among his 1919 squad anything but angels. No matter. After Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis laid down his lifetime ban against eight players, seven of them starters, Comiskey never found a way to replace the talent lost, and that pretty much continued long after his death in 1931. It took the team forty years to get back to the World Series and another forty-six to win one. Time will tell with the Blackhawks, but right now it sure looks like they’ve got that bad Chicago sports’ karma coming their way.

There But for the Grace of God

I was leafing the Saturday NYT (doesn’t everyone?) when a story caught my eye: Colorado Skeleton Is Thought to Be Hiker Who Vanished on Ski Trip 38 Years Ago. Take away the snow; add another nine years; and that could be me, had things gone in a different direction, so to speak, one day in August of 1974. The story in the paper concerned a 27-year old West German national who started off on a two- or three-day ski trip into Rocky Mountain National Park. Give me this much—I knew to avoid avalanches. Glaciers are another story. It was a few weeks before the start of law school. I wanted to go out West but couldn’t get anybody to come along, so I went alone. I more or less bribed my father, use of the Ford Galaxie provided it came back with a backseat full of Coors Beer, back before it was distributed east of the Missippi. It was long ago. The Saturday in question I started off on a trail in Rocky Mountain National Park without telling anyone for the simple fact there was no one to tell. Thoreau didn’t need other people, and neither did I. My mistake, not unlike the decision to attend law school. I made my way above the tree line, all the while admiring Nature, as if Nature cared what a human did or thought. I marveled at the shadows cast by clouds, how they raced across some distant valley. I heard but never saw the jets flying above. Did somebody looking out a window on their way to JFK see the speck of a young man on the trail below? I doubt it. I rested and had lunch somewhere in the vicinity of 13,000 feet above sea level; it was probably closer to four o’clock before I finally got started back down. For no good—and definitely not smart—reason, I stepped on a glacier and rode it like a down escalator; that was fun. About two-thirds of the way through, I had a real lightbulb moment--that I was going at a good clip and would have a hard time stopping once the ice and snow stopped, oh, about a hundred feet ahead. What a desperate Fred Flintstone I made, digging my feet down, and hard. Somehow, I managed to stop before the glacier gave way to rock and gravel. It was probably at that moment I realized this was no walk in the park, even if it was. No matter how fast a pace I set, I saw I was losing daylight. Trust me, the shadows cast by a setting sun are darker than anything a passing cloud can throw down. All too soon it was dark, then night, and I had no flashlight. But like Robert Frost, I still had miles to go. I have no idea how I made it back to my car; I could just as easily have broken my neck on the trail in the darkness. The story in the paper noted 49 people died at Rocky Mountain National Park between 2010 and 2020; since the park’s opening 106 years ago, four people have gone missing and yet to be found. There but for the grace of God, I could’ve been number five. I may not have appreciated the flatness of the Great Plains back then. I do now, along with the relative flatness of the terrain my Schwinn takes me along.

Feet of Clay

COVID-19 is taking a toll on athletes, with their credibility if not their health. LeBron James, in the forefront on social justice issues, doesn’t want to tell people what to do when it comes to vaccinations. And now Aaron Rodgers just doesn’t want to tell people the truth. Asked in August if he’d been vaccinated, Rodgers shook his head, Yes, while saying, “Yeah, I’ve been immunized,” only he didn’t mean “vaccinated.” He came up with some old quarterback’s cure instead. Unfortunately, it didn’t prevent Rodgers from testing positive for COVID on Wednesday. And now Rodgers wants to imply it’s the media’s fault for not asking him any follow up questions back in August. Sorry, Aaron, you shook your head in the affirmative while being asked the question; I saw you do it and heard your response. A reasonable person would have concluded you were using “immunized” and “vaccinated” interchangeably. You can call yourself a “critical thinker,” as you did yesterday in a damage-control interview, but only if you shake your head, No. Anything else would be a lie.

With Their Collective Heads in the Sand

As ever, the MLB website is all roses and sunshine. If you want, you can watch the Braves’ victory parade or see the biggest need for each ballclub going into the offseason. You will not, however, find anything about TV ratings for the 2021 World Series. That’s because they’re down, way down. According to the Hollywood Reporter from Wednesday, the 2021 World Series was the second “least watched since total-viewer tallies became available in the early 1970s”; only last year’s series generated lower numbers, in light of the pandemic. Maybe there weren’t enough bat flips, or pitching changes, or commercials. It’s reaching a point where the only thing that will stem the decline will be a reverse Ted Lasso. The national pastime revived by Manchester United, with commercials, of course.

Comparison Shopping

The White Sox spotted the Astros two wins on the season, 93 vs. 95, and lost the ALDS in four games. The Braves spotted the Astros eight wins and took them four games to two in the World Series. Apparently, some underdogs play better than others. Atlanta general manager Alex Anthopoulos could be excued had he thrown in the towel midway through the season, after the Braves suffered season-ending injuries to outfielder Ronald Acuna Jr. and pitcher Mike Soroka; in addition, outfielder Marcel Ozuna was both injured in late May and then put on what turned out to be season-long administrative leave stemming from domestic violence charges. Not a good situation by any means. So, what did Anthopoulos do? He went out at the trade deadline and acquired Adam Duvall; Joc Pederson; Eddie Rosario; and Jorge Soler. Duvall and Pederson helped carry their new team into the postseason where Rosario (NLCS MVP) and Soler (World Series MVP) took over. I hope Anthopoulos is adding a shelf in his office for the awards that should be coming his way. And Sox GM Rick Hahn would do well to consider where he went wrong. Oh, Hahn was busy at the trade deadline, too, picking up Cesar Hernandez, Ryan Tepera and Craig Kimbrel. Out of that trio, only Tepera acquitted himself will. With the other two, it's more a case of, when’s your flight out of town? The Braves had to deal with one other injury, losing starter Charlie Morton to a broken leg in the first game of the Series; credit Atlanta manager Brian Snitker with guiding his team across the finish line. Like Charlie Brown trick-or-treating, we got Tony LaRussa.

Isn't It Ironic?

The Tribune is probably on its last legs, at least as a real newspaper. About a month ago, the Sunday auto section disappeared without a word. The sports’ section is usually an anemic six pages. Coverage of games from the night before? If it ain’t the Bears, forget it. So, there was nothing on the Braves beating the Astros 7-0 to win the World Series last night. But what perfect timing for the AP story the Trib ran, “Long nights grow tiresome,” on the length of Series games. The first five games clocked in at an average of 3:41. That’s closing in on three and three-quarters hours, folks. I guess that makes last night’s 3:22 seem quick in comparison, and fun, if you like pitching changes. The Astros went with seven as Houston’s Dusty Baker did everything he could think of to manage a championship team. Didn’t happen with Barry Bonds in SF, didn’t happen with the Cheat Squad (pardon any redundancies) at Minute Maid. According to the AP story, the average length of a game in the regular season this year was a numbing 3:10:07 vs. 2:49 in 1991 and 2:33 in 1981. Wow, 2-1/2 hours for a baseball game. That’s so fast the Tribune might even cover it. Supposedly, the powers that be are concerned about games growing ever longer and ratings getting ever smaller. So, expect to hear all sort of ideas on how to speed up the pace. Pitch clock, anyone? Just don’t expect the length of commercial time to change, unless it gets longer. More money is more revenue, and no owner or player wants to do with less. Too bad the owners and players refuse to dictate under what terms their game—their content, if you prefer—can be shown. Get baseball games back to 2:33, and watch the ratings grow.

No, It's Not

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has been taking heat for the size of the fine, or lack thereof, he levelled against the Blackhawks for their handling of sex abuse allegations by former player Kyle Beach. The poor, poor Wirtz family has to come up with $2 million. Bettman told ESPN “people have debated the amount of the fine, but it was substantial by any measure.” But Nancy Armour of USA Today put things in context by noting the Blackhawks’ are valued a little north of $1 billion. So, exactly how does $2 million hurt? By my liberal art’s math, the fine equals .2 percent—or 1/500 for anyone out there more comfortable with fractions—of the team’s value. Is that even a slap on the wrist? Then we have assistant commissioner Bill Daly explaining why the NHL didn’t act when the Hawks gave the league a “head’s up” about the claims back in December. Daly says he was told by the team then “there was no merit” to Beach’s allegations. Oops. This is the kind of crisis management you get from a commissioner who owes his job to team owners. If nothing else, at least one team owner has to be satisfied.

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

The Astros beat the Braves by a score of 9-5 last night in a game that went four hours on the dot. Houston used six pitchers to Atlanta’s five. Through it all, FOX acts as if fans in the stands cheering—remember, these are people who’ve talked themselves into paying God knows how much for a ticket—is proof they’re broadcasting an exciting game. If only. Again, for contrast let’s go back to game seven of the 1960 World Series, when Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off home run gave the Pirates a 10-9 victory over the Yankees. Pittsburgh went with four pitchers, New York five. The game was over in 2:36. Baseball predicated on matchups and a fear of starters having to face a lineup more than two times is no different that baseball on pogo sticks. Just because everyone’s doing it doesn’t make it right. Or watchable, for that matter.

On the Triumph of Evil and Escaping Blame

There’s a good deal of debate on the internet whether or not Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” John Stuart Mill said something similar, and so do various passages in the Bible. JFK used the quote, so I’ll attribute it to him. The quote matters to me in the context of the sex abuse allegations swirling around the Blackhawks. Yesterday, former head coach Joel Quenneville resigned from the Florida Panthers. Previously, Quenneville had denied knowing anything about the alleged abuse committed by video coach Brad Aldrich against Kyle Beach in 2010. This is the same Quenneville who visited my nephew at home as he lay dying of cancer. How to reconcile that act with a lack of action? All I can do is turn to Burke/Mill/the Bible/John F. Kennedy. A paradox can be explained, if not fully understood. I continue to struggle with one other aspect of this story, how the Wirtz family has avoided its share of blame. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Rocky and his son Danny are claiming ignorance as a defense. If that won’t work in a court of law, why should it anywhere else? The point is, ownership needed to know what was happening. And, in failing to do so, it should be punished fully as much as anyone who once served in the Blackhawks’ front office or on the bench. Anything less allows evil to triumph.

Say It Ain't So, Joe (and Troy)

I’m enough of a Bears’ fan, or a Packers’ hater, that I tuned into last night’s Green Bay-Arizona game. With four minutes 48 seconds left and the Packers first and goal at the Cardinals’ one-yard line and already ahead by three, the dynamic broadcasting duo of Troy Aikman and Joe Buck opined it might be better for the Cardinals to allow a score so as to get the ball back with enough time left on the clock for two scores. You don’t say? Imagine everyone’s surprise in the broadcast booth when Arizona held for four downs and proceeded to march down the field. Too bad Kyler Murray threw an interception in the end zone on second and goal from inside the five with fifteen seconds left. The way the game ended, nobody focused on what Aikman and Buck had said a few minutes earlier. Expect more of the same when Buck does game three of the World Series from Atlanta. Just give up the grand slam, Joe?

Tick-tock

Unless you’re an Astros’ fan, last night’s 7-2 Houston win over the Braves was a pretty boring affair. What’s worse than a ballgame that drags on for three hours and eleven minutes? Why, one that takes four hours and six, that’s what. Atlanta’s 6-2 win in game one on Tuesday clocked in at a mind-numbing four-plus hours. Somehow, baseball has let its crown jewel turn into a never-ending reel of commercials for FOX TV. What’s crap on TV? Check the FOX promos to find out. Starting in December, baseball owners and players will start negotiating a new collective-bargaining agreement; it won’t be pretty. But will it be any worse than what FOX is doing to the World Series right now?

Not Too Much

Yesterday, the Blackhawks released the findings of an investigation into the team’s handling of a sexual assault allegation made by a player against a coach during the Hawks’ Stanley Cup run in 2010. There were no profiles in courage to be found anywhere. Instead, the front office sat on the charge for three weeks “so as not to disturb team chemistry,” as the team-commissioned report puts it. Not waiting to be pushed, Blackhawks’ GM Stan Bowman has resigned while ex-coach Joel Quennville may find himself having to answer some uncomfortable questions in the not-too-distant future. League action may also be taken against other team personnel who were part of the Hawks’ front office in 2010. The Wirtz family, of course, claims ignorance, as if that were a defense in court. The NHL showed its outrage over this handling of a sexual assault allegation—let me note here the Sun-Times reports the coach in question was later convicted of fourth degree criminal sexual conduct against a minor—by fining the Blackhawks all of $2 million. In comparison, MLB fined the Astros $5 million for sign stealing. The silver lining here is that the Hawks are facing two lawsuits related to the matter, so they may have to pay out more. A court of law may punish them in a way the owner-dominated league office doesn’t have the heart to.

Cleaning House

By my count, there are only two players left on the Bulls who place back to the regime of John Paxson and Gar Forman, which ended not so long ago, April 2020, to be exact. The two survivors are Zach LaVine and Coby White. LaVine, who scored 22 points in last night’s 111-108 win over the Raptors, is on the verge of free agency and due a big payday. Odds are he gets it with the Bulls, though you never know. White id different—he’s gone as soon as he generates some offense to peddle following an offseason shoulder injury. The roster overhaul has been nothing short of breathtaking and leaves me wondering: Is it like this in other sports? Does a hard salary cap play a sizable role? My gut feeling is, Yes, a hard cap matters. That always seems to contribute to roster churn regardless a team’s record; losing merely accelerates the process. But don’t hold me to that. In any case, the Bulls’ record stands at a gaudy 4-0, representing their best start to a season since the time of Jordan in 1996-97. Can they sustain it? I doubt it, but don’t hold me to that.

Clueless

Is there a more fitting description for yesterday’s performance by the Munsters of the Midway, a 38-3 blowout at the hands of Tom Brady and the Buccaneers? I mean, without going blue? Rookie quarterback Justin Fields committed five turnovers, two fumbles (not counting the third, which he recovered) to go with three interceptions. The fumbles concern me more. The way defenders are able to knock the ball away I worry Fields doesn’t have the right-sized hands for the job. I know that head coach Matt Nagy doesn’t have the smarts for his. “We lost, and we’ve got to learn from it,” Nagy told reporters after the game/debacle (quote from today’s story in The Athletic by Adam Jahns). Keep in mind that going into Sunday, Nagy’s Munsters had lost games by scores of 34-14; 26-6; and 24-14. Add those onto yesterday, and this team should be a bunch of friggin’ Ph.D.’s on the gridiron. I won’t go blue. Somewhere, my father the genuine South Sider is smiling; his old team the Cardinals have a league-best 7-0 record. And his son appears to have been wrong about Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray being better suited for a career in baseball. Live and learn, Dad. Right, Coach?

Conventional Wisdom

The dollar amounts differ according to source, but the Dodgers rate as having the highest payroll in all of baseball this season. According to the AP back in April, the Yankees and Mets placed second and third, respectively, while the Astros ranked seventh and the Braves fourteenth. Going into the NLCS, the Dodgers had been season-long favorites to return to the World Series; their trade-deadline pickups of Matt Scherzer and Trea Turner only increased a sense of inevitability. If memory serves, MLB.com all but anointed the Dodgers a super team heading into August. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but MLB.com is taking over from the front cover of Sports Illustrated, curse-wise, that is. Anyway, the Braves beat the Dodgers in six to advance to the Fall—and Winter—Classic, and that makes me happy, sort of. This is going to be an all-Confederacy Series where one team is made up of cheaters while the other is backed by fans who love their racist little chop. So, there’s that. And I don’t want to come off as a lapdog for a thrifty front office, not if the payroll savings go straight into the pocket of ownership. But according to a September story in The Athletic, the Braves rank sixteenth in this season’s fan cost index (the Astros are a surprising third behind the Red Sox and Cubs). So, at least some of that money saved was being shared with fans when they went to games, and that’s a good thing. When I first started playing Strat-O-Matic, along with the White Sox I liked the Braves, for all their power up and down the lineup; I had a thing for Mack Jones and Gene Oliver. Those memories together with a fan-friendly ticket structure will have me rooting for the National League, if just this one time.

MIA

The new-look Bulls sure look like the Kenny Williams’ White Sox. Back in the day, Williams built his rosters via trade and free-agent signing; rookies who stayed with the team were few and far between. This looks to be the approach Arturas Karnisovas is taking. Will it work? Well, Williams did put together the 2005 White Sox. On the other hand, he also signed Adam Dunn. Right now, these undefeated Bulls look more Jermaine Dye than Dunn. Granted, it’s only two games. But, back in 1998-99, they only won thirteen games all season. So, color me cautiously optimistic. And curious. Where was Zion Williamson last night? The Bulls were hosting the Pelicans for their home opener, and the 21-year old power forward did not take the floor all night. It appears Williams needed surgery on his right foot for an offseason injury. Oh, and rumor has it his weight is up around 300 pounds. That’s a lot of human being to haul up and down a basketball court. There’s no set date for his return, by the way. I could see the old regime of John Paxson and Gar Forman—or Jerry Krause—staking the future on the likes of Williamson. There are times when it’s definitely better to go with some version of Kenny Williams in the front office. I can’t believe I just said that.

You Can Bet on It

According to the Associated Press, bettors in New Jersey wagered north of a billion dollars on sports during September. No wonder the Cubs and White Sox want to throw out the welcome mat for now-legal bet makers. What I fail to understand is how baseball can ignore its past while trying to cash in on the future. You would think—at least I do—that, at some point, the powers that be would address the Black Sox Scandal. A pity no one working in the office of Commissioner Rob Manfred is good at irony. Because it’s nothing short not ironic that Sox fans can bet on their team while Buck Weaver, a player who didn’t bet on his team, went through life labelled as a cheat. Weaver spent his post-Sox life in Chicago and died there in 1956. Later, two nieces he helped raise, Pat Anderson and Bette Scanlan, tried to clear their uncle’s name, but Manfred and predecessor Bud Selig couldn’t be bothered. Anderson and Scanlan are gone now, just as Manfred and Selig will be one day, too. The odds are pretty good, though, that baseball’s hypocrisy will remain in place, impervious to irony and mercy alike.

Never Too Early

My daughter and fellow White Sox fan called last night to ask, “Is Chris Sale done?” No, I answered. He’s still coming back from Tommy John surgery. The onetime ace of the Chicago Sox was tagged with the loss against the Astros in game five of the ALCS. Speaking of arm surgery, I see that Sox reliever Evan Marshall is slated for a Tommy John procedure come next month; so, count him out for 2022. As for catcher Yasmani Grandal, I wonder. Clare later texted me that Grandal has already undergone some sort of knee procedure since the Sox were eliminated by Houston last week. Nothing like bad knees on a catcher. I always say the next season starts as soon as the World Series ends. (December or January, right?) Maybe I should amend that to, the next seasons starts for any team the moment the current one ends. Either way, the Sox will need more help in the bullpen and definitely at catcher. Grandal hit .240, which also happens to be his average over the course of a ten-year career. He rates as a plus hitter in the clutch, which is nice, and a below-average defender behind the plate, which is not. Hello, Adam Hackenberg. Adam Who? That’s “Hackenberg,” as in a catcher out of Clemson taken by the Sox in the eighteenth round this June. Sox prospects aren’t exactly known for their ability to hit the ground running. Hackenberg, though, went to Low-A Kannapolis, where he hit .320 with a homerun and thirteen RBIs in just 100 at-bats. Oh, and he threw out fourteen of 32 runners trying to steal. That’s nearly 44 percent, vs. nineteen percent this season for Grandal. Guess whose progress I’ll be checking on regularly come next spring.

Ride and More

The stuff you’ll see on a bike path. Yesterday, I was doing the lakefront, knees pumping, nose dripping (worst October allergies in memory). There was a guy with a dog on a leash at Ohio Street; he was walking on the cement shoreline, the dog was swimming in water alongside. And the motorized unicycles. I can never get enough of those, with masked riders looking like they’re ready to attack, ninja-style. I assume the helicopters were hovering about were there to cover the Sky victory parade put on by the city. Back home watching the news, I heard head coach/general manager James Wade tell the crowd to remember where they were sitting because they’d be back at the same time, same place next year. I’m pretty sure people connected to the 1985 Bears, 2005 White Sox and 2016 Cubs said something along the same lines, too. Best-laid plans and all. Speaking of which, somebody explain to me why Braves’ manager Brian Snitker let right-hander Luke Jackson face the Dodgers’ left-handed hitting Cody Bellinger in the eighth inning last night. Jackson had already given up two hits to right-handed batters, and there were two left handers available in the Atlanta bullpen. After Jackson gives up a game-tying three-run homer, Snitker leaves Jackson in to give up yet another hit, and that one would come around to score what proved to be the winning run in another two batters after Jesse Chavez replaced Jackson. I don’t get motorized unicycles, let alone the pitching decisions of some managers.