Put Up or Shut Up

Let’s do a quick review. Back in January, Rockies’ owner Dick Monfort was reported to have cried poor on behalf of fellow owners in an early negotiating session with players. Then, a little over two weeks ago, MLB Commissioner Rob “Lapdog” Manfred blathered on about how investing in the stock market offered a better return than buying a ball club. So, as Russia tries to break Ukraine and Wall Street shutters, how many owners have moved to dump their teams and get into stocks? I thought so.

Boards or Bust

I came of age as a hoops’ fan just when Wilt Chamberlain was giving way to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, neither of whom the Bulls could match. But they found a way to win consistently with the likes of Tom Boerwinkle and Clifford Ray in the middle. Oh, to have that duo working their magic on Madison Street again. The thing about Boerwinkle and Ray is you knew what they could give you, a package deal of rebounds and assists to go with the occasional basket. And with Nikola Vucevic, outside of big games against mediocre opposition? As last night showed, yet again, not much of anything. This does not bode well for the postseason. Last night, the Bulls faced off against the visiting Grizzlies, a team they’re battling with over first place in the Eastern Conference. Give up 46 points to rookie guard Ja Morant, and it gets hard to win. Get outrebounded 61-41, and it gets close to impossible. Allow the opponent to snatch nineteen offensive boards to your six, and you end up losing 116-110. Memphis center Steven “Big Kiwi” Adams (born in New Zealand, naturally) snagged 21 rebounds, eight on the offensive side. Vucevic? Eleven rebounds, zero offensive. Adams is averaging 7.1 points on the season to Vucevic’s 17.9, but no matter; Adams outscored his counterpart, 12-11. You’re not going to win playoff games with a center who can’t secure rebounds on either end of the court and fails to put up big scoring numbers when it counts. But I have a feeling Bulls’ fans of a certain age already know that.

Me and Julio

God’s talked to me twice so far in life, both times through a move. The first one was Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets.” I saw it alone one Friday night in the fall of 1974. And what did God say? “Drop out of law school, now.” Which I did. He waited another nine years, until John Sayles could finish “Baby It’s You.” And, boy, did He have a lot to say, not that I caught all of it at first. But allow me to paraphrase. You went to a movie in Cicero. That’s Joe Mantegna’s hometown. Decades from now, your daughter will play softball at the campus where Mantegna attended high school. She’ll be really good, like the movie you’re watching. Oh, and answer the phone when you get back to the apartment. I did. It was my friend Dan, all excited that the White Sox had just clinched their division with a win over the Mariners; Julio Cruz scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly from Harold Baines. Dreams of a World Series danced through our heads. It was not to be, though Cruz looked to be a steal from those very same Mariners, only he wasn’t. He played another three seasons on the South Side before retiring at the age of 31. I actually thought of Cruz on Monday; he died the next day. If God is talking to me again, I’m not sure what He’s trying to say. I need to go to the show.

Dazed and Confused

The baseball lockout seems to be getting to Chicago sports’ columnists, Paul Sullivan and Rick Morrissey in particular. On Monday, Sullivan commented on the demand by some fans to have a seat at the negotiating table. The Tribune columnist noted the obvious, that they don’t have one, while adding “nor should they.” Why? Because, “The only seats fans deserve are the ones they purchase to watch a game.” Thank you very much. Now, get ready for the whiplash. In the same column, Sullivan took a totally opposite position on the matter of the Blackhawks dropping Bobby Hull as a team ambassador. A better question would have been why the Hawks ever thought it was a good idea in the first place. Hull stands accused of abusing two wives, and on at least one occasion he has come off as a fan of Adolph Hitler as well as the idea of eugenics. Though no fan of Hull off the ice, Sullivan thinks “if you’re going to get rid of a man whose statue remains in front of the building you play in, you at least owe it to everyone to explain the reasoning.” But, Paul, didn’t you just say the only thing fans deserve is the seat they’ve bought to a game? Yesterday, Morrissey wrote about the lockout and cited several points of disagreement before adding “guess what?...[ellipsis in original] nobody out here cares about any of it.” What Morrissey means to say is he doesn’t care about the economics. No, that gets in the way of him playing Cubs/White Sox general manager, a game he never grows tired of. All of which brings us to the column Sullivan did today, in which he called the back-and-forth between both sides as so much “blah, blah, blah” and complained, “Negotiations are moving along at a snail’s pace, or worse, at the pace of a baseball game.” Yeah, they are, but that’s because the players and owners are hyper-focused on the bottom line. Sullivan and Morrissey both complained about the mind-numbing duration of a ballgame without venturing how it got that way. Hint: it’s not just because of batters calling time and pitchers taking too long between pitches. So long as everyone wants to be (super) rich, ballgames will keep getting loaded down with commercials. Sportswriters are in a position to shine a light on that unpleasant truth, but they can’t be bothered. Squeeze them, though, and they’ll produce a fine whine.

Clown Show

Do you remember the owners’ rationale for their “defensive lockout” of players back in December? MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wrote in a letter “we cannot allow an expired agreement to again cause an in-season strike and a missed World Series, like we experienced in 1994. We all owe you, our fans, better than that.” Well, that was then, and this is now. As reported on the MLB.com website today, a spokesman—unidentified, perhaps out of embarrassment—indicated yesterday that an agreement has to be reached by next Monday, or else. Why? Because “The deadline is the deadline. After February 28, games will be cancelled. Missed games are missed games and salary will not be paid for those games.” Wait, there’s more. The unnamed spokesman added that regular-season games won’t be made up. Why? The difficulty of rescheduling interleague games. “Simply put, we would resume the existing schedule based upon when we are able to ratify an agreement and open camps.” Good to know. So, the owners wanted to prevent players from cancelling games while being able to do so themselves. Heads they win, tails we lose.

Cheer, II

Clare has been on my case the past few weeks for not being able to keep up with her. I don’t know, she must be getting up in the middle of the night—gosh, with a six-month old, ya’ think?—to watch season two of Cheer on Netflix. Well, as of yesterday, I’m caught up. And a little depressed. Unlike the first season focusing on a Texas community college where cheer is a de facto major, this second season comes off as so sad. Part of it has to do with Jerry Harris, one of the stars to come out of season one. Only now, it looks as though that winning personality was a front or a tool, enabling Harris to prey on minors. Harris, in jail since September 2020, pleaded guilty in early February to federal sex-crime charges. I also kept thinking of an adage that usually applies to academia, that the politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small. Team members and coaches both treat this extracurricular activity as life and death. There were any number of times where twenty-somethings in costume looked as though they were trying to channel their inner Tom Hanks addressing his men as they were ready to hit the beach at Normandy. Only I didn’t see the same kind of enemy in school fieldhouses that manned the pillboxes on D-Day. In addition, my daughter brought up a good point—isn’t everyone supposed to be preparing for a career? There’s no sense of guidance coming from the coaches or administration. Instead, the documentary followed one coach who worked multiple jobs and lived with the family of a friend. This person was forty if he was a day, and he didn’t have a place to call his own. Or a person to share his life with. By all accounts, a decent person but, still, a less than ideal role model. Part of this unease may be the result of filmmakers’ intent. Nobody wants to spend nine episodes watching a bunch of happy kids go through their routines, all the while encouraged by lovable coaches. That said, the two Texas community colleges that were the focus of this season look to draw from a very working-class population. Those are the very people who need a support system to move to the next level, which has to include more than flying through the air or launching them there. I would have liked to know more about graduation rates for members of the cheer team. Where are they in four years, or six? Bodies fall back to earth, no matter how much time went into the pursuit. When it’s over, then what? “Cheer” didn’t say, which makes me think there’s not a bright future for most of these young people.

All Twisted

I just read an online comment in which the writer tried to argue that a hard salary cap in baseball would benefit players more than the current soft cap. The guy must be great at Twister. Rather than any sort of cap, I still think both sides should explore the idea of a tax on each team’s revenues. Work on a formula that would generate the current level of revenue sharing, and go from there. What have they got to lose?

All Quiet on the Western Front

Both sides in the baseball lockout are supposed to meet today, which is a good thing, I guess. There’s no indication that the meeting already has come and gone, which is definitely a good thing. Fifteen-minute bargaining sessions just don’t seem to accomplish much. And so we wait, the damage to the game not readily apparent to the well-heeled belligerents. What does a restaurant in Scottsdale matter compared to revenue sharing and service time? The peasants endure. They always have. And the national pastime?

Yes, but is it a sport?

Another Olympics, another doping scandal, this one involving fifteen-year old figure skater Kamila Valieva of Russia (no surprise, there). Valieva was allowed to skate even after it was found she failed a drug test in December. The IOC explained why they made this allowance, and it made about as much sense as MLB calling a lockout. An odds-on favorite to win the gold, Valieva instead finished fourth, leading to a meltdown and more. More? Yes, Valieva’s coach ripped into the teenager in front of cameras. Nothing like a little humiliation broadcast worldwide. The consensus, for what it’s worth, is you don’t blame the kid for doing what adults told her to. A suggested reform, to implement a minimum age for figure skating, has met with some pushback. Adults, you see, can’t do on the ice all that adolescents can. Which leads me to ask, is it a sport then? Especially when there are in the neighborhood of nine judges doing the scoring. My God, imagine nine home-plate umpires. From what I gather, there are also nine judges for Olympic gymnastics. Again, the question, is it a sport, given that small and young are favored components rather than big, strong and experienced? Figure skating and gymnastics definitely require participants to be in top physical shape. In this they’re like dancers, whether classical or modern. And the judges strike me as being critics by any other name. It’s just too subjective for my tastes. We kind of know what the strike zone is. But the standards for Olympic skaters and gymnasts? Good luck with that.

Weasel Words

I once had a teaching assistant who, after listening to a lecture, commented on my use of “weasel words” to dance around an issue. She was right, and I have tried in all the years since to say what I mean and mean what I say. If only MLB owners would do the same. Instead, they issued a statement yesterday that would make a weasel blush: “We regret that, without a collective bargaining agreement in place, we must postpone the start of Spring Training games until no earlier than Saturday, March 5. All thirty clubs are unified in their strong desire to bring players back to the field and fans back to the stands.” Oh, and this: “The clubs have adopted a uniform policy that provides an option for full refunds for fans who have purchased tickets from the clubs to any Spring Training games that are not taking place. We are committed to reaching an agreement that is fair to each side.” What a crock. Fans wanting to see spring training have been ignored, along with those communities that depend on tourists spending money. You know, the barista, the Lyft driver, the server. I wonder what’s “fair” to them. Not that a bunch of weasels would care.

Playing with Fire

Both sides in the MLB lockout met yesterday, barely. I mean, what gets accomplished in fifteen minutes, other than showing the world your pissing contest is alive and well? I think—which is more than I can say for most of those involved in negotiations—real movement could be achieved if the players accepted revenue sharing and the owners dropped the luxury tax. Do that, and other stuff will fall in place. But that assumes a real interest in getting an agreement done. As we all know, assuming is a dangerous thing. Along those ends, allow me to offer a compromise—just one side offer the above. If the other side rejects the offer, then somebody has won the battle for hearts and minds. Any takers? I thought not.

New York New York

My, my, what do my eyes spy on the eve of the NBA All-Star weekend? Why, it’s the Bulls atop the Eastern Conference standings, but where are the Knicks? You know, the team that invented the game for the enjoyment of the greatest fans on the face of the earth. Why, the Knickerbockers are all the way down, twelfth out of fifteen teams. Wait, there’s more deliciously good news. You know Tom Thibodeau, who last year was lionized as the second coming of Red Holzman, the greatest coach of the greatest NBA dynasty, those Knicks of 1970-1973 (Michael Who?)? Why, I just read a story in today’s The Athletic, about how the New Yorkers have lost thirteen out of their last sixteen games, oftentimes blowing big leads against mediocre teams. And their coach, the Second Coming, has been making head-scratching moves a la Jim Boylen. The writer described Thibodeau as a “coach notorious for treating random February games against the Pistons like they are game sevens.” Yes, he does, and that’s one of the big reasons his teams don’t go anywhere. But, that’s OK. The coach, the team, the fans are all made for one another. Enjoy. And fingers crossed this Mojo finds its way to Yankee Stadium should baseball ever start up this year.

[Insert Expletive Here] You!"

Super Bowl LVI drew in the neighborhood of 101 million viewers on Sunday. Baseball, meanwhile, can’t find its head for a hole in the ground. Spring training, anyone? As I’ve said before, I would prefer not to pick sides between billionaires and multimillionaires. I mean, it’s not like either side cares if the peons are behind them. No, first they practice scorched-earth negotiations, then they think a little P.R. and blather about “the fans” will fix things, PEDs optional. I wonder how the folks who depend on spring training to help put food on the table feel about that. Think of all those municipalities in Florida and Arizona that have spent tens of millions of tax dollars on facilities that the owners are too poor to build themselves. These are communities based largely on tourism, with much of it the product of fans coming to see their teams during spring training. No spring training means no fans means empty hotel rooms means empty restaurants means… Good thing it’s all about saving the national pastime.

Open Books, and Closed

The worst part about trying to follow the baseball situation is not having all the information, and for that I blame the owners. Consider that, as things stand now, each club receives $209 million in shared revenue, or did in 2018, the last year for which figures appear to be available. And owners want a luxury tax why? With that much money going into a budget, what else could owners possibly want or need? It would help if all the clubs would open their books, the real ones, not the ones that always show that a club is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. That way, people on the outside could get a sense of how this particular industry works. Until that day comes, all fans can do is sit there and wonder what the truth of the matter is.

Big Deal

There’s an old joke about people going to a fight and hockey game breaks out. Last night, there was an ad fest on TV, and a football game happened in between commercials, sort of. With all due respect—granted, it’s not much—to announcers Cris Collinsworth and Al Michaels, this wasn’t the greatest Super Bowl of all time; no game going on four hours can be. What happened is the Rams had enough left in their collective tank to mount a last-minute-and-a-half scoring drive, and the Bengals didn’t. End of story, 23-20. Michele and I ate dinner during halftime because, well, the performers weren’t our cup of tea (bowls of soup, actually). As for the commercials, they could’ve just run the one for Chevrolet with the Sopranos’ kids all night long. That says something about me, I know.

Right on Time

I told Michele that the Super Bowl being played at SoFi Stadium would make Chicago sportswriters go all silly, and I was right. Stories in both the Sun-Times and Tribune over the weekend shows just how little the local sports’ media has learned since Jerry Reinsdorf got his mall park paid for by the public back in the late 1980s. The Tribune story was somewhat more objective in approach, noting the increase in ticket costs and housing for the host community of Inglewood, outside Los Angeles. But there was a strong sense of “if only” to the piece, as in, if only the Bears could find a way to offer a Midwestern version of this. But how exactly would SoFi East benefit Bears’ fans, if the point is winning football? Yes, a larger revenue stream would mean better training facilities and maybe a bigger support staff and front office, but at some point not too far into football operation that money would be spent, with a whole bunch more heading straight into ownership’s pockets. The McCaskeys get richer and the fans poorer. The peasants might grow upset. And if the point isn’t winning but producing some sort of year-round entertainment venue, again, it’s the McCaskeys who benefit at the expense of established businesses. People spending money at restaurants, hotels and whatnot owned by or paying rent to the Bears will end up being people who aren’t spending that cash elsewhere in the region. Arlington Heights may benefit from sales-tax revenue, but it will be at the expense of other communities. One other thing. Who are the SoFi-based Rams playing today for the Super Bowl crown? Oh, right, the Bengals, who play in Paul Brown Stadium, over twenty years old and seating only 65,535. The Bengals in all probability generate a lot less revenue than the Rams in their shiny new home, but it’s more than enough to operate in an environment where the salary cap reigns supreme. If only a sportswriter or two would bother to take note.

Taking Care of Business

As if he hasn’t screwed up things enough already, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred found the time Thursday to comment on the Rays’ stadium situation. Taxpayers, guard your pockets. According to MLB.com, Manfred said, “We think Tampa is a major-league market, and we want to find a solution that makes the club economically viable in that market.” Translation: We want a publicly subsidized or, better yet, publicly owned stadium. The story noted that at one time the Rays and the Tampa Sports Authority had been kicking around an idea for something under a billion dollars. How economical of them. I have a solution. Find the Rays a nice piece of real estate and let them build to their heart’s content, just so long as they spend their money. Talk about a pipe dream.

Trite but True

During his introductory press conference the other week, new Bears’ GM Ryan Poles announced his plans to build his team through the draft. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that chestnut uttered, my grandson would have a number of classic Buddy L toys waiting for him to play with. Not that Poles is wrong; far from it. Teams that live by the big trade and free-agent signing, die by them, too. I’m thinking of the Bulls here, not for failing to make a big trade at the deadline yesterday but the two trades they made last year. Wendell Carter Jr. and Daniel Gafford would be a whole lot better than Nikola Vucevic. Start with the 22-year old Carter, who’s averaging 13.7 points and 10.2 total rebounds a game for the Magic. Compare those stats to what the 31-year old Vucevic has put up, 17.5 points and 11.7 rebounds. And how much of that comes against good teams? If the Bulls had hung onto Carter and the 23-year old Gafford, they’d have a nice frontcourt combination, Carter at center and Gafford at forward or Gafford spelling Carter in the middle. Gafford is averaging 8.9 points and six rebounds a game. With all the injuries the Bulls have had, it’s hard to say who’s taken his place. If the answer includes Davonte Green, who was included in the deal for Gafford, then you have a nice player at small forward, with the emphasis on small. And, wait, it gets worse. The new front office of Arturas Karnisovas and company was so intent on getting Vucevic they threw in a first-round draft pick. Guess who that turned into? Small forward Franz Wagner, averaging 15.6 points and 4.6 rebounds for Orlando. Imagine Wagner coming off the bench for coach Billy Donovan. Karnisovas better be careful unless he wants to turn into the second coming of Bill Veeck, trading away promising young players for long-in-the-tooth veterans. At least he held onto rookie guard Ayo Dosunmu. Trade him, and Veeck has entered the building.

I Got Mad

Well, I just did something I try not to—post a response to a story. We’ll see how James Fegan takes criticism. Fegan did a story for today’s The Athletic responding to Keith Law’s rating of minor-league systems. Sorry, but it’s not about the players. It’s about the people who went out and acquired their talents. Not a word was said about the Sox scouting budget or number of scouts employed or scouting philosophy, or draft philosophy, for that matter. Just a discussion of guys who might rank in the top 100 soon. Talk about armchair analysis. It’d be fine if I didn’t pay so much for a subscription to The Athletic.

Cellar Dwellers

Some guru at The Athletic has rated the MLB minor-league systems, and guess who comes in dead last? Yup, the White Sox. No better way to get the blood pressure moving this morning than to read a story that begins, “Yes, this is the worst farms system in baseball, but at least the White Sox used their prospects to build a legitimate contender.” How sincerely patronizing. Now, two days earlier, when he released his rankings, the guru put the Dodgers at number one. You’d have to check the comments’ section to get a sense why the team that won the World Series also has the top-ranked farm system. In a word, scouting. OK, I can see that. Now give me a series of stories not on players but the people who scout and sign them. The implication here is that the Sox have the worst scouts or scouting department in baseball. We’ve got analytics for this, analytics for that. Let’s take a look at scouting-department budgets and crunch numbers. Who spends more on scouting, the Dodgers or the team they beat back in 1959? Who spends their money smarter? Curious minds want to know.

Hanging On

What does Devo say? Right: How long can this go on? These are the dog days of winter, for sure. Start off with the MLB lockout. No winter meetings, no hot stove, no end in sight. On top of that, the Bears belched, and Chicago media is tripping over itself to provide coverage. Why, just today I see in the paper our Munsters have added a tight-ends’ coach and an o-line assistant coach. Be still, my trembling heart. Talk about a one-two punch, Bears and Super Bowl; I don’t much care about either. Ditto college basketball. That leaves the Bulls. Maybe I’ll warm to Nikola Vucevic by season’s end, but I doubt it. Did I mention the Olympics? I hate the Olympics. Maybe I’d feel differently if I had learned to skate, but I didn’t. My daughter, on the other hand, skates like Hans Brinker, which may be why she enjoys watching this stuff. Me, I never liked pipes, so why would I care about a half-pipe? Or the short program? A good rule of thumb for me is that judges and averaged scores don’t make for sport. Athletically framed artistic expression, yes, but not sport. That said, I believe in keeping the peace at home, so I give up the TV (after we watch Jeopardy!) for whatever Michele wants to watch. Then it becomes a matter of hoping NBC doesn’t wait to show the good stuff for last, which was exactly what happened last night. My wife wanted to see American figure-skater Nathan Chen, but she also had to get up for work at 6:30. It was closing in on 10:45 and still not Chen. Then it was lights out and everybody to sleep. This morning, we find out Chen set a world record with his routine. Thanks for leading with that, guys. Oh, and why does Lester Holt stand outside at the start of his nightly newscasts, like he’s reporting from Beijing? Please, make the snow melt and lock the idiots into a room until they agree on a new CBA. I can’t take much more of this.

Snowy Day

I must have the February heebie-jeebies. Snow last week, snow now, snow forever, or so it feels. Good thing I can remember softball. There was snow when Clare practiced with her travel team and snow when the varsity season started in late February. There was even snow during the season. One day early in the spring of Clare’s sophomore, her coach recruited me to help him shovel out the dugouts so they could get a game in. So, obviously, there had to be snow in college. Elven years ago last week, when Clare was a freshman Blue Jay, it snowed just over twenty-one inches in and around Chicago; that had to make getting to the gym for practice a whole lot of fun. But it all melted, more or less, once the regular season kicked off in April. Thank heaven for Florida. Four straight years, the Blue Jays flew down to start things right. The first year, six weeks after we shoveled out a good thirty inches of snow that had buried the basement stairs, Michele and I were walking around Claremont, Florida, in our shorts. The locals could tell we were from out-of-town. It was “only” eighty degrees out. The Blue Jays had to cancel their Florida trips in 2020 and 2021 on account of COVID, but I see they’re going next month. Good for them, good for their parents. Way good for their parents.

Birds of a Feather

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman came to the aid of an owner in distress Friday, which is exactly why professional sports have commissioners in the first place. Speaking at a news conference part of All-Star Weekend, Bettman said the Kyle Beach situation “has been very emotional, frustrating and draining for the Blackhawks and Rocky [Wirtz] in particular.” Wait, there’s more. Bettman termed Wirtz’s meltdown during Wednesday’s town hall meeting an “emotional moment which Rocky promptly apologized for.” Yeah, right, and I bet it was heartfelt, too. Or maybe Wirtz got confused and though he was at work, where a boss displaying his SOB personality gets his way without question. If Bettman needed, I’m sure he could’ve had Rob Manfred fill in for him. Manfred would’ve have been happy to say the exact same thing, no doubt. Birds of a feather and all.

0-for-2, but Who's Counting?

Baseball ownership suggested federal mediation to break the impasse with players, who rejected the idea yesterday. Say what you will about the owners, but they’re sure willing to do stuff that doesn’t produce the desired results. First, they call a lockout because, according to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, they wanted to protect against a repeat of 1994. You can’t have a strike late in the season if you lock out players before it even starts, right? Clever guys. Now, with the mediation offer, they can claim the high ground, that they want to forge a deal with an “impartial third party to help bridge gaps and facilitate an agreement,” as a statement put out by MLB put it. Question: Would owners make the offer if they thought a mediator would rule against them? I guess the good news here is if and when a new collective bargaining agreement is reached, drug testing will remain in place. We don’t want a repeat of Sosa-McGwire, now do we? Right, guys?

Look Who's Back

Clare and I have been talking the past few days about the new White Sox hitting coach in high-A Winston-Salem. That would be Nicky Delmonico. “Very interesting,” as my daughter put it. I always thought Delmonico had a sweet, left-handed swing, the only problem being it looked to be the same swing for every pitch. That helps explain a career batting average of .224 over four seasons. But I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt here. When Delmonico came up with the Sox in 2017, he looked like the real deal. Then the injuries started. The first involved a sprained wrist his rookie season, not to be confused with surgery on his left labrum that came two years later. Delmonico thinks he’d need another two surgeries to keep playing at the age of 29. Part of the dynamic duo with Daniel Palka, Delmonico has the kind of personality that wears well around a clubhouse. And it certainly must have been a hit with the front office. But what kind of coach will he be? Quoted by James Fegan in The Athletic, Delmonico offered, “I think ‘launch angle’ and all this [analytics] is a term that gets away from how you get to launch angle.” Ah, grasshopper is wise beyond his years. Delmonico, whose father was a longtime college baseball head coach, wants to manage someday. Maybe he could hire Mr. Palka for his bench coach. That’d be something.

Meltdown

Town hall meetings work one of two ways. Either you stack it with stooges, or you prepare to answer any and all questions that come your way. Last night, the Blackhawks failed stunningly, breathtakingly, on both counts. For reasons the front office must wish must be regretting bigtime, the team held a hybrid virtual/in-person events. Fans were able to watch on-screen the meltdown of team owner Rocky Wirtz caused by questions from two reporters in the audience. Wirtz, without stooges in attendance, turned into one himself. First, he went after Mark Lazerus of The Athletic for bringing up the Kyle Beach situation. Lazerus wanted to know what the team had done to prevent any repeats of sexual abuse as happened to Beach. Wirtz responded with, among other comments, a finger-wagging, “That’s none of your business!” When Lazerus asked why, Wirtz responded, “Because you don’t work for the company.” Next up was the Tribune’s Phil Thompson, who repeated Lazerus’s question. “I told you to get off the subject,” Wirtz shot back. Thompson then tried to bring up the subject of the resale value of tickets on the secondary market. Thompson said season-ticket holders had told him they were having a hard time getting a decent return, to which Wirtz replied in super snit, “Is that fact? I didn’t realize you were in our ticket department.” A bull in the proverbial china shop would have caused less damage. The team website posted the interview, dividing it up into four parts; of course, the good stuff went into the last part. The story included an apology offered by Wirtz for “my response to two questions [that] crossed the line.” And that was it. Wirtz said too much during the event, and now the team was saying too little. I figure by now Jerry Reinsdorf has called with this advice—If your stooge isn’t asking the questions, don’t talk to the media.

Put Another Way

Now it’s official—Tom Brady has retired after a twenty-two year career in the NFL. How best to measure him? Game-generated stats are the obvious way to go, and those are the ones that will get him elected to Canton in five years. But forget about the 624 touchdown passes thrown and 84,520 passing yards accumulated, just for a few seconds. Consider Brady’s value in dollars and cents. Robert Kraft bought the Patriots in 1994 for $175 million, give or take. According to businessinsider.com, the team was valued at $464 million in 2000, the year Brady was drafted. Last summer, Forbes pegged the team’s value at $5 billion. How much of that is due to Kraft and/or head coach Bill Belichick? And how much is the product of a quarterback who took his team to the Super Bowl nine times, winning six? CNBC reports that Brady has earned $292.9 million for his efforts, so hold up on the candy fundraisers. But ask yourself if he’s been paid what he’s worth. If and when Kraft sells, not a dime will go to the player who pumped so much value into the franchise. That’s a reality sure to cause resentment, if not in Brady then other athletes in various sports. It also happens to be a reality that explains why spring training will likely be delayed this year.

First Impressions

What is it about Bears’ head coaches and their hair? Mike Ditka looked like he ran a lawn mower through his while I swear Marc Trestman used shoe polish to dye what he had and Ron Popeil’s hair in a can to add what he didn’t. Matt Nagy went in the opposite direction by highlighting his bald top by wearing a visor. God, my daughter hated wearing a visor when she played softball. And now we have Matt Eberflus, who sure looked like he was using a lot of product to get his locks all wavy. Eberflus also sounded like a guy who talks a tad too loud for whatever room he’s in. Here’s hoping he’s not the kind of guy who also stands too close to you when talking. Two other points worth noting here, neither one of them originating with me. In yesterday’s The Athletic, Dan Pompei asked why the Bears didn’t consider Jim Harbaugh. What, an ex-player come back to coach the team that spurned him? Holy Ditka, that would never work. In today’s Sun-Times, Jason Lieser brought up Eberflus’s coaching philosophy, summed up in the acronym H.I.T.S. (hustle/intensity/turnovers—and I’m guessing here he means the ones you cause, not the ones you make/smart). Me, I’d go after Eberflus for the lack of parallel structure. Lieser, probably more in tune with most Bears’ fans than I am, noted the new coach appears “blissfully unaware of how vulnerable that [H.I.T.S.] leaves him to people sticking an extra S at the front if things go sour.” Yeah, then it’d really hit the fan.