Transactions

Clare called today, a Saturday, to tell me the White Sox claimed outfielder Willy Garcia off waivers from the Pirates and designated outfielder Jason Coats for assignment.  This allowed me to give her a refresher on the intricacies of the 40-man roster, after which I mentioned Coats might stay with the Sox organization, unlike J.B. Shuck, who signed with the Twins after being taken off the roster.

I wonder if I did something like this with my parents after getting married.  My father had a passion for the newspaper and could’ve talked about anything from any section, though he didn’t have the same interest in the Transactions’ tiny-type that I always did.  And we didn’t talk politics because you just didn’t talk politics with my father.  As for conversations with my mother, they always danced around the question, When are you having a baby?  It took twelve years before she got the answer she wanted.

And now that answer updates me on moves our favorite baseball team makes.  I should have called more.

The Path Taken

My daughter chose an apartment based on her father’s time on the Illinois Prairie Path bike trail.  Allow me to explain.

Around the time Clare was in eighth grade, I got very serious about biking.  Metropolitan Chicago is great for this sort of thing.  To those of us born here, almost all “hills” are the work of engineers, viz., overpasses.  Just about everything else is flat land and easy to bike across.

Among my discoveries twelve or so years ago was the Prairie Path, which follows along an abandoned interurban line (think “L” line running through the countryside) that goes west to Billy Graham’s Wheaton before heading north to Elgin, where they used to make those wonderful watches.  At the time I was riding this particular stretch of the Path a lot, developers were working to turn an old Ovaltine plant into the anchor for an apartment complex.

Ovaltine just happened to be my Grandma Gurke’s favorite drink.  I took it as a sign one of her grandchildren should live there.  The more I biked, the more convinced I was that it ought to happen.  My sister Betty was thinking of moving back home from Texas, and I kept telling her to check out the Ovaltine plant.  Only she died before she could make the move.

Apparently, her niece had been listening, too.  When it came time for Clare and her fiancé Chris to find an apartment, they tried Ovaltine and really liked it.  (Please forgive the pun.)  If Chris can figure out where to put his bike, he may use it to commute to his coaching job at Elmhurst College, which is no more than two or three miles from the path.  So, there you have it, destiny by bike path.

Ship of Fools

My apologies to author Katherine Anne Porter, but how better to describe the Chicago Bears front office than that?  Well, maybe the Tribune comes close, borrowing the Warner Brothers’ signoff for their cartoons, with a bear instead of Porky Pig announcing, “That’s all, Folks!”  And the way the Trib added “Blah…Blah…Blah…” was a nice touch.  So too the Sun-Times’ punny head, A Bore of Words.

Never has a 3-13 team been so close to greatness, or so team chairman George McCaskey and his designated flunkies would have you believe.  Why, when McCaskey walks the parking lots at Soldier Field, he says the fans tell him how much they like general manager Ryan Pace and coach John Fox.  Trust me, George, with fans like that you don’t need enemies.  The Times said your team sold its fewest tickets since 1979.  You know what the no-shows are up to?  Getting the tar and feathers ready for when those nice fans you’re talking to get you in a corner.  The hottest tickets in town come September may be for carrying you on a rail out of town.

All laughing and sarcasm aside, this is pretty sad.  Chicago is the worst-served major sports’ town in America, where just about every team talks about a teardown and rebuild.  The Cubs did it; the White Sox are in the midst of doing it; and the Bulls might do it yet.  The Bears are less a rebuild than an ongoing disaster, the kind you can’t help staring at.  The only good news is fewer and fewer people, whether fans or media, are willing to drink the Kool-Aid.  In these parts, that’s real progress. 

Making Sense

I’ve been trying to make sense of the football scandal at the University of Minnesota.  The team threatened to boycott the Holiday Bowl after 10 teammates were suspended over an alleged sexual assault.  Football coach Tracy Claeys then tweeted “Have never been more proud of our kids.”   The suspended “kids” at the very least put themselves in a compromising position and at the worst escaped prosecution for a crime they took part in.  At latest report, authorities are not pressing charges.  Oh, by the way, the other kids dropped their boycott after a couple of days.  Claeys has since been fired.

I prefer life simple, dry and cut, black and white, if for no other reason that a gray instance like this is all too hard to deal with.  Bigtime college sports and alcohol are not a good mix, not when a sense of entitlement is thrown into the stew.  If only college football coaches acted like Woody Hayes, off the field instead of on.  Then, players would be too afraid to try anything possibly felonious.  But I have to admit there is also a part of me that believes if no formal charge can be drawn, the accused have to be deemed not guilty, unless the school can discipline them for breaking team or school rules, e.g., in-season and/or underage drinking.  Then by all means throw the book at the offenders.

I’m lucky as a parent of a daughter that nothing like this ever happened to Clare.  There was a party I heard about where one of her teammates punched a guy.  That’s one way of getting the message of “‘No’ means no” across.  Unfortunately, not everyone has that option available to them.   

Connections

My father-in-law has some peculiar notions about basketball, in particular that #1 draft picks should always excel because they were so good in college.  To me, a bust at number one means bad scouting.  To him, it’s one of life’s great mysteries.

But I get why he likes the Bulls’ Jimmy Butler, who scored 52 points yesterday in a win against Charlotte.  Yes, Butler was a #1 selection, but that’s not it.  Butler attended Marquette, and so did my father-in-law’s grandson Nate.  Whenever we happen to be watching the Bulls, my father-in-law sees Butler and mentions Nate, who also attended Marquette.  Nate never graduated because he died of cancer.  But as long as Jimmy Butler can play in the NBA, a boy taken too soon still lives.  And what kind of son-in-law would I be to have a problem with that?    

Now What?

Yesterday, the Bears ran a full-page ad in the Tribune sports’ section, “From the entire Bears team, thank you for your passion,” none of which showed in their last game of the season, a 38-10 drubbing by the Minnesota Vikings.  Chicago finishes with a 3-13 record, its worst ever for a 16-game season.  They also managed to go 0-8 on the road, no mean feat that.

As for that passion, none was evident at U.S Bank Stadium.  (If only businesses were embarrassed by the bland names they pay for to put on stadiums.)  I saw Minnesota runners met at the line of scrimmage, still able to gain another 3-4 yards on the play.  I saw a Bears’ player screen a teammate trying to catch a punt subsequently recovered by the Vikings.  I saw Bears’ quarterback Matt Barkley get stripped of the ball and his teammates stand pretty much motionless as a Minnesota defender picked it up and ran for a touchdown.  I saw absolutely no reason for head coach John Fox to be back next season.

Bears’ fans have been so docile for so long they really don’t know how to show disgust; the best way would be to cancel season’s tickets.  That the McCaskeys would understand and respond to.  Making the right changes is an entirely different story.  Personally, I think all the talent was buried with George Halas.  Let them prove me wrong.       

Regroup

It’s a new year, with my daughter engaged and living elsewhere.  Note to parents: Nothing like moving the kid out of the house in December snow.  About the only thing better is moving her into her apartment, on the second floor.

Of course, none of that stopped Clare from calling yesterday; we will probably talk about sports from now ’til kingdom come.  “Did you hear about [UFC former champion] Ronda Rousey?”  She lost in like a minute.”

Actually, it took all of 48 seconds for the onetime darling of the martial arts’ circuit to be declared out on her feet after absorbing 27 (!) punches from UFC bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes.  Rousey hadn’t fought since losing the title in a second-round knockout to Holly Holm in late 2015.  Ostensibly, she’d been training for this fight for months.  If so, she either did a whole bunch wrong or walked into a human buzz saw.

But my guess is that Rousey is at war with herself.  Two humiliating defeats in a row could be a coincidence, but I doubt it.  If her subconscious is talking, Rousey needs to listen and call it a career.  What she does for a living will kill her, as it basically does all fighters.

Joe DiMaggio spent decades after his baseball career ended looking more like a movie star than an ex-jock.  Hank Aaron looks good in this his 82^nd year, and even the occasional old football player like Dick Butkus or Mike Ditka does as well.  But name me a fighter who ages gracefully.  Joe Frazier?  Muhammad Ali?  Joe Louis?  Jack Dempsey?  Mike Tyson?  Adonais does not dare wear boxing trunks.

The ring—or cage, and think about the symbolism inherent in that word—is just as unforgiving as the street and alley.  I understand why Victorians and their heirs have wanted to outlaw the sport.  But fighting would go on, worse even for being forced underground.  So, the “sweet science” will go on claiming victims.  Ronda Rousey needs to think long and hard about her future, while she still can.