In Real Time

A couple of weeks ago, a Sun-Times’ columnist did a piece on villains in Chicago sports, and I thought, Big deal.  Where was he when the villains were mucking things up?

 

It’s one thing to call out Sammy Sosa thirteen years after he’s retired, and quite another to raise questions about Slammin’ Sammy’s physique back in the day.  And that’s the thing—virtually nobody in Chicago sports did.  Without exception, sportswriters perpetuated the myth that Sosa had hit the gym before he hit all those homeruns.  And fans believed it.

 

I’m not throwing rocks here.  Back in the early 2000s, a number of White Sox players took a stand, demanding PEDs testing with teeth, as it were.  The irony is that Jose Canseco played for the Sox before that happened and Manny Ramirez played on the South Side after.  That kind of puts me in a glass house, doesn’t it?

 

It’s more than fans and players.  For reasons I can’t understand, Chicago fans show loyalty to teams—and, by extension, their owners—beyond all reason.  Bill Wirtz should have been run out of town the way he ran Bobby Hull out of town.  Ditto George Halas for sending Mike Ditka into Philadelphia exile—and for refusing to recognize what the rest of the NFL did, that the forward pass is a good thing.  Sadly, the old man passed down that prejudice to his descendants. 

 

But Wirtz was feared, if not respected, down to the time of his death, and Halas is still revered, again for reasons that escape me.  Which brings us to Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner in the spotlight thanks to “The Last Dance.”

 

Reinsdorf should’ve been sent packing for throwing his support to Jerry Krause against all comers; letting Michael Jordan walk; letting Phil Jackson walk; and failing to allow a dynasty—a dynasty of breathtaking accomplishment, by the way—reach its end where it should, on the court, not in the front office.  And yet the Chicago media by and large stayed in the shadows, this even though Reinsdorf was just as troublesome as owner of the White Sox.

 

This was the man who helped make sure there would be no World Series in 1994 and the owner who fired people/let them go without bothering to give a reason why. (See: Larry Himes, Jeff Torborg, Gene Lamont, Ron Schueler, Ozzie Guillen.)  This is the owner who signed Albert Belle to play in Chicago.  Enough said.

 

They talk about Ronald Reagan being the Teflon President; Reinsdorf was the Teflon owner.  Sportswriters made him that way, and fans, too.  That’s just how we are in Chicago.  Go figure.

The Enemy Within

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Whispers

Whispers

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

Jenga, Giolito, Gibson

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

 

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

 

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

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

Catching Up

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Ten, More or Less

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Unwanted Reminders

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

I almost envy them their ignorance.