Hello and welcome to the first edition of CHI Sports Roundup. This is a segment I plan to do semi-regularly to take a break from slinging code, and exercise my right as a beef-eating native Chicagoan to bitch about the local sports landscape. Outside of front-end development, Chicago sports probably rustles my jimmies the most. And in the interest of keeping from diverting from topic TOO often, I will round up all my thoughts collectively in 1 periodic, and often cathartic, post. Enjoy!
Cubs: Let’s talk about the (slender) elephant in the room
If you follow Chicago sports, and check the timestamp on this article, it might be easy to see where I drew my inspiration for this segment, let alone this edition. It was incredibly hard for me to read the news this week WITHOUT sharing my thoughts on the complete bomb that the Cubs dropped this week!
Jed Hoyer is a stone cold killer. Weeks after giving his manager support and approval going into next season despite a pretty ridiculous collapse to miss the playoffs, he pulled a complete 180 by firing David Ross, and hiring … Craig MFn Counsell!?!?!
I have never been so freaking pumped and simultaneously gutted at the same time. I’m not sure that Papa Rossy deserved that. He certainly didn’t seem to based on the lip service Jed put out in the media. And he certainly didn’t deserve to be unseated by a guy who continually 💩 pooped in his Cheerios™ 90 miles away. A guy who weaponized a retractable roof to throw the budding manager off his game. That’s gotta sting!
I had to do a “retrospective on David Ross” internally to come to grips with this being the right move. Don’t get me wrong Counsell is a GREAT manager, but he’s been in the World Series the same amount of times as Ross, won only 2 more NL Central titles, and both have less than 10 post-season wins. Ross wasn’t yet a good strategist. He often seemed to stifle promising prospects in favor of the “guys who got us here.” But I think that is part of finding your voice as a manager. Shortly removed from his playing days, I wasn’t surprised to see him show loyalty to veterans. And I sometimes think front-offices can meddle with call-ups and pressure managers to give prospects a chance in the heat of a pennant/wild-card race.
Speaking of loyalty … in professional sports, there are 2 routes to take at the leadership level: the loyalty route, or the results route. Jed was clearly following the later. If we assume all baseball decisions were made based on results, it became easier to stomach that Ross simply had to be held accountable for that 2023 collapse. That’s what I am going with.
But man, I sure do hope the symbolism behind this hire is stronger than the personnel. If you are going to give a manager with no World Series appearances a $40M contract, you best pony up some of that dough for free-agency! That is why I am pumped the most, lets see the Ricketts family open that pocket book and hit the gas RIGHT NOW!
Da Bears: Let’s talk about the pig in the room
I sit here writing this article a day after the Bears pulled out TNF win against one of the few worse teams in the league in Carolina. I’m not sure I support “Tank 2.0” for this year because we still stand a HEALTHY chance at landing the first overall draft pick even without a second consecutive year of master-class failure. But I also want, with all my ❤️ to see EEEEBERFLUUUUUSS give this look as he is escorted out of Halas Hall at years end.
Given that predicament, this was one of the few games I hoped for a win. Its less about preserving the path to completely erasing the one HC that could make Mark Trestman seem capable of tying his own shoes, its more about preserving that night’s opponents own nearly unblemished attempts at futility. I don’t know how I sleep at night if I have any relation to a decision maker on the Carolina Panther’s staff. I don’t want to downplay that the 1st overall pick can sometimes be difficult to get right, but the Bears seemingly have Carolina’s nuts in a vice here. It may elicit some severe heartburn when this thing shakes out and we look back at what they gave up Bryce Young.
Again, REALLY hard to see this coming, but he looked lost last night. Almost as if someone placed an actual child in his miniature frame and asked them to lead a pro football team. The TNF broadcast crew made a point wipe a graphic of all the recent 1st overall QBs who fired their teams cannons in the opposite direction of the win column to start. I’m sure that was a decent medicine for the Old North State.
I’m not as cold blooded as the Northsider Boss I genuinely do hope, after next year, Bryce does finally assemble the Legos™. Because given what we just discussed, coupled with what CJ just did it sure does look like a franchise bound for excellence in doing the worst things possible. We would know as Bears fans!
Back to da Bears. Scholars will study for years how one group of coaches can so flawlessly display a lack of the basic competencies required of their position. Its a complete struggle to make sense of how Luke Getsy managed to continually confuse quarterbacks week-to-week, employing the “Justin Fields offensive scheme” with Tyson Bagent, and the “Brady/Manning/Rogers offensive scheme” whenever Justin Fields is playing. The man should perpetually be in concussion protocol.
Multiple coaches have taken leaves of their role. I cannot imagine the shameful acts that must be tied to that if the Bears organization was willing to ignore what happened to their neighboring hockey franchise when it comes to being transparent when something horrible happens. And now there seems to be a whisper campaign about Ryan Poles suppressing JF1’s return because he is ready to move on and pick HIS qb?
I hope thats not the case because he was really the only one left in this regime that I still respected. Moving on from JF1, I contest, will be a big mistake! That might be an unpopular opinion with the local sports crew, but I am going to stand behind it. This guy is a winner being handled by a group of Muppets. Both Nagy and Getsy are the sort of guys who’s offensive ego’s can be measured by physical equations. They cling, with laser focus, to their own horribly misguided paths. They continually parrot how close they are to a break through, yet fail to realize how fast the world is moving behind them. The best their teams have ever looked, is when they put their plans aside and do something different, or let a functioning human take control instead.
Bottom line, someone will unlock Justin Fields, and the Bears should be really sorry if its not them! But go ahead and burn the 1st overall pick on Justin Fields 2.0 Caleb Williams. I look forward to having this same conversation again in 2 years.
Blackhawks: Lets talk about the GOAT in the room
I referenced the Blackhawks earlier in this post with what was a very dark time for the franchise. There are many, MANY people who are beyond cheesed at magical hand of Gary Bettman bestowing a gift of solid gold to a team marred by such an insanely terrible lack of judgement. The Blackhawks are the team I hold closest too, mostly because they are the only CHI sports team outside of 2016 to provide me even an ounce of joy. When it all went down I was naturally conflicted by how seemingly perfect the franchise had been recently, compared to how horrible they managed to bungle it. And the fallout was completely justified.
Nevertheless, here we are witnessing the arrival of Connor Bedard in a Blackhawks sweater. And sweet jeebus can this kid fire a rocket!!! At the time of this post, he just posted a near hat-trick 4pt night on the first game of the Mom’s trip. Most of those points were slight departures from what we have seen of him to date, but even the greasy goals count.
But this is the one that got me. It was a few days back against FLA. If you are a hockey fan, please study this shot closely:
This was a full speed semi-breakaway where he unloads an assault weapon from the top of the faceoff circle! That part was silly, but what made it nuts … the good kind™ … was the subtle toe-drag to bring it in close before rail gunning it to the opposite top pocket. This is what he does. His shot is hard as nails, but he uses his hands to subtlety change angles.
You’ve probably seen this in videos where he is stationary. If you play at all, you may have even tried yourself to toe-in and snap off your wrister. But to do this at full speed, from the top of the circle, in your 10th NHL game, at 18 years old, against a professional goalie, who can see EVERYTHING in front of him, with that much heat, despite it coming from 2 rather small cheeks, its just … FLERP. That shot likely would have scored from 100ft and Stolarz would have been powerless to stop it.
EDIT: I didn’t get a chance to finish this post on the Friday I started it. I figured I would wrap the Bedard section up today (Monday) with that nearly incoherent analysis of goal #5. But then this happened:
WT-A-F!?! I lost my fleeting grip on the english language in the last breakdown, I am not even going to attempt this one. Short of mentioning that if you thought making a backup goalie (Stolarz) look shameful wasn’t that great of a trick, this one was against Bob who is a multiple winner, and a constant contestant, for the Vezina trophy. Bedard doesn’t even look the man in the face either. Disrespectful.
We have been, probably undeservedly, blessed as Blackhawks fans with this kid. The rest of the team is a few years out from being a true contender, but for now its just pure, unadulterated, fun to sit back and watch this kid play! The only downside being another decade of stupidly expensive tickets just to be in the same arena as him.
Bulls: Lets talk about the least favorite league in the room
I have to keep this last section short. That’s because I continually have to keep the NBA at an arm’s length being a Bulls fan. To be honest, I swore off watching “The League” around the time of the decision™. I slowly crept back in with every attempt to assemble some discards into something that approached the word “professional.”
I honestly thought they may have had it with Lavine, Derozan, Vooch, and Ball. But I truly believed that entire concept hinged on the last one in that list. I have always thought Lonzo to be overrated, but I think his position can sometimes be UNDERestimated. So to that end, perhaps he was worth the hype. But each of the aforementioned stars, in a vacuum, can’t thrive without someone to draw attention, and to run everything through. Ball would be the one to decide who would deliver the kill shot. And I think it worked. The first season of that system was a blast to watch! But now Ball is left to post clapbacks on TikTok of him performing basic human motor skills to thwart a revolving door of hot-take media tolls who assume he may have died.
Meanwhile, the Bulls are left to take the weight of all the money bags they dished out to this core and place it on the shoulders of Alex Caruso. Who, by god, has done his part to rise to that preposterous challenge. The best way to sum up what is happening to the Bulls right now, is to look at the final score of the game where all of this happened: