Random thoughts while waiting on the release of the new Super Bowl commercials.
The sight of Cubs star Pete-Crow Armstrong and Bears star Caleb Williams hanging out together at the Blackhawks and Bulls games was a nice way to portray Chicago as the biggest small town in America. Los Angeles has its Hollywood culture and New York is the media center of the world, but nowhere are the local sports stars as big a deal as they are in Chicago.
It’s nothing new, of course. Chicago’s stars have always supported each other. When the Bears played at Wrigley Field, Bobby Hull was a season ticket holder, and Billy Williams used to get tickets for games from Bears receiver Dick Gordon.
The budding bromance of Crow-Armstrong and Williams should last a long time, or at least until the Cubs and Bears sign them to massive deals.
One of the primary requisites of the job of commissioner of a major sports league should be the ability to project strength. But the commissioners of the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball are all weaklings, as evidenced by a report from The Athletic that Roger Goodell, Adam Silver, Gary Bettman and Rob Manfred will meet with President Donald Trump to help promote America 250, a celebration of the country’s 250th birthday.
While Trump’s jackboots instill fear in Minneapolis, Chicago and other American cities, and he embarrasses the country on the international stage, these four pretend leaders will be posing for photo-ops in the Oval Office and pretending all is right with the country. None of them has the courage to speak out against what’s happening in America.
Lucky for them, they’re only beholden to the billionaire owners of their league’s teams, not the average fans who support their respective sports.
ESPN’s Pat McAfee has always appealed to the lowest common denominator, so it’s no surprise the clueless commentator is taking on unidentified media members who point out his lame frat boy act, calling them “fat … lazy nerds” on his TV show.
McAfee also tweeted that sports journalists “hate what sports are for people (happiness). They hate what sports are for society (unifier) … they’re political journalists by nature who’ve preyed on sports because they saw it as an easier path to ‘make it.’ Their days are numbered … my show being broadcasted on ESPN 10 hours a week with ZERO creative say from any ‘journalism school’ puppets is living proof of that.”
Actually, the audience of McAfee’s show is relatively tiny, or else it would be in a better time slot than in the early afternoon, when everyone else is working. He’s already wearing thin on college football fans, and sooner or later the ratings will slide and ESPN will pull the plug and send him off to UFC analysis, where he belongs.
Illinois is having another stellar season, thanks to a deep team led by freshman Keaton Wagler. The 11th-ranked Illini are 17-3 after Saturday’s 88-82 road win over Purdue and in contention for the Big Ten title.
And when the Illini are winning, coach Brad Underwood is at his most ornery, as when he recently sparred with an Illinois reporter who praised Tomislav Ivišić for a good game against Northwestern despite what he called an “up-and-down season.”
“You guys say he’s been up and down,” Underwood shot back. “I just say his role changed. You guys create more damn narratives that are full of (bleep). That’s what he does. That’s why he’s been on draft boards. He’s big and can shoot the cover off of it. … No one has ever doubted Tommy.”
Love him or hate him, Underwood is never afraid to speak his mind.
Kudos to White Sox general manager Chris Getz for immediately spending the $20 million he saved by dumping Luis Robert Jr.’s contract, signing reliever Seranthony Dominguez to a two-year, $20 million deal. Now maybe he can move Grant Taylor into the rotation where he belongs.
Mike Berman was a professional and a hardworking sports reporter willing to work long hours at NBC-5. A Glenbrook North alumnus who grew up rooting for Chicago teams, he did his job for 10 years without calling attention to himself. His work spoke for itself.
Berman, who was let go by the station last week, deserved a better fate. Hopefully he winds up on another local station that will appreciate his work ethic.
Terry Boers, who died Friday at age 75, was remembered by most as a radio host and an original member of The Score. But he was also a great newspaperman. Boers and I competed on the Illini basketball beat for one season back in the early 1990s, when he was still at the Chicago Sun-Times. He was as good a beat writer as there was and handed me my lunch on many occasions.
Boers eventually found his way to radio, where he could put his brash personality into his job. He became a legend at WSCR-AM 670, along with the other originals such as Mike North, Tom Shaer and Dan McNeil. There will never be another quite like Boers, which is why his death has brought so many tributes from colleagues.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell is a Green Bay Packers fan, but he assured the media he is not a Bears hater. “Look, I grew up a Packers fan for sure,” he said before the Cubs Convention. “The Bears have struggled for a while, and so when a team hasn’t done well for a whole and starts to do well, you see what it does to a city. You feel it. That part of me knows what it’s doing for the city, and you root for that a little bit.”
Asked who would be booed more in the Milwaukee Brewers ballpark — him or Bears coach Ben Johnson — Counsell cracked: “He’s catching up, isn’t he? He is. I’ll send him a (thank-you) note about that.”
It’s a tough call, but my guess is Counsell is still Public Enemy No. 1 among cheeseheads.