A sultan, a king and a judge who once played for the Chicago Bears

President Donald J. Trump will be trying to buy our love on Friday, what with his presentation of Presidential Medals of Freedom to seven individuals, including some long deceased whose celebrity status is too great to be ridiculed.

Superimpose Trump's face over that of Nixon?

Seriously, who’s going to bad mouth Babe Ruth or Elvis Presley. The cultural celebrities of baseball and rock ‘n’ roll whose levels reached so high that they remain exalted even though they’ve both been deceased for decades.

AT THE VERY least, there’s no chance that either man will show up at the White House and express sarcastic thoughts at the White House. Seriously, if “the Babe” were still alive, I think he still was having a better year than the president.

And maybe Trump thinks he can have those old photographs of Presley at the White House with then-President Richard Nixon digitally altered, with his own face (and always-tacky hairdo) superimposed over that of Nixon so that Trump is now shaking hands with “the king of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Whether Chuck Berry is the one who really deserves that label because he went to jail for his musical art (as comedian Tommy Chong once suggested in one of his films with Richard “Cheech” Marin) is a topic of discussion for a future commentary.

But seriously, Trump thinks we need to have his official recognition granted to Ruth and Presley for them to have any cultural significance. Which is more about the pomposity of the Trump ego than anything else.

Had better years than just about all presidents

BESIDES, TRUMP IS more than willing to use these ancient celebrities to try to give himself a good day in the news cycle.

Not that it’s unheard of for this honor, which has been given out since the days of John F. Kennedy as president, to be awarded to athletes. In recent years, Barack Obama gave it to basketball stars Michael Jordan and Kareem-Abdul Jabbar.

And as far as baseball players are concerned, former President George W. Bush (a former owner of the Texas Rangers ball club) gave the medal posthumously to Roberto Clemente, the Pittsburgh Pirates star who was killed in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve 1972 while trying to deliver medical supplies and other relief to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.

George W. Bush honored Clemente's greatness

So it may be technically accurate to say the award has been given out posthumously. Although one has to admit, Trump honoring Ruth (who I suspect would have viewed as Trump as some little pygmy trying to bloat his own ego off of Ruth’s aura) feels different than when Obama in 2014 gave the medals to James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner – Civil Rights activists who in 1964 were murdered in Mississippi because of the local sentiment that they were “damn Yankees” meddling into something that locals thought was none of their business – as in challenging the Southern “way of life” that thought segregation was acceptable.

FOR ALL I know, Trump probably wishes he could rescind those medals because they would offend the sensibilities of many of those who wear the ridiculous red caps that publicly identify themselves as backers of this “Age of Trump” we’re now in.

Page a Chicago-tied medal recipient

Of course, there will be other medal recipients on Friday, including Alan Page.

Remember him? He’s the former pro football player who actually finished up his career with the Chicago Bears, and also played his college football at Notre Dame. He went on to a legal career, and in fact wound up being elected a judge to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

But considering how much Trump likes to dis anything connected to Chicago, it wouldn’t shock me that his stint at Soldier Field will be amongst the last things mentioned when Page accepts his medal.

IT SHOULD BE remembered that this medal is meant to give presidents a chance to share in some celebrity glamour. Trump would hardly be the first president to try to score political points with people for non-political actions.

SCALIA: Bigger than 'the Babe' or Elvis?

Heck, when Obama gave the medal to Jordan in 2016, he made a point of mentioning how he was now in the presence of a star of the movie “Space Jam.” Even though anybody who actually remembers the film knows that Bugs Bunny was the real star of that partially-animated flick.

Or there’s another posthumous recipient whom Trump will honor – former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, whose long-time stint on the high court may be worthy of historic recognition.

Although I’m sure that Trump thinks Scalia’s significance is that his death, along with the partisan political battle that ensued, enabled Trump to have a Supreme Court vacancy to fill on Day One of his presidency!

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Cubs still in the running for baseball ambidextrous (sort of) man from Japan

Shohei Ohtani shook up the world of professional baseball this week when he let it be known that he’s not the least bit interested in playing for the New York Yankees, or just about any other ballclub along the East Coast.

Can Ohtani continue to do it all in U.S.?

But among the few teams that the 23-year-old Japanese native is willing to consider is the Chicago Cubs – a move that still shocks me, even though there’s really nothing about the whole Ohtani process that ought to be considered predictable.

OHTANI, FOR THOSE not in the know, is the star of the Nippon Ham Fighters of Fukuoka who now wants to take a crack at playing professionally in the United States (a move that, if it works out, will result in Ohtani making many millions of dollars more in coming years than he would playing ball in Japan).

What makes Ohtani different from all the other Japanese ballplayers who have come to this country during the past two decades is that Ohtani is a pitcher who also is capable of hitting. A move that the Nippon Ham ballclub has indulged him in, and one that Ohtani has said he expects any U.S. team he plays for to do as well.

As I understand things, the list of ball clubs that Ohtani is interested in considering are all the teams along the West Coast (except for Oakland, Calif.). Although he’s also willing to contemplate the Texas Rangers, and our very own Cubbies.

The Babe a one-time star pitcher ...

Under the rules that exist in which U.S. ball clubs are limited as to the amount of money they can spend on trying to acquire foreign talent, the Rangers are the team that could actually offer Ohtani the largest salary.

WHEREAS CUBS MANAGER Joe Maddon has enough of a reputation for screwball on-field tactics that perhaps Ohtani feels he’d get the least bit of resistance pitching and hitting for the Cubs than he would any other team.

... who gave it up to be a slugger

It certainly wouldn’t be because of the money. Those rules in place would limit the Cubs to a $300,000 bonus they could offer Ohtani for signing with them. Which would be the same amount the Chicago White Sox could have offered.

But the White Sox have blown much of their international money on acquiring Cuban talent. Perhaps that made the White Sox seem a little too foreign to a Japanese kid. Although perhaps it means the Sox will be the team of choice amongst the Havana baseball set?

Can Ohtani match feats of Double Duty?

How much would the Cubs – a team that still thinks it’s a legitimate contender for a National League championship following their 2016 success, even though they fell short in 2017 – be willing to muck up the structure of their team just to accommodate Ohtani?

THEN AGAIN, WITH the Cubs expecting to lose pitcher Jake Arrieta, perhaps they think Ohtani is his replacement in the starting rotation – while also serving as a spare outfielder.

It will be curious to see if Ohtani is capable of pulling off his double duties of pitching and hitting. Considering that most pitchers stink with a bat and that American League teams don’t even let their pitchers touch lumber (they have the designated hitter), it will be a radical move.

Consider that even the great Babe Ruth (whose name is repeatedly brought up by people discussing Ohtani) ultimately gave up pitching so he could focus on being the big bat in the Yankees lineup. Is Ohtani really unique enough to pull off this move? Or will Ted Radcliffe of the old Negro league Chicago American Giants, who was both pitcher and catcher, retain the uniqueness that gave him the nickname “Double Duty?”

Will we wind up seeing him make a decision come June to focus on one side, or the other, of baseball?

THERE IS ONE aspect I’m pondering about the whole Ohtani affair. Many have speculated that because of the designated hitter, he’d be better off playing for an American League team.

How harshly will Yankee 'bleacher creatures' react?

Yet I’m wondering now with Ohtani having openly snubbed the Yankees, if he winds up playing for another American League team (Seattle or the Los Angeles Angels?), will he wind up receiving the ultimate razzing from the ballpark boo-birds if he shows up at Yankee Stadium.

He could wind up receiving equally hostile reactions from Oakland fans who would be disappointed that they were the one West Coast team he wants nothing to do with. Or the Boston Red Sox faithful who, while enjoying the Yankee snub, probably resent that he doesn’t think they were worthy.

Or, for that matter, the White Sox, whose fans may wonder why this young punk ballplayer would consider the Cubs, and not them, particularly since neither team is capable of offering him much in the way of money. Ohtani may wind up being better off playing in the National League, as he’s likely offended too many American League people.

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Just what did the Bambino mean by pointing the way he did in ’32 Series?

Already the speculation is starting up – a World Series matchup this year between the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs, who late Thursday managed to hold off the Washington Nationals and make it to the final round of National League playoffs.

If it turns out that we get a New York/Chicago World Series brawl (we won’t know for sure for more than a week), there’s one thing we can be assured of – we’re going to get countless replays, and analysis, of that video snippet from 1932.

YOU KNOW THE one I mean – the one in which Yankees slugger Babe Ruth hit what was to that date one of the longest home runs at Wrigley Field. Just before hitting the pitch to straightaway center field, the Babe made that pointing motion.

That much is fact. What is debatable is just what was Ruth’s intent when he made his arm motion?

Legend would have it that Ruth was pointing to a specific part of the ballpark, then proceeded to hit the very next pitch to that exact spot. While people eager to dump on Yankees legends or who are appalled by the outcome of that particular World Series (the Yankees swept the Cubs in four straight games, then did it again when the two teams confronted each other in 1938) will have us believe that Ruth was just clowning around.

They’d say that Cubs pitcher Charlie Root should have given the “big baboon” an old-school brushback pitch rather than something he could hit hard and far.

Whether '32 or '88,...

THERE ACTUALLY ARE home-style movies shot during the game played Oct. 1 (the Yankees had already won the first two World Series games of ’32 played at Yankee Stadium) where Ruth’s arm motion just prior to the final pitch of the at-bat are clear.

What was his point? That is an issue we’ll get to debate over and over if it turns out that the 2017 World Series really does become a Yankees/Cubs matchup.

I suspect we’re going to be sick and tired of the debate – particularly Cubs fans, who aren’t going to want to be reminded over and over of a moment where they didn’t come out on top.

... the outcome remains the same for Cubbies

In fact, that could be the part of a Yankees/Cubs World Series match-up most depressing for those fans of the baby blue Bears – the fact that historically, the match-ups always make the Wrigley Field faithful look lost.

CONSIDER INTERLEAGUE PLAY this season gave us a matchup between the two back in May – with the Yankees taking all three games (including the one that went 18 innings).

Of course, the alternative for the Cubs at this point would be a Houston/Chicago World Series matchup – which would actually be a replay of sorts of the 2005 World Series (the only time the Astros ever made it all the way).

But back then, Houston was a National League city, meaning they lost to the American League champion Chicago White Sox. Something I’m sure Cubbie faithful don’t want to think about, particularly since the actual White Sox/Astros matchup was far more interesting than an Astros/Cubs pairing would ever be.

Yankees fans twice dug out their brooms,...

The other alternative could be the one that I’m sure many baseball observers outside of the North Side would prefer – a New York Yankees/Los Angeles Dodgers matchup.

MARKETS NUMBER ONE and two taking each other on (rather than one and three). Yankees/Dodgers would certainly be a more competitive matchup – 8 Yankees victories compared to 3 for the Dodgers, although 2 of the Dodger victories came in the last 4 of the matchups.

... could new Yankee star lead to 3rd sweep?

Fantastic catches by Dodgers outfielders Al Gionfrido and Sandy Amoros, a perfect game by Don Larsen and that three-home run game by Reggie Jackson (or the one where his hip allegedly interfered with completing a double play) are just among the many historic baseball moments that have come from Yankees/Dodgers World Series matchups.

The Babe’s “Called Shot” was cute. But Yankees/Cubs matchups have given us little more than the sight of Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio beating up the Cubs.

Are we really eager to see a 21^st Century matchup that would allow Yankees slugger Aaron Judge make up for his less-than-stellar performance this week against the Cleveland Indians by smacking the cutesy Cubbies about?

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Is Robinson, Ripken, Ruth youth baseball trifecta the best solution?

Perhaps it only makes sense that if the entity known as Little League Baseball wants to treat its 2014 U.S. champions as a pariah, that program will search for someone who won’t view them as something shameful.

That’s probably the most sensible way to view the reports Wednesday of how the Jackie Robinson West baseball program on Chicago’s far southern edge is now negotiating with the entities known as Cal Ripken Baseball and Babe Ruth Baseball (which is for older children through age 18) to be affiliated with them.

FOR IT SEEMS that if the Jackie Robinson baseball program that was created in the early 1970s to try to bolster baseball interest in inner-city neighborhoods is to continue, it no longer wants to be part of the Little League entity that many people probably think is a generic label that applies to all youth baseball programs.

The Jackie Robinson West team that won the U.S. Little League championship last year had ballplayers who lived in assorted southern suburbs, which means theoretically they should have played in suburban-based Little League programs.

But the reality is that the Jackie Robinson West program was more attractive to many of those kids because it is a city-based program with leadership focusing attention on African-American interests and concerns.

Many of the suburban players had dual addresses that theoretically made them eligible to play in the Jackie Robinson program, which is why Little League International officials initially said there was nothing wrong with the Jackie Robinson program.

PERHAPS IF IT had only been one or two players on that team last year, it wouldn’t have been much of a concern.

But when six of the 12 players on the Chicago-based squad that captured national glory came from places like South Holland (two), Dolton, Lansing, Lynwood and Homewood, it gave that bit of ammunition to the people from other Little League programs who were still bitter that they had lost to the Jackie Robinson team on the path to the Little League World Series and who started up the complaints that the DNAinfo.com website originally reported on.

Both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday that Jackie Robinson league officials are talking with the officials overseeing the Cal Ripken and Babe Ruth programs that exist in Chicago and the south suburbs. Nothing is definite yet.

For it seems possible that local league boundaries could be drawn in a way that all the territory where the Robinson league team came from would be included. Or that some territory might be shared in a way that the local kids would get to pick which program they’d rather play baseball in.

NOBODY OUGHT TO have an objection to that concept!

The alleged act of “cheating” that supposedly occurred (which strikes me as being more a matter of other leagues being jealous that some kids chose to play in the Chicago-based league rather than their home leagues) would be legitimized.

Perhaps it would be best in that the Jackie Robinson program would be able to operate the way it does without someone trying to claim it is violating the all-sacred “rules” that govern this matter.

As someone who always had a hard time thinking of the league’s actions as being foul because they were being so open about what they were doing, this really does come to be the best solution.

PERHAPS IT REALIZES that the south suburbs have truly become an extension of Chicago’s South Side and that there is a certain back-and-forth of people and activities – rather than being the place certain people fled to because their “new” neighbors had the “wrong” complexion.

And if Jackie Robinson ball ultimately makes for a trifecta of baseball names honored with youth leagues, the real loser might well be Little League Baseball.

It would have the knowledge that it chased away an interesting championship ball club while trying to pretend that teams from Las Vegas, Nev. (national champions) and St. Charles (state champs) somehow won something of significance on the playing field.

Which ought to be the place where all sports disputes get resolved!

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LeBron can take his 2nd title and stuff it; he’ll never top the Jordan image

Personally, I find the whole Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James argument to be silly.

Anybody who seriously follows professional athletics (not those who paint themselves all kinds of funky colors to try to get themselves on television) knows there is no definitive way to compare ballplayers of different eras.

IN FACT, ONLY a fool would try to make such an argument seriously. Then again, we have a lot of fools amongst us.

So I’m sure we’re going to hear many people claim that LeBron (whose Miami Heat team won its second-straight NBA title this week, beating the San Antonio Spurs 4 games to 3 in the championship series) is the greatest. We can forget about anything “MJ” accomplished.

We’ll even get those people who will start screaming “six” over and over until they keel over dead from a heart attack. As in the fact that Chicago Bulls teams with Jordan managed to win 6 NBA titles.

Does this mean that if James-led Miami teams manage to come up with five more titles before the kid hangs up his sneakers, he will be the undisputed greatest dribbler ever??!?

IT’S A BATCH of nonsense to think either way. Because there’s nothing James could ever do to detract from the overall image that Jordan created – which went well beyond anything he ever did on the basketball court.

LeBron James is an athlete. Jordan took his skills into creating an image that for many will forever define professional basketball – often taking it to extremes where it seems like we couldn’t escape his image.

His restaurants. His shoes. His cologne. It was everywhere.

The closest one can find to Jordan in terms of celebrity professional athletes is baseball’s Babe Ruth. It doesn’t matter what “numbers” James puts up – his image doesn’t come close. Shaquille O'Neal was more of a celebrity than LeBron. Anybody who tries to get worked up is being ridiculous.

I BRING THIS issue up because I’m trying to anticipate many verbal brawls that could get way too physical (leave it to sports fans to think that their favorite team creates “life or death” issues).

I’m not arguing here that Jordan is better. Although if Jordan were just a ballplayer, I doubt Bulls fans would remember him any more fondly than Bob Love or Horace Grant, or basketball fans remembering Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul Jabbar!

They certainly wouldn’t have felt compelled to let him have his own NBA franchise – one that shows any skills he has about basketball are limited purely to what he once could do on the court. Nobody expects the Charlotte Hornets to match the Bulls anytime soon. One wonders if the Hornets will ever be as good as the Charlotte Knights -- the underachieving Chicago White Sox minor league affiliate?

In fact, in my mind, the thing for which LeBron James will be most remembered is that he seemed to trigger the modern trend of top-notch high school athletes skipping out on college altogether to jump to the NBA.

IT WORKED OUT for him, although most of them wash out. Anybody remember Eddy Curry – the onetime star of suburban Thornwood High School who didn’t lead the Bulls to anything significant and – the last I heard – was playing professionally in China?

I’m willing to concede that Jordan was the top ballplayer of his era, and James the best of what we see now. Although it’s bound to happen that in a couple of decades there will be somebody on the basketball court whom everybody will want to believe is THE BEST!!! because that’s all they’ve seen in person.

And a whole generation of kids of the future will think of LeBron as some old fool, the way that kids of today are too eager to think of Jordan as just another old fogy.

Besides, those of us in Chicago know full well that the sports team that “matters” these days is the Blackhawks – who could on Saturday put themselves only one win away from a second Stanley Cup hockey championship in four seasons.

  -30-

Cubs move talk a whole load of bunk?

Am I the only one who thinks all the talk these days about the Chicago Cubs “moving” (all over the front pages of newspapers and on broadcasts and websites) is a whole lot of nonsense?

How much will Wrigley change if Ricketts gets his way?

 

If ever there was a time when our government officials ought to take a hard line and not let themselves get intimidated by a professional sports team, it is this time now.

FOR THE RECORD, Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts made comments implying he’d consider moving his family’s ball club if city and Lake View neighborhood officials aren’t more sympathetic to the renovations they want to make so that Wrigley Field becomes more like other new stadiums – as in containing features that the team can justify charging top dollar for.

Is this just a reiteration of the previously-expressed threat to push for a new stadium to be built at a suburban location? Is Ricketts really threatening to move the National League’s only charter member to play in its original city (the Braves were in Boston and Milwaukee before moving to Atlanta 46 years ago)?

Or is it just a load of hot air that means nothing?

Because when I listen to what Ricketts actually said, I don’t hear anything that’s new. Other than a would-be bully being upset that the other kids in the schoolyard are actually standing up to him!

PERHAPS THAT LINE is a bit harsh. Because I personally could care less what the Cubs do. Considering that I don’t really care much what they do on the field, why should I care where that “field” is located?

Yankee Stadium lost a lot of character ...

I just don’t hear any credible threat. If anything, we were a lot closer back in 1988 to losing the Chicago White Sox than we ever will be to losing the Cubs (we Chicagoans couldn’t be so lucky as to get rid of that “lovable loser” image the Cubs hang around our collective necks).

The day that the Cubs sign a lease to play in another city’s stadium (even if that “city” is just a dinky suburb like Schaumburg, and which the White Sox actually did with St. Petersburg, Fla.) is the day that the talk of moving should be countered seriously.

Until then, it just doesn’t mean much.

... when it was renovated, and even more when it was replaced

BECAUSE I SENSE that Ricketts and his siblings aren’t dumb enough to think they’d be better off playing anywhere else other than the humble abode of one Elwood J. Blues.

That century-old building is so much a part of the ball club’s character that they are the one team that ought to seriously disregard thoughts of playing anywhere else. No matter now unique or fine the new structure might turn out to be, there are too many people who go to see the one-time Cubs Park.

Just ask all those people who wear “Wrigley Field” jerseys to ballgames!

It’s like the New York Yankees, who had the sense in the early 1970s to not think of going to New Jersey and arranged for an overhaul of Yankee Stadium. Let’s only hope that the Cubs aren’t foolish enough to ruin the character of Wrigley in the same way that the Yankees did with their building that wound up servicing the team through 2008.

THAT’S THE REAL reason I’m skeptical of all the Wrigley renovation talk that focuses around giant video boards and the need for video advertising boards and a “Captain Morgan” club for people to spend more of their money in.

Just as much a part of Wrigley lore

Because at least the Yankees could still claim the playing field of the renovated park was the same place where the immortals like Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle played winning baseball for so many decades.

What could the Cubs claim if they turn Wrigley into a commercialized mess? A story about how a black cat once pranced on this field and freaked the Cubs out to the point where they lost.

Or maybe it will come back to Babe Ruth? Future Cubs fans will say, “On this field now surrounded by commercialized nonsense, Babe Ruth hit a home run that caused our Cubs to lose, yet again!”

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EXTRA: What do we do with Sosa?

When I think back to the baseball playing career of Sammy Sosa, a pair of other ballplayers come to my mind – Babe Ruth and Sandy Koufax.

Now this isn’t one of those stat-guided similarity things (one such list says that Sosa’s comparable ballplayers are guys like 1970s-era stars like Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson). I’m talking about ballplayers whose careers bear some strong similarities to the Sosa phenomenon that was the ONLY reason the Chicago Cubs got national attention a decade ago.

IT’S JUST THAT when I think back to the six-season time period (1998-2003) that Sosa was hitting all those home runs (including three seasons when he managed to hit 60 or more, and one other season when he led the National League), you literally have to go back to Babe Ruth at his 1920s peak with the New York Yankees to find another ballplayer who could pop the ball out of the ballpark at a greater rate.

Slammin’ Sammy was downright Ruthian at his peak.

And yet, I fully appreciate the fact that it took Sosa a full decade of hanging around the major leagues (bouncing from the Texas Rangers to the Chicago White Sox to the Cubs) before he finally did anything notable.

You could argue the only reason he managed to last long enough to do anything special is because he was playing for mid-1990s Cubs teams that were so god-awful that they could afford to keep him on the roster.

OR PERHAPS THOSE teams were so god-awful because they had ballplayers like Sammy Sosa.

The very idea of a ballplayer in his 10^th season rising to superstardom (as he did back in June 1998 when he managed 25 home runs that month, and 66 for the season) is just so unheard of.

You literally have to look to the 12-year career of Sandy Koufax as a pitcher for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers to find anything comparable.

Through his first six seasons, Koufax was a wild-throwing pitcher with a losing record. In seasons seven and eight, he settled down and became respectable.

IT WAS THE final four seasons that Sandy Koufax became SANDY KOUFAX!!! and did all the things that we now remember him for and wrongly assume he was doing for his entire career as a professional ballplayer.

These are the thoughts that popped into my head when I learned that former Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood said Sunday during ceremonies at Wrigley Field that he wishes the team would retain its former star ballplayers – including Sosa, whom Wood said did “special” things while wearing the Cubby bear blue.

Just like Sammy’s six-season Ruthian stint, which whipped this city into a frenzy that could match up with anything Michael Jordan accomplished in basketball with the Chicago Bulls.

I remember being at Wrigley Field for the next-to-last game of the 2001 season – one in which Sosa hit 64 home runs. In that game, Sosa hit number 62, and I still remember the man sitting in front of me turning to a group of kids and telling them, “That’s what makes it worth skipping school.”

I CAN REMEMBER when the only people who bashed Sosa were White Sox fans – whose comments were dismissed as being bitterness that Sosa never amounted to anything during the 2 ½ seasons he played on the South Side (and later complained that the ballpark was in part to blame because it was “too big”).

Now, everybody seems to want to join in the Sosa-bashing party. I don’t buy that it’s because of steroids. Heck, anybody back then could have seen what was happening. They chose to turn their heads.

I’ve even heard the line of logic that it was because he “walked out” on his ball club in the last game of 2004 (which also was his last with the Cubs, who traded him away shortly thereafter). Although the idea of a ballplayer on a losing ballclub having a hissy fit certainly isn’t unique to Sosa.

Which makes me think that the people who are now dumping on Wood for suggesting image rehabilitation for Sosa ought to lighten up.

BESIDES, I EXPECT they’ll get their chance to fully rejoice come next year when the Baseball Hall of Fame announces its vote tallies – and Sammy falls short of induction in what is his first year of eligibility for baseball’s take on immortality.

It’s going to take a lot more than Kerry Wood for anybody to seriously want to rehabilitate the name of Sammy Sosa.

  -30-

Stuck in the past, is what Sox are

How depressing is the Chicago baseball scene going to be this season?

Ozzie Guillen, who due to his career as an All-Star shortstop and World Series-winning manager, is always going to be associated with the Chicago White Sox.

YET GUILLEN FINALLY makes the cover of Sports Illustrated for the first time in his athletic life – because of his new job as manager of the Miami Marlins. Seeing Guillen in that black uniform with rainbow-colored trim is about as odd as the pictures of Babe Ruth in the uniform of the Boston Braves (or Ron Santo with the Sox).

Yet it is more likely that Guillen will make it back to the World Series before either Chicago ballclub will (the truth is that they’re both so incredibly mediocre this season). The Cubs themselves will only be able to get so much optimism from having a new general manager before fans realize not much else has changed.

Meanwhile, White Sox fans are forced for this season to look to the past – specifically that World Series title of seven seasons ago that is the subject matter of that giant sign that jumps right out at you as you drive on the Dan Ryan Expressway by (or ride the commuter trains by) U.S. Cellular Field. Will we still be “enjoying” that sign sometime about the 2035 season?

First baseman Paul Konerko and catcher A.J. Pierzynski are the only two ballplayers left from that championship team. But it really is going to be a long season of mediocrity – made worse by the fact that the team’s fans literally have to hope for a “blast from the past” for there to be anything of interest happening on the playing field.

BY THAT, I mean the key to whether this ballclub has a long-shot chance of contending (as opposed to no chance) still lies in Adam Dunn -- who even though he motivated his "team" in an intra-squad game played Saturday is still a major question mark.

He’s the former National League slugger who for several years was averaging close to 40 home runs per season. But in his first year with the White Sox (as a big-money free agent) in 2011, he put in one of the worst seasons conceivable of a major league baseball player.

Dunn in 2011 was a weaker hitter than Guillen ever was as a ballplayer. And Dunn the ballplayer never had the defensive skills that Ozzie used to have.

For there to be anything interesting, Dunn will have to hit. The 2011 season has to become a complete aberration.

PERSONALLY, I WON’T be surprised if Dunn someday does rebound and become a solid baseball player (or at least a hitter with power) for some major league team. I’m just wondering if this whole thing is so psychological that such a rebound will never happen in Chicago!

I literally wonder if a trade (to a team that won’t give up much because of how bad he became last year) is the key to the Dunn rebound?  Put him on a “loser,” and maybe he’ll once again become a winner!

Which would make the Dunn saga so typical of Chicago baseball. The White Sox will wind up being the team that pays him significant millions of dollars to play baseball, while some other team gets the benefits of a hitter who helps them win some games.

Or at the very least look a little bit entertaining on the playing field – because the truth is that the other ball clubs that Dunn hit well for (the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals) really were do-nothing teams that didn’t expect to win anything resembling a league championship.

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE with the pressure being off and nobody expecting Dunn to pair up with Konerko at-bat to lead the White Sox’ hitting, Dunn will start hitting again. Now that it no longer matters much. This may be the part of things that some baseball fans have a hard time understanding. But the people who “work” in Major League Baseball realize that a season isn’t a complete loss without a World Series title at season’s end.

Konerko, himself, said as such, claiming that 2012 would still mean something if some young ballplayers developed their skills a little further – increasing the chance of “winning” something in 2014 or ’15. Although Pierzynski came in later and said that such an attitude does not amount to surrender for ’12.

But who’s to say what will really happen this season – other than the fact that some of us will have an extra eye, so to speak, focused on Miami to see whether the Guillen chapter of Marlins history turns out to be the least bit significant. Only one month until it becomes reality.

Because I suspect there are many fans here who (as their favorite ballclub begins its spring training play on Monday with a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers) only want to watch Dunn from his backside – with the doorknob hitting him in the buttocks on his way out of U.S. Cellular Field for good.

  -30-