Would anything be accomplished by a ballplayer choosing to take a “stance?”

Who knew?

All those seasons and all those games that Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls chose not to play, he was being a revolutionary. He was making a bold statement toward justice and racial equality for all!

AT LEAST THAT seems to be what certain activists in Cleveland would have us think, what with the way they say it would mean something if LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers chose to not play in the next few games his NBA team plays – as a way of showing his outrage over the fact that prosecutors in Cleveland will not be seeking criminal charges against the local cops who killed a 12-year-old black boy.

That decision was made Monday, and the outcry on Tuesday was trying to make James himself a visible part of their contempt for the police and for society as a whole.

Now as of my writing this, James himself has kept his mouth shut. He hasn’t given any indication that he’d even consider the request of the activists.

A part of me suspects that he, and most other professional athletes, live in their own little world and certainly don’t want to be bothered by anything that doesn’t happen directly on the court.

CHECKING OUT THE gams on the dance squads that many sports teams use as half-time entertainment is about as much of a statement as many of these guys want to do.

So when I hear of James being asked to make a political statement, I can’t help but think back to the days when Michael Jordan was predominant and he was asked to get involved in electoral politics – particularly to make statements against some of the most outrageous nonsense being spewed then by the ideologues on the Republican side.

Jordan, we recall, refused. He kept quiet, although he made a brief statement about how “Republicans buy shoes too,” referring to the “Air Jordan” brand of athletic shoes. He wasn’t about to risk his financial bottom line by doing anything that would offend potential customers of a product being his identity.

Why do I suspect LeBron James will be inclined to take the same attitude, no matter how much pressure any activist types decide to try to push on him. He’ll say as little as he has too.

BESIDES, I CAN’T help but think that the idea of a ballplayer deciding to sit on the bench for a few games would not have the desired result. Particularly since many sports fans most enjoy it when their professional athletes behave like dumb ballplayers who know even less than the sideline cheerleaders.

It’s why I joke about the concept that Rose was being a revolutionary when he refused to play. We all know that just isn’t true.

He may well have been recovering from surgery and decided not to rush his attempt to come back to play. But the only cause he was touting was himself and his lazy streak.

Of course, my own attitude about this issue may be swayed by the fact that I’m from Chicago, and there are many of our own professional athletes we’d rather see less of because they manage to stink up the field every time they take too it.

TAKE JAY CUTLER for instance. The quarterback of our Chicago Bears ought to be the ultimate sports figure in the Second City. Yet for as much as he manages to infuriate us, what would happen if someone were to suggest that Cutler sit out a few games to show support for those who want police punishment for the death of Laquan McDonald?

It would probably have the reverse effect of driving up support for the Chicago cop who now faces six counts of murder for McDonald’s death! Heck, we local sports fans would probably support anything if it meant that Cutler were to just wither away.

Somehow, I doubt that sports fans in Cleveland are all that much different.

Besides, any city that actually defends the image of Chief Wahoo by its baseball club isn’t going to be a place that feels the need to influence police/black people relations on its ball fields and athletic courts.

  -30-

Why should we care if Rose does not care? He is not the Bulls’ savior!

We are of a society that places so much value on the abilities of its top athletes that it’s no wonder more don’t turn out to be like Derrick Rose.

He’s the point guard for the Chicago Bulls who once again has turned up injured. It’s a knee problem, and he had surgery last month.

BUT AS THE Chicago Sun-Times reported, the ball player whom many believe the key to whether or not the Bulls will ever be a significant basketball team in coming seasons doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to recover.

While team officials say they’d like to think he will be healed in just over a month, Rose said he’s not about to rush himself to play again this season. “Whenever I feel well, that’s when I’ll step back on the court,” he told the newspaper.

On the one hand, I have no doubt that Rose thinks he’s being particularly honest in assessing his recovery. He’ll play when he plays, and not a moment sooner. Maybe he thinks he’s saving himself for future glory to be performed on the basketball court.

Maybe he envisions this as an isolated incident that will be long forgotten by that future date many years from now when he is inducted into the professional basketball Hall of Fame.

BESIDES, HE’S AN athlete, someone who is used to being coddled because he’s special. He’s Derrick Rose. His knee is more important than any body part of a mere mortal.

But let’s be honest.

Sports fans are willing to mollycoddle the athletes who on a certain level perform. In the case of Rose, this is the third time in seven seasons playing in the National Basketball Association that he has suffered a severe injury that disrupted his playing time significantly.

Learning that he doesn’t care enough to want to return to play makes him come across like some sort of wimp. I can’t help but wonder if the Rose legacy is now set in Chicago as some sort of flake who wasn’t tough enough to endure on the court.

IF THAT’S THE case, then the biggest joke in this commentary was that line five paragraphs ago that hinted Rose will become a basketball Hall of Famer. He could wind up as the most disappointing athlete to ever wear the jersey of a Chicago professional sports team.

He definitely has surpassed Eddy Curry as the most disappointing hometown boy who was drafted Number 1 and expected to lead the Chicago Bulls to championship success for years to come.

Perhaps Rose still mentally thinks he’s the Simeon Career Academy athlete who will be coddled because, in his mind, “I’m Derrick Rose.” The guy who once faced allegations that he had someone else take his SAT college entrance exams and had his high school boost his grades to keep him academically eligible to play ball.

Sadly for him, Rose probably won’t realize how much his attitude stinks until he has washed out with the Bulls. He may wind up latching on to another NBA team, like the one-time Thornwood High School star Curry did. He may even be better off away from the pressure of playing in Chicago.

BECAUSE THE EXPECTATIONS here are turning out to be something that Rose doesn’t seem capable of living up to. Unfortunately, the Bulls’ roster these days seems based around the idea that Derrick is the team leader.

Without him, there is little chance of the Bulls accomplishing much of anything resembling success. While those years of athletic glory in the 1990s drift further and further into our city’s memory.

To the point where the Luv-a-Bulls’ routines could wind up being the only thing worth checking out at the United Center these days.

  -30-

Freedom of expression? Or should Derrick Rose keep his trap shut?!?

A t-shirt is going to show us just how much Chicago sports fans “love” Bulls point guard Derrick Rose.

Bulls fans have become critical of the fact that Rose has suffered so many injuries during his professional athletic career and gives the impression that he’s in no hurry to recover from his various maladies.

THE DEBATE OVER Rose is whether he’s merely being careful and taking care of himself; or if he’s got a lazy streak within him.

But now, we’re going to have another issue – following the Saturday night incident where Rose publicly wore a t-shirt with the slogan “I can’t breathe” printed on its front.

That slogan refers to what were among the “last words” spoken by Eric Garner in New York while being held in a choke hold by police. Garner later died, and his words are being used by protesters angry that the officer in the incident evaded criminal indictment for his actions that caused the death.

Rose became merely the latest professional athlete to show sympathy toward someone who died recently because of a police officer’s actions.

LET’S NOT FORGET the St. Louis Rams football players who last month took the field prior to a game against the Oakland Raiders with their hands held in the air, symbolically letting police know that just because they were black men, they weren’t about to commit any violent acts.

As though the assumption was that black people are naturally violent and pose a threat that law enforcement should react harshly towards.

The St. Louis Police Officers Association led a verbal attack on the football players, saying it was disrespectful for them to side with the people who believe the death of Michael Brown in suburban Ferguson, Mo., was caused by police and who are angry that an officer there also managed to avoid being indicted for his actions.

Now, we’re going to see how the sports world comes out against Rose, although it should be noted that the Chicago Tribune reported most of Rose’s Bulls teammates are supportive of his right to express his views.

THEN AGAIN, ROSE is the supposed star of the Bulls team and is the man whose fitness is key to whether the Bulls have a chance to be in the NBA playoffs come spring.

If he does play well this season, he “buys” himself the right to say what he thinks.

Those Rams football players (Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Jared Cook, Chris Gevans and Kenny Britt) are not NFL stars. In fact, there’s a good chance that when they die, their obituaries will lede with the fact that they were the guys who protested Brown’s death – instead of anything they did during a game.

As for Rose’s gesture of protest, I think it is rather mild. If you weren’t paying attention during pre-game warm-ups, you didn’t see it. It’s not like he’s going around elaborating on his attitude these days.

SO I THINK anybody who gets too upset about Rose taking such a stance is probably saying more about themselves than anything Rose (or Garner) said or did!

It reminds me of the book “Ball Four,” in which former pitcher Jim Bouton addressed the attitude of baseball people toward those of their colleagues who expressed views on social issues.

Ballplayers could say anything they want if they expressed a socially conservative viewpoint because they were “right.” But if they said something construed as not supportive of the conservative establishment, then they were criticized for being “wrong.”

Unless the player in question was a big-enough star, in which case they’d get a simmering silence directed toward them. Is that bound to be Rose’s fate for daring to wear a t-shirt Saturday night?

  -30-

Rose, Ventra tops 1st gay marriage

I’m not surprised by the news judgment used by Chicago’s two metro newspapers on Tuesday.

Rose tops marriage, ...

The fact that the first legitimate marriage of a gay couple will take place sometime this week – about seven months prior to the date the new law goes into effect – made Page One of both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.

BUT IT WASN’T the lede story. In fact, if one didn’t pay close enough attention, you’d have missed the marriage story altogether.

For the record, the Sun-Times on Tuesday thought that the BIG DEAL of the news lineup came from the world of sports – specifically the fact that Derrick Rose has suffered an injury so severe that he’s going to miss the entire season.

As in again. It’s starting to appear as though the man that Chicago Bulls fans were counting on to be the big star of teams that would win a slew of championships will be nothing more than a “never was” – as in we’ll forevermore speculate about what could have been IF ONLY he hadn’t gotten hurt.

As for the Tribune, they gave a banner headline to the latest story about how messed up the Ventra card system is. Which appeals to the people who use the Chicago Transit Authority trains and buses on a regular basis.

BECAUSE IT WOULD seriously stink if one couldn’t get to work because their fare card didn’t function properly.

Yet the occurrence this week related to gay marriage is one of those bizarre moments that it is something we all ought to be interested in – particularly if you’re one of those people who wants to wish that the issue would just go away!

... as does Ventra

For the record, the General Assembly passed a bill making marriage a legitimate option for gay couples in such a way that it can’t take effect immediately.

There was no way that 60 percent of legislators were going to agree on this issue so as to allow it to take effect immediately. It had to settle for the bare majority (60 of 118 votes), which means the new law will take effect June 1, 2014.

EXCEPT THAT A federal judge (U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin, to be exact) issued a ruling Monday that requires the Cook County clerk’s office to issue a marriage license to a pair of women who wish to marry immediately.

Derrick Rose may be gone for good

The women are not a youthful couple, and it seems they have been together for five years and got a civil union in 2011. But one of them has breast cancer severe enough that they’re not sure she will survive long enough for the couple to have a June wedding.

County Clerk David Orr has always said he supports the idea of marriage being available for all; so much so that he didn’t even fight the lawsuit the couple filed last week.

He seemed to be pleased that Judge Durkin issued the order that forced him to issue the marriage license that took effect Tuesday (the couple says they’ll marry this week).

NOT THAT I’M really bothered by the fact that the couple will marry now, rather than later. I’m sure the fact that the law didn’t take effect immediately was one of the few “victories” the conservative ideologues were feeling these days.

But it does make me wonder about the long-term effect on the provisions of state law that require a higher level of support for bills passed after the General Assembly completes its spring session.

Some wish these cards would go away instead

I recall one time that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, specifically thwarted the interests of firearms advocates by requiring one of their bills to get a 60 percent majority – a vote total they could not possibly achieve.

Officials say the ruling by Durkin is so narrow that it shouldn’t impact other cases – or other couples wanting to get married before June 1. But have we managed to undo some sense of our legal procedure? Yet another reason we’ll be confused in the future!

  -30-

Derrick Rose the face of Chicago pizza?

It amused me to learn Thursday that Chicago Bulls star player Derrick Rose has become a significant owner, and will now be the face of, Giordano’s pizza.

For me, it is just too much of a stretch to have to associate his name with those deep dish or stuffed pies. While I know this statement will make me sound like an antique, I can’t help but think that I was eating Giordano’s pizzas long before there ever was a Derrick Rose.

I MEAN THAT literally. The Bulls star who is trying to resuscitate his athletic career from torn ligaments wasn’t even born yet back when I first had a Giordano’s brand pizza.

The idea that a company that has been around Chicago for as long as Giordano’s (some four-plus decades) is turning to a ballplayer to promote its image (athletic careers are so unstable and can come crashing down at a moment’s notice) just strikes me as bizarre.

It’s not a slam against Rose – who is the local-boy favorite who made it out of Englewood to stardom until his injury. But what happens when Rose’s career is over?

Is Giordano’s now the company whose billboards have a blank space (insert face of fly-by-night athlete here) for their self-promotion?

ALTHOUGH I HAVE to confess, it must be nice to have the kind of money to buy one-self a brand-name product to associate with their own image. Crain’s Chicago Business reported that Rose paid an undisclosed amount for his share of the company, which he’d like to see become more of a national player on the restaurant scene.

Which just might be possible, on account of the fact that whenever I travel outside of Chicago, I have no problems finding restaurants that offer “Chicago-style pizza” – only to find out that those pizzas bear no resemblance to anything that any self-respecting Chicago consumer would ever consider consuming.

No matter how hungry they might be.

A chain of Giordano’s, done right, could well spread the concept of real deep dish or stuffed pizzas to other parts of the nation.

IT COULD ALSO make Rose so wealthy, if done right, that he doesn’t have to worry about ever playing ball again – except to assuage his ego.

Now for all of you who are on the verge of sending me e-mail messages telling me something along the lines of “Giordano’s sucks!!!,” I don’t need to hear it.

I never proclaimed it to be the best pizza.

But back when I was a kid, pizza largely was a thin-crust offering. The quality deep-dish came from Uno’s or Due’s – which meant a trip downtown. That’s not always convenient when one decides to indulge in the slices that are a meal in-and-of themselves.

GIORDANO’S WAS THE place that had so many locations that you could get a passable pizza pie without having to make a long trip.

I still remember the location of the Giordano’s I first ate at – and my mouth still waters whenever I go near it, even though now it is a long-vacant storefront. Giordano’s left there a while back.

Now, I have moved up, and consider myself fortunate to live near a Lou Malnati’s restaurant that will deliver.

I do find it a little humorous that Rose won’t be able to do any kind of business tie-in between himself, Giordano’s and the Chicago Bulls. The NBA team, after all, has a business deal with DiGiorno’s – those frozen pizzas that like to think they’re some sort of gourmet delicacy.

FROZEN PIZZA IS frozen pizza – regardless of the details. Let’s just hope that Giordano’s doesn’t decline to the level of the last Chicago athlete who tried to make extra money from pizzas sold in his image.

Because the concept of Ron Santo’s Pizza was foul enough that, perhaps, the one-time Chicago Cubs third baseman deserved a lengthy delay getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame for that reason alone.

  -30-

A lot of “*,” but no real punishment

When it comes to the concept of high school kids skipping directly to professional basketball, I have never been one of those people who got all worked up.

I do believe those young people would be better off going to college, being exposed to the academic atmosphere, and possibly even learning something in their courses.

BUT I AM realistic enough to know that some people have little to no interest in academia. Some aren’t cut out for it. There may very well be some young people who spend their every spare minute practicing their dribble and their jump shot – out of the delusion that they will be the one in the few who will be able to play in the National Basketball Association for a long enough time period that they will be able to stash away enough money that they never have to work a real job in their lives.

Probably the only reason many of these young people pay attention to colleges at all is because they know that the NBA uses NCAA Division 1 athletic programs as their minor leagues.

Playing a year or two in college ball is the key to catching the attention of NBA scouts. Otherwise, why bother. The last thing most of them have any interest in doing is playing for all four years of a college athletic career.

That clearly is the mentality behind Derrick Rose, the Chicago Bulls star who once was the big shot ballplayer of a nationally ranked high school team out of Simeon Career Academy – which published reports in the Chicago Sun-Times indicate had people who were willing to tamper with his high school transcripts to bolster his shot of getting into college.

AS IT TURNED out, Rose did one year at the University of Memphis, helping to lead the Tigers to a Final Four appearance before moving on to the NBA and the Bulls – where he may very well be the guy who someday leads Chicago to its seventh NBA title (and its first ever without Michael Jordan).

Officials are investigating whether Rose’s “D’s” were bolstered to “C’s,” and whether someone took the SAT college entrance examination for Rose, in order to improve his chances of being accepted to college.

After all, what good would Rose’s athletic ability be if he weren’t able to take it any higher than leading the South Side high school to state championships?

Admittedly, nothing has yet been proven. This is not a court of law, but Rose is entitled to the same “innocent until proven guilty” standard that everyone in this country is supposed to get when they are confronted with an allegation.

BUT THE SPORTS pundits already are speaking out about the punishment, which is really a joke.

The official record of Illinois High School Association basketball may very well be changed to say that Simeon’s state championship isn’t legitimate because of a player participating in inappropriate activity.

Memphis fans will continue to remember the stellar play that led their favorite collegiate team to a Final Four appearance in the NCAA tourney – even if some sort of asterisk will be put aside their record to indicate that something funky took place.

And somehow, I doubt the Bulls are going to care much – so long as Rose plays well on the court. If he doesn’t, he’ll get traded away, just like the last local high school star who was supposed to lead the Bulls to a championship – Eddy Curry.

A WHOLE LOT of asterisks will clutter up the athletic record books to create the impression that “justice” took place and that punishment was administered. Yet I don’t see it that way.

It’s like a whole lot of athletic record keepers were trained in the old Soviet Union, where negative aspects of history were written out of the books in revised editions. A whole lot of people at Simeon and Memphis will try to act as though Rose is somehow a non-person.

But they’re not about to do anything to get at the real problem, which is kids who probably don’t belong in an academic environment being used by universities so long as their athletic skills can help those athletic departments make a few bucks for their home colleges.

It goes back to the issue of whether kids directly from high school should be playing in the NBA. I say why not, and not just because there are the occasional high schoolers (and younger when one considers the rush of Dominican teenagers who get to play minor league baseball) who make it to the U.S. major leagues.

I’M NOT A professional basketball fan. What interest I have in the game goes to the college level, and I’d rather have that level of the game kept free of this kind of grade-altering (or even the appearance of it).

If it means that the level of ball played at the college level declines somewhat, I can still enjoy the game because my interest in it is in all that athletic “rah rah” spirit. I’d rather not have the ballplayers whose only interest in being on campus is to use the school as the equivalent of a year in the minor leagues before going on to the NBA.

And for those who might be concerned about what happens to Rose, I’m not overly worried about that part of this story. He got through, and he’s a professional.

Rose got the big payoff (unlike the kid who’s a second too slow and never advances beyond small-school basketball), and is now focusing on playing well enough without getting injured to have a lengthy (and wealthy) athletic career.

HE’S NOT GOING to suffer from this. Nobody else will either, in all likelihood.

That is what we should be outraged about.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: Derrick Rose’s exceptional athletic abilities are hard to find, which is why someone (http://northcarolina.scout.com/2/493218.html) may have thought that a mere “D” was not worth derailing his potential for a life in professional basketball.

Bulls fans place faith in 19-year-old

Have we forgotten the Eddy Curry experience already?

Those of us Chicagoans who get excited over the Chicago Bulls and professional basketball (I prefer the college game myself) are once again willing to believe that a kid barely out of high school will be the Chosen One who leads this city to championship-level teams in the National Basketball Association.

WHY ELSE WOULD so many be so eager to celebrate the fact that the Bulls used the top draft pick in the nation Thursday to choose Derrick Rose, the one-time Simeon Career Academy star who played one year of college ball at Memphis – before deciding he’d rather be a part of the NBA than a university student.

Of course, that is one more year of college than Curry had when he decided to bypass DePaul University and go straight from Thornwood High School in suburban South Holland (where he nearly led a team to an Illinois state championship) to the Bulls, where he had a couple of non-descript seasons before being traded to the New York Knicks.

Curry became a better ballplayer once he no longer had the pressure of being the hometown hero who would lead the Bulls to the exalted levels that Michael Jordan took the franchise back in the 1990s. It would be a shame if Rose winds up regretting that he did not go to Miami.

Rose could easily turn out to be another guy who can’t possibly live up to the pressure that is going to be put on him by Chicago sports fans who seem to forget that the Jordan years were a historic aberration and that the Bulls throughout their existence have been a mediocre-to-terrible basketball franchise.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: Derrick Rose gets to return to Chicago after one year of college (http://www.nba.com/draft2008/board.html) in Tennessee. Here’s a quickie summary of what Rose (http://www.highschoolelite.com/2007/rose.html) was worth when he played high school ball in the Chicago Public League.