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| Maybe we could have a fantasy championship at Wrigley between the Bears and the Wildcats? |
WE’RE
GOING TO have people in coming weeks getting all worked up at the thought of a
Super Bowl involving a Chicago team. The delusional thoughts will run rampant. They’re
not going to dump the ’85 Bears (whose coach, Mike Ditka, these days is
recovering from a heart attack) in Chicago’s sporting mentality. But they’ll
come close.
Yet
let’s be honest. They might turn out to be the second-most interesting local football
tale of the year.
For
we have the Wildcats of Northwestern University playing absurdly well. They are
the top team in the Big Ten’s western division.
And
after seeing Ohio State whomp all over Michigan, there will be those eager to
see if Northwestern can actually win the conference – which would most
definitely put them in line for a significant bowl game.
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| Wildcats to get better bowl venue than Yankee Stadium |
CERTAINLY
SOMETHING MORE prominent than the Pinstripe Bowl, to be played Dec. 27 at
Yankee Stadium. Can the Wildcats actually manage to steal the thunder away from
Da Bears? It’s possible, since a successful Bears season would be not getting
totally humiliated in the playoffs, Whereas the Wildcats could actually wind up
winning a bowl game.
Even
though I’m sure the SEC-types who want to think the world doesn’t extend beyond
Dixie will want to believe Alabama is the supreme football power – regardless of
how anyone else actually plays.
Although
it occurs to me there’s one way that this season tops the ’85 Bears – what if
the Wildcats were to win a major bowl game, while the Bears also got into their
third Super Bowl appearance ever. More likely than not, it won’t happen – but it’s
something for some of us to fantasize about.
What
else is notable on our city’s sporting scene these days?
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| Remembering their '05 victories? |
HALL
OF FAME FANTASIES: We’re at that time of year where the Baseball Hall of Fame
is contemplating which former ballplayers deserve to be inducted amongst its
newest members come 2019.
Two
of the players getting their first – and most likely only – chance at induction
are former Chicago White Sox pitchers Jon Garland and Freddy Garcia. Both of
whom were a part of that outstanding starting rotation that enabled the Sox to
win a World Series back in 2005.
The
’05 Sox technically already have one of their members in the Hall of Fame in
the form of Frank Thomas (the slugger turned Nugenix pitchman), although Thomas
actually spent most of that season injured and didn’t play a single game in the
World Series.
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| Or have many forgotten by now? |
Personally,
I thought it an intriguing sporting happening when, in the final round of the
American League playoffs that year, the White Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels –
with the four Sox victories being complete game victories and Garland and
Garcia ringing up two of them. They’ll most likely have to settle for the
memories, rather than a bronze plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y.
MOST
MEMORABLE?: Of course, one of the reasons that the two pitchers won’t get their
moment of immortality is because of the way some people are determined to think
that the Chicago Cubs championship of 2016 is all so significant.
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| Is this really Illinois history? |
I
couldn’t help but wretch at the thought of the recently-released results of a
survey about Illinois history – asking people to pick the most-significant moments
in our state’s 200-year history.
Perhaps
it’s a plus that Moment No. 1 was Abraham Lincoln’s funeral proceedings – including
the funeral train that took Honest Abe’s body from Washington to Springfield,
Ill., while stopping in Chicago and passing through northern Illinois.
But
the Cubs’ World Series title ranked No. 2 – as in we have people deluded enough
to think that nothing else that has happened in the state other than the moment
when the Cubs crushed the hopes of Cleveland Indians fans, who came oh so close
to winning their own “first World Series” in 70-something years if only they
could have held a lead in the final game.
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