Will Fighting Irish kicker of some three decades ago have a chance at Congress?

It shouldn’t be perceived as a surprise that Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., is going to face some serious competition if she wants to keep her Congressional post beyond 2020.

The political establishment is going to be determined to think that a young, black woman managed to win a DuPage County-based House seat only as a total fluke – and that it will be time for the natural order of things to be restored by dumping her from office.

IT’S NOT EVEN odd that one of the potential Republican replacements for Underwood has plans to significantly play up the fact that he has athletic accomplishments.

For people who think that politics is dull or boring or confusing or irrelevant to their lives, it may well be easier to comprehend old football footage than any attempt to get at the issues confronting our society.

So the political aspirations of Ted Gradel shouldn’t be dismissed out-of-hand.

Gradel played big-time college football (Notre Dame, class of 1987), before going into business and establishing a life for himself out around the Land of DuPage. Now, the Naperville resident thinks it’s time for him to serve in Congress.

WHICH MAKES HIM one of three people saying they will run for the Republication nomination to challenge Underwood in next year’s election cycle – Jim Oberweis and Allen Skillicorn are the other two, as of now.

But Gradel, who admits he has no political experience and thinks we ought to view that as a “positive in my book,” has, according to the Capitol Fax newsletter, hired a political consultant and has already put together his first campaign at touting himself.

UNDERWOOD: Can she win re-election?

That ad features one-time Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz touting just how wonderful a football place kicker Gradel was – and is loaded with footage of Gradel playing for the Fighting Irish.

In short, a perfect spot to appeal to people who otherwise wouldn’t want to bother thinking about politics.

THERE’S JUST ONE thing that could wind up hurting Gradel – the fact that by so strongly reminding people he played football for Notre Dame, he’s going to stir up the resentment and hostility of all those sports fans who like to denigrate Notre Dame every single chance they get.

HARRIS: Former gridder now in politics

The ones who think that anything that was ever special about Notre Dame football was long ago in the past, and they seem to get upset any time anyone includes the Fighting Irish amongst the ranks of the best college football programs in the country.

Will Underwood’s re-election bid wind up gaining the support of every single person who feels compelled to trash-talk Notre Dame every chance they get?

For that matter, Gradel includes footage of a field goal he kicked against Alabama all those decades ago. Will all the fans of the Crimson Tide (a school that has made increasing efforts to recruit for students throughout the Midwest – including Illinois) become instantly appalled with the Gradel campaign so as to disregard it from its opening moments?

IT MAY SOUND irrational, bordering in crazy and downright nuts!

FLANAGAN: Is he Underwood equivalent?

But then again, it wouldn’t be the stupidest thing that ever happened on the political scene – particularly if someone is being asked to base the casting of a ballot on the fact that someone once played a sport at a highly-competitive level.

So it will be interesting to see if Gradel can manage to beat out a pair of business executives who, at the very least, have gained a little bit of political experience serving in the Illinois General Assembly.

Or more importantly, was Underwood’s 2018 electoral victory over incumbent Congressman Randy Hultgren just a political fluke – something along the lines of back in 1994 when Michael P. Flanagan managed to win a Congressional post for two years as a Republican from Chicago!

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Trying to upstage the Trump-era White House? Not that it’s all that difficult

So are the Clemson Tigers football team – the so-called national champions of college football for this recently-completed season – destined to come to Chicago to make up for the tacky display that President Donald Trump put on for their recent White House visit?

TRUMP: Turned White House into All-American Burger

Much has been made of the fact that Trump tried to have a meal for the collegiate champion gridders – even though the ongoing shutdown of federal government means much of the White House staff that would cater such an event are among those out-of-work.

TRUMP TRIED TO score political points for himself by arranging for food to be brought in – literally from McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy’s. Lots of burgers and fries – although some pizzas also were obtained.

It almost sounds like a junk food fest of the type I might well have thought was cutesy back when I was a college kid and the idea of someone offering up “free food” seemed appealing, regardless of what was being served.

Trump himself argued that his culinary presentation was “American” in nature – and that the athletes managed to scarf up just about every scrap of food available. Although there are some reports indicating that the athletes themselves initially thought the display of fast food on silver serving trays was meant to be a joke.

What is clear is that many people are looking at Trump’s idea of “American” and seeing it as downright lame.

EVEN THOUGH, IF you want to be totally honest, there are too many people who consume too much fast food in their diets. Too many Big Macs and generic pizzas are the basis of what many of us eat.

And those individuals most likely are the ones who go out of their way to mock those people who do make a serious effort to eat in a healthy manner.

But no matter how tacky a display the president put on (even though it really isn’t any more garish than the overblown nature of most things associated with Trump), it would seem there are those who will want to behave in an equally obscene manner as a retort.

Something more gourmet than Domino's Pizza?

Take Nick Kokonas, the owner of The Alinea Group of restaurants. He says he’s offended that these star athletes were fed hamburger that they’ve probably eaten many times in their lives. He wants the South Carolina-based squad to come to Chicago for a gourmet meal (speculation is that lobster will be served) prepared by internationally-renowned chefs.

WE’LL HAVE TO see if the team chooses to come. Remember, it’s college kids who might appreciate “free food.” Then again, would they be politically aware enough to want to honor the idea of a White House event being more important than the actual cuisine that was served up?

Or are we destined to go through the Age of Trump with other entities feeling compelled to stage alternate events to the ones usually associated with the presidency – almost as though we could pretend that Trump himself doesn’t really exist.

Remember back when the Chicago Cubs managed to win a World Series in 2016 – and the team wound up getting two White House visits to celebrate. It should have been the beginning of the Trump years, but former President Barack Obama managed to slip in a team visit as one of his final White House events.

I have no doubt many consider THAT to be the real presidential appearance with the team – even though Cubs ownership these days are a batch of Trump financial contributors.

SO WILL WE be getting Clemson University to make an appearance in Chicago?

It could be interesting – even though we’d be celebrating the team that knocked Notre Dame out of the running for the collegiate championship by beating the Fighting Irish in the Cotton Bowl.

Can they come to Chicago as well?

I could envision the hard-core of Notre Dame’s football fandom in Chicago taking offense to celebrating their ultimate victory over Alabama within our own city limits.

Although I must confess; if we have to have a Clemson appearance in Chicago, I’d enjoy it if the school’s cheerleading squads were included. The ladies of Clemson would definitely brighten up the Second City with their loveliness that tops just about any other collegiate entity -- even the Song Girls of USC.

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No Super Bowl for '19!!! Surprised?

Will Chicago ever forgive him?

I personally will never forget the sight of Staley, the Chicago Bears' mascot, collapsing to the ground at the sight of the missed field goal.

  -30-

Who provides Chicago football fans with their cheap thrills for the season?

Fans of the gridiron are having their share of potential thrills, along with disappointments, now that we’re at the time of year in which the bowl games are being played.

Will the Chicago Bears still be relevant when the Super Bowl comes to Atlanta?

We’ll have to see just how the Chicago Bears fare – with some fans being delusional enough to think this is the year of a Super Bowl championship.

OF COURSE, THIS could just as easily be the year the Bears get knocked out of the playoffs in the first round when they take on the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.

In which case, this could easily turn out to be the season where all of the big-time football teams managed to fall short.

After all, Notre Dame is the team that lost only one game this season and qualified for the Cotton Bowl – which theoretically could have put them in contention for the national title for college football.

But the Fighting Irish managed to get walloped in that game against Clemson – thereby reinforcing the attitude felt amongst many that Notre Dame’s days of being a college football power are all long in the past.

IF THE BEARS manage to get knocked out early in the playoff rounds, the disappointment would be comparable to that of Notre Dame.

Sad sack of Chicago-area football; or can we just write them off as Hoosiers?

Which is where Northwestern University comes in. The suburban Evanston-based school that likes to market itself as “Chicago’s Big 10 Team” fell short of winning the Big 10 conference title – losing to Ohio State, which on Tuesday won the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. But they did get one of the lesser bowl games, and managed to win.

A 31-20 victory over Utah in the Holiday Bowl – which means the Wildcats got a trip to San Diego. While we got soggy wet on New Year’s Eve, they got California sunshine just as they would have if they had managed to prevail against the Buckeyes in Indianapolis.

Was the one-time Dyche Stadium the place where most interesting football of 2018 was played?

It could turn out to be the highlight of Chicago-area football for the season – unless the Bears truly are capable of going on a winning streak to take them all the way to a Super Bowl victory in Atlanta on Feb. 3 – which could show that the 12-4 record they achieved this year wasn’t a complete fluke and that the only fluke of the year may well have been Notre Dame.

  -30-

Were the White Sox just six some decades ahead of the pack with sirens?

Sept. 22, 1959 is regarded by some sports-minded fans as a day of infamy.

Could anyone outside Soldier Field hear the sirens?

That’s the date the Chicago White Sox managed to clinch an American League championship with a victory over the Indians in Cleveland. Back in Chicago, city Fire Commissioner Robert J. Quinn acknowledged the achievement by ordering the city’s air raid sirens to blast away.

FOR FIVE MINUTES, the warning sign of some alien attack or coming tornado rang out, scaring much of the populace who either were Cubs fans clueless as to the championship won that day – or else just overly paranoid and willing to believe the worst was coming.

There may even have been some who thought it natural – that the White Sox winning a championship of any sorts was evidence of the End of the World as We Know It.

To this day, Quinn’s reputation takes a knock from people who say he grossly over-reacted. Even though technically, he was merely acting in reaction to a City Council-approved ordinance that said, “there shall be whistles and sirens blowing and there shall be great happiness when the White Sox win the pennant.”

So what should we think of the Chicago Bears; who on Sunday beat the Green Bay Packers and included amongst the revelry at Soldier Field an air raid siren blasting away.

Lost to Indianapolis, of all cities

THE BEARS, AFTER all, are NFC North Division Champions!!!!!! They’re going to the playoffs for the first time in oh so many years. The hard-core of gridiron fandom in Chicago likely is already dreaming of the Super Bowl victory party to be held in Millennium Park.

All the more reason for pandemonium to run amok, and for us to have “whistles and sirens blowing” and “great happiness” even if it is for the Bears – because we honestly don’t have a clue when again the White Sox will give us occasion for such celebration.

Now I’ll admit this was merely a sound effect within the stadium. The rest of Chicago (many of whom likely watched the game on television) didn’t get woken up out of a deep sleep and scared into believing that disaster was impending.

The original siren blarers

And the Chicago Tribune managed to find a few fans who were offended by the ringing out of sirens, although team officials insist the sirens are merely part of the overall effects offered up at modern stadiums to try to get the crowd all excited.

HENCE, WE’RE LIKELY going to keep getting the sirens blared at future games as the Bears try to work their way through the various rounds of the playoffs toward a Super Bowl.

If anything, that’s the reason I can’t get quite too excited about the Bears phenomenon of 2018.

Literally half of the National Football League manages to qualify for a playoff spot each season. The real issue at stake isn’t whether the Bears are good enough to win the whole deal this year.

It’s really one more of how could they have been so god-awful pathetic that they couldn’t even qualify for a playoff spot in recent years. Not even one of those one game and done early in January.

AS FOR USE of a blaring siren, I can’t help but think it’s become a cliché, similar to shooting off fireworks in the sky to celebrate a sporting something.

Ultimate deities of Chicago sporting scene

What was considered outlandish some 59 years ago is now routine. An air raid siren ringing out to the skies to let people know something extraordinary has just happened.

Just as those ’59 White Sox ultimately lost the World Series that year, I wonder what it will feel like if the Bears can’t quite make it to the big game (to be played Feb. 3 in Atlanta)?

Will the air raid gesture seem like overkill? Instead of a victory party, will Bears fandom wind up holding the equivalent of a funeral procession for the team? And will the ’85 Bears (the ones who beat New England in the Super Bowl) be elevated even further in the pantheon of Chicago sporting history?

  -30-

Some people are strong proponents of expressing their right to be wrong

I have no problem with the concept of freedom of expression and the right of people to think or say whatever it is they believe – no matter how ridiculous or stupid it might well be.

Self-explanatory

But there are some individuals whom I suspect come up with views to express just for the purpose of – to put it bluntly – pissing people off! I can’t help but think those people give a bad name to the concept of free speech – which the rest of us are forced to defend no matter how trivial it becomes.

TAKE THE INSTANCE of a lawsuit now pending in U.S. District Court by a Chicago Bears season ticket holder. One of the perks for people who buy such a ticket plan is they get to spend time on the playing field during pre-game warmups.

This particular fan is upset because, as a Green Bay Packers fan, he wants to wear his green-and-gold jersey, along with all sorts of other items in Packers’ colors. Basically, he wants to make the presence of the Bears’ arch-rivals seen on the Bears’ own turf.

The Bears have denied this season ticket holder the ability to do that, and that is what has led to his legal action.

He thinks it’s his inalienable right to piddle all over the Bears’ party with his Packers’ jersey. He’s prepared to fight this out, and wants to make this an issue of great societal significance – a cause.

PERSONALLY, I THINK we ought to let the guy wear his replica jersey, and let him take all the abuse that Bears’ personnel invariably will dish out. Because, after all, free speech does not guarantee anyone the “last word” on an issue.

Either that, or require the goof to enter the stadium by walking through the Soldier Field parking lots while dressed in his Packers’ garb. Of course, he’d have to venture through the throngs of Bears fans who make a point of tailgating outside the stadium prior to the games.

It would be like a gridiron gauntlet. He’d have to take so much abuse, and I don’t doubt you’d probably get some drunken buffoon thinking he’s defending the honor of the orange and blue who would wind up kicking the snot out of this Packers’ fan.

Not 1st time Satanic Temple has expressed itself

Let’s see how much he’d desire to wear his Packers’ jersey at Soldier Field again!

THIS, OF COURSE, is far from the only incident of someone who feels compelled to piddle all over someone else’s party out of some belief they’re scoring ideological points for their “cause.”

Take the Illinois Statehouse, where the Christmas holidays has turned into a mass of public displays erected in the Capitol rotunda that were meant to pay tribute to the holidays of various religious faiths that are being celebrated in coming weeks (we’re currently in Day 4 of Hanukkah).

Now, it has evolved into a production of who can come up with the most ridiculous display. This year, it is one set up by the Satanic Temple chapter in Chicago, although its display (a sculpture of a woman’s hand tempting us with an apple) is far from the devil-worshipping images that I’m sure will come to minds of many.

The group says it is “a nontheistic organization that aims to encourage benevolence and empathy amongst all people.” Although I suspect its inclusion in the Capitol will peeve many more people than it will sway.

PERSONALLY, I’D BE inclined for dumping any holiday displays, even an overly decorated Christmas tree. The Capitol is supposed to be a place of business for our government – and not so much one of holiday partying.

Although the one that really manages to peeve my sensibilities is one that has been in place since 2008 – the “Festivus” pole. As in motivated by that old “Seinfeld” episode where we learn of the holiday celebrated by the Costanza family as an alternative to Christmas commercialism.

One TV gag continues to live on long after "Seinfield" cancellation

The actual point of the episode was to further show how much of a crank the character portrayed by actor Jerry Stiller was, but some people want to take it literally to create a holiday that worships a metal pole with no ornamentation or presents – and somehow devolves into a wrestling match meant to humiliate.

Maybe the appropriate response to all of this is to use the Festivus pole to club some sense into the heads of any of these people who think their actions are anything more than imposing their crackpot ways upon the rest of us.

  -30-

SPORTING NUZ; Chicago-style: Who's bigger – Bears, or Wildcats?

I’m not much of a football fan. Yet even I can appreciate just how unique this season is for those of us Chicago-area people who take to the gridiron.

Maybe we could have a fantasy championship at Wrigley between the Bears and the Wildcats?

The Chicago Bears don’t actually suck, for a change. They’re in first place in their division, and it would take a collapse of historic proportions for them to fail to at least make it to the playoffs.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

  -30-

EXTRA: Were Chicago Bears ahead of pack in doing away with Honey Bears?

Reading the reports of the Washington Redskins and the stink the team is in with regards to the way they used their cheerleading dance squad almost makes me wonder if Virginia McCaskey, the daughter of Chicago Bears founder George Halas, was on to something.

Has it really been 32 years since the Honey Bears last danced?

McCaskey was the woman whose action right after her Bears actually managed to win a Super Bowl (remember 1986?) was to abolish the Honey Bears.

THAT WAS THE dance team that existed from the mid-1970s until the end of the 1985 season. The Honey Bears’ last performance literally was in New Orleans at the Superdome while the Bears beat up on New England 46-10.

In doing away with the Honey Bears, she made comments about how she found the whole image of hot pants-clad dancers jiggling their curves about to be inappropriate, and how the Bears would never again have such a dance team so long as she remained a part of the team’s management.

Some three decades later, McCaskey remains with us. At 95, who’s to say what will happen.

Now I know some people act as though the lack of an official dance team to entertain the fans (and appease their libido) is somehow a disgrace. I’ve heard some try to claim that the Bears are cursed because of the demise of the Honey Bears – and that (rather than lack of athletic talent) is the reason the Bears are now 32 years, and counting, without another Super Bowl championship.

BUT COULD VIRGINIA have been on to something in thinking that the old-timers like her father who created professional football would never have saw the need for something like the leerleaders (that’s what they really are) whom many teams feel compelled to have?

If anything, it was just a matter of time before someone got caught up in the Redskins’ circumstances.

For those who haven’t paid attention, the New York Times reported about how the Redskins basically used their dance squad in ways that hardly differ from those exotic dancers who work in those seedy nightclubs.

It seems that during a 2013 trip to Costa Rica, the dancers posed topless during a photo shoot for a calendar, and it seems the team offered certain male fans the perk of being present.

THE LADIES ALSO were required to be escorts at a nightclub – serving as “dates” for certain men. An act that bears some similarity to what professional escorts do – and what can get them in trouble with police who consider it one step up from prostitution.

You’d think that Washington would feel some desire to maintain a low profile, what with all the stink they arouse from the fact that they insist on keeping the team nickname “Redskins.”

Now, they’re the team that pimps out its dancers.

Which can’t help but make one wonder if “da Bears” are spared much grief by being one of the few professional football teams (including such other ‘old school’ teams like the Green Bay Packers and the New York Giants) to do without the sideline routines.

  -30-

EXTRA: Could Kaepernick have borne down for Chicago Bears in ’17?

It’s going to be interesting to see how the Chicago Bears’ quarterback situation shakes down this season – although after the first preseason game, the delusional parts of Bears fans want to believe that rookie Mitchell Trubisky could just wind up being the team’s salvation.
 

Could he have helped the 'pride and joy of Illinois?'

Although anything would be an improvement following the several seasons of sub-par play from Jay Cutler.

THE POINT IS that the Bears went into this season desperately searching for a quarterback, and they wound up offering some big bucks to free agent Mike Glennon, who is competing with Trubisky for the spot – although none other than Hall of Fame coach Mike Ditka is touting Trubisky for the job these days.

One thing the Bears definitely did NOT do was give any consideration to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who as of now still has no ties to a professional football team.

He was released, and nobody in the National Football League wants anything to do with him.

Kaepernick, of course, is the guy who made a point of refusing to stand at attention with other players during the playing of the National Anthem prior to each game. He didn’t do anything to disrupt the anthem’s being played. He just refused to make the token gesture of support that many ballplayers do as part of the pre-game ritual, in part as a statement on the current state of racial relations in this country.

One of these guys had better work out ...

SAN FRANCISCO GOT tired of the constant coverage of Kaepernick and let him go. The perception out there now is that he’s being ignored despite his athletic talents by football clubs more interested in making conservative political statements of their own.

Now I’m not necessarily arguing that Kaepernick would have been a better Bears option that Glennon, Trubisky or anybody else they could have gotten this year. But they had better hope one of these guys plays well enough that the Bears don’t become the poster child for a sports team more interested in maintaining a certain societal image rather than winning games.

... if the Bears to avoid looking foolish in 2017

The Bears will look foolish if by mid-season they still have significant flaws at quarterback, and the people who are now deriding professional football in general for Kaepernick’s continued unemployment start deciding that “da Bears” in particular were the team that could have benefitted from his presence.

Insofar as Kaepernick’s status is concerned, it wouldn’t shock me if football teams are skittish enough to not want Colin around – with probably a team or two owned by some ideological nitwit who would ignore talent.

IF ANYTHING, IT shows that the situation in athletics hasn’t changed much since the late 1960s when then-pitcher Jim Bouton wrote his baseball season diary, “Ball Four.”

Some things never change, nearly half a century later

In it, he wrote sarcastically that ballplayers were free to say whatever they wanted on high-minded social issues, provided the things they said were of a conservative leaning, because that would mean they were “right” about the issue.

Saying something more liberal would mean they were “wrong” and should pipe down.

Although the Major League Baseball of that era and sports of today still bear evidence that Bouton was correct when he wrote of the typical ballplayer’s view of his colleague – “He’s a great guy. Wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful.”

  -30-

Bo knows, or claimed to know, just about everything back in the day

Bo Jackson, the professional athlete whom marketing would have us believe was the best ever, is back in the public eye again.

Bo's Sox tale didn't last long enough

For Jackson, the man whom in the late 1980s played both for the Kansas City Royals AND the Los Angeles Raiders, is now saying he wishes he had never played football.

EVEN THOUGH HE was a Heisman Trophy winner in that sport and a member of the College Football Hall of Fame (Auburn University, where future White Sox star Frank Thomas also played a year of college football) who also played for the Raiders before injuring his left hip back in 1990 in a career-ending game that also caused the Royals to release him.

Leading to his comeback attempt of the early 1990s with the Chicago White Sox, where he wound up being a part of that division-winning team of ’93 where his power bat helped the team and also resulted in him winning a Comeback Player of the Year award.

Not so much because of his 16 home runs in 85 games as a designated hitter and spare outfielder, but because his injury was so severe it was a wonder he could even walk. The fact that he became a reliable role player on a White Sox team that nearly ended the team’s pennant drought some 12 years earlier than it actually ended was impressive.

Once a dual sports star

Of course, I’m not implying that a football-less Jackson would have somehow been the key to another championship ball club or two for the White Sox.

BECAUSE IT’S NOT likely the Royals ever would have got rid of him if he had remained physically sound and had the potential to be the star slugger that he was for a couple of years in Kansas City.

Gave up Sox for Knicks

As it turns out, Jackson is amongst the crowd of people who are now denouncing football because of its potential for severe head injuries that – even if not fatal – can leave one disabled for the remainder of their lives.

No matter how many helmets or how much padding is used, asking big guys to maul each other physically on the athletic field is always going to be a physically-risky endeavor.

Found athletic niche in Boston

As Jackson told the USA Today newspaper, “If I knew now what I had known back then, I would have never played football. I wish I had known about all of those head injuries, but no one knew that. And the people that did know that, they wouldn’t tell anybody.”

AS IT IS, every time Jackson makes a public appearance on behalf of the White Sox (he’s on the team payroll as an “ambassador” and also is an honorary coach who shows up in Arizona every spring for team workouts), it is a reminder of “what could have been.”

Particularly for those who remember that game against the Seattle Mariners when Jackson hit a three-run home run that would up winning the game, and the division title, for the White Sox that year.

Would you really rather ponder Hall chances?

I’ll have to admit my memories of the Jackson dual role in baseball and football always seemed freakish – even though there have been others who have tried multiple sports professionally.

Danny Ainge of the Boston Celtics also played a couple of years with the Toronto Blue Jays, while back in the mid-1960s, White Sox pitcher Dave DeBusschere later went on to play for the New York Knicks.

BUT PERHAPS IT is the almost freakish nature of football (a game I must admit I never really ‘got’ even though I appreciate the role of the Chicago Bears in the city’s sporting culture – even in years when they go 3-13) that made the Jackson outcome seem inevitable.

So hearing now that Jackson wouldn’t let his own kids play football or be a part of the sporting spectacle that football creates at just about every level of its existence makes me wonder why Bo couldn’t “know” this fact two decades ago?

Ouch!!!!!

Could we be talking about the chance of Bo Jackson one of these years being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame instead of obsessing about whether one-time White Sox Tim Raines will finally get in this year, or whether Sammy Sosa of the Cubs will finally get kicked off the ballot due to all the steroid suspicions that surround his name.

At the very least, baseball bat manufacturers would have loved his presence in the National Pastime, remembering that moment in August of ’93 when he expressed frustration at being struck out by Oakland Athletics pitcher Bobby Witt by snapping his bat in two over his right knee.

  -30-

Chicagoans would rather watch playoff baseball than crummy football

I happened to eat dinner Thursday night at a Mexican restaurant that had two televisions set up at opposite ends of the dining hall.
 

Will these be legitimate next week, or just good for a laugh?

One tuned to the National League playoff game in which the Chicago Cubs ultimately beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, placing themselves one win away from their first league championship in 71 years.

THE OTHER SET was tuned to Thursday Night Football – whose broadcast this week was the usual Chicago sporting favorite, the Bears, takin on their arch-rivals, the Green Bay Packers.

Usually, that’s a game that gets sports-oriented people in Chicago to wet their drawers with glee and excitement. It stirs up a lot of rhetoric, regardless of how either team is playing.

Simply put, the fact that the Bears have won only one game this season shouldn’t have put a damper on the event. But it did.

The television ratings that came in for Thursday night showed the Cubs broadcast in Chicago getting a 24.1 share, which translates roughly to 1 million people in the metropolitan area actually watching the ballgame.

BY COMPARISON, THE Bears only got a 12.8 share, or just over half of what the Cubs managed to attract.

So much for the notion that Chicago is primarily a football town and that it is the Bears who are the team that manages to bring the city together as a whole in spirit.

'85 Bears still the big gun of Chicago sports memories?

Although I have always thought that Chicago is primarily a baseball town and that a local fan’s baseball preference is always stronger than what he feels for the Bears. Only with the baseball fandom split between two ball clubs, it means the Bears can claim a larger audience than either team. Which makes me wonder what things would be like if the Cardinals had never left town and remained a charter member of the NFL on the South Side?

Former Bears coach Mike Ditka, who has made his efforts to stay in the public eye by latching onto Cubs attention and publicly rooting for the team to make it to the World Series next week, has said he thinks a Cubs World Series title would be bigger than the ’85 Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl victory.

Did '05 Sox top Bears in some minds?

IT WOULD BE to that segment of Chicago sporting society that cares about the Cubs. Just keep in mind that to White Sox fans, their ’05 World Series win already has topped the Bears in importance, and there’s no way a stinkin’ Cubs pennant would ever top the memories of Paul Konerko, Mark Buehrle and manager Ozzie Guillen signaling for the big, tall and fat relief pitcher to come in to save the game.

Not that any of this detracts from what the Bears accomplished 31 years ago by becoming the first Chicago team in decades to win a thing.

If anything, what with the Bears, the Bulls, the Blackhawks and White Sox all having won championships within our lifetimes, it probably is about time that the Cubs get off their duffs and win something – just so we can quit thinking there’s anything particularly special about them.

It’s about time that the Cubs win something so we can put a rest to those out-of-town types who denigrate the Chicago sporting experience – largely by claiming there can’t be anything special about a city that takes a team with the Cubs’ losing ways at all seriously.

Still a 21st Century 1st for Chicago

ALTHOUGH ONE CAN argue that the new Cubs management has already succeeded in that they have put together a ball club that will likely be a legitimate contender for the rest of this decade. Even if the Dodgers manage to prevail this weekend, the Cubs probably will be in the running for a championship come 2017.

There’s also the fact that even if the Cubs were to win a thing (and I don’t doubt there are many Chicagoans who dread the very concept), all it would really mean is that the Cubs will finally have matched the White Sox in championships achieved during this century.

One!

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EXTRA: Can Lovie Smith make Fighting Illini football relevant again?

So what would Lovie Smith’s legacy on our local sports scene become if it turns out that the Texas native becomes the man who led the Chicago Bears to a Super Bowl AND the University of Illinois to a Rose Bowl?

From the 'blue and orange' to 'orange and blue'

Although considering that many don’t think Smith deserves that much praise for his eight-year stint as Bears coach (he lost the Super Bowl to those overgrown hick Hoosiers down in Indianapolis, after all), I wonder if any success he has in Champaign, Ill., won’t amount to much.

FOR IT WAS announced Monday that the guy who recently lost his job as coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is employed again – he signed a six-year deal with our state’s alleged flagship university to coach the Big 10 football program that is considered by many sports observers to be the equivalent of the Chicago Cubs of college football.

At $21 million for those six years, it has been pointed out that Smith will be the highest-paid person on a public payroll in Illinois – although it also seems he will be getting less money than he was for coaching Tampa Bay.

So much for our society’s priorities when it comes to compensation.

Although I’m also sure that if Smith manages to make Illinois relevant again when it comes to college football, no one will begrudge the pay Lovie will receive in coming years.

BESIDES, I’M SURE some people are going to say (only semi-jokingly) that Smith will have to live in Champaign, Ill. (or perhaps Urbana?), and that the deserves to get something in return for being compelled to live in that central Illinois community.

Although I’d wonder what he’d wind up spending his salary on – there just isn’t that much to do in the college town community.

Particularly since Fighting Illini football often gives off the aura of something small-town based that nobody living outside of Champaign really cares about. Particularly if someone in question went to college elsewhere. Our alma maters create more interest than anything happening in Champaign.

Fighting Illini football most definitely lacking in legacy

I wonder at times if Michigan or Ohio State have more fans in Chicago than the Illini?

CREATING INTEREST IN Illinois football within Chicago could be Smith’s greatest achievement. Taking into account he was once an assistant coach for a Super Bowl-bound St. Louis Rams team, it makes me wonder if he could help spur interest across the whole state.

Could the University of Illinois seriously become the team all of Illinois roots for – and could even become the unifying factor of all those Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals fans who couldn’t ever envision having a rooting interest in common!

If Lovie can really achieve that, then our sports fans may start to respect him in ways that his Super Bowl appearance didn’t accomplish.

But the bottom line is a win – he’d better bring a Rose Bowl victory  (or perhaps even a Bowl Championship Series title) to the Land of Lincoln, or else we’ll think of him as just another part of a string of failed coaches who took the reins in Champaign throughout the years.

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