Having grown up in Chicago, I would only comment in two areas.

Payton, as electrifying as he was, did not "galvinize B-list players", the Bears stunk under Payton from 76 (his rookie year as I recall) until 84, when Ditka and the Bears dedicated to Defense. Nostalgia is fine and all that, but remember Payton, at least I will, for the quality person he was - the impecible character on and off the field.

Puckett truly was the catalyst and leader, but he had a good supporting cast, both in 87 and 91. In 87 he had a Hall of Fame calibre #1 in Viola, and a Hall of Famer in Blyleven (sorry, I never remember how to spell his name) - admittedly on the downside of a career, but he still had his fabulous bender. I went to several games in 86, I remember sitting in the CF general admin seats and watching that bender fool Bobby Bonilla (then with the White Sox) into looking like an idiot. He also had Gary Gaetti, Tom Brunanski and Kent Hrbek, all of whom carried similar fire - though not equivilant. Puckett was a giant on the field, a kind and sweet human being in uniform, haunted by a hard life out of it - nonetheless, he was a decent example of a solid citizen, but he was not Payton off the field, and while Payton was probably the best combination of speed, agility and power the NFL has ever seen, he wasn't the catalyst on a champion which Puckett was.

They were different, despite wearing 34. Pointing out the similarities is the pedestrian copy-cat of other writers, understanding their vastly different realities would have been poignant.

PB

"understanding their vastly different realities would have been poignant."

And beyond my personal interest.

Thereby pointing out you are ready willing and able to springboard off of someone else's work, make generalizations that were generally inaccurate, in an attempt to appear engaged.

The point is; following the crowd is easy, but it's also cheap - if you seek to be taken seriously, seek to be incisive. Apparently thought, incisive is beyond your personal interest.

PB

It's hard out here for a Peeb.

"Thereby pointing out you are ready willing and able to springboard off of someone else's work, make generalizations that were generally inaccurate, in an attempt to appear engaged."

Whatever it is you're talking about, I agree 125%.

PB - you live to be contrary don't you? I'll bet if Mitch said that the sky was blue, you would argue THAT!!!

Mitch - don't feel bad about not realizing the shared number. It didn't occur to me as well and I grew up in Chicago watching Sweetness play (but did not live in the Cities until the tail end of Puck's career). Yeah some of those Bears teams stunk, but the other players on the team DID try to play up to Sweetness' level - they just could not. They were that bad and he was that good.

They were indeed both special people who were taken from us much too soon. That they both played sports is a coincidence.

Jeebus H. Christmas. Peeb, you really are a sad, sad, sad little man. Be honest, you've written novellas about knock-knock jokes, haven't you?

Lady,

I agree with you, and considered even saying something to that effect...like

Mitch is so often trivial and equally often wrong that my reaction may well be motivated by reflex -

With that as a given, the reality is that Payton and Puck were in fact different in their impacts on and off the field. Mitch's observation was flawed.

The point continuing to be, Mitch might seek to be bright AND articulate - he is capable of such - rather than simply articulate.

Being bright would imply tackling both sides of an issue as that's the only way to be considered serious and worthwhile. Without that sort of effort, he is merely pedestrian, articulate, but pedestrian. He articulates pedestrian obviousness and garage-logic quality commentary well, while overtly and/or inadvertently failing to mention/grasp the complex realities.

This is merely another example.

PB

"Being bright would imply tackling both sides of an issue as that's the only way to be considered serious and worthwhile. "

Sigh.

Whatever, P. There are not two sides to this "issue". Just a simple off the cuff observation.

Whether people consider me "serious and worthwhile" is both irrelevant to me *and* up to the individual reader.

However, a good way to be considered tiresome and mindlessly contentious is to constantly make obtuse, self-adoring posts over things that - this is kind of important - just don't matter. Put another way - to be seen to devote disproportionate effort to "refuting" cases nobody made, as above.

Just saying.

Mitch would seem to be too polite to say this, so I will.

PB. Numbnuts. Confrontation-seeking douchebag. Yeah, you. Listen up, fcknugget.

Mitch was directing people to a piece in the STAR TRIBUNE. Where a writer made a point that Mitch AGREED WITH.

Should you not be attacking the writer of the original piece in the Strib?

Or does it get you off to provoke yet another off-topic fight over what is at the end of the day either your lack of ability to see a point, or to keep it in perspective?

I'm guessing the latter.

PB, you would not last thirty seconds in a rational face to face debate with an adult. I bet you are a real terror to your spouse and kids (assuming you have any) or the janitors at work, though.

Sean and I coach sports together. He is a great sports fan and talked to me about this column at practice last week.

He is also a widower and is raising two kids. So, I find the comments that he describes in the "34" were evident also in his wife.

The Twins won the Series in '87 in Puckett's fourth year. The Bears didn't win a Super Bowl until Payton's 10th year. The Bears were still a "little franchise that couldn't" until the mid-80s when they put together a GREAT defense. Nonetheless, Payton at least rejuvinated fan interest in a dormant franchise even though they were still losing.

"Being bright would imply tackling both sides of an issue as that's the only way to be considered serious and worthwhile. Without that sort of effort, he is merely pedestrian, articulate, but pedestrian. He articulates pedestrian obviousness and garage-logic quality commentary well, while overtly and/or inadvertently failing to mention/grasp the complex realities. "

PB....what issue? Mitch was simply making an observation!!!

Lastly - I know from reading this blog that you have been asked this time and time and time again (ad naseum)....if this blog is so odious, so pedestrian, such a waste of your time WHY DO YOU KEEP COMING BACK? I would think that someone with your sense of self worth would obviously have "better" things to do with your time.

PB recalls:

"I went to several games in 86, I remember sitting in the CF general admin seats and watching that bender fool Bobby Bonilla (then with the White Sox) into looking like an idiot."

Bert Blyleven (who contrary to PB's assertion is not in the Hall of Fame) faced the White Sox at Comiskey exactly one time in 1986 before Bobby Bonilla was traded to Pittsburgh.

That game, played on June 23, did indeed feature a memorable Blyleven performance. He lasted all of 1 and 2/3 innings, giving up 7 hits, 2 walks and 8 earned runs while striking out none.

Bonilla tripled off of him in the second. Boy, I bet he felt like an idiot.

http://baseball-almanac.com/box-scores/boxscore.php?boxid=198606230CHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

How about that, PB?

Uh... I live in MPLS, not Chicago. Read just a little more closely. I sat in CF bleachers, GA. As Commisky at that time didn't have GA seats in CF, pretty well that meant I wasn't in Chicago. Given that Mitch and I talk all the time about MPLS, it's not really rocket science to figure out I live here.

Regardless, are you seriously worried about such a trivial thing?

As for Blyleven being in the hall of fame, I fully am aware he isn't - perhaps the point should have been said "future hall of famer" as I have little doubt that Blyleven will be in the hall eventually. The point was that he was damned good for a long time, amassing something like 2500 strike-outs.

As for Bell.. make an assumption, look like an ass, that's my response.

PB

Alex..

First, in discussion after discussion with Mitch, I would have to say that he was usually at a loss to disagree with the hypocrisy pointed out to him regarding his positions and President, so hmmm.. whatever.

Second, the point was not that the Strib writer wasn't shallow, it was that ON THIS BLOG, you know, where we are writing and interacting, this author made comments which were shallow and unreflective of reality. I CAN I suppose take on the Strib's writer, but given their normal course of editing the hell out of things - and given that from what I could tell that writer didn't say things like Payton made b-calibre talent into a-calibre talent, I'm not sure it would be either worth the time nor reflective of my comments.

The point, if you could follow it, was that this is typical of Mitch, shallow, imprecise and then rough and innacurate commentary. This just pointed out another case. So then the issue was with the lack of effort typifying a general trend toward a lack of effort.

PB