OK, so Da Bearss aren’t going downtown this season, most likely.

But day-um:

With strong gusty winds, intermittent snow showers and a wind chill reading of 18 degrees below zero, you expected to see a penguin waddle onto the field Sunday at Soldier Field.

But the Bears seemed perfectly comfortable in the Arctic-like conditions, hammering the rival Green Bay Packers 35-7 in a game that was just as lopsided as the final score indicated.

And this bit here feels like old times:

Chicago’s defense and special teams dominated in the second half. After Alex Brown’s interception set up Kyle Orton’s 3-yard TD pass to Desmond Clark, Charles Tillman blocked Jon Ryan’s punt and Corey Graham returned it 7 yards for his first career touchdown.

And to all of us who still worship at the shrine of Butkus, there was elation in Mudville:

Brian Urlacher later put an exclamation point on the blowout early by returning a Brett Favre interception 85 yards for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter. It was Urlacher’s third TD in eight NFL seasons and first on an interception return.

If Ditka woulda suited up at tight end, it woulda been 235-7.

OK, so next year, Da Bearss are going all the way.

Listening to “Morning Edition” this morning.

Diana Naiad – “Marketplace”‘s sports-biz commentator – talking about the National Football League and its “best of times/worst of times” year to date:

“…and Brett Favre is as well-known an athlete as Mohammed Ali at his peak”.

!!!

At his peak, Mohammed Ali was better-known than any world leader, everywhere on the planet; he was more identifiable around the globe than Richard Nixon, at their respective peaks.  Does Ms. Naiad honestly think that kids in Lagos and Rangoon know Brett Favre better than they know, say, George W. Bush?

Don’t get me wrong – I love the Favre story.   But let’s not get too carried away.

While NFL foobaw generally bores me stiff (unless the Bears are in contention, and, uh, well, never mind), I do like stories like this from the world of high school grid:

Totino-Grace fullback Pierce Lubinski called it The New Immaculate Reception. Said Mahtomedi coach Dave Muetzel: “That’s the game of football.”Totino-Grace, stunned by a last-minute touchdown and a two-point conversion that gave Mahtomedi an 8-7 lead, scored on a desperation 50-yard touchdown pass as time expired for a 13-8 victory in the Class 4A championship game.

Jordan Marshall’s pass tipped off the hands of Mahtomedi defender Nick Cedergren, off the hands of intended receiver Jake King and into the hands of Totino-Grace receiver Micah Koehn. Breaking one tackle and tip-toeing down the right sideline, Koehn reached the end zone and then was mobbed by teammates.

Hope the video pops up out there somewhere.

Joe Nuxhall – legendary baseball broadcaster and trivia answer (the youngest person ever to pitch in the majors) dead at 79

Nuxhall’s place in baseball lore was secured the moment he stepped onto a big-league field. With major league rosters depleted during World War II, he got a chance to pitch in relief for the Reds on June 10, 1944.

No one in modern baseball history has played in the majors at such a young age — 15 years, 10 months, 11 days old. He got two outs against St. Louis before losing his composure, then went eight years before pitching for the Reds again.

After which he had a 14 year career in the majors, followed by four more decades in the broadcast booth.

He retired as a full-time radio broadcaster after the 2004 season, the 60th anniversary of his historic pitching debut.

Nuxhall and play-by-play announcer Marty Brennaman described the Big Red Machine’s two World Series titles in the 1970s, Pete Rose’s return as player-manager and then banishment for gambling in the 1980s, and another World Series championship in 1990.

The move to get him into Cooperstown – as a broadcaster – has already begun.

(more…)

Bonds indicted for perjury, obstruction of justice:

The perjury case against former Giants star Barry Bonds is built on documents seized in a federal raid on a Burlingame steroids lab and positive drug test results indicating that baseball’s all-time home run king used steroids, court records show.Bonds, perhaps the greatest hitter of his generation, was indicted Thursday on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. He is accused of lying under oath in December 2003 when he told the grand jury that investigated the BALCO steroid ring that he had never used banned drugs.

Waaah.

That’s right; gotta get Bonds, to protect “the integrity of the game“.

Could you quit whining about your precious “curse” already?

The Boston Red Sox have won the World Series, completing a four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies with a 4-3 win last night.
For the second time in four years, the Boston Red Sox sit at the pinnacle of the baseball world. After going 86 years without a World Series title, the Red Sox now have won two of the last four in most impressive fashion.

The Red Sox dominated Colorado, a team that came into the World Series having won 21 of 22 games. Boston outscored the Rockies 29-10 in the four-game sweep. Boston has seven World Series titles, which is fourth on the all-time list.

Just…stop.

UPDATE AND CORRECTION: Oh, yeah – and congrats, BoSox and your fans!

Over at Nihilist In Golf Pants, the Cynical Viking Fan has had enough:

When in the Course of a football season it becomes necessary for one fan to dissolve the fanatical bands which have connected him with an NFL team, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that he should declare the causes which impel him to the separation.

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all teams are created equal, that they are endowed by the NFL with the same salary cap. That to enjoy Sunday afternoon, I turn on the TV and cheer my favorite of these NFL teams. That when my team sucketh so bad as to be destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the Fan to alter or abolish his allegiance to it, and to institute a new favorite among the NFL teams, so long as that team is not the Green Bay Packers. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world…I therefore, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of my intentions, do, in the name and by Authority of the good Fans of the NFL, solemnly publish and declare, That this Fan is, and of Right ought to be Free of and independent, that I am Absolved of all Allegiance to the Minnesota Vikings, and that all fandom connection between myself and the Vikings, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Free and independent fan of the NFL I have the full Power to root for any non-Packer NFL team of my choosing. – And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, I pledge my Life, Fortune, and sacred Honor. Cynical Vikings Guy

Fair-weather fans are smart fans.

The Bison trampled the GoGos yesterday:

NDSU rushed for 394 yards (including a school-record 263 by Tyler Roehl), rolled up 585 total yards and had an edge in time of possession of nearly 14 minutes.

The final score could have been even worse if not for two missed field goals, a turnover that led to a touchdown and a roughing-the-passer penalty that led to another touchdown.

Life is very, very good.

Brian linked us to this excellent list of the 25 most miserable sports moments in Minnesota history.

And I figured – why not try to help y’all? Let’s try to move on, here!

I looked ’em over. And while 25 is a nice satisfying number, let’s face it; there’s plenty of flab here.

For starters, we can eliminated all the hockey “tragedies”, because, let’s face it, who cares? That lops off six of them to start with – almost 25% less wallowing in misery.

I also whacked all Gophers results because, let’s face it, they’re on our tax dime, they should be getting an education, and I didn’t go to school there anyway. Five non-hockey results – you’re 20% happier!
The ’70 Super Bowl? Cry me a friggin’ river; how many teams have never been to one? My beloved Bears are 50-50, and they waited 20 years to get to the big game. Man up, pansies.

I also whacked the ’99 NFC Championship game, because everyone with half a brain predicted the Vikes would choke. Y’know how I knew? Because Tom Barnard actually got on the Vikes’ bandwagon. Whenever Barnard gets on the bandwagon, the team is doomed. I predicted it the moment I heard Barnard make his prediction. It was over from that moment on. My heart went right on.

23. January 13, 1974 – Miami 24, Vikings 7 (Super Bowl VIII)
Miami won the coin toss (as Bud Grant later said, perhaps the turning point of the game), then scored on its first two possessions, running the Vikings out of Houston. Once again, the Vikings had made it all the way to football’s grandest stage, and failed.

22. September 28, 1984 – Cleveland 11, Twins 10
Part of the famous 1984 Twins collapse, when the team went into the final week of the season tied for the AL West lead, then lost six straight to end the season. This one was the day after the famous Jamie Quirk game, when Ron Davis gave up a two-out, ninth-inning home run to Quirk to lose to the Indians, in what was Quirk’s only hit that season. The Twins took a 9-0 lead in this one, then gave up seven in the seventh, followed by Ron Davis losing for the second time in as many days in the bottom of the ninth and killing any title hopes for Minnesota.

20. January 9, 1977 – Oakland 32, Vikings 14 (Super Bowl XI)
Completing the quadfecta, Fran Tarkenton threw two interceptions in the red zone, and Brent McClanahan fumbled on his way into the end zone, robbing Minnesota of points it desperately needed. It was the Vikings’ fourth Super loss in a seven-year span, a shocking total that has yet to be softened with a win.

18. January 12, 1975 – Pittsburgh 16, Vikings 6 (Super Bowl IX)
The Vikings missed a field goal, took a safety after a fumble in their own end zone, fumbled on the Steelers’ 5-yard line, lost an interception in the Steelers’ end zone… is there a pattern emerging here? Minnesota’s only points came on a blocked punt, and even then, they missed the extra point. The offense ended the day with a zero on the board and a grand total of 117 yards in the book, their third Super Bowl failure and their second in two years.

17. October 1, 1967 – Boston 5, Twins 3
The Twins went into Boston needing one win in a two-game series to clinch the AL pennant, but a seventh-inning homer by Carl Yastrzemski put that one out of reach. On Sunday, with the pennant in the balance, the Twins took a 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the sixth. Dean Chance – who won twenty that year – gave up four singles and a fielder’s choice, Minnesota went behind 5-2, and couldn’t close the gap farther than 5-3. The Twins lost the final three games that year, when one win in any of them would have at least tied them for the title, and one win in the last two would have given them the pennant and the World Series berth.

11. October 6, 2004 – New York 7, Twins 6 (Game 2, ALDS)
Torii Hunter homered in the top of the 12th to give the Twins a 6-5 lead, putting Minnesota on the verge of heading back to Minneapolis with a 2-0 series lead. But Joe Nathan, entering his third inning of work, walked Miguel Cairo and Derek Jeter, then allowed a double to A-Rod and a sacrifice fly from Hideki Matsui to lose it. It was always an uphill battle to beat the Yankees, and so this one felt like Ivan Drago coming off the canvas to knock Rocky out for good.

10. October 9, 2004 – New York 6, Twins 5 (Game 4, ALDS)
The Twins, fighting to keep the series alive for a fifth and deciding game, led 5-1 with just six outs to go. Enter super-setup guy Juan Rincon. Five batters later, Ruben Sierra was circling the bases with a game-tying three-run homer; the Yankees would win it in the 11th when Kyle Lohse wild-pitched A-Rod home. Another Ivan Drago moment, and the occasion of the famous Juan Rincon quote, “Nobody wants to be in my pants right now.”

8. October 13, 2002 – Anaheim 13, Twins 5 (Game 5, ALCS)
Struggling uphill against a red-hot Angels team, the Twins took a 5-3 lead into the bottom of the seventh, hoping to send the series back to Minnesota for games 6 and 7. And then…here’s the Anaheim seventh: single, single, homer, single, single, single, walk, strikeout, single, wild pitch, single, single, hit by pitch, RBI groundout, strikeout. 10 runs, 10 hits, no errors. The Twins did just enough to give us hope, then Adam F***ing Kennedy trod on us all.

6. January 17, 1988 – Washington 17, Vikings 10 (1987 NFC Championship Game)
:56 left in the game, the Vikings had the ball on the Redskins’ 6, with fourth down and four yards to go. Wade Wilson found Darrin Nelson open in the flat – he was open, he could have waltzed in! – but Nelson dropped the pass. Washington ran out the clock, and that was the end of Minnesota’s run.

5. January 14, 2001 – New York Giants 41, Vikings 0 (2000 NFC Championship Game)
The Giants took the ball and scored. The Vikings fumbled the ensuing kickoff. The Giants scored again. It was 14-0 before the offense even got on the field. It was 34-0 at halftime. Daunte Culpepper threw three interceptions, Randy Moss yelled at everybody, and it eventually ended 41-0, an absolute butt-kicking when Vikings fans were hoping against hope to avenge the pain from just two years earlier.

3. December 28, 2003 – Arizona 18, Vikings 17
Minnesota began the year 6-0, then slumped, but had a chance to make the playoffs with a victory over the Cardinals. The Vikings led 17-6, then gave up a touchdown, failed to recover the ensuing onside kick, then took a bogus pass interference call with the game almost over. With the Vikings now up 17-12, it came down to the final play of the game, with Arizona quarterback Josh McCown heaving the ball into the end zone. Cardinals receiver Nate Poole caught the pass, but was going to land out of bounds; however, he made contact with a Vikings defender, and the referees, inconceivably, ruled that Poole had been pushed out and the catch would stand. Replays showed Poole would not have come down in bounds, but the play was un-reviewable; thirty-eight years to the day from the Drew Pearson game, the Vikings were again out of the playoffs thanks to inept officiating.

Bill Simmons called the game the worst regular-season loss in NFL history, and prompted Vikings radio guy Paul Allen’s famous call (SCREAMING the whole time): “Here it is, the season’s on the line, two receivers left and right. McCown, takes the snap, he steps up, he’s all by himself, fires into the end zone… CAUGHT! (anguished scream) TOUCHDOWN! NOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOO!”

Back to Simmons, for the final commentary: ” More importantly, that was the fourth Stomach Punch game for the Vikes in less than 30 years. Even the Sox didn’t have that many over that same span. And yet you would never see a documentary about Vikings fans, a passionate group who have to rank among the most tortured fans in sports.”

2. December 28, 1975 – Dallas 17, Vikings 14 (NFC Divisional Playoff)
Perhaps the greatest of all of the Bud Grant Vikings teams, and it was defeated by blatant pass interference. Trailing 14-10, Dallas drove to midfield, then Roger Staubach launched a pass downfield for Drew Pearson, who pushed Vikings cornerback Nate Wright to the ground, then caught the ball on his hip – his hip! – and waltzed into the end zone. This play coined the term “Hail Mary,” and – I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic here – was the worst call by an official in the history of organized team sports. The ’75 Vikings were the NFL’s best team, and could have been the team to end the team’s Super curse. Instead, we got a new football term, and more heartache.

Now, that’s not 25 events – that’s only 12!

Which is a whole lot better, isn’t it?

And not nearly as bad as being a Bears or Cubs fan, is it?

Suck it up.

(Via Saint @ Fraters)

I am not a golfer, but I do love post-golf parties.

So I’ll be attending the Post-Tournament gala for the Millard Fillmore Memorial KARNation Open Championship Celebrity Charity Golf Outing Classic, tonight at an undisclosed location in the south ‘burbs.

The Head of Alfredo Garcia is live-blogging the festivities at the tourney, which teed off about half an hour ago.

Yet another title the Cubs will never hold:

In a record they’d rather not hold, the Philadelphia Phillies are the first U.S. pro sports franchise with 10,000 defeats.

The World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals delivered the milestone defeat 10-2 in a game they led 10-0 before the Phillies rallied with two in the bottom of the ninth. At the end, many fans at Citizens Bank Park were on their feet in a salute to their team.

Go Sox!

JB Doubtless writes about Bob Costas:

Bob Costas Is A Pompous, Effete, East Coast WASP

Goes without saying right?

Well, maybe and maybe not.

I mean, I’m not sure that a sportscaster’s Christian denomination has been much of an issue at least since 1971, when Pete “The Papist” Pike – unsuccessful play-by-play announcer for the ABA’s Pittsburgh Condors on KDKA Radio – was accused of getting his color commentary directly from Rome.

“WASP?”  I don’t think I’ve seen someone described as a “WASP” outside of a MAD magazine or some neurotic Jewish comic or another’s routine since the 1970’s.

But for what it’s worth, Costas was raised Catholic, the child of Greek-Irish parents.

So I guess he’d be a “Pompous Effete East Coast WIGC”?

One of the reasons I’m so dilatory and mercenary about following most professional sports (unless the Cubs, Twins or Bears are in the running) is that most pro and, indeed, college sports are just another commodity-based business these days.

Not that I ever really took after athletes as “role models”, although Dick Butkus taught a lot of key life lessons – but as I grew up, I realized that cynicism about sports was both amply justified and a two-way street.

So I was both surprised and gratified to read this: Joe Paterno is spanking his Penn State football team for having acted like a bunch of spoiled thugs, forcing the whole team to clean the 100,000+ seat stadium after each home game to punish about a dozen of their teammates for participating in a brawl:

We’re all going to do it, everybody,” Paterno told the Harrisburg Patriot-News after a banquet in suburban Philadelphia. “Not just the kids that were involved. ‘Cause we’re all in it together. This is a team embarrassment. I wouldn’t call it anything much other than that.”

This is easily the greatest punishment in recent collegiate history, an absolutely diabolical, telling, high-impact bit of discipline that should remind one and all that what Paterno has been doing out in State College, Pa., all these years is more than just win 363 football games, including 20 the past two seasons.

In a coaching business so full of phonies who talk character only to bend the rules, who consider the definition of discipline a player’s weight-room attendance, who wouldn’t dare pull something like this because it might hurt recruiting, here’s Joe Pa, four decades on the job and not giving a damn.

Except about what’s right.

And I loved this part:

It’s a job that usually goes to members of club sports on campus – say, rugby or crew – which do it to raise money so they can compete. Paterno said the clubs still will get the $5,000 for the job, but his guys, fresh off playing 60 minutes of major college football the day before, will do all the work starting Sunday morning.

It’s gratifiying to know that there’s one participant in the college sports industry that still has a sense of responsibility…:

“I don’t condone (the fight),” Paterno said. “Our kids were wrong.”

And across the nation college football coaches faint.

Most coaches have spent their offseason complaining about not being able to text butt-kissing messages to recruits. They no sooner would wear out their players on an off day with garbage picking than give up their country club memberships.

…and a little scary to realize you have to go to an 80-year-old throwback to an era a couple of generations back to find it.

The Miracle On Ice apparently…

…wasn’t:

For the twentieth straight year the Roman Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II have rejected the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Teams Gold Medal Victory as a bona fide miracle.

“Of course, it’s disappointing,” said teams captain Mike Eruzione. “At some point you begin to doubt yourself whether or not in fact there was divine intervention in that victory over the Soviets.”

The Miracle on Ice has been controversial since TV Evangelist Al Michaels asked his viewers, “Do you believe in miracles?” when referencing the U.S. victory over the powerhouse U.S.S.R Red Army team in a medal round hockey game in 1980. His enthusiastic answer to his own question, “Yes!” converted millions to the hockey team’s cause, testifying that their highly unlikely victory was indeed the result of divine intervention.

Anticipating papal validation of the event, the media quickly dubbed the event as the “Miracle on Ice”. However, Michael’s proclamation that a miracle had just occurred, as well as the media backing, had no authority with the Catholic Church whom must investigate all claims of miracles independently.

I didn’t know the Pope even played hockey.

(Via Red)

I don’t follow horse racing at all, although it was the only form of gambling at which I’ve ever succeeded (as in, have never lost money in my life).

Still, I love reading people who do:

MLP from “Casual Sundays…”:

Street Sense just beat Hard Spun.

I know it sounds like the headline the morning after the election in which Guliani beats Clinton, but it’s the Kentucky Derby.

Miss O’Hara’s liveblog culminated with…:

As soon as Street Sense made his move, I just started to cry. I don’t know why, but I did (and my husband started laughing at me for being such a silly female).

It’s more fun than actually watching the thing…

…that with the Wild’s loss to the Dux, the last miserable toothless drunken overcharged overhyped underproducing vestige of another Minnesota winter would be gone, and the state could focus on baseball the way God, the Eternal Manager, intended us to.

But you’d be wrong.

Your “master of obscure sports references” title is under serious attack.

Now is no time to rest on your laurels.

My suggestion:  less Everton, more Buzkashi.

Have your people call my people.

While I follow hockey in general only a little more than, say, rollerderby, I do get a little excited over WCHA puck.  Partly because it’s really good hockey (sorry, NHL fans – I’ve always preferred college puck, albeit in the same way that I prefer being shot to death by a crazed fan to being trapped in flaming diesel oil), and partly because it’s a sport where my native NoDak kicks butt.

Chad from Fraters – who’s a hockey fanatic, but usually sober and with a mostly-full mouth of teeth – makes his calls for the WCHA tournament:

he WCHA team that I think is playing the best hockey right now is the extremely politically incorrect University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux. They shouldn’t have too much trouble putting SCSU down 5-3 in the Friday semi.

* I have no confidence in this Gopher squad and their silly hair-dyeing ways. Shaky goaltending and a young team does not usually get you far in the playoffs. I wouldn’t be shocked in the Gophers fell on Friday, but I gotta think that they should have enough to get past Tech 4-3 in the other semi.

* That sets up a UND-Minnesota final. The Sioux dominated the Gophers in a late-season sweep at Mariucci and I think they will do the same on Saturday, something along the lines of 4-2.

I pick the Sioux for the same reason I pick the Bears; I always do.  But I’ll go along with Elder.

I do want to note that Mark Yost, “pride” of Brooklyn, is picking a St. Cloud State–Wisconsin final. We’ll see who has the true hockey cred after this weekend.

Uh huh.

I’m not a huge sports buff.  In my schedule, something‘s gotta give.

But to the extent that I am, I hasten to point out that the moment for which I put up with overhyped football, dreary repetitive NBA hoops and pointless NHL hockey is finally here, as Atomizer reports.

Pitchers and catchers are down in Florida right now warming up.

Alleluiah.

In 1940, everyone – everyone – predicted Sammy Baugh’s Washington Redskins were going to beat the Chicago Bears in the NFL Championship game.

Of course, the final result was the Bears dishing out a legendary 73-0 drubbing, a victory that set the stage for the defeat of Naziism.

I thought about trying to dredge up some of that 66-year-old Karma, and picking something like…:

Bears 255 (241 of them defensive)

Clots 13

But I finally opted to play it a little more serious.  After all, with the war on terror hinging on the balance, and America at the beginning of at least two dark years, it’d hardly behoove me to be excessively glib.

Of course, predications are dangerous, in the sense that some dolt will always hang onto them, and if you’re wrong, dance about like a poo-flinging monkey and wave your light-hearted, non-important prediction in your face like botched brain surgery.  Or, in other words, not dangerous at all.

So, while acknowledging in advance that I neither follow football nor, my Bears fandom notwithstanding, do I especially care about it, please take the following prediction – vital to humanity as it is that I be correct – with a block of salt.

Nonetheless, I’ll stand by it for all it’s worth.  Which isn’t much.  But rest assure that if I win, my tune will change.  As it always does when I win.

Bears 42

Clots 17.

As it is written, so shall it evermore be.

I read Jim Souhan’s piece on the T-Wooves’ travails…:

The Timberwolves could defend their decision to fire coach Dwane Casey if he were allowed to execute one final act as a Wolves employee: help Kevin McHale and Glen Taylor pack.

McHale will need help gathering the tools of his trade as an NBA executive — the calculator that exponentially inflated the value of the likes of Michael Olowokandi, Troy Hudson and Eddie Griffin; the magnifying glass that helped him discern the talents of Mike James and Marcus Banks; the appointment calendar with the summer months missing.

…and find myself handicapped by the fact that pro basketball is the only professional sport more boring than the NHL.

That is all.

It was about this time 21 years ago.

I was working at KSTP-AM. We were getting our Super Bowl predictions – Bears versus the Patriots -together.

Everyone knew the Pats were going to tip the Bears. Even the station’s Chicago boys, Mike Edwards and Don Vogel, just knew Jim McMahon couldn’t cut it in the big game.

Of all the people at the station, I was alone in predicting a Bears blowout. Everyone laughed. The Bears? Pffft.
Of course I, alone, was right.

So it’s 2007. Conventional wisdom spoke again. Everyone knew it was true.

“Grossman will choke in the playoffs”. Fans of lesser teams repeated it like a comforting mantra. “The Saints will pull it out”.

And again – for the second time in my life – I say “Hah!”

Saints? What Saints?

The Chicago Bears know how to make a Super Bowl memorable. They’re making this one historic long before it’s played.Dissed all season long, Rex Grossman and Co. are heading to the big game for the first time since 1985 after rolling over the New Orleans Saints 39-14 Sunday, and Da Coach leading them there makes it all the more special.

“Grossman will choke in the playoffs”.

Hahahahahahahahaha!

Lovie Smith became the first black head coach to reach the NFL’s marquee game in its 41-year history and roughly four hours later, his good pal and mentor Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts joined him.

“I’ll feel even better to be the first black coach to hold up the world championship trophy,” Smith said after the Bears won the NFC championship.

Booyah.

While on the one hand it’s kind of a can’t-lose – I’ve met Tony Dungy, and he’s a great guy – I’m all with Da Bears. The team everyone said couldn’t do it.

And America needs the Bears to win. Great things happen when the Bears go downtown. The Bears won their first NFL Championships in the thirties, at the bottom of the Depression – some might say that they started the recovery. The 1940 NFL Championship – where Sid Luckman led the Bears to a 73-0 victory (that everyone said they were going to lose!) to the Washington Redskins corresponded with the realization that Britain would, indeed, stand firm against the Nazis. The Bears last pre-Super-Bowl NFC Championship – 1963 – marked the last year of genuine bipartisan foreign policy in this country. The Bears last Super Bowl happened at the peak of the Cold War, in the dark days of 1986 – and, in its own way, was a harbinger of the end of that struggle and the fall of Communism. The Bears’ victory was a validation of Reagan’s philosophy, one this nation needed in that dismal season; with the turning back of the Patriots, socialism was defeated at the darkest houir of the American way, steeling our courage for the struggle ahead.  In an indirect way, hundreds of millions owe their liberty to the Bears.
This has been a crappy week for America; a Bears victory will be the turning point this country needs.

The world’s hopes and dreams focus on the Bears this week. And I have faith they won’t let us – and the world, and history itself – down.

(more…)

Pat Reusse on Bud Selig’s reign over major league baseball, due to end in a little over two years:

Fay Vincent was voted out of office as the baseball commissioner on Sept. 7, 1992. The main grievance against Vincent was that his intervention in the 1990 lockout of spring training had prevented the owners from getting a grip on the game’s economics.

Bud Selig was named the acting commissioner. He was the longtime owner of the Milwaukee Brewers. He planned to return to running that club as soon as a new commissioner was found…That will be 17 years on the job for Baseball Bud. And he will leave as did Vincent: with the owners having no grip on the game’s economics.

Selig was going to be the owners’ answer to the players – a commissioner that could stand up for owners’ interests.

The players struck in August 1994, and the owners lost a World Series trying to put a restraint into the salary system.

They messed it up, of course. They went through weeks of fruitless negotiations in the fall of ’94, then made the mistake of trying to declare a legal impasse a few days after the union had altered its position.

“The fact the impasse was declared after the union had moved created a legal situation for the owners that was unsupportable,” Griffith said. “They were forced to withdraw the claim of an impasse.

“They followed by taking the position that salary arbitration was a ‘permissive’ subject of negotiation, rather than a ‘mandatory’ subject of negotiation. It’s complicated, but the owners were wrong on that one, too.”

Bottom line: The owners gave up in April 1995 and basically settled on the players’ terms.

Which has had fallout all over the place, including regional politics; scrambling to pay the ever-escalating player salaries, teams feel no compunction about going to cities and states demanding new stadiums and, for all intents and purposes, big pieces of city rebuilt around the team’s needs.

So adios, Bud Selig (eventually), and good riddance.

The bad news:

Troy Smith’s Heisman Trophy was shipped home because airport security would not allow the Ohio State quarterback to take it on the plane Tuesday.

The good news:  At least this means actors’ Oscars will be confined to Hollywood…

(more…)

…this news would have kept me jazzed for a whole week.

Devin Hester ran into the record book again. Ricky Manning Jr. returned an interception for a touchdown, and the Bears claimed their second straight NFC North title with a 23-13 victory over the Minnesota Vikings on a frigid Sunday afternoon.

And by golly, it still does!

Now that they’ve clinched their second straight division title, the Chicago Bears can focus on bigger goals: a No. 1 seed and, maybe, the conference championship.

And then a Super Bowl.  Don’t forget the Super Bowl.