Happy Friday Chicago!
The next Bears quarterback sometimes paints his nails.
Caleb Williams won the Heisman trophy, he’ll make $10 million next year, and is in peak physical condition. Unfortunately — for him, you and I — there’s a lot of grown men with co-morbidities who haven’t stood up straight in five years that think painting your nails is disqualifying. I guess we’ll have to pass.
If Elon Musk painted his nails tomorrow, they would too, but the Bears quarterback expressing himself is a bridge too far.
I want to make my position on this very clear. Not only do I not give a damn who paints their nails, if Caleb Williams is good, he could personally get me fired from my job and I would shrug my shoulders and say I could’ve done more.
If this guy is an All-Pro, it would take a lot for me to turn on him because of how he conducts himself off the field. I’m racking my brain for a political stance that could kick me out of his corner. I’m counting on my fingers right now, and I still got plenty of collapsed phalanges left. I’m talking the-glove-didn’t-fit-him-though levels of excusing behavior.
I hope he knows that if he wants to go Steph Curry on us and prevent low-income housing from being built near his home, I’ll be the first one to take up action at City Hall. Signs, chants, whatever you want, King. I just can’t do hunger strikes. I would be sneaking a sub with chips and a cola on the side in the stall three hours after we started.
I didn’t want to argue about Williams-Justin Fields all offseason, and I’m not going to get sucked into a weeks-long discussion about whether men should or shouldn’t paint their nails. Some of you would be better off focusing on cutting yours, though.
Just win, baby. All I care about is painting checkmarks into the win column come September. The rest is noise.
And for now, it’s baseball season. I grew up a three-sport respecter and I remain one. The seasons are here for a reason, and who am I to not obey them? You don’t play Madden in June, and you don’t talk about a quarterback’s style choices at the end of March. Been that way for a long time. This is not First Take.
We’re gearing up for a beautiful, long summer filled with competitive Cubs baseball, carefree fun, and an all-important Bulls play-in game.
Tonight, when the Cubs opening day starter, Justin Steele, went down with a hamstring injury five innings into the season, my reaction would have led you to believe that Derrick Rose tore his ACL in the first round of the playoffs again, or worse yet, Boobie Miles tore his again. Ain’t no tear.
But I’ve had enough time to convince myself that he — and the Cubs — will be just fine.
This year, I’ll watch fewer Sox games than I have since I was in college and was only vaguely aware of goings on outside the town I lived in for four years straight. But I’ll watch enough to honestly report on those bums throughout the season.
The baseball season starting doesn’t mean that summertime is here. It does mean that we’re firmly on an upward life trajectory from this day forward, however, and there’s nothing anyone can do to bring that stock ticker back down.
Opening Day is here, and bad times are on the run.
Major League Baseball knocked it out of the park with basically one nationally televised game Thursday, but nonetheless, their incompetence cannot ruin this guy’s mood.
Let’s go.
It’s tough to do a season preview one game into the season, because my prehistoric brain cannot keep itself from all of the takeaways from the loss tonight.
Also, I don’t know how you all watch games on ESPN, but I don’t even pay attention to the at-bats. I just stare at the win probability meter, and cheer or groan based on the adjustments made there. “Hey, Cubs are up 51-49. Turn on the TV, it’s a close one.”
This week’s newsletter demands discipline, though, so I’ll only leave you with three high-level thoughts from last night’s 4-3 loss to the defending World Series champions in extra innings.
The Cubs deserved to lose that game, with Jonah Heim’s game-winning hit serving as the ultimate Ball Don’t Lie moment. For those that missed it, the Cubs scored a run on a passed ball that was actually a foul tip.
Some lip-readers have suggested that Justin Steele said the hamstring issue he suffered amid a PFP was a “cramp.” I’m not so sure that’s the case, and he’s likely headed to the IL, but his reaction and ability to walk off has my hopes high that the injury is not serious.
That game was awesome, and the loss didn’t make me any less excited for the rest of this season.
The Cubs are odds-on favorites to win the division for the first time in probably four years. There’s a strong argument to be made that, given their ability to win 90 games this year, they should have done more this offseason. A lot of free agents that could have helped the Cubs significantly ended up going for startling low prices.
But perhaps the deadline could change things.
For now, the starting lineup tonight looked glorious to me. It’s not of the Dodgers ilk, and I could be wearing rose-colored glasses, but man did this beauty strike me.
Not only is there not a “come on man, really?” name in this lineup, but there’s equal levels of hitting and fielding ability scattered across it.
Cody Bellinger immediately looked like the best version of himself, yet again. Christopher Morel — regularly rising in my favorite Cubs rankings — almost won the game with a bomb and had two other hits, too. The Hoerner-Swanson tandem has already saved runs defensively. Seiya was hitting the ball hard, fresh off of a 1.593 OPS spring training.
Pitching wise, losing Steele would be a major bummer. The broadcasters were wrong to suggest that the Cubs would be scrambling for someone to replace him. They have plenty of arms to make spot starts. The real issue is that they don’t have a pitcher of his caliber, or anything that close to it.
Lest you forget, the Cubs are already without their $68 million man Jameson Taillon to kick off the season, meaning we are relying on a 34-year old Kyle Hendricks to hold up a rotation backfilled with extremely inexperienced starters like Shōta Imanaga, Jordan Wicks and Javier Assad.
I think Imanaga and Wicks will both eventually be very solid staff members, but it’s tough to guarantee that from the get-go, and the Cubs have a notably tough schedule to kick off the season — the Rangers, Dodgers, Padres, Diamondbacks, Mariners, Marlins, Astros, and Mets all appear on the April schedule.
It’s a long season, though, and I won’t speculate too much about an injury that could come to be nothing by tomorrow morning.
The starting pitching could be a pain point in April and May, but I do believe that it will end up being a net strength by the end of this year.
On the corners, it was great to see Michael Busch get off to a good start at the plate, but he looked borderline inadequate at first base a couple of times. And it’s always great to see Nick Madrigal use absolutely all his might get the ball over to first base from third.
I tend to think the Cubs have more versatility at those positions than others do, but the bottom line is that I trust Craig Counsell will put the Cubs in the best place to win every game of this season.
And that’s actually the fourth high-level takeaway from tonight. The hair stood up on my arms every time they showed Counsell in the dugout.
Put one way: it feels like the “lucky” bounces the Brewers always seemed to get the last handful of years are going to end up on our side this year.
The three main things I’ll be keeping an eye on at the beginning of this year:
— The aforementioned backend of the rotation
— Miguel Amaya’s development. If he can become a productive hitter at the catcher’s position, that would do wonders for the Cubs day-in, day-out lineups.
— Seiya Suzuki. Suzuki improved his slash line basically every month last year. If he can be an elite hitter this year, and not just a good one, that also raises the Cubs ceiling.
That’s without mentioning the help the Cubs could get from Iowa, and namely Pete Crow-Armstrong.
The Cubs are +185 to win the division, and their over/under for wins is 84.5.
I think they win on the margins and end up with 88 wins and a division title by year end. That likely adds up to about 50 Go Cubs Go!s, and I’m going to shake my ass to every one of them.
The juice was just not there for the White Sox opening day this year. I feel for my Sox fans counterparts, as their plight is mine as a Chicagoan and a Bulls fan.
It’s not worth going over the precipitous fall that the organization has undergone in just a matter of a couple of years. We’ve already done that.
Tim Anderson and Jake Burger are in Miami. Jason Benetti is calling games for the Tigers. Dylan Cease is gone. Jose Abreu is in Houston.
What’s left in the daily lineup is Luis Robert, a regularly hobbled Eloy Jimenez and whatever you can claw out of Andrew Vaughn’s lifeless body.
That manifested with a 1-0 loss that included 0 Walks, 11 strikeouts and three hits to kick off the 2024 season!
But then there’s what keeps baseball fans alive: hope. Garrett Crochet — unbelievably the White Sox opening day starter — threw six innings and gave up one run on five hits, with eight strikeouts. It was a great start.
The season will be about two buckets for Sox fans: rooting for guys to play well so there’s some hope for the future, and rooting for guys to play well so they can be traded this summer.
For Chuck Garfien, the season will be a resounding success if the clubhouse sees no fights and teammates pick up after each other in the locker room.
Here’s to hoping everyone gets at least something they want out of this season. The Sox win total is 61.5, only outdone by the Rockies and Athletics. Not good company.
The road to .500 seems to be blocked off at this point. I’m thinking about turning around.
The Bulls continue to lose games they should win, and have now lost to the Pistons twice and the lowly Wizards once during this volatile season.
Apathy is setting in, and I’m reaching the point you all did anywhere from two to six years ago. I’ll push through it, though, because once I begin disassociating at 5:30 p.m. every day I wake up out of a blackout two hours later in front of the TV watching this team.
Case in point, the Bulls lost to the Wizards and then followed it up with a blowout win of the Pacers in which they held them to the lowest point total they’ve had all season.
There’s always a silver lining. The Bulls brought back Javonte Green this past week on a 10-day contract.
After the Bulls did not re-sign him in free agency, he spent the year with the Warriors G-League team. When the Bulls beat the Warriors in Golden State, he actually celebrated with the Bulls in the locker room afterward.
That’s the kind of shit that Arturas Karnisovas probably loves, which sucks, because god dammit I love it too.
The guy brings immediate energy off the bench, and still bounces around like a 22-year-old. It’s good to have him back.
Now, the Bulls are actually in jeopardy of losing the 9 seed — the Hawks are one game back — which would make them the 10th seed for the second year in a row. For humor purposes, I kind of hope they win that game again and then lose out on the final playoff spot in the second game of the play-in tournament.
Two years in a row, with the exact same result, should provoke action. But, then again, nothing seems to provoke action around here.
An away play-in game would also keep me from spending $200 on a play-in home game, which really isn’t a choice. If the game is at home, I’m there.
LETS GO BULLS!
Thank you all for reading this week’s newsletter. Next week, I may go against everything I just said and rail on the new NFL rules. But better days await. See you Friday.
Credit: AP
I dont think there are any “cmon many’ reallys” is the cubs line up as of now. Madrigal is on the “cmon man, really” watchlist. He sucks, you’ll hate him by July. His only way to stay in the lineup is if he bats with zero outs a lot and his job is to move the ball over. But that’s small ball! An OPS+ of 74 since being a Cub, IMO if you’re posting those numbers on a competitive team you better be a gold glover. He’s fine in the field, sucks at base running, runs like a square.
Also, I hate him and think he sucks, can you tell?
Need to secure the division. I wonder when the last time a manager won the same division twice in two years with two different teams….Big Money riding. Go cubs. Can’t wait to put on my blue gear this summer that has no cubs logos on but no one could ever tell I’m a Secret Southsider.
Go bulls. F*ck Madrigal to hell.