Happy Friday Chicago!
Thanks for reading another newsletter. If you missed last week’s, you can read that here.
I always abstain from calling Chicago summers “the best,” because I have zero experience in other city summers. But I am willing to go along with it.
For me — probably because I focus on the wrong things in life — summer in Chicago is much closer to being the best when there are competitive baseball teams in town. The buzz on the North Side when a Cubs team is hot and in contention is hard to beat.
If you can divert your focus from the obese people running around with crop-tops on, that is. Before I wrote this paragraph, I looked up what the politically correct term is for fat people now. It’s “larger-bodied”. That is such a step back for the community. I can promise you this. If you ever call me larger-bodied, attempting to be kind, I will have no other choice but to fight you.
There’s two things you get really good at while living in the North Side of Chicago.
Completely ignoring another human being waving in your face: For some reason, at nearly every corner, there are campaigners for different causes. They jump out at you and wave in your face really obnoxiously. They must not have found out about the internet yet for these sorts of things.
Chicago Tribune Columnist Mary Schmich once wrote about leaving big cities “before it makes you too hard.” I think I understand that now. I used to indulge these people if I couldn’t avoid them, handing off my email and even sometimes giving them money for God-knows-what.
Now, I don’t even take the energy to avoid them. I walk right through them like Derrick Henry on a fourth-and-one, nearly pummeling them on the way. I either say nothing, or, if I’m in a good mood, just say “No” loudly as I walk by at a 10-minute mile pace.
Keeping your eyes forward, and keeping your face normal: When five larger-bodied people walk by with their bellies hitting their knees, it’s just human nature to grimace. Now, you could argue that they’re empowering themselves, and therefore, you should not feel bad about looking or even reacting. I’m somewhere in between. With this one, I’m still learning. I’ve tried to not clench my cheeks and eyes like my low-back just seized in reaction. I’ve tried not to look as if my stomach is sending 5 pounds of bile upward. Relax the face, and keep the eyes forward.
Outside of that, though, man, the buzz is electric as we turn the corner toward summer here up near Wrigley Field!
And, I will add that the only issue with walking around with your head intentionally dead forward (to avoid the two above characters) is you may miss the good stuff. I saw a dad with a Cubs jersey on the other day walking south from Wrigley Field. He was stumbling from the street to the buildings. His wife was holding his hand, forcing their two children to hold onto her only other remaining hand, behind her.
I guess that could be viewed as a bit sad, too. But hey, Stroman was pitching that day! He was probably doing the hot dog/beer per inning challenge. Family. Night. Out.
He desperately needed that, I bet. The Cubs are on a hell of a run, and I desperately needed that.
The pandemic made summer nights depressing. Now that they’re not, the Cubs need to take it up a notch to get the universe on the right tilt.
There won’t be a Cubs/Sox friction this summer, that’s for certain. Neither team is good enough to warrant that level of fun. Long gone are the good ol’ days of arguing whose shortstop is better.
Tim Anderson is still here, but Javier Baez is gone. And they both fucking suck. Who would have considered that as the end to the argument back in 2019?
We’ve got to derive some sort of sports fun for this summer. Lakes, boats and shit can only get you so far, especially if you have to work for a living during the week, which apparently many people don’t.
It’s still good to feel something on those weekday nights. A solid Cubs win will lift the spirits, another Sox player getting hurt running to first base will tickle my larger-bodied belly a little bit. Something like the No. 2 overall NBA draft pick saying “his GOAT” is Paul George will get me seething mad, forcing me to tweet for the first time in months.
But that’s all fleeting.
To really keep things steady, you need something consistent to take hold. The Bulls literally did nothing on draft night (Edit: They traded for a second-round pick! LETS GO BULLS). According to my countdown calendar, we still are 60+ days out from football season (I can’t wait until midnight to rip down another day). The Sox are an eye sore, to put it kindly.
The Cubs, though, have won 10 of 12. Could they be what pulls us through, and elevates a Chicago summer I am already ready to call a bust? I sure hope so, dear readers.
Let’s get into it.
For the purpose of this newsletter, the best part about the Cubs continuing their run this week is that I don’t have to continue my bipolar streak of being pissed one week and motivated the next week by a 6-game sample in a 162-game season.
During that 10 of 12 streak, the Cubs beat the Pirates six times, surpassing them in the NL Central standings. They also beat the Orioles and Giants twice, two teams hard to scoff at.
They’re still 3.5 games out of first and two games behind the Brewers — who are in second — but the Reds and Brewers do not keep me up at night. Plus, the Reds’ red-hot streak has taken place as they’ve played the Rockies, Royals and Cardinals.
I knew this team wasn’t great, but I also knew they weren’t as bad as they were playing in May and early June. And I just don’t want them to sell. The Cubs front office is apparently using the .500 marker as more of a barometer than the standings, which probably makes sense.
The good news is that, as the Cubs head to London for two games against the Cardinals, they are only two games below .500. And they have Marcus Stroman and Justin Steele going in those two games.
The London MLB games have been Mickey Mouse in the past, with really high scoring. That definitely worries me. But I’d rather have our two lights-out starters going than the alternative.
With Kyle Hendricks back, the Cubs rotation is legitimately good. They rank in the top-5 in almost every collective starting pitcher stat that matters — ERA, WHIP, average against, etcetera.
Stroman, specifically, is 7-0 in his last seven starts with a 1.29 ERA.
The bullpen deserves some love too. Adbert Alzolay has been fantastic in the closer role. He hasn’t allowed a run in his last nine outings, and has a 1.9 ERA for the season. Better yet, considering his role, he has a fantastic 0.85 WHIP (Walks + Hits per inning).
Heck, even Michael Fulmer — remember him? — hasn’t allowed an earned run in nearly a month.
The London series against the Cardinals worries me. I don’t like the idea of a team having to go to some promotional, neutral site in the midst of a hot streak.
Worse yet, the Cubs fly home from London on Sunday. But beginning Tuesday, they play 12 straight days. What awful scheduling.
But, it’s not worth it to get mad about the future just yet. These couple days off before the London series have allowed me to bask in the Cubs’ recent success. It’s been a nice change of pace.
I was going to start a petition for Ian Happ to stop hitting right-handed just a month ago. Then, he threw it back in my face.
Mike Tauchman, meanwhile, has been as much a part of the Cubs surge as anyone. While the majority of that credit belongs to him, it’s also worth noting that Cody Bellinger’s ability and willingness to switch to a first-base role has made that possible.
Bellinger has struggled hitting since his hot start, but given the injury, I’m telling myself to not harp on it.
The Cubs beat Rich Hill in their last game against the Pirates. I found this factoid very enjoyable to learn.
(I can’t embed tweets anymore. Credit to DailyRandomCub on Twitter for this one.)
When I had these beautiful banner heads made for each Chicago team’s section of the newsletter, I didn’t expect for more than half of them to be obsolete by this point. I was at least smart enough — or the Bears were bad enough — to have Walter Payton featured on the Bears one. MJ was an obvious choice.
Rizzo is gone. Toews is gone. And, while Tim Anderson isn’t gone, he’s shrunk from a star to a liability in record time. Despite manning the top of the lineup for the vast majority of Sox games this year, he’s been truly awful. His .290 OBP and .292 slugging percentage are miserable. His best stat historically — average — is bad at .249. He’s still not great in the field.
His story is a sad one. He’s gotten worse on the field, and his image has been hurt off the field. But his year is just another reminder of an inescapable fact: the White Sox do not have good players.
You can no longer call them “underperforming.” This is who they are. Sometimes one of them will get hot, but, inevitably, someone else is either hurt or cold.
In the last week, one of the Sox’ only two wins was just handed to them by the umpires, through a call I still have not wrapped my head around. Even Steve Stone could not wrap his around it.
Unfortunately, the manager looks more clueless by the day. No, it’s not his fault that he doesn’t have good players. But his explanations for why he does one thing or another never make any sense. That is generally a red flag.
There’s been a lot of talk about whether the Sox will sell or not. The only problem with that is you have to have a good or service worth selling. The Sox don’t even really have that.
Michael Kopech pitches well here and there. But even when he does, it takes him 30 pitches to get out of an inning, forcing him out of the game before the sixth inning. Lance Lynn — congrats on the strikeouts last week. Dylan Cease was great last year, could he yield something? Maybe. Giolito? Probably.
It’s a sad state of affairs. The only thing worse than watching frustrating, bad baseball is knowing there’s not greener pastures ahead. In that sense, I feel bad for Sox fans.
Andrew Benintendi was handed the largest contract in the history of the organization. Is he better than Adam Eaton? I dunno.
The Boston Celtics have made the Eastern Conference Finals four of the last six years. They lost in the finals last year, and in seven games in the Eastern Conference Finals this year.
The Boston Celtics were not satisfied. They turned Marcus Smart — a role player — into Kristaps Porzingis and two first-round picks. They felt they needed to get better. They haven’t won the Finals since 2008, after all.
That operating thesis is juxtaposed with the Bulls, who did not make the playoffs this year. They didn’t have a pick coming into last night’s draft. They traded into it to draft Julian Phillips, another athlete that can’t shoot three pointers. That was the first trade they had made since early 2021.
Every team in the league is seemingly gearing up for Finals contention next year or gearing up for a healthy future by accumulating young talent and draft picks.
The Bulls are not doing either. 76ers President Daryl Morey — at the time, the GM of the Houston Rockets — once said that you can always count on about ten teams to be dumb in the NBA. Just that, he said, gives you an inherent advantage as a team looking to win an NBA championship.
That always struck me because I had to come to grips with the fact that the Bulls were one of those ten teams. I knew I hated GarPax, and I knew the Bulls front office had been miserable for some time, but thinking about it in that context was especially disheartening.
I won’t write about what I think the Bulls needed to do last night. I did that last week.
But they needed to do something.
The Lakers paid more than $4 million for a pick to get better. The Suns traded for Bradley Beal. The Nuggets have been trading for near-term assets and giving away long-term assets. The Warriors traded for Chris Paul and got off of Jordan Poole’s contract. The Grizzlies got Marcus Smart. The Kings have cleared ample cap space. Daryl Morey, I can guarantee you, will be making the 76ers better this offseason.
See the trend? The best teams, the top seeds, are all still trying to get better, at whatever cost.
The worst teams are, as I said before, stockpiling young talent and draft capital.
Then there’s the Bulls. Arturas Karnisovas said after the draft that Lonzo would not be playing next year, but that they hadn’t considered waving and stretching his contract. He even said they “like” how the Nikola Vucevic trade turned out. To anyone besides him, that is one of the most lopsided trades in recent history, and not in way that’s good for the Bulls. But they’ll sign him anyway to commit to the mistake for optics.
They’ll address shooting in free agency, he said. But they don’t have cap room, and there aren’t great options out there. They’ll extend qualifying options to Coby White and Ayo Dosunmu. And… blah blah blah blah.
It’s all nonsense. The Bulls could surprise us with more significant moves later this offseason.
But, it must be said. I was wrong about Karnisovas. He’s not going to lead us out of our post-MJ misery. The Bulls are in the worst position in the league, and everyone seems to know that besides the people in charge.
Thanks for reading another edition of Still Gotta Come Through Chicago! Comment below, and refer to your friends and family if you enjoy the newsletter.
That was a depressing way to end that newsletter, but I agree.
Two points of contention:
1) You can't be a "fatist" when you have a large bodied father;
2) This London crap is coming at the absolute worst time. I don't like it and can't believe that MLB thinks the English are ever going to embrace Baseball.
And, as I was about to sign off, why now that we can pay athletes were 5 of the top 7 draft picks players who did not play College Basketball? I know two were from France but what were the other three doing?