Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Week 22—Game Week
Photo Credit: Stacy Revere
On this week’s thread, I need everybody to comment their all-time favorite regular season Bears moment and their all-time worst regular season moment:
https://sgctc.substack.com/p/week-22-thread/comments
This week in Chicago:
Bears: Thursday vs. Green Bay on NBC at 7:20
Cubs: Tonight vs. Mariners 7:05; Thursday at Brewers 6:10, Friday at Brewers 7:10, Saturday at Brewers 6:10, Sunday at Brewers 1:10
Sox: Tonight at Cleveland 6:10, Wednesday at Cleveland 6:10, Thursday at Cleveland 12:10; Friday vs. Angels 7:10, Saturday vs. Angels 6:10, Sunday vs. Angels 1:10
This week’s trivia:
Dating back to 2009, the Bears have beaten the Packers just four times. Can you name all of them? This is a way of exorcising our demons before Thursday. (Answer at end of Bears section)
Audio portion: I recorded an incredible conversation with J.A. Adande this week that includes original MJ stories, his time covering the ‘90s Bulls, a little preview of the upcoming Jordan documentary from ESPN, and, you got it—some Jordan/LeBron discussion. It was such a great chat that I don’t think including it in this week’s newsletter will do it justice. Too much going on with Week 1 of the NFL. Week 23 of the newsletter will fittingly feature this audio portion. Stay tuned.
Intro: Every week, I tell you all to tell your friends about Still Gotta Come Through Chicago. Lots of you do and lots of you don’t. I appreciate all of you anyway. And yeah, this may be just a little weekly newsletter that I started sending out to my friends that I annoy people with. There’s a chance you don’t even like it or me. But when I say it’s getting better every week and that I’m dedicated to it I need you to feel the fervor in my words.
Rick Morissey—the Illinois Sportswriter of the Year—tweeted out this story he wrote last week:
Hey Rick, I wrote about this Sports Illustrated prediction a month ago and had Andy Benoit, the author of that prediction, on the audio portion three weeks ago:
Mayor Lori Lightfoot comes out and tells the public that a casino in downtown Chicago isn’t financially feasible because of the upfront fees and taxes that the Illinois gambling bill includes.
I could’ve told you that two months ago, Lori! It’s a bad bill, one approved by J.B. Pritzker, who broke his leg this week and does not know how. No, seriously. He broke his leg, said he doesn’t know how, and then said:
“I guess this is a function of what everybody was telling me to do when I was running for office, ‘Go break a leg!’”
Haha! But I digress.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about how Indiana was going to enact sports gambling by football season and swoop in on Chicago gamblers:
And then here comes the Chicago Tribune last week:
This isn’t me boasting or bragging. There’s just a difference between the game we’re playing. This isn’t my job, this is a lifestyle. Still Gotta Come Through Chicago doesn’t pay the bills, it’s just me paying my dues. And I hope you all feel that.
MJ said it first: “Utah, Indiana, still gotta come through Chicago. I don’t care what happened today, don’t care what happened in the other series. Still Gotta Come Through Chicago. We will win Game 7.”
Tribune, Sun-Times? Still Gotta Come Through Chicago. Thanks to all you guys for riding along. Now let’s go win a football game.
I’ve been counting down to this week since the advent of this newsletter. That’s not an exaggeration. When 15 people were reading this, we had all 16 pairs of eyes on September 5th. Now, in my mind, there’s a whole army of us marching down Michigan Avenue to Soldier Field in the snow with “Mosh” by Eminem and “Bear Down, Chicago Bears” playing intermittently.
You got a much-needed off day yesterday. Tuesday and Wednesday you get your work done, understand? Maybe stay until 5:30 each day just so the boss sees you’re engaged. Because come Thursday it’s go time. No more time to fret over the schedule or take the over on the win total. No longer the time to anoint Mitch Trubisky the future MVP of the league or disgrace his name. It’s put up or shut up time, and I need everyone to be all in.
Having said that, we’re not there yet. So first, some bullets.
Bears:
Trey Burton, after recovering all offseason from sports hernia surgery, is now questionable after suffering a groin injury in practice. It’s unknown whether he’ll play or not. Here’s the thing, usually I’d say I think he’ll play and that Nagy just doesn’t want to say it. But if Burton further aggravates that groin against Green Bay, that puts us in a desperate situation at the tight end position. Adam Shaheen has been banged up all camp and also just hasn’t proved he’s any good. Then we’ve got Bradley Sowell who played offensive line last year and Ben Braunecker, who actually looked alright in preseason play. It’s pretty crucial Burton is healthy for the great majority of 16 games.
Eddy Pineiro is officially our guy at kicker. Good. I’m glad we went with a guy that’s been in the building. And I like Pineiro. Yes, he missed one kick badly in the final preseason game, but he missed it so badly it almost makes me feel better. Does that make sense? Like, it wasn’t even close. Something must’ve gone wrong. Right? All I’m hoping for is for Pineiro to knock in his first extra point and first field goal of the year. That way he clears the mental hurdle and we can just go back to not talking about kickers as much as we have been.
Nationally televised games are usually a treat. This year, the Bears almost have too many for my liking.
Week 1 on NBC vs. Green Bay; Week 3 Monday Night Football on ESPN at Washington; Week 11 Sunday Night Football on NBC at Rams; Week 14 Thursday Night Football on FOX vs. Dallas; and Week 16 SNF vs Kansas City. They’ve also got that wacky Week 5 London trip vs. the Raiders and a quick turnaround to a Thanksgiving Thursday game at Detroit. It’s a weird schedule and a tough one. And although I love hearing Al Michaels voice from Soldier Field, it’s nice to roll out of bed on Sunday and count on a noon Bears game/ not having your adrenalin pumping right before bed every week on Sunday, Monday, or Thursday.
Let’s go. Send me an email if you’re doing something special or drinking some of those Bears edition Miller Lites. Have fun, be safe, and
Trivia answer: Last year at home, Week 17; 2015 at Green Bay on Thanksgiving; 2013 at Green Bay, the Shea McClellin game; 2010 at home in September
Cubs:
If the Cubs didn’t win that game yesterday against the Mariners, they would be four games back in the division and also would’ve lost a game to basically every team trailing them for the second wild card spot besides the Brewers. They also would’ve lost to the Mariners.
The five-run seventh inning broke a 24-inning scoreless streak, which is just unacceptable at this point in the season. The Cardinals can’t lose and the Cubs can barely score a run. Bleacher Nation tweeted this week that a trip to D.C. for a wild card game against Max Scherzer and then a possible matchup with the Dodgers would be “uniquely exciting.” If uniquely exciting is a synonym for “absolutely dreadful” and something “I’d rather not watch at all”, then I agree.
Yu Darvish got scratched from his latest start because of a forearm issue, which is disconcerting, especially because we’ve gotten basically no updates since. The Cubs say he’ll pitch his next start, but given Darvish’s injury history and the fact that he’s the best pitcher on staff right now (probably), they haven’t calmed anyone’s psyche.
Since I declared Victor Caratini my least favorite Cub (besides Russell), he went 12/28 in 2 weeks with three homers, two off of Jacob deGrom. Have I changed my mind? Nope. Still have absolutely zero confidence when that guy comes to the plate. Don’t know why. But hey, maybe he’s a subscriber under an alias. Rumor is he said, “Still Gotta Come Through Chicago!” as he pimped this:
As rosters expanded on September 1st, the Cubs brought up a bunch of guys, including a few relievers, Robel Garcia, and Ben Zobrist. David Bote had to go down to AAA for ten days in order to get Zobrist up and eligible. Can Zobrist be some sort of savior? It’s a lot to ask, but I’d rather have him on my team than not.
Nick Castellanos. Theo Epstein has been getting a lot of heat recently from Cubs fans, but Castellanos is another example of him working magic and making something out of nothing. I mean, what would we have done offensively the last few weeks without this guy? He had 11 home runs in August, the most ever by a Cubs player in their first month with the team, according to ESPN Stats and Info. A few tweets from his brother that I enjoyed last week:
He also is a Still Gotta Come Through Chicago guy:
White Sox:
The Sox didn’t win a game this week. They’ve lost seven straight and Ricky Renteria said they wouldn’t be calling many guys up in September. This is after Jose Abreu, the ostensible leader of the team, said that 2020 begins in September 2019. I think he’s got a good point, but hey, what do we know?
Lucas Giolito looked great until he didn’t. Dylan Cease looked bad. Eloy Jimenez has looked better but still has a negative WAR on the season.
You’d think September would be a great time to integrate the new prospects with the big league club and let them take their lumps like Cease and Jimenez are now, and like Giolito did last year. You’d think that.
To the new subscribers, we generally try to devote equal time to the South Side and North Side here, but I’ve just made up a new rule that if you don’t win a game during the week you don’t get more than four paragraphs.
Bulls:
Bulls new point guard Tomas Satoransky was all over the place against the USA in the FIBA World Championships this week:
It’s kind of sad how excited I am to see Satoransky play in a Bulls uniform next year.
Blackhawks:
Nothing to report here besides that we’re just two weeks away from the NHL preseason.
In lieu of the history section this week, a hat tip to Anthony Davis and Derrick Rose for paying for 4,000 kids from Englewood to go to the Chicago Football Classic between Hampton and Howard University on September 14th at Soldier Field. Anthony Davis, as the longtime readers know, has been barred from subscribing to this newsletter. But like Caratini, it looks like he’s making an effort to get back in my good graces. Job well done. Still not allowed to subscribe though.
Have a great week. Next newsletter will be the best one yet. Tell your family and friends to subscribe. And tell them that you Still Gotta Come Through Chicago.
Don’t forget to comment on this week’s thread: