Happy Friday Chicago…
Tomorrow is the first ever SGCTC get together. Here are the details for the final time.
When: Saturday (tomorrow), May 15, from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., arrive on time (if you can) so the bar owner doesn’t think I’m lying about having a newsletter with a following, please.
Where: O'Callaghan's in River North — 29 West Hubbard Street. The party will be held privately on the third floor. You should be able to walk up on your own. If not, say you’re here for the “Still Gotta Come Through Chicago” event.
Details: It’s a normal cash bar, just meaning you will be paying for your own drinks unless I decide to buy you one as a Thank You for the support. There may be some prizes at the event that will be unveiled then.
Less cool details: The NBA has decided to turn all of those Saturday games into day games, so the Bulls game will not be on as planned. The Sox game, however, will be on. Hopefully we’ll be celebrating the Bulls being a game away from the play-in, urging them onto victory in their final contest on Sunday. If not, we can go ahead and celebrate with the extra money in our pockets and enjoy each other’s company all together for the first time ever.
Only rule: Be respectful of the bar please, they’ve been great to us from the start.
A sincere thank you in advance for coming and being a part of the SGCTC community.
But before that — get someone to subscribe and bring them along.
If you missed this week’s newsletter from Tuesday, stop now and read that here. Then return to the rest of this drunkin’ one.
I know Andrew Vaughn hit his first homer, I know Billy Hamilton almost hit for the cycle. I know the Cubs didn’t pitch Craig Kimbrel in extra innings for no reason. I know Matt Nagy was on a media tour because he had something positive to talk about for the first time in, like, three years.
But that’s all by the wayside today.
There was a lot of doubt. After the first two games of the season, which the Bulls lost by a collective 39 points, I got a lot of texts.
I kept all of the doubters in my phone, in a special album.
“You owe me x amount of money for this Bulls bet.”
Well it’s my time to finally say shutttttt the fuck up. The Bulls are 30-game winners, which means they have officially hit the OVER on their season win total, with two games to spare. And they did it even without their best player for 11 crucial games down the stretch.
And if you have a bad bookie and got 30.5, the Bulls will probably hit that too. To top it off, the Bulls can still make the play-in. If the Wizards lose tonight, the Bulls will be playing for their playoff lives in the second-to-last game of the season at noon on Saturday. The Wizards need to lose their next two and the Bulls need to win their next two. It’s improbable, but not impossible. Either way, we’ll be celebrating the season — and the SGCTC community — on Saturday anyway.
But seriously, this was a long time coming. One of the first things I ever did that caught on through the internet was the Bulls hype video for 2019-2020. I didn’t think they’d be good, but I think they’d hit their number.
COVID took that from us, and COVID took the party that was supposed to come after from us too.
But what it turned into was something better: A Bulls team I believed in more, an over bet I believed in fervently, and ultimately, a party that could celebrate the ending of a pandemic and the Bulls hitting their win total at the same time.
For those of you that believed in me, we will go into Saturday’s party with extra cash to spare. Our own stimulus check, as I put it in the hype video that I made by myself, hoping my roommates wouldn’t hear me as they tried to fall asleep (they did).
This Bulls team wasn’t great, but they were a hell of a lot more fun. At times, they looked like one of the five or six best teams in the Eastern Conference. It didn’t always go how we expected, but those who took the bet rode it until the end, and you’ll bear the fruits of your labor when the season ends.
I hope that you’re still reading.
I know I write about the Bulls a lot, and I know that a lot of you care more about the Bears, the Sox, the Cubs, or the Blackhawks.
But I have an explanation for that.
I joke about my father a lot on this newsletter, but my first memories as a sports fan are at Bulls games with him, cheering on Elton Brand in the post-Jordan era like Jordan didn’t exist at all. You just can’t imagine the magic i felt walking into a game with my Dad as Sirius played on the speakers. He always made sure that we’d be there for the intros, and thus, he made a monster out of me.
We’d go to games that we had no chance of winning, and win anyways. My dad knew that we were terrible — I didn’t. He knew what I’d find out later, that the glory before my memories would be hard to put into words. But that is what I was raised on.
Cheering for your hometown basketball team, in the best basketball city in the world.
God Bless my father for taking me to Bulls games at 5-years-old. (We won’t talk about the DePaul games he took me too, where he made me chant ‘Calipari’s a scum bag!’ at the opposing coach, alongside my brother.)
Because no matter what you think about Chicago at this point, and no matter what you think about NBA basketball, it should always be in your conscience that the Bulls need to be better.
And that’s happening now. Through Zach LaVine — who has grown so far beyond my expectations this season; through Billy Donovan, that slick son of a bitch; through the man who replaced GarPax, Artūras Karnišovas (AK-47), the Renaissance Man who will bring Chicago its seventh ring; through Nikola Vucevic, the extra piece to the puzzle that we didn’t know we needed.
The reason why this message resonates with the subscribers in their 50’s is because they lived through it. The reason why it pulls 25-year-olds in is because they saw what it could be like with Derrick Rose.
Basketball is Chicago, and the Bulls are Chicago’s basketball team. So goddammit, let’s go get another championship.
But first, let’s enjoy these 30 wins. I’ll see you all on Saturday. Now say it with me….
LETS GO BULLS…. say it with me… STILL GOTTA COME THROUGH CHICAGO!
If you’ll be there on time Saturday, we’ll have Sirius playing for you. If not, we’ll have warm welcomes anyway. Can’t wait to see you all.
Thanks for being a part of this… and thanks for reading this newsletter after a softball win and about 10 cold ones at Declan’s. Love you all!
Comment what you’re most excited for on Saturday here:
Im gonna be in the defensive stance the whole 4 hours at O'callaghans. LETS GO BULLS LETS GO BULLS LETS GO BULLS
Don't get me wrong I loved that Bulls hype video intro, but Chris Duhon (one of my sneaky favorite Bulls) and Tyrus Thomas being honored in an Intro alongside Michael Jordan, Kukoc and Pippen is hilarious.
Lets go CAVS, Lets Go BULLS