Four newsletters last week and another one to kick this week off. As long as the lockdown persists, you can count on SGCTC for content and discussion.
Don’t be afraid to leave a comment today — on Ed Farmer, on sports coming back, on the newsletter, on the trivia — anything! We have fun in there every morning.
Again, thanks to those of you who help spread the word about SGCTC. Believe it or not, this takes work. And it’s free. So help me out with a new subscriber today:
Let’s go.
Trivia
A few weeks back we examined the Cubs best “Strike Outs Per Nine Innings Pitched” seasons ever. This week, it’s the Sox’ turn. The Sox list, like the Cubs, is both predictable in some ways and wacky in others. The top season is 11.818 strike outs per nine innings. Of the top 10 in Sox history, 8 of the seasons are post-2010. Those eight seasons include five different pitchers.
Who are the five pitchers?
(Answer at end of the newsletter)
When will sports be back?
Like everything these days, it’s hard to say. But let me tell you, whatever the hell that H-O-R-S-E competition was on ESPN last night was offensive to my intelligence and sports fandom. Me liking sports does not mean I want to watch Chris Paul shoot free throws on FaceTime. My god, I appreciate the networks and leagues trying to get creative, but let’s not throw out production standards with our face masks, alright?
The pandemic has been bad for everyone and really bad for some. But I’m sure many of you have sat back some days and said, ‘This really ain’t all that bad.’ I’ve been there a few times. But for whatever reason, it hit me this Sunday. We’re starting up another week today and we’ve got nothing to show for it, nothing really to look forward to. I haven’t had a beer in ages, which is my own fault I guess. But the process of drinking a beer, I think, would just make me yearn for my buddies and the bar even more.
Last week’s newsletter lineup probably suggested that this was coming. I didn’t pump out a full one, but instead wrote four different ones throughout the week. Hell, we’re a few weeks away from a Thursday morning email in your inbox titled, “The reintroduction: How the Chicago Wolves Can Reassert their Dominance in the ECHL Like Real Wolves did in Yellowstone Park Years Ago.”
I don’t know who I hate more: the people who say we should open things back up tomorrow because, hey, young people aren’t dying OR the people who write articles about why we may not see sports until 2022. Jesus (Happy Easter, btw, He is Risen!), can you at least hold out some hope for us? Nothing like ending a long work day to read your shitty article about why sports will never be the same.
That’s why I’m not mad at leagues suggesting wild ideas. Wild ideas could work and may be the only answer right now. Unprecedented challenges call for unprecedented solutions. If the MLB thinks that a spring training-style regular season is the best way to move forward, then so be it!
Then there are the people who say, “play the rest of the NBA season on cruise ships.” Oh wait, no, that was just Jay Williams, who is a moron. And, apropos to nothing, is also a “LeBron would dominate Jordan” guy.
But back to the spring training idea.
These would be the divisions if the MLB regular season was played with the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues.
It would not be perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But if it were safe, it would be much better than what we have now — which is nothing. Not only that, but the Cubs and the Sox would be in the same league, playing each other often. Nothing would strip Chicagoans of all the goodwill they built up with each other during quarantine more than big time Sox/Cubs games in late Summer.
How awesome would that be? Throw the game on, connect via Zoom, talk shit to your buddies virtually, and tell them that if they keep talking shit back to you you’re going to beat their ass next time you see them, then go to bed angry.
Hell, I may even throw a couple ‘dogs on the grill and pay someone 10 bucks to bring me Bud Lights.
That sounds so great to me right now, and I know we all have the exact person in mind that we’d be jawing with. Plus, if your team gets the best of the other, you have bragging rights. If your team comes up on the losing end, you just say it’s not a real season anyway, and ‘Congrats on the Cactus League Championship, bro.’
The bottom line is, I just want something. If it’s baseball from a spring training site with no fans present, I promise you I’ll get over the weirdness of it quickly. We all will. Plus, baseball is by far the sport that will be the easiest to watch with no fans. Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a “Sox players should be used to it, LOL” joke here. Baseball is better with fans, sure, but they don’t add a whole lot to the regular season contests.
Now, if playoff baseball is played without fans — that would be weird, and probably too much to handle. So we’ll see.
The NBA season is probably going to get cancelled. The league and owners are doing all they can to salvage it somehow, but I just don’t see it happening. The best thing they have going for them right now is the fact that they’ve already played enough games to constitute a season. I personally badly want there to be a finish to the season, or else we’ll have to deal with LeBron and Lakers fans talking about “The Lost Season” for the rest of our lives, as if the Lakers were a shoo-in to win it because they won a couple of home games before the season was suspended.
Whether they restart the season or not, there’s going to be a shortened and wacky offseason. That’s why it was so smart (can’t believe I’m typing this) of the Bulls to get ahead of their front office moves, so they can spend the actual offseason making personnel moves and not looking for what’s left in the front office market. More on this later.
The college football season is looking more grim as the days go on. If students aren’t allowed to be in school or in the facilities, a season simply cannot happen. But, as I’ve said before, I can’t imagine that the South is going to pack their bags up and concede a season to the coronavirus. In a coronavirus vs. SEC match-up, I’m taking the SEC. And that’s not to say the SEC would win the match-up, either. I just know they’d send 52 men out to the playing field to play the match-up. And that could be good for us as viewers, but probably bad in the long run, for lots of reasons.
Story 1 in Monday’s Paper: Alabama 36, Ole Miss 12.
Story 2 in Monday’s Paper: 54,000 new cases of COVID-19 in Alabama were reported this week.
Adam Schefter tweeted that college football people were telling him that the season was going to happen last week. That could just be because people that very much want and need the season to go on have Schefty’s phone number. But it still gives me some confidence that these crazy m’fers are going to go through with it come hell or high water.
The amount of money that college football brings into these universities cannot be overlooked. Without that money, a million other things hang in the balance. As grim as it looks, I still think the upcoming season will be played — someway, somehow.
The NFL probably has the best chance of having a full season. They don’t have to worry about universities. They’ve got players who get paid, and want to be paid. It won’t be hard convincing them. The NFL draft is going on as scheduled at the end of April with Roger Goodell announcing picks from his basement. That will be 1. weird and awkward and 2. something I will watch from start to finish.
They have the most money and they have the latest start date. They also have enough power to make things happen the way they want to (see: the Draft). The NFL also doesn’t have to worry about other major leagues and their conflicting schedules. The NFL is king and it also doesn’t share its stadiums with other teams in the cities. The Chicago Fire will not dictate the Bears schedule this upcoming year, I promise you that.
Until then, “The Last Dance” will have to do. The long-anticipated Jordan documentary kicks off next Sunday on ESPN. Two episodes will be released back-to-back each week at 8 p.m. Talk about a content gift for Still Gotta Come Through Chicago. Every single week will serve as a recap/discussion for the last two episodes here. I have not been more excited for a television program, well, ever. And this newsletter will be strive to be the best place to bathe in it all each week.
Let’s GO.
A SGCTC Eulogy
Ed Farmer — who served as a Sox radio broadcaster for nearly 30 years — passed away earlier this month. He was two young Sox fans’ dreams in one. A kid from the South Side, he played for them for a year and a half during his 11-year career. Then, when he hung his cleats up, he became the lead man in the radio booth.
He battled kidney disease for the better part of his life and ultimately fell to complications from it, but what a life it was. True to his roots, he also brought into the booth — as Jason Benetti put it — seemingly anyone who wanted to come. It’s what we all say we’d do if we made it big, right? Man, if I ever got there — I promise I’d bring you guys all along with me.
The Sox had two legendary announcers simultaneously — Hawk Harrelson is the more recognizable one — both because of the mediums they worked on and because of Hawk’s personality. But by most accounts, particularly from those within the sport, Farmer was the superior broadcaster.
It takes a lot to be a great broadcaster in any sport. It takes even more to be a great broadcaster in baseball, where there are 162 games and a slew of seasons where the team’s games don’t matter one bit.
It takes even more to be a good radio broadcaster in baseball. There’s no escape for them. Your job requires as much in the first inning as it does in the ninth, as much in Game 36 as Game 162. For people to have loved you as a radio announcer in baseball requires more than longevity, it takes building a connection with fans that develops over years with good work.
I didn’t listen to Farmer much because I grew up a Cubs fan. Farmer was to Sox fans what Pat Hughes was to me. And by the reaction from fans and friends after his passing, Farmer meant just as much Sox fans as Hughes means to Cubs fans.
If you ever listen to someone who is truly in love with baseball, their path to fandom usually is tied to the radio. There’s good reason for that. Simply switching on the TV was not always an option, and it especially wasn’t for day games in July. The ability to convey a beautiful game and captivate the audience simply through wording is a gift — one that Farmer had.
A thought worth considering after a town loses one of its favorite broadcasters is how much they mean to us. Players come and go, broadcasters usually don’t. Our relationship with them, most of the time, is much stronger.
Plus, Farmer was one of us. A Chicagoan through and through until the day he died. RIP and a Still Gotta Come Through Chicago hat tip to you, Ed.
If you have a though on Farmer or a favorite memory, leave it in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.
The New Bulls
If you didn’t read my primer from Friday’s newsletter on the Bulls new head of basketball operations, Arturas Karnisovas, make sure to check that out here.
We’re still working on a nickname for Arturas, but my original, spur-of-the-moment BIG ART seems to be a crowd favorite within the SGCTC community. The art aspect led me to a new one, though — the renaissance man, or the BIG Renaissance.
You see, the Dark Age was the medieval era in Europe, sandwiched between the fall of the Roman Empire (Jordan years) and the Renaissance. The Renaissance brought new philosophers, leaders, and art. Karnisovas will do the same for the Bulls, pulling us out of the leaderless dark years with John Paxson.
I’ve thought so much about these parallels that I even started making a new pump up video for former Bulls fans looking to hop back on the bandwagon. I’ll be releasing that some time this week. We’re going to be history experts and Bulls experts by the time we can go back out again.
“THE BULLS WERE A LOT LIKE EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES WITH PAXSON. THEY HAD NO LEADERSHIP AND NOTHING GREAT WAS ACCOMPLISHED WITH HIM. IF THE JORDAN ERA WAS THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE BIG ART IS OUR SAVIOR, THAT MEANS WE’RE ENTERING THE RENAISSANCE AS BULLS FANS.”
“That’s interesting. Anyways, I have to go to the bathroom.”
The Big Art (AKA the Big Renaissance, the Renaissance Man, Leonardo Da Bulls) got to work right away. No GM has been hired yet, but an assistant GM has, by way of the New Orleans Pelicans.
J.J. Polk was an executive of basketball administration for the Pelicans for the last seven years and has a law degree from the University of Illinois. He’s also reportedly a salary cap whiz, which is no small add for an organization that has had a GM who doesn’t understand the cap for the last few years.
No, seriously. As BlogABull.com reminded us on Twitter last week, Gar Forman legit didn’t understand the ins and outs of the salary cap in the NBA.
Here’s a story that was posted on RealGM, an NBA forum, back in 2016. Forman was dumb enough to be talking about negotiations with former Bull Paul Zipser in front of fans at the Summer League, which led to this post.
If this doesn’t sum up the Bulls front office situation in the Dark Age, I don’t know what does. A GM in the NBA didn’t understand how contracts worked!
Anyway, the Bulls are reportedly moving forward with GM candidates this week. We talked last week about the possibility of Michael Finley — a Chicago native — being the guy for the job. I still hope he is. But here are the names that Woj tweeted out the other day regarding the position:
Additionally (Pat is the brother of the Nuggets’ current head of basketball ops):
I’m sure I’ll send another newsletter out this week to discuss the ongoing negotiations that the Bulls will be having for remaining FO positions. In the meantime, a hopeful report:
Dark Ages, be gone.
Your Jokes Aren’t Funny
Perhaps the only joke I’ve enjoyed in regards to the lockdown, surprisingly, came from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s official Twitter account last week:
The Mayor’s face next to that message made me genuinely laugh out loud. Bravo. Now, for the idiots:
Look, I get why some people think this is funny. Ha Ha. Mitch Trubisky = bad. The problem is I saw that joke like 100 times before this was posted. And then the restaurant comes out and is all like, ‘We love to put a smile on people’s faces in these uncertain times.’ At someone else’s expense? That’s awesome. Real good joke.
This is akin to the yelling-at-Jim-Boylen in the tunnel videos. It’s what I call 19-year-olds-who-need-to-get-punched-in-the-face comedy. If your first move in supporting your city is to make fun of the quarterback — who has done nothing wrong, outside of throwing the football poorly — you’re doing it wrong.
Not a SGCTC move.
I keep saying I’m going to write about the smaller Bears offseason moves and then I get here and just don’t feel like it would fit in. I don’t know how to properly change gears and just start talking about how I feel about the Bears signing a back-up lineman. I will get to that, though, because it is important. Just not now.
Watching Baseball
NBC Chicago has done such a magnificent job during the lockdown of keeping Chicago fans entertained. They’ve played the entire 1996 Bulls postseason for us and also a myriad of Blackhawks classics. Now they’ve added a large chunk of games from the 2005 White Sox season to the mix.
I, even as a Cubs fan growing up, always loved that team.
Joe Crede. Aaron Rowand. Freddy Garcia. Jermaine Dye. Paul Konerko. The list goes on and on. There were so many easy-to-root-for players on that squad.
So I was more than happy to indulge in a few games last week. But this was before I knew that NBC planned on replaying nearly the entire season. I watched a game for an hour or so, waiting for something spectacular to happen, and the Sox just sorta won, 5-2 or something.
Once the Bulls and Blachawks runs are over, the 2005 games will move to primetime most nights. What a great opportunity for Sox fans looking to take a trip down memory lane.
The Cubs and Marquee on the other hand, are ass holes. I’ve got people on my Twitter timeline tweeting about the Cubs World Series run being on and its unavailable to me because I have Comcast. Marquee and Comcast have not only not come to a deal, but they have reportedly made no progress.
What a loss for a network that promised it would be worth it because of its archive of Cubs games. I’d sure like to enjoy those games when there’s literally nothing else to watch.
So for us Comcast users, I’m going to rewatch some Cubs games this week, like Kerry Wood’s 20-K game, and bring them to life on here. Any suggestions as to some others we should examine?
And for Sox fans — what do you say we watch the blackout game together at some point? If you got a better game in mind, let me know.
Trivia Answer
Top-10 single season strikeouts per 9 IP
Answer: Chris Sale, Lucas Giolito, Jose Quintana, Carlos Rodon, and Hector Santiago
#1 Chris Sale, 2015, 11.818 strikeouts per 9
#2 Lucas Giolito, 2019, 11.615 strikeouts per nine
#3 Chris Sale, 2014, 10.759 strikeouts per nine
#4 Chris Sale, 2013, 9.490 strikeouts per nine
#6 Jose Quintana, 2017, 9.3608 strikeouts per nine
#8 Chris Sale, 2016, 9.251 strikeouts per nine
#9 Carlos Rodon, 2016, 9.164 strikeouts per nine
#10 Hector Santiago • 2018, 9.088 strikeouts per nine
I appreciate the engagement last week on all four newsletters. If you missed one, go to https://sgctc.substack.com/ and find them all there. Very excited for the video release this week and “The Last Dance” recaps. Thank you all for reading and subscribing.
STILL GOTTA COME THROUGH CHICAGO
Marquee Sports Network just passed coronavirus for public enemy number one. I mean what the hell is going on. Ricketts doesn't care about the working man and I hate him for the time being.
Here's a possibly unpopular opinion; I think we should spend some time watching the games we want to forget. I've watched Kerry Wood's 20 strikeout game, watched the Bears beat the Packers, and do love the good times. But to appreciate the sun, you gotta know what rain is. I want my heart broken by the Cubs or Bulls or Bears soon. I miss that pain. I want to feel something and I think the SGCTC community should all relive a heartbreak together. I want to complain about how Lou Piniella mishandles the bullpen or some shit. I don't know, maybe it's Monday and I'm depressed and want others to feel the same way. Misery loves company.
Go Cubs, Go Bears, Go Bulls, and Go Hawks.
One MAJOR silver lining to the NBA season likely being cancelled is that all of us who put an uncomfortable amount of money on the Bulls to win more than 32.5 games will get our money back.
Absolute no brainer move by Big Art to fire Gar within minutes of him being formally announced, but it made me so damn happy.