Still Gotta Come Through Chicago

It's a Willy Wonka Week

Happy Friday Chicago!

It’s good to be here. This right here is what you call a Willy Wonka Week.

The Saint Patrick’s Day aftermath was taking its toll early, I woke up with a sore throat Sunday and thought to myself immediately you deserve it.

Chicago yet again “did its thing” this past weekend, inadvertently offering up the best modern-day argument for prohibition.

Kids were running around downtown with milk jugs filled with neon green alcohol mix. I was kind of impressed by the youngins and their inventiveness until I found out it was “a viral trend.”

I limped into to Tuesday myself, and two full days after the festivities my eyes were still sunk by dark black bags — on otherwise pasty white skin — that were so heavy they almost sunk down to my beard. Head, still hurting.

At 6:15am I was wet and angry — way too early to be angry, and arguably too early to be wet. I dried myself off and shook my head at Craig Counsell removing Shota Imanaga from the game after four no-hit innings.

By 8am the Cubs were already 0-1, and I was already over Counsell pulling Imanaga for Ben Brown after the fourth inning. It’s a long season and they’re in Japan.

In between 6:15 and 8, I found out that Pat Hughes and Ron Coomer were calling the game from Wrigley Field and I felt betrayed. More anger bubbled. What is this COVID-19 again? 670 The Score is making budget cuts? Get those guys over the pond to enjoy the season opener.

Wednesday morning I woke up later, with a few innings of the Cubs game already past. But my ears opened just in time for a Kike Hernandez home run.

Dodgers lead, 5-1.

My left hamstring was tight as I walked to the train, meaning I physically limped into Wednesday. On the way to the train, Shohei Ohtani homered.

Okay, maybe listening to the Cubs game before the sun comes up in Chicago isn’t the most fun idea.

But I limped, limped, limped, limped and got myself to Thursday. And when I woke up to see the ESPN app fresh with a slate chock full of basketball games, my hamstring eased up.

I walked — no, galavanted! — toward the train Thursday.

By the time I had my first cup of coffee I had turned from angry recluse to the office chatter box.

“Richard, how are you feeling about your Baylor Bears tomorrow?” Richard did not know his alma mater was in the NCAA tournament, and therefore, what I was talking about. (He also does not go by Rich, which he has made clear).

Okay, who’s my next victim?

Louisville-Creighton tipped off at 11:15, and also led to my first loss of the NCAA tournament. I finished peeling my orange in the cafeteria just in time for a Creighton three-pointer, then pounded my fist as hard as I could against the table and let the peels fly up in the air and onto the floor, hoping people would notice me.

No one did. “Got Louisville in this one,” I said.

The chatter box needed attention. Desk by desk, I shouted out to no one “Louisville down, guess my bracket is busted, haha.” Three people took their headphones out and said what? The three others, who didn’t have headphones on, but didn’t want to acknowledge me, waited for it to come again: “Louisville down, guess my bracket is busted, haha.”

Nothing much in return.

Okay, what else could get the office into a frenzy? I know: Old faithful. The weather.

“First day of spring in Chicago, yeah right!” I yelled to the next row of desks, gesturing obnoxiously to the snow outside. More headphones flew off. Other headphones went on. They didn’t want to hear it again. I changed it up slightly. “Nothing like the first day of spring in Chicago, right?” I flew both my arms out toward the window this time, like I was introducing the musical act on a late night show.

Alright, I didn’t do any of that. But my energy was high enough to be the chatter box on Thursday, if I knew for certain someone would oblige me. Do they know it’s Christmas time in Africa? Does anyone know it’s the first day of March Madness in here?

But Richard threw me off enough to make me internalize my positive mood change until the end of day.

The head and hamstrings were back to square one, but my cheeks were still putting in two-a-day lifts, trying to keep those discolored bags closer to my eyes than my cheek bones.

They’ll be gone soon, too.

On Monday, I uncharacteristically checked the readership stats on last week’s newsletter. It was down. I burnt my quill to a crisp and threw it in the garbage can.

But by today — Thursday — I realized that it was likely the subject line: “Saint Patrick’s in Chicago,” which undoubtedly landed it into the promotions tab of some Gmail inboxes. It’s not your fault, kid! I rushed to the garbage can and found my quill still in okay condition to write to you all tonight.

As I do, the games are still on. Tomorrow, there will be more games.

NCAA tournament time is such a feel-good period of year that writing about that feel-good is too hard to capture without cliche. So I won’t try to.

The Cubs are 0-2 before the MLB season has really started and the Iowa Hawkeyes are not represented in March Madness. But as the kids with the neon green jugs say, it’s all good, man. (This sounds more like a boomer impersonating someone who smokes weed recreationally.)

Because it is a Willy Wonka Week, baby. You limp through Monday, limp through Tuesday, stretch things out on Wednesday and you galavant through Thursday. And now it’s Friday. Again: Happy Friday Chicago!

One Hawkeye, Gene Wilder, is still represented this week.

Welcome to another edition of Still Gotta Come Through Chicago. Let’s get into it.

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The dreaded 0-2 start, as expected. Now comes the hard part: readjusting the bodies back to U.S. time prior to the road trip that the Cubs begin the actual season with.

Two games is two games, but all we have are two games right now, so we may as well talk about them.

After those losses to the Dodgers in Japan, the Cubs are heading west next week for seven games in a row — the first four at the Diamondbacks (over/under win total at 86.5) and then three against the Athletics in Sacramento.

That doesn’t feel like a fair start to the season for a team you marched into Japan to promote the game for a week, last week, but so be it.

After a travel day off, the Cubs have six more in a row — three against the Padres (over/under win total at 85.5) and three against the Rangers (over/under win total at 85.5).

Back to the West Coast.

One travel day off, then six in a row against the Dodgers (over/under win total at 103.5) and the Padres (see above).

After that, it’s back home, to take on the Diamondbacks and Dodgers again, and then the Phillies.

That’s tough sledding.

Having said that, the Cubs had an arduous schedule to start last year (sans a trip to Japan), and they went 17-9 before plummeting.

A fast start isn’t a must, but avoiding a dreadful one is.

In order to avoid that, the pitching has to be there. Justin Steele turned in a bad performance in Japan: four innings, five hits, one walk, and five runs.

It’s not worth looking too far into one start, nor is it worth looking too far into Spring Training. But, combine both for Steele, and he has had a rocky kickoff to the 2025 season.

In his last Spring Training start, he got shelled, and had a near-10 ERA overall in Arizona.

He’s been one of the most consistent pitchers in all of baseball for a few years now, so I err on the side of believing he’ll figure it out.

At the same time, without Steele at his 3-ERA mark, the Cubs rotation begins to look like a paper tiger. Without him and Imanaga (who was great in his debut, outside of the walks) as a formidable 1-2 punch, the Cubs are going to have a tough start (and possibly a tougher year than expected).

I would have loved to have seen Imanaga go more than four Tuesday, of course, but that was ultimately the right decision to pull him. Brown going three afterward was fine as well, as he’s been stretched out in Spring Training and will likely get plenty of starts.

But although Imanaga got away with it, you can’t walk people against the Dodgers. Brown did so, and he paid for it.

Both games felt well within reach. Matt Shaw had a couple of great plays at third base, and got his first major league hit (which was definitely not a hit).

Jon Berti had an awful error on Tuesday, but did have three hits Wednesday. Nico Hoerner will be back for the regular season anyhow, and his defense will — as always — be appreciated.

Kyle Tucker swung at a 3-0 pitch with the Cubs trailing by three Wednesday and popped up to first base. He did double off the wall too, however.

If Tucker does not get re-signed (and there’s no suggestion he will), the Cubs are in a position for their “budget” to smack them in the face quickly. The prize prospect traded for Tucker, Cam Smith, has a 1.3 OPS in Spring Training — with 13 hits and four homers.

If nothing else, hopefully that will put some pressure on ownership. If not, Jed Hoyer is going to have to take the egg on his face at the hands of Smith (if this continues into the regular season).

The Dodgers were missing Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman this week, and let me tell ya, it didn’t feel like it. Every time I heard who was coming up next, I shivered. And that’s playing the Dodgers, which the Cubs will do plenty in April, in 2025.

It’s a long season. No need to be angry and wet yet, just wet (I got to get to work).

Get the radio guys and the Cubs in the same building, and let’s get some runs next time this crew goes live in the regular season.

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I’ll say it again: is it really this easy?

Did they really let us get Devin Duvernay and Olamide Zaccheaus? Ha! Are we going to be able to field a game next year? Or is the NFC North just going to forfeit and let us get a couple more bye weeks than allotted?

I’m really not sure, and I also wasn’t exactly sure who either of those guys were until this week.

The former is a Pro-Bowl return specialist (which, actually, is always a need) and the latter is a six-year veteran wide receiver who last played for the Commanders. Zaccheaus is good insurance for a wide receiver room that includes D.J. Moore and Rome Odunze, and then falls off.

The Bears have filled a lot of holes, presumably, over the last couple of weeks. They also re-signed Travis Homer, who immediately sent 30 grand to his pal Shane Waldron, his biggest fan.

The Bears should be just about through with free agency, which means soon enough the attention can turn to the draft. For now, I’m still holding out, as I don’t want to run out of Bears content before the end of April. Mock Drafts are for suckers (including me).

Things are now far clearer for the Ryan Poles and Ben Johnson heading into April’s draft, and they have the ability to get creative. Or, they can leave creativity out of it, and draft the best players on the board.

There are still holes, sure, including (potentially) Jaquon Brisker’s replacement. But the draft will be far more enjoyable without the anxiety over surefire needs like offensive and defensive line.

#BEARDOWN

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Breaking News: The Bulls are officially in the 9th seed as of this writing, as one team is doing a better job of understanding what the play-in tournament means for most teams than the other (your Chicago Bulls!).

(They are currently playing the Kings, and I’ll be sleeping my the end of it.)

Don’t hand out credit just yet, though, as just as I #lockedin, and gave up my apathy, they promptly lost to the Rockets. A 1-2 stretch launched them over their arch rival, however, the Miami Heat. They’re tied for the 9 seed, technically, with the Bulls holding the tiebreaker.

But being giddy over Giddey continues. He returned from his ankle injury Wednesday, came off the bench, and continued his remarkable stretch with 22, 7, and 7.

This will inevitably land him a $200 million contract from the Bulls (with no one else offering $100 million), but I told you I gave up the apathy.

In January, Giddey averaged 10, 8, and 6. In February, he bumped that up to 20, 8, and 6.

This month? He’s near a 20-point triple-double average, with 23, 10, and 8 marks in March.

We would have beaten the Rockets if he was healthy! Tell all the Rockets fans in your life that.

LETS GO BULLS!

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Summersault into the weekend, my friends! Thanks for coming back to read another newsletter. Check out last week’s if you missed it. As always, tell a friend about the newsletter and comment below.