A story I couldn’t make up

A high school classmate of mine passed away suddenly over the weekend, and the shock of hearing this news made we want to do something. But the question is what, exactly? My first instinct, in good times and in bad, is to look for a story to share. But the story I want to share

FU Coronavirus (Part 2)

I’ve been thinking about the Michael Jordan Era in Chicago a lot lately. It technically started when the Bulls drafted him out of college in 1984, but for many years it didn’t happen because, well, the team just wasn’t any good. But the team slowly got better over time, and the hated Bad Boys of

Go Cats!

Northwestern didn’t belong in the Big Ten when I was on campus in the late 1980s, at least not in the two sports that most people pay attention to. That didn’t change how I felt about the school, but it was hard to routinely be embarrassed by all of the other schools in the Big

The everyday game

Today I got to meet some fans of the game I love. In everyday life, I’m not always very talkative. In truth, I’ll take writing over speaking every time. But when the subject is baseball, that’s a different story. I could talk about baseball all day long. In the process of talking about the game

Changing college sports as we know them

Today–March 26, 2014– is the 35th anniversary of the Magic Johnson/Larry Bird title game in the NCAA tournament. I remember watching that game as a ten year-old kid in Springfield, Illinois. It was broadcast on NBC, instead of on CBS. There was no three point stripe, no shot clock, and no possession arrow. The NCAA

Oh yeah, life goes on

It was a typical Saturday of taking my daughters to their various meetings today, but it started, as it often does, at the ice skating rink. And the TV was tuned, as it so often is, to Sportscenter on ESPN. I’m sure that the skate moms aren’t much interested in the day’s sports headlines, but

Link to a post on ChicagoSideSports

This was the greatest moment of the Bulls 1990s championship run. There were many of them, of course, and others will probably have a moment they like better. So be it. 20 years have gone by since this happened back in June of 1993, and the young guy that I was back then is no

He was the villain

Saturday morning, Lincolnwood, Illinois This morning I find myself at an estate sale. I’ve visited them before, and written about them before, and today is more of the same: picking through the worldly possessions of someone who’s no longer worldly. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote, over and over again in Slaughterhouse-Five, “So it goes.” I come

A late summer’s afternoon in the park

Standing atop a small little dirt incline that’s enough to pass for a hill around here, I saw it all quite clearly. The scene that I had spent ten minutes surveying, pondering, and trying to get a few pictures of finally came into focus for me. And it inspired me to write, because there isn’t

What is “Government help” anyway?

I was recently visiting some family near Melbourne, Florida when I came upon the sign pictured above. It was apparently intended to overlap with the Republican convention in Tampa, and its sentiment seems to be a dig at President Obama and the “You didn’t build that” remark. I addressed the willful and misleading interpretation of

An act of American Appeasement

Three-quarters of a century ago, Jesse Owens thought his work at the Summer Olympics was done. He had gone to Berlin and beaten Hitler’s athletes, and everybody else’s, in three events: the 100 meter dash, the long jump, and the 200 meter dash. He had spoiled Hitler’s planned demonstration of Aryan superiority, and had one-upped

Mark Grace and number 17

This is a true story: I was picking my daughter up at school one day last spring, probably sometime in May, when I spotted a kid on her school playground. This kid, who looked like a fourth or a fifth grader, had a blue shirt on, with a number 17 on the back. I said

April is here at last

It’s finally April, at least on the calendar. It feels like April was here a few weeks ago, or maybe like April never came at all this year. But no amount of warm weather could bring the baseball season any earlier. Spring training is an annual ritual, which must be carried through to its completion.

So it’s come to this

I wrote an earlier post about how I had no NCAA brackets to consult this year. The Final Four has now been set, and there are no VCU-type cinderella stories this year. Louisville, Kansas and Kentucky are among the entrenched elite of college basketball, and even the team that wears scarlet and gray has had

An amazing turn of events

I was leaving work last Friday, on a day sunnier and warmer than I had ever before seen in the middle of March, when I spotted a round object near the curb of the parking lot. I knew from the size of it what it was, but the elements had dome a number on it,

Going bracketless this year

2012 is the first year in a very long time that I have no NCAA tournament bracket sheets to keep up with. The four-day college basketball orgy that started today, and continues through Sunday, is as big a ritual as there is in contemporary America. There’s always an office pool, or an online pool, or

The Linsanity of it all

It appears that the NBA, Jeremy Lin, and several other parties are trying to claim the word “Linsanity” as their own private trademark.  It’s a question of whether the rights to this term should belong to the Lindividual, or to the Linstitution that employs him. And it would be Lincorrect to assume that this is a

Bring on the tournament

The college basketball season isn’t over yet, but another couple of weeks should bring the end of the regular season, and then will come the conference tournaments, followed by that wonderful four-day orgy of college hoops, when everyone has their brackets at the ready, and tries to keep up with their picks as it all

Then and now

After taking my little one to skating practice this morning, lacing up her skates and listening to the details from a sleepover party last night, I went out to the car and found a penny in the parking lot. As I have written about before in this space, I picked it up and looked at

Ending two bad streaks

I just returned from a one-day trip into the heart of Michigan country, Ann Arbor. I wore, as I often do, a purple Northwestern hat, but not with the intention of making any point about my school. It’s just a hat that I’ve been wearing for many years–decades, even–and am comfortable with. But I was

8 out of 12 ain’t bad

I promised a wrap-up of the second night of the Big Ten-ACC Challenge, and here it is. The Big Ten won for the third straight year, with another 4-2 performance in Wednesday’s games. All Big Ten teams won except for Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. And the eight wins is the best that the conference

It’s a tribal thing

The first night of the Big Ten-ACC Challenge was yesterday, and the made-for-ESPN event will wrap up this evening. The Big Ten is off to a 4-2 lead so far, and has to win at least two of tonight’s games to claim victory for the season. And a tie goes to the Big Ten, since

Winners go on, losers go home

No other professional sport comes close to baseball for sheer number of games played in a season. Playing (almost) every day, for six months plus the post season, shows that baseball is the American game. Football is too violent to play once a week, and the idea that NBA teams could play two or three

What’s happening with baseball

It’s been awhile since I’ve written about one of my favorite topics. And, as the season starts winding down toward a long winter’s rest (no playoffs in this city!), I may as well get another baseball-related post out there. Something will arise to take its place in the offseason (that’s why football and basketball exist

RIP, Lorenzo Charles

You have to be, let’s say, of a certain age to appreciate what Lorenzo Charles did. He wasn’t a household name as an NBA player, and in today’s world that seems to be all that matters. No, Lorenzo Charles belonged to another time. And now, sadly, he belongs to wherever it is people go after