Category: Chicago Bears

Junior Griffey on the South Side and Land-o-Links for 8/1/2008

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

Minneapolis Red Sox has my quick take on the arrival of Ken Griffey Jr. to the White Sox organization here, although I seem to be in the minority of fans of seeing this as a generally positive move. I’m planning an expanded special take on Griffey and the White Sox over the next week, but until then, here are some links to tide you over for the weekend:

(1) Junior Mint (Slate.com) – If there’s one thing that people my age (yes, I turned 30 earlier this year) will remember about Ken Griffey Jr., it’s that 1989 Upper Deck No. 1 is the iconic baseball card of our generation. This great piece from Darren Rovell is a couple of months old (I’ve been meaning to comment on it for awhile and this Griffey trade provided a perfect opening), but it brings up some interesting questions of how a baseball card that could very well be the most widely held of all-time can still command $275 in the open market. The arrival of Upper Deck was a seismic change in the sports memorabilia market, where “premium” cards became all the rage. Of course, so many of these premium cards flooded the market (and fewer mothers, who heard the horror stories from their husbands of housecleanings from yesteryear where 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle cards were thrown in the trash, got rid of them) that the boxes of baseball cards that I have stored in my basement have lost value in non-inflation-adjusted dollars over the past 15 years (much less looking at real dollars taking into account inflation). (Mental Floss recently had a nice quiz about what some prominent baseball and basketball cards are now worth according to Beckett – it turns out I would have been better off sinking everything that I had into Enron stock.) Nonetheless, buying up Upper Deck packs in the hopes of finding the Griffey rookie card back in 1989 was my childhood version of playing craps way too long at the Bellagio – I probably spent every extra penny I had on baseball cards at the time, yet I never found Upper Deck No. 1. However, if you’re interested in a stack of Todd Van Poppel rookie cards, feel free to give me a call.

(2) Illinois’ Jamar Smith Violates Probation By Drinking Again (NCAA Basketball FanHouse) – The horrific saga of Jamar Smith and the Illini has come to the end. Bruce Weber did what he had to do in kicking Smith off of the team – the fact that Smith even had a chance to come back to the team in the first place after the Brian Carlwell incident was considered to be suspect. Unfortunately, this guarantees that there’s going to be some more ugly on-the-court play for Illini basketball until Alex Legion is able to come into the mix in January. More and more, we look like an NIT-bubble team as opposed to even having a reasonable shot at the NCAA Tournament this season.

(3) Breaking Down the Preseason Top 25 (USA Today) – We are a little less than a month away from the start of college football season, but the first impression roses are already being handed out by the coaches. Illinois starts out at #19, which seems about right considering that our running game is probably going to take a step back with the loss of Zook kryptonite Rashard Mendenhall to the NFL but the defense brining back a more seasoned Martez Wilson (there’s a flash of him mowing down Chase Daniel in the EA Sports NCAA Football ’09 commercial). The Big Ten is getting the “Ohio State and everybody else” treatment again, with the Buckeyes at #3 and the next conference members being Wisconsin at #12, us at #19, Penn State at #22 and Michigan at #24. My initial feeling is that Ohio State is going to make the national title game once again with so many starters coming back again (Georgia is going down at some point), but I’ll put together a more in-depth preview in a couple of weeks.

And finally…

(4) All Favre, All The Time (Windy City Gridiron) – Normally, I’d be all over the news coming out of Bears training camp at this time of year, but I’ve been avoiding it because of stories such as this. That being said, someone did bring up this comparison to the Brett Favre situation that hit some items for me personally: what if the Bulls had told Michael Jordan that they didn’t want him back in 1995 because they were committed to Steve Kerr as their long-term solution at shooting guard? Could you have imagined the hysteria in Chicago if the Bulls organization had used that logic? Granted, I find a number of flaws in this analogy, since MJ had a lot more productive years ahead of him at that time (as shown by three more championship rings) than Favre does now and, most importantly, MJ retired the first time around in the aftermath of his father being murdered as opposed to being a d-bag for five years straight of holding an organization hostage every offseason about his retirement plans. However, the point is well-taken with respect to any reactions that might come from Packers fans (as misguided as they might be in general).

Have a great weekend and go Sox!

(Image from Mental Floss)

Icy Wrigley and Land-o-Links for 7/23/2008

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, NHL Hockey, Sports3 Comments

It’s been a long time, so let’s throw up some links:

1. The Blackhawks Game of the Century (My Tribe) – It’s nice to see the Blackhawks start getting some attention again in town, with Rocky Wirtz taking swift action in turning around a franchise that was decimated by his father’s bull-headed business practices. The biggest news for the casual fan, of course, is that the Hawks and Red Wings will be playing at Wrigley Field next New Year’s Day in the NHL Winter Classic. This will certainly be a great event for the city of Chicago in a historic venue – of course, I’ll miss it all if the Illini end up in a warmer locale for a bowl game that day. (We actually have expectations this year!!!)

That’s the dilemma here. The scheduling choice (I’m not sure if the NHL or NBC is to blame here) to put the Winter Classic on the same day as the Rose Bowl, Capital One Bowl and other major bowl games makes about as much sense as putting it opposite of the opening round of the NCAA Tournament or game 1 of the World Series – the national attention is elsewhere. Plus, this past New Year’s Day, Michigan played in the Capital One Bowl while Illinois played in the Rose Bowl right after that, which happen to be the major college football draws for the Detroit and Chicago media markets, respectively. If that type of situation happens again this coming New Year’s Day, how are Chicago and Detroit fans going to choose between the Winter Classic and their respective college home teams?

As much positive press as the NHL received for the ratings for last year’s Winter Classic, it ended up garnering a 2.6 on NBC with teams from two cities (Buffalo and Pittsburgh) that got huge local ratings since they had no local college team conflicts. In contrast, the Capital One Bowl aired directly opposite of the hockey game on cable (as opposed to network television) and received a 9.1 rating on ESPN and the Rose Bowl got a 11.1 rating on ABC. That should be clear evidence to the NHL its headliner event ought to be moved to a date with a lot less competition for eyeballs. Plus, while there will be a certain curiosity factor of watching a hockey game at Wrigley Field, any combination of Illinois, Notre Dame, Michigan and/or Michigan State playing in New Year’s Day bowl games, which has occurred every single year except for one since the turn of the millennium, would reduce the local ratings for the Winter Classic in Chicago and Detroit by a significant margin. If I were NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, I would do a whole lot of things, but first and foremost would be to move the date of the Winter Classic to the weekend in between the AFC and NFC Conference Championship Games and the Super Bowl where the game would have the full attention of the sports world. Placing the marquee regular season game of the season up against a day that has been reserved for college football for decades (with the ratings to back it up), particularly in the middle of Big Ten country, is asinine.

2. The Dark Knight Triumphs and Disturbs (Chicagoist) – I’m not a very big comic book guy at all, but even I got wrapped up in the hype around The Dark Knight and ran out to see it this past weekend. The generally glowing reviews of the film are warranted – the best thing that I can say about the late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker is that you completely forget that it’s Heath Ledger up there since he consumes himself in the role so thoroughly. Plus, the latest Batman installment spent much of last summer filming right outside of my old office building at LaSalle and Wacker, so it was a kick to see the long chase scene on Lower Wacker Drive and multiple shots on LaSalle Street up on the big screen. In contrast to Batman Begins, which filled in a shell of the Chicago skyline and street scenes with a lot digitized images, The Dark Knight displays the city of Chicago pretty much as-is, such that it’s truly fair to call this a “Chicago movie” in the same manner as The Fugitive, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Blues Brothers. Regardless, if you’re one of the five people in America that hasn’t seen the film yet, there’s no reason to wait.

3. Williams, Jazz to Play Bulls in Champaign (Pantagraph) – I wasn’t planning on going to the Illinois Homecoming game this year because it happens to fall on the same day as my law school class reunion, but now I’m really regretting it with this preseason game being added on Friday night to start off that weekend. Deron Williams, Derrick Rose, Ron Zook, Rejus Benn – all my man crushes in one place and I’ll have to miss it. Uh, let’s move on.

4. Together Again Briefly, Dee Brown and Deron Williams Chart Different Courses (ESPN.com) – Speaking of the Illini and the NBA, J.A. Adande (one of the few non-schmucks left at TWWL) had this nice piece examining the juxtaposition of the situations of Dee Brown and Deron Williams in college compared to the pros. It would be nice to see Dee get a spot somewhere in the NBA – the Jazz were a much deeper team, so he may have a better shot at cracking the rotation in Washington.

5. Brett Favre, Could Cause Sickness (Windy City Gridiron) – If there’s one saving grace about the 24-hour news ticker about Brett Favre’s movements over the past week, it’s that there is finally some movement away from the monolithic media monkey love for this man that has existed for the past decade. I have always hated Favre, plain and simple, and it’s nice to see people outside of Chicago and Minnesota start realizing that he is as selfish as any other athlete out there.

6. Kevin Jones Signs With Bears (Huddle Up) – As the Bears open training camp, I’m trying to think of any athlete that has ruined my past fantasy seasons in either baseball or football more than Kevin Jones. I’ve been a victim of catastrophic injuries to Rocky Baldelli and Cris Carpenter on a number of occasions on the baseball end, but there’s nothing quite like how you get fucked when your starting running back goes down. That being said, the Bears taking a flyer on Jones isn’t a bad idea in the real football world – when the alternative is throwing in rookie Matt Forte out there after an offseason dedicated to wiring Cedric Benson bail money, you can’t afford to be picky.

7. Illini Sell Out Ohio State Game (FightingIllini.com) – The note here about the Illinois-Ohio State game selling out within an hour is a load of B.S. – I went online as soon as tickets went on sale and this game was already gone. So, if anyone out there has 2-4 tickets available for the game, shoot me a message.

And finally…

8. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Jerome Holtzman Dies (Chicago Tribune) – Most of the nation knows of Peter Gammons’ work at the Boston Globe due to ESPN, but for Chicagoans, it was Jerome Holtzman that defined baseball writing. His old column going through the all of the tidbits across the baseball world (not just the Cubs and White Sox) was always the first place I went to every week when the Sunday Chicago Tribune hit the driveway. May the Dean rest in peace.

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Life is Unexpectedly Awesome

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Sports3 Comments

A couple of weeks after this year’s Rose Bowl, I wrote a long post lamenting the state of the teams that I root for, stating that “none of my teams are going to be playing any games of real meaning from now until the Illinois football team suits up to play Missouri on Labor Day weekend.” I also said this about the Bulls: “[A]s a Bulls fan, do I want this team to stretch to grab the seventh or eight seed in the Eastern Conference so that it can be shellacked by Boston or Detroit in the playoffs, or would I rather roll the dice and see if we can get O.J. Mayo or Derrick Rose in the United Center on a full-time basis next season? Call me crazy, but the latter option is more appealing to me at this point.”

Well, for for the second straight weekend, the White Sox are playing the Cubs with both teams being in first place. Granted, the sweep of the Sox by the Cubs last weekend emphasized the fact that the North Siders, I’ll admit begrudgingly, have the most consistent top-to-bottom team in baseball this season. The White Sox are just an all-or-nothing team – they’ll either bash in double digit runs powered by multiple home runs or have a complete power outage. Fortunately, the pitching staff (both the starting rotation and the bullpen) has kept the team in pretty much every game, but for narcissistic Sox fan base, it’s disheartening to watch a 6 1/2 game lead over Minnesota dissipate in the span of a few days. (I don’t hate the Twins in the same manner as the Packers, Pistons, or Hoosiers, but they might be the most annoying team that I could think of, if you know what I mean. The Twins don’t actually have David Eckstein on their team, yet it’s as if though they’re marching out nine clones of him every evening. As great as they are to fawning analysts, I always get a perverse delight when they’re squashed like a group of gnats later in the year.) Nevertheless, the White Sox are performing about a million times better than I could have ever expected by this point in the season, all the while Ozzie Guillen continues to spout off about the rats at Wrigley Field. With the teams on both sides of town performing so well (I just had suck it up and buy a few tickets to a Cubs game from a broker for a friend coming into town that wanted to see Wrigley – let’s just say that ticket resellers can tell me how my ass tastes), I’ve been steadily stocking up my basement with non-perishable goods, supplies of water and transistor radios just in case the previously unthinkable event that once occurred in 1906 comes to fruition.

Meanwhile, the Bulls have been the biggest winners of them all as they have officially taken Derrick Rose with the number one pick in this year’s NBA Draft. As I’ve said before, I think he’s got the goods to be even better in the end than both Chris Paul and Deron Williams (and this is coming from someone who has a picture of Deron shooting the game-tying three from the 2005 NCAA Chicago Regional Final permanently ingrained as his laptop background), which translates to the Bulls finally having a legitimate superstar once again. I hate using too many superlatives, but I believe that we’re going to look at footage a decade from now of the Bulls winning the lottery last month and Derrick Rose heading up to the podium tonight and point to this time as one of the most important moments in Chicago sports history. The impact of superstars in the NBA can’t be underestimated, which the Bulls know better than anyone since they once had the biggest megastar of them all, and by all indications Rose is going to get to that level.

So, when this Labor Day weekend comes around, I’ll still be blanketed in orange when the Illini take on Mizzou in what will be the most important non-conference football game that Illinois has played since I went to school there. However, I have hopes that I’m also following a baseball pennant race on both sides of town along with anticipating the opening of Bulls training camp. As for the Bears… I’ll just stop pushing my luck right now.

(Images from Chicago Tribune and ESPN.com)

1, 2, 3, 4… What the Hell am I Cheering For?

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Sports1 Comment

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about my pretty good fortune as a sports fan over the past few years, with my various favorite teams winning a World Series and getting to the Super Bowl, Final Four and Rose Bowl in a relatively short period of time.  Well, folks, that run has officially come to an end.  The Illini basketball team wouldn’t be able to win tickets from a pop-a-shot game at Chuck E. Cheese, much less garner an NCAA Tournament berth this season.  At the same time, the Bulls are using the rules from ‘Survivor’ to figure out who they are going to play every night.  The Bears head into the offseason with the strong likelihood of losing a Pro Bowler in Lance Briggs while not gaining, you know, an NFL-level quarterback.  Finally, the White Sox technically have a chance to get to the playoffs in the same manner that Dennis Kucinich technically has a chance to win the Democratic nomination.  Essentially, none of my teams are going to be playing any games of real meaning from now until the Illinois football team suits up to play Missouri on Labor Day weekend.  So, what’s a sports fan supposed to do with nearly 9 months to go without having anything significant to cheer for?  Well, here’s a guide of how I’m coping with this period of sports oblivion:

(1) Your Archrivals Are Still Evil – The only good thing about the Packers being in the playoffs is that I have a vested interest in seeing them get spanked.  Believe me, I would rather hear two weeks of hype about the supposedly greatest football team ever in the history of the universe going for perfection (even though they would have never been able to hang with these guys) than deal with another instance of the media fellating Brett Favre’s “rekindled passion for the game”.  At the same time, as long as Satan’s Spawn is still wearing blue shirts at the helm of the Indiana basketball program, the rest of the Big Ten has found a friend in me when they’re playing the Hoosiers.

(2) The Young Guys Are the Future… Right? – As someone that is a whole-hearted believer in the teachings of Adam Smith, I completely understand that coaches have an incentive to play veterans as long as possible since they supposedly give their teams the best chances to win on a nightly basis, which means those coaches are more likely to keep their jobs.  However, there’s a certain point when bad teams need to face the facts that they aren’t going anywhere and start checking out the young guys on the squad.  The Bears mercifully started doing that by the last few weeks of this season, which resulted in the world’s greatest neckbearded alcoholic leading the team to a couple of victories.  I thought that the drafting of Joakim Noah by the Bulls was ridiculous last summer considering that they are already a team full of offensively-challenged frontcourt players, but now that he’s here and the team is going nowhere, he should be getting more playing time instead of being voted out by his lackluster teammates (and for that matter, get Tyrus Thomas some more minutes, too).  It appears as though Bruce Weber has finally realized that the Illinois basketball team is going to benefit a lot more from starting freshman Demetri McCamey at point guard as opposed to Chester Frazier (I think Illini Nation has been a bit harsh on Frazier with the booing at Assembly Hall – he should have always been a sixth man for defensive help off of the bench, but was thrust into a starting role as a result of Eric Gordon aligning himself with Satan’s Spawn).  As for the White Sox… well, they traded their entire farm system to Oakland for Nick Swisher.  Anyway, at least the others are giving us some hope that there might be something better in a year or two.

(3) The Drafts and National Signing Days! – Any yahoo can watch some regular season games and the postseason – you know, actual competition on the field of play.  If you’re a committed sports dork like me, though, the dates of the NFL Draft, NBA Draft, and the college football and basketball National Signing Days are up there with the Super Bowl and Selection Sunday in terms of importance.  The one saving grace of cheering for a bad professional sports team is that draft day beckons as a beacon of opportunity.  Sometimes, it’s a choice that alters the course of history in a spectacular way (Portland taking Sam Bowie in 1984, leaving the Bulls to pick a young pup named Michael Jordan) or, alternatively, crashes and burns to set back a franchise for years (Cade McNown, Curtis Enis, Rashaan Salaam, Cedric Benson… OK, I’ll stop now), but it’s almost always important, especially if you’re picking high.  (I haven’t included the Major League Baseball Draft in this discussion since the correlation between high draft choices and eventual long-term success is relatively low compared to the NBA and NFL.)  So, as a Bulls fan, do I want this team to stretch to grab the seventh or eight seed in the Eastern Conference so that it can be shellacked by Boston or Detroit in the playoffs, or would I rather roll the dice and see if we can get O.J. Mayo or Derrick Rose in the United Center on a full-time basis next season?  Call me crazy, but the latter option is more appealing to me at this point.  (As a sidenote, WTF do I do if Eric Gordon ends up in Bulls uniform next year, which is a real possibility the way things are going?  I’ve always taken the opinion that I will let bygones be bygones when it comes to college players that I couldn’t stand – such as Anthony Thomas on the Bears – ending up on my favorite pro teams, but Gordon would be at an entirely different level.  On the one hand, he, in conjunction with Satan’s Spawn, has done more damage to the Illini basketball program than anyone else in my lifetime.   On the other hand, he’s such a phenomenal basketball player that he would be that superstar that I’ve been begging the Bulls to get for pretty much the entire time that I’ve been blogging.  Let’s move on before my head explodes.)

The NCAA National Signing Days are the equivalents of draft days for college football and basketball programs, although unlike the pros where the bad teams get the first crack at the best players, usually the rich get richer when it comes to the college level.  You can count on USC, Ohio State, Texas and Florida to be getting the 5-star recruiting ratings every year on the football side, while UNC and Duke are always pulling their weight in basketball.  That being said, it’s when college sports fans can start getting excited again – the turnaround of the Illinois football program was based on Ron Zook’s ability to seal the deal on National Signing Day months before spring practices would start.  Fortunately, both Illini football and basketball look to be getting very good (if not quite stellar) additions to their teams next season, so at least I’ve got that going for me.

(4) No Clouded Judgment on Fantasy Sports Teams – This really isn’t much different from how I approach fantasy sports normally, but a lot of people have certains biases for or against certain players or real-life teams in terms of picking their fantasy sports teams.  I love those types of people in my leagues since I’m normally able to count on crushing them down the road.  That being said, I don’t feel quite as dirty picking a baseball team full of Red Sox and Yankees players when the White Sox aren’t very good.

(5) No Clouded Judgment on Wagering – This is where I have a little more of a problem as opposed to fantasy sports.  I’m able to compartmentalize my biases with respect to fantasy sports very easily, but it’s not quite as simple in terms of betting.  For instance, if I had done a BCS bowl picks blog post this year, I would have certainly taken Illinois +14 in the Rose Bowl against USC, not necessarily because I really thought that they were going to win, but I believed that they would have at least covered.  Fortunately, my flight to L.A. did not include a layover in Las Vegas or else the bank would be foreclosing on my house this week.  Unless you’re cheering for one of those pantheon teams such as the ’85 Bears or the ’96 Bulls (or maybe this year’s Patriots team), you probably have a bit of an inflated view of how good your team is if they’ve been playing well, so you’re not very accurate in your wagering.  If you’re team is not very good, on the other hand, you tend to look at the lines more objectively – there were only a couple of weeks where I was on the wrong end in picking a Bears game against the spread this season in a friend’s NFL pool, but I was awful at choosing Bears games during their Super Bowl run last year.

So, I’ve at least got a few things to look forward to over the coming months.  It could be worse – I don’t quite feel like this Cowboys fan.  As for quality play from my favorite teams, I’ll see you in September.

(Image from Cincinnati.com)

More Than Pasadena Dreamin’

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Sports1 Comment

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The one thing about the blogosphere is that there’s probably a 10-to-1 ratio of negative and/or angry posts versus positive thoughts. I’m perfectly guilty of this (a prime example is the last post that I wrote) since it’s much easier to sit down and write about the return of the Kyle Orton Era in Chicago Bears football, the failures of the White Sox to get any of the multiple centerfielders available on the free agent market at the same time that the Tigers have loaded up to the point where they could dominate the AL Central for the next five years the way the Indians dominated the ’90s, how the Bulls should never have been in the position that they are in right now if they had only listened to my one billion pleas for various trades over the past two seasons, or why the Illini basketball team seems to be taking free throw shooting advice from Shaq and Ben Wallace as opposed to saying something positive. Let’s face the facts – it’s pretty cathartic to vent in your blog.

Yet, as we approach Christmas and the New Year, I’d be remiss if I didn’t take time to point out that I’ve led a pretty blessed life as a sports fan. My first real exposure to sports was the 1985 Bears, who I will forever believe would crush any other team in NFL history, including this year’s vaunted Patriots, in a single game. Growing up, my favorite sport to play and watch was basketball, which made me the luckiest fan in the world since Chicago was the center of the basketball universe for the better part of a decade. From the time when I was in grade school up through college, my idol Michael Jordan played for my hometown team and I witnessed the Bulls go from a young upstart team to a dynasty. For all of the newsprint devoted to how Chicago sports have suffered over the years, the ’85 Bears and the ’96 Bulls are, respectively, arguably the best NFL and NBA teams in history.

More recently, Illini basketball went to the Final Four and national championship game in 2005, winning probably the best sports game that I’ll ever witness. The White Sox won the World Series in 2005 with an improbably dominant postseason run and the Bears made it back to the Super Bowl last season. Finally, the capper to all of this is the Illinois football team getting to the Rose Bowl this season. Regardless of whether we get stomped by USC as the prognosticators seem to believe (I don’t know if we’ll win, but it will NOT be a blowout), one of my last sports wishes will be fulfilled on New Year’s Day and I’m not even 30 years old.

So, I’ve already been able to see all of the teams that I’m a fan of achieve great success during my lifetime, so what more could I ask for, right? Well, as great as all of those sports moments are, they don’t even come close to how blessed that I am in the rest of my life. I’m fortunate to have such incredible family and friends, and I’m even more fortunate to have my wife as a perfect soul mate and partner in life. I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and see you in Pasadena for the New Year!

I’m Alive (and So Are the Illini)

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

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I know that all four regular readers of this blog have been wondering where I’ve been, considering that in the past several weeks, the Illini throttled #1 Ohio State and are heading to a New Year’s Day bowl, Sexy Rexy has reappeared as the starting quarterback for the Bears, and Kobe Bryant-to-the-Bulls rumors were at a fever pitch for a period of time.  There has been an abundance of potential blogging fodder, but the confluence of insanity at my day job and standing up in multiple weddings over the past month is the reason for the radio silence.  Anyway, I’ll be back to blogging soon as things quiet down a little bit.  In the meantime, make your plans for Florida for New Year’s to watch Juice Williams put a capper to a program-changing Illini football season, check out Illinois basketball at the Maui Classic next week (the only thing that could be as good as the football team beating Ohio State would be the basketball team taking down Coach K’s smirk and Duke), hope for the Bulls and Bears to get back on track, and most of all, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Awful Football Weekend and Land-o-Links for 10/17/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, NFL Football, Sports2 Comments

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After having a beautiful double revenge of the FIBs over the Badgers and Packers last week, it was followed up with one of the worst football weekends in the Frank the Tank household in awhile with the Illini and Bears both losing games that were more than winnable.

I noted last week that the road trip to Iowa City for Illinois was going to be a proverbial trap game since Kirk Ferentz just seems to have our number and that proved to be more than correct in an ugly 10-6 loss. The Hawkeyes kept our running game in check while we had virtually no passing attack until Eddie McGee came in to close out the game. Despite the fact that McGee threw a poor interception in the red zone on the final Illini drive that probably would have turned the outcome of the game the other way, his passing skills to even get Illinois into that position (as well as a gem of a throw to Joe Morgan – who has always thought that Ryne Sandberg and Roberto Alomar could never hold a candle to him as second basemen – for an 82-yard touchdown that was called back on account of an illegal formation penalty) is forcing Ron Zook to start out all of his press conferences with a “Juice is our quarterback” speech.

Speaking of the Zooker, the recipient of a new contract extension from Ron Guenther made a few calls that must have had Florida Gators fans giggling by choosing to accept penalties on third down as opposed to declining them to force fourth downs not once, but twice. The first time backfired into the only touchdown by either team in the game, while the second time resulted in an Iowa first down conversion. This made me flashback to last year’s game against Indiana when Zook decided to go for a 2-point conversion on the first touchdown in the first quarter of the game for absolutely no reason at all, which we subsequently failed on (and we of course lost the game by 1 point). Now, I love that Ron Zook has brought Illinois back to football respectability way ahead of schedule, but these calls are just simply off-the-wall – it isn’t even about overall technical game strategy, but rather plain-old common sense. Anyway, the Illini are still in line to get to a pretty good bowl, but in order to make the Rose Bowl now, we’re going to have to win out for the rest of the season (which means beating Michigan in a monster prime time game next week and #1 Ohio State in Columbus). The fact that this is still a possibility shows how far Illini football has come over the course of the year, yet it’s still tough to stomach that we lost a very winnable game on Saturday.

The Bears, of course, couldn’t help but to pile onto that frustration on Sunday. Ever since the Vikings selected Adrian Peterson in the NFL Draft last spring, I’ve been telling everyone that would listen to me that Minnesota is the team that scares me the most in the NFC North since he’s such a special player. Well, he backed my thoughts up and then some by just shredding the Bears’ defensive and special teams units.  Honestly, I believe that Peterson is better situated to become an NFL superstar than even Reggie Bush since the former Sooner has the size and strength to pound the ball inside as an every down back as well as having breakaway speed to the outside and past the line of scrimmage.  I have no clue as to why Minnesota is still having him split carries with Chester Taylor.  While Devin Hester did everything he could to keep the Bears in the game with yet another touchdown return and finally getting an offensive pass play call for him that worked perfectly for another touchdown (I’m pretty sure that the Bears can just have Hester sprint down the field all day and he’ll burn anyone that’s on him), the rest of the team just couldn’t contain Peterson.  This season just has a bad feeling to it – the Bears  improbably stormed back with two touchdowns against the Vikings in four minutes to tie the game only to blow it within the final minute and a half.  Can the Bears go 8-2 the rest of the way to get to the 10-6 level that will probably be required to make the playoffs?  Unfortunately, I don’t have much faith in that (and even more unfortunately, I’ll continue to watch since I’m a glutton for punishment).

Let’s get off of the depressing news with some links:

(1) And Simpson Makes Four! (Mark Tupper Weblog) – After a year of continuously grim recruiting news for Bruce Weber and Illini basketball, this past weekend saw oral commitments to Champaign from four high-profile recruits.  Will this answer all of the concerns about Weber’s recruiting skills?  Let’s hope so.

(2) Indiana Punishes Sampson Over Recruiting Calls (ESPN.com) – Speaking of old oral commitments from recruits to Weber, have I ever told you how much I hate Satan’s Spawn?

(3) Local Recruits Infuse Illinois with ‘Swagger’ (Washington Post) – The Washington Post takes a look at how D.C. recruits have catapulted the Illini football program.

And finally…

(4) Can Anyone Explain Dane Cook to Me? (Freakonomics Blog – New York Times) – If University of Chicago economists can’t figure this out, there’s no hope for the rest of us.

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

The Way Kathy Lee Needed Regis That’s the Way I Need Rejus

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports8 Comments

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Alright – I’m officially excited.  When I wrote my college football preview a few weeks ago and predicted a Motor City Bowl appearance for the Illini (which plenty of people at the time thought was a monster stretch), I didn’t think in my wildest dreams that they would do so well that the most important football game between teams from Illinois and Wisconsin this past weekend would end up taking place at Memorial Stadium in Champaign as opposed to Lambeau Field in Green Bay (the Bears are slowly redeeming themselves, but that’s a post for another day).  Now, I’m clearing out my holiday calendar with the real prospect of Illinois making a top tier bowl.  While we are a long long way from legitimately talking about a Rose Bowl with games against Michigan and Ohio State still coming up, let’s just say I’ll break the bank to make it to Pasadena if that ever happens.  Honestly, next to an Illini national championship in basketball, watching the Illini in the Rose Bowl is my top sports wish – as much as I love the Bears, White Sox, and Bulls, seeing Illinois finally finish at the top would mean the most to me personally.

What I love about how the Illini are playing right now is that these are anything but fluke wins.  I got to witness the victory against Penn State a couple of weeks ago in person, which meant that I also got to attend the coming out party for my favorite athlete in the world today outside of Devin Hester:  Arrelious “Rejus” Benn.  I’m not sure how Ron Zook is getting top recruits such as Benn and Vontae Davis to come from Washington, D.C. to Champaign, but it needs to continue.  Rejus is the type of guy we would always see across the line in a Wolverine or Buckeye uniform before – a huge wide receiver who will also burn the best cornerbacks (and also in the case against the Nitanny Lions, the best special teams units) out there.  Anyway, considering that Benn is only a month into his college career, he has a pretty good chance of becoming the best athlete that I have seen in an Illini uniform for either football or basketball (even more so than Deron Williams) if he keeps up this pace.  The only thing with having such a talent is that he may have a short stay in Champaign he could very well be a top ten NFL draft pick after playing the minimum of two years in college.

As starry-eyed as I am with Rejus, it’s Rashard Mendenhall and the Illinois running game that’s really the team’s catalyst in rolling over teams.  Sure, Wisconsin might have been the second most overrated number 5 team in country this season (after our good friends at the University of Michigan), but can you believe that we put up another 289 yards on the ground against them?  I was brought up on old-school smash mouth Chicago Bears and Big Ten football, so there’s nothing more beautiful to me than watching the Illini just ram the ball down people’s throats.  Quarterback Juice Williams might still be throwing the ball as if he spent the summer at the Rex Grossman Passing Clinic, but the boy (along with his backup Eddie McGee) can still run like he stole something.

So, it’s going to be the middle of October and Illini football is still relevant.  There’s the proverbial trap game next week atIowa – as bad as the Hawkeyes might be playing this year, Kirk Ferentz seems to have our number – and if we survive and advance there, it makes the prime time game against Michigan into the biggest game in Champaign since, well, the most horrific sporting event that I have ever attended in person.  When we’re six weeks into the season and we’ve already won more games in 2007 than the past two years combined, Illini fans are entitled to some irrational exuberance.  I know I’m there.

Rextasy Island and Land-o-Links for 9/26/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Cubs, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NFL Football, Sports1 Comment

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Well, it looks as if though Rex Grossman is heading into the overflowing dustbin of Bears quarterback history alongside a long list of illustrious names such as Moses Moreno, Cade McNown, Peter Tom Willis, Jonathan Quinn… oh man, just shoot me now.  Let’s face it: this isn’t looking to be a very good season for the Bears and it’s not just about the QB position.  Cedric Benson has gone back to sucking.  The defense is decimated with injuries.  Devin Hester followed up a brilliant performance against the Chiefs to dropping pretty much every ball kicked to him by the Cowboys.  Maybe we can still get into the playoffs since the weakness of the NFC North can never be underestimated, but with the way the so-far undefeated Packers (ugh) have spurred the latest round of the media fellating Brett Favre, the Lions have finally put their 25 first-round draft pick wide receivers to use with some gaudy offensive numbers, and the Vikings having who I believe will be one of the next major stars of the NFL in Adrian Peterson (can we switch ours for theirs?), this certainly will not be a guarantee.  As for the QB situation specifically, I’ve long tried to at least provide a counterpoint to the constant calls for the Bears to bench Rex, but at this point, he’s become the football equivalent of Steve Sax.  A year ago at this time, Rex Grossman was in the driver’s seat to being the NFL MVP and we were contemplating the possibility of the Bears going undefeated since there was finally an explosive offense to go along with a stifling defense.  Now, we’ve got slews of calls to Chicago sports radio shows arguing that Kyle Orton, much less Brian Griese needs to be put in at quarterback as opposed to being the team sideline keg master.  Oh, how things change on a dime in the NFL.

Anyway, here are some links:

(1) The Sex Cannon is Dead; Long Live the Sex Cannon (Kissing Suzy Kolber)  – I’m not sure what the KSK guys are going to do with Rex not playing.  With Brian Griese now at the helm, the Bears officially have the two most blogged about backup quarterbacks in the history of the interweb in Rextasy and Orton.

(2) The Dissenter (New York Times) – A fascinating in-depth interview with Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (also a Chicago native).

(3) In China, a Moon Cake Makeover (Washington Post) – It’s the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Moon Festival) and the traditional moon cakes are getting some new types of fillings.

(4) Fixing ‘Nowhere’ (Chicago Tribune) – Prior to Mayor Daley’s ridiculous playing of the race card in the fight over the plans to move the Chicago Children’s Museum to the northeast end of Grant Park (and I’m actually someone that has usually supported Hizzoner, despite his occasional tantrums or tearing up of airfields in the middle of the night without telling anyone), Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin put together a nice piece on what the Children’s Museum would need to do in order to be deserving of what would be a high profile location, while also essentially acknowledging that something needs to be done with what is now Daley Bicentennial Plaza.  I’ve always that that this part of Grant Park is one of the most embarrassing parts of downtown Chicago with a leaky Cold War-era fieldhouse and an oversupply of old cracked unused tennis courts.  This might suffice for a so-called neighborhood park, but when this is the space that people get to the end of Frank Gehry’s winding bridge from the magnificent Millennium Park, it’s time for some action.  Kamin is right to make sure that the city shouldn’t put a building in that space just because “something is better than nothing”, but I truly hope a solid plan is put into place quickly.  (The other embarrassing place in a high profile location, which thankfully is finally getting fixed: the Roosevelt Road Metra station.  The bridge is from the Temple of Doom and the station itself is a shack straight out of Deliverance.  I’m not exaggerating.  You would have thought the city would have pushed Metra to put something up a little bit nicer much sooner for the gateway to the Museum Campus and Soldier Field.)

On a related note, I have absolutely no sympathy for the residents in that area complaining about the potential additional traffic that the museum might bring nearby.  The residents have seen their property values skyrocket as a result of the opening of Millennium Park and, for Pete’s sake, they live in DOWNTOWN CHICAGO, the most high traffic area in the United States outside of Manhattan.  Museum or no museum, what the hell do these people expect when they choose to live in DOWNTOWN CHICAGO???  This is like people that live in Wrigleyville complaining about the crowds as if they didn’t realize a 40,000-seat ballpark that sells out all of the time is right down the block.  If you don’t want to deal with traffic and crowds, then it would be wise to not live in a place that, you know, has a lot of traffic and crowds.

And finally…

(5) Bear Down: There’s Only One Answer To The Bears’ QB Problem (Deadspin) – I think that you could probably guess who Deadspin is voting for to replace Rex – let’s just say that it involves a uncontrollable neckbeard and a bottle of Jack.

I’m off to Champaign this weekend to watch Rashard Mendenhall run over JoePa and company.  Until then, Go Illini and Go Bears (and if you’re the type of person that likes the Cubs, don’t choke).

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

The Devin Hester Experience

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports2 Comments

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I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Bears home opener in person with none other TK, which meant we got to experience the thrill ride known as Devin Hester live and in-person. A few other thoughts before we get to Hester, though. First, with this being my first visit to the “new” Soldier Field, I must say that as much as it looks as if though they plopped the upper deck at U.S. Cellular Field in the middle of the classic colonnades from the outside, the interior of the stadium has spectacular sightlines even in the higher sections. Second, I had been much more worried over the offseason about the Bears running game in the hands of Cedric Benson as opposed to Good Rex/Bad Rex, which was certainly validated after that pathetic performance in the season opener against the Chargers. His performance against the Chiefs was certainly better by gaining just over 100 yards, but for the life of me I can’t understand why he dances to the outside when he’s a downfield power running back. From what I saw, Benson is being way too indecisive when he gets a hand-off, which is not a good thing since he’s the type of back that needs to hit the open hole immediately as a guy without the breakaway speed of someone like Ladainian Tomlinson. Third, I’m simply at a loss with Rex Grossman. I don’t want to pile on him since his approval rating in Chicago right now is hovering at around O.J. Simpson/Britney Spears levels, but the two interceptions yesterday were completely his fault and he can’t fault a non-existent running game (even if it wasn’t spectacular) for not opening anything up downfield. Let’s face it – the Bears should have been able to score on the Chiefs the way the Illini took down Syracuse on Saturday (you know that I had to weave that in, no matter how pathetic the Orange are this year). Yet, those two interceptions kept a Herm Edwards-led team in the game on the road in a hostile environment until late in the fourth quarter. At the same time, the only offensive touchdown this season has been a trick play to a backup offensive tackle (which TK brilliantly called as soon as John St. Clair reported as an eligible receiver).  I’ve generally been a Rex defender if only because I know that Brian Griese isn’t really that sexy of an alternative – the old Wolverine simply doesn’t have the arm to keep opposing secondaries honest. Meanwhile, Kyle Orton seems to be on a mission to grow more hair than Chewbacca – I swear that I saw him pouring some Jack Daniels into his Gatorade bottle on the sidelines. Anyway, if teams can stack eight in the box like they did against the Bears from two years ago, we’re simply not going to far.

That being said, I’m running out of superlatives for Devin Hester. I was telling Minneapolis Red Sox in an email exchange earlier today that nothing compared to watching Michael Jordan in person in terms of electricity in the building. However, the way the crowd buzzed every time that Hester got in position to return a kick was akin to those moments when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa came up to plate in 1998 (which in hindsight with the steroid scandal seems almost farcical, but those who went to any Cubs or Cardinals games that year know what I’m talking about) – everyone in the crowd stopped and there were several moments of anticipation that we were all about to witness something special. When that special moment actually comes through, like when Devin Hester broke free for a touchdown on Sunday, you’ve got a story to tell your buddies and kids for years on end.

Devin Hester isn’t going to be the greatest Bear in history (with names like Payton, Butkus, Sayers, and Grange out there, there’s no real shame in that), but I feel as though that even if he doesn’t score another touchdown again, his burst into the NFL going to remembered as one of those flashes of sports brilliance that will live on years later, like Dwight Gooden’s rookie season or Bo Jackson’s football career.  Bears fans need to enjoy these moments while they last.

(Image from Chicago Tribune)