Part IV, August 26-September 1

September is less than a week away, which means summer is nearly over, which means that I am closer and closer to the point at which I can legitimately give up on the Cubs and move all of my energy and attention over to the Bears. I’m pretty much done with baseball, as this past week has been a complete disaster. Including today’s loss to the Marlins, a game that dropped us seven games under .500, the Cubs have now lost six of seven, with all six losses coming by two runs or less. It appears that this team has taken all of the negative elements of the 2004 team—sloppy play, injuries, poor base running, an imbalanced lineup, a lousy bullpen—along with a talent downgrade in the outfield, and ended up with a less than mediocre fourth place squad. If only Jim Mora were here right now. “Playoffs? Playoffs?” To think that this Cub team has a first baseman who is leading the league in batting and flirting with a Triple Crown, an all-star third baseman, a good hitting catcher, a solid middle infield…whatever. It’s all a waste. The good news is that D. Lee, Aramis, Barrett, Zambrano, Prior, and Wood will all be back, and they’ll blow the rest of the team up and start putting it back together with over 70 million dollars in salary room. Jim Hendry has clearly had his worst full year ever as GM, and so he’ll get to redeem himself this offseason and turn this thing around. But really, my interest is gone, and that’s fine…

…because holy hell, check out Kyle Orton! If Lovie Smith has any brains at all, and I think that he does, Orton will be the starting quarterback for Week 1. The Bears beat the Bills yesterday 16-12 behind another rock solid defensive performance—no touchdowns allowed for Buffalo, whose only trip to the endzone came on a Nate Clements pick return off of Chad Hutchinson (we’ll get to him later)—but the newsmaker was the rookie quarterback out of Purdue who led the Bears’ first-team offense down the field in the third quarter for a momentum-swinging touchdown. Orton completed seven of nine passes on that magical drive for 74 yards and a touchdown pass, with the two incompletions coming on balls that were nearly caught. As a Bears fan, there is nothing that wakes me up more than a drive that goes right down the field. It looks so pretty, so planned, so…professional. Oh my word! Did you see that? They just threw nine passes, and completed seven of them. And one of them was for points…for us! It’s incredible! This is what it must feel like to root for Green Bay or New England or Indy or Philly. The defense has been great, as has the running game with Thomas Jones and Adrian Peterson. Benson still hasn’t signed, but I’m sure that with each game he watches and sees how good our backs are, he’s got to be sweating. This team has been pounding the ball and stuffing the run and forcing turnovers, and now we’ve got a quarterback who can throw. Every Bear fan who watched that game had the exact same thoughts: “So THIS is what a professional football team is supposed to look like.” Man, it feels pretty good.

Meanwhile, on the flip side, the man who was supposed to be the starter may have punched his ticket out of town. Chad Hutchinson completed five passes yesterday: three to our guys and two to theirs, and wouldn’t you know it? Their guys got the touchdown. Three notes and observations about the Bears quarterback “controversy,” if you can really call it that:

1. Hutch was an unspectacular college quarterback who felt that he would have a better chance of making it in professional baseball than professional football. He has already failed at that.

2. In his return to the NFL, he lost his starting job on a bad Dallas Cowboy team to Quincy Carter, a guy who is now out of the league.

3. Halfway into last season, Orton was a Heisman candidate at Purdue and a sure-fire first round pick. Injuries and some poor games dropped him out of Heisman contention and out of the first round, though most scouts still thought that he would be a second rounder. That he fell all the way to the Bears in the fourth was a big surprise. Had it not been for that second half of the season, the Orton vs. Hutchinson question would not even be a question. (In fact, had it not been for that second half, we wouldn’t have to worry about Kyle Orton, because he wouldn’t be a Bear, because someone else would have taken him way earlier than we would have wanted to.)

And finally, my final thoughts on Chad Hutchinson are as follows: Hutch is like the seven foot tall kid who went to your high school. He’s seven feet tall, and so he’s going on the basketball team. It doesn’t matter if he can play or not—the kid is seven feet tall, and that’s all that it takes to get him on the team. Period. That’s really all Hutch is. He’s raw numbers. He’s 6’5” 234 pounds with a big arm. That’s it. Hopefully, the Bears will make an intelligent decision and give Orton the job.

Meghan and I left for Indianapolis today, which means that for the first time ever, I am now officially unemployed. Until today, I was just a kid who worked if he wanted to but didn’t have to, but I am now a person who is paying rent and who needs a job and doesn’t have one. It’s kind of exciting, actually. It won’t be exciting if I still don’t have a job in a month or so, but right now, it’s a sign that I am entering a new chapter of life. Welcome to the world, kid.

Leaving home is always a little bit sad, but it does give me a chance to drive through the city that I love so much. We head east first, towards the lake, taking Central Street down, past Mustard’s and Dyche Stadium and the Chandler Rec. Center where I played basketball growing up. We hop onto Sheridan Road and go south, following its curves through Evanston, past the Northwestern campus where school will soon be in full swing, past the beaches on our left where joggers and bikers make their way, where autumn leaves will soon gather. We take Sheridan through Rogers Park, under the El tracks at Loyola, curving to the left at Devon, and then back around to the right. Straight ahead with the stop and go traffic, and then left on Hollywood and onto Lake Shore Drive, past the parks and fields and courts and sidewalks where Chicago enjoys the end of summer, and further south still, where the big lettering of the Drake hotel signals the start of downtown, through the city that suddenly appears, the skyscrapers that seem so distant when sitting at the rocks at Northwestern, over the bridge at Navy Pier and then curving to the right and then straight through the city towards the Shedd Aquarium and then towards Soldier Field. I shudder a bit when I see the spacecraft on top, but as we drive by, right next to it, the obtrusive metal is out of sight in my window and all I can see are the stone columns standing proud, and I smile. We take the I-55 exit up to I-90, head south past Comiskey, and then onto the Skyway and through the tolls and onto the endless I-65 towards Indianapolis as the sun sets.

Meghan didn’t want to drive in the dark, but it ended up happening anyways. We were planning on leaving at around three this afternoon, but we got delayed and ended up leaving at around five. That put us in the thick of Sunday rush hour traffic out of the city, which meant more time to listen to the Score. And what a day to be listening to the Score, as Lovie officially named Kyle Orton the Bears’ starting quarterback. More shocking than that, however, was Chad Hutchinson’s freefall down the depth chart. He now sits behind Jeff Blake and Kurt Kittner as the Bears’ number four quarterback, which means that unless something changes, this guy has just played his way from a starting NFL QB to an out-of-work football player sitting at home, waiting for a phone call. All this in a span of three days. I’d imagine that he’s not nearly as excited as I am to be unemployed.

There is excitement in this town. Who'da thunk it? Bears fans are gearing up for the Kyle Orton era, and people are actually excited. Who knows how long it will last, or whether or not it will be more successful than the Jonathan Quinn era, the Craig Krenzel era, or the Chad Hutchinson era. Frankly, I think that Orton will easily out play all of those guys, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Rex Grossman were to return and find that his starting job will not simply be handed back over to him. The other big news of the day is that finally, after a 36-day holdout, Cedric Benson has signed a five year deal with the team.

So now we’ve got our quarterback, and we’ve got our running back, and we’ve got a much better offense and a defense that nearly every pundit out there is referring to as “playoff-caliber”—which is a term only used on teams that the pundits do not think is going to the playoffs, presumably due to the lack of a “playoff-caliber” offense—and a coach who seems to know what he is doing, and finally, for the first time since 2002, there is reason to believe that this Chicago Bears season will end in the playoffs.

Of course this is coming from me, the eternal optimist, the guy who thinks that we’re definitely gonna pick up this 4^th and 30 and score eight runs in the ninth and hit four threes in the last two minutes. It seems that I’m one of the few. On the drive back to Indy, while listening to Bears talk on the Score, the hosts ________ ______ and ____ __________[1] posed this question to callers:

“Are we as Chicago fans being duped by our teams? Not the players, but the organizations. Are they doing everything that they can to give you, the fan, a championship team to watch?”

The question arose out of a few Chicago sports situations. First was the Bears quarterback situation, with a few callers feeling like Orton winning the starting job was a “disaster” due to the Bears’ failure to sign a veteran backup over the offseason, and second was the White Sox’s failure to trade for Cincinnati outfielder Ken Griffey, Jr., the future Hall of Famer who has had some down years but is having a “return to glory” season for the Reds.

“Where do you put Griffey if he comes to the Sox?” __________ asks rhetorically, in response to Sox fans who have said that the Sox cannot take Griffey because they don’t have any openings in their lineup. “You put him wherever he wants to go. Where do you want to play today Mr. Griffey? Centerfield? Great. Go play centerfield. Where do you want to bat today? Third? Great, you’re batting third.”

I can’t say why the White Sox did not pull the trigger on a deal for Junior, and I disagree with anyone who says that Orton starting at quarterback is a “disaster,” but the bottom line is that I understand the “duped” sentiment. For years I’ve watched the ownership in Chicago jerk fans around, knowing that our loyalty and love for our teams would always guarantee ticket sales. Has there ever been a city with teams in all four of the major sports that had owners who were all among the least popular in their respective sport? The best of the group is Jerry Reinsdorf, who has given us six titles with the Bulls along with some quality White Sox teams, but he is unpopular in some circles for his role in the Breakup of the Bulls, as well as his role in helping cause the 1994-95 baseball strike.[2] Next is the McCaskey family, and while we love Virginia, we could never stand Michael. Then the Tribune Company, who for years was notoriously cheap due to their feeling that the Cubs would always make money, what with their immense popularity and the popularity of Wrigley Field.

But these owners are fairy godmothers when compared to the worst of them all: our dear friend Bill Wirtz. It’s a well known fact that Dollar Bill does not televise Blackhawk home games because he doesn’t think that anyone will attend if the games are on TV, but let me just repeat that: Wirtz does not televise Blackhawk home games because he doesn’t think that anyone will attend if they are on TV. That’s ridiculous! It’s a shame what this guy has done to the Blackhawks’ popularity, a team that was the pride of Chicago for so many years. My dad is not a big hockey fan by any means, but even he enjoyed the Hawks as a kid. Just as I love doing my imitation of Neil Funk announcing for the Bulls, so does my dad imitate the Blackhawks' old radio announcer. Wirtz has taken this beloved franchise and turned it into a joke of a team that is now outdrawn by the semipro Chicago Wolves hockey team. That Blackhawk fans are hurt by his selfishness is of no concern to Wirtz. He gets his money, and that’s that.

There is more to sports than just escapism. This is not a movie to sit and watch for a few hours. It is not a rock concert. It is deeper than that. Fuller than that. It lives with us, in our hearts and our souls, in our memories, in our grandparents and our grandchildren. And as much as I accept the modern world, I can’t help but worry about how money is ruining the games and the teams that we love. But Bill Wirtz is happy. And thank goodness for that.

It’s Sunday, August 30^th, and the situation in New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Area continues to grow more and more desperate. Hurricane Katrina came on about a week ago in Florida, and has been moving swiftly west over the Gulf Coast since then. It seems like a long time ago that Katrina was a Category 3, though it has only been three days; it is now Category 5, and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has issued a mandatory evacuation of the city. Of course, there are so many people without the means to leave the city, and now we’ve got a slew of citizens taking refuge in the Superdome. As if President Bush wasn’t disliked enough—not that I mind—now he has to contend with the impression that his administration failed to adequately protect the people of New Orleans. FEMA’s Michael Brown has become the new buffoon, but there’s really nothing funny about any of this.

The word “desperate” keeps popping up. I really can’t think of any other way to describe this scene of people without food, water, or shelter who seem to have been ignored and “contained” by their own government. This is being called the most damaging and destructive Hurricane since the Okeechobee Hurricane of 1928, though I can hardly imagine anything worse than this. Hospitals are overrun, people are dying on the streets and in the dome; it’s an awful sight. Every news station has 24-hour coverage…the images are overwhelming…Meghan had to drag me away from the TV today, because I was so engulfed in the footage…

“You have to. Otherwise you get paralyzed. Make a donation to Red Cross, say a prayer or whatever you do, and get on with it. Or go down to New Orleans and be a rescue worker.”

He smiles. “That’s good of you…Yeah, there’s really not a lot more you can do right now. I’d say the best thing is to keep them in your thoughts, and to continue living a good life. What more can you do?”

“Oh, come on! Federer, Agassi, Blake…there’s a lot to watch for. Lots of great tennis being played.” And then, in a mock-Swingers moment… “Tennis, baby! Tennis!”

I laugh. He’s starting to get me. “Yeah, maybe I’ll watch some. Alright Pop, I’ll talk to you later. I have to use the bathroom.”

The way she said it, so casually, like she’s asking me to pass her the salt or something, well, I didn’t even realize what was happening. It didn’t really register for a few seconds, and then when it did, I had to go back and make sure that she actually said what I thought she said.

And then she said it again, and again, it was casual, as if she didn’t realize the magnitude of what she was saying, which must have been the case, because if she did realize it she wouldn’t have stared at me with those big, beautiful, questioning eyes, as if to wonder why I was looking at her with such a face of shock.

“I mean, I’ve learned a lot from just watching games with you, and from watching you play Madden all day long, but there’s still a lot I don’t understand. Can you teach me?”

This must be what it feels like for a Bible thumper to have a non-believer ask him to read him Scripture every night.

“Well, yeah! Oh my god, of course I can teach you.” Settle down, Jack. Settle down. “But, uh, what do you want to know?”

“I mean, do you want me to draw up formations for you, like study guides, or do you just want it all to be oral?”

“…what kind of a question was that? Of course you want to learn Bears history! Bears history is pro football’s history! I’ll make up formation and player guides, and we can do history lessons, and you can memorize scores and games, and the words to ‘Bear Down.’ Oh man! This is gonna be sweet!”

I started by teaching her all of the positions, just basic stuff. After we showered in the morning, I would use the steam on the mirrors to draw out formations with my finger. We started with just the standard I-formation with two receivers and a tight end up lined up against a 4-3 defense, just so she could get a feel for positions. Once she was getting it, I would make her draw it out herself.

“OK, start with the center,” as she drew a circle in the middle of the mirror, “and then outside of him are the guards, and outside of them are the…ends?”

“Well, they are, but those are the defensive tackles. These guys are the offensive tackles.”

“Whatever. Never mind. Behind the center is the quarterback, and there’s…” she thinks for a second, “two guys behind the quarterback?”

“That’s right. He is also known as a half back or a tail back, if you ever hear those terms. But running back is good.”

[1] Names deleted for legal reasons.

[2] Personally, I’ve always liked Reinsdorf, and it’s always been my secret theory that, perhaps—and this is a very, very big “perhaps”—Reinsdorf somehow encouraged the baseball strike because he knew that MJ would not play as a replacement player, and hence would consider returning to the Bulls, which is exactly what happened. Could it be?