chicago Page 12 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The warm glow of MLB Hot Stove’s warming glow: NL Central
It’s officially the offseason now, as we’ve gotten Scott Boras’s Fozzy Bear-in-the-college-dorm act at the GM Meetings. So let’s keep this record spinning right round and move to the NL Central, which I don’t feel personally about at all....

The warm glow of MLB Hot Stove’s warming glow: AL Central
We continue our whip around the baseball offseason by looking at the American League’s worst division, which was won by a team that wasn’t even trying to win, the AL Central....

I’m adrift in a world where the Chicago Bears do smart things
For 30 years now, anything good that happened to the Chicago Bears was assuredly an accident. The only time they ever seemed streamlined was in the middle of the 2000s when they had a GM that hired his own coach, which was Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith. That was the only time they’ve made the playoff...

I still don't believe these Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings need to gather as an organization and purchase binders full of Powerball tickets, because their luck has turned for the better (the Powerball is at a $1B, in case you didn’t know)....

Maybe the Bears’ front office does know what it’s doing
There has been reason for NFL analysts and fans far and wide to complain about the Chicago Bears roster since offseason workouts began....

Thursday Night Football: Commanders visit Bears and all we’re asking for is a touchdown
This week is a real treat on Thursday Night Football, with the Washington Commanders and Chicago Bears squaring off in a battle of sub-.500 teams in prime time. It’s unclear what anybody did to deserve this, but here we are....

The NBA’s Eastern Conference might see a bit of a shake-up in the standings this season
It’s October, so it’s Halloween season, but it also means the NBA is back. All the talk and some drama will be moved aside as teams return to the court, hoping to do what the Golden State Warriors did last season in raising the Larry O’Brien NBA Finals trophy....

These 10 modern-day players’ primes were squandered by inept teams
Mike Trout is the tree that falls in the forest every September. He might as well exist in the cold, vacuum of space. If there’s any evidence that sports are raw and unscripted, it’s Trout’s annual storyline. His slow fade from public consciousness as the playoffs creep closer is in stark contrast t...

Sports would be all right if it wasn’t for the organizations that run them
Yesterday was just a banner day for the governing bodies of sports. We know that people in power will do just about anything to protect what little fiefdom they have. In the grand scheme of things, having a seat on the organization running whatever league or game is a pretty small fiefdom. But that ...

Tony La Russa is done in Chicago
After two seasons at the helm of the Chicago White Sox, Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa stepped down Monday due to health concerns. La Russa had one year left on his three-year contract....

Revisionist history: Roger Maris Jr. backs Aaron Judge as AL HR king
As Mark McGwire hit his shortest home run of the 1998 season, No. 62, barely over the left-field wall at old Busch Stadium in St. Louis, after the “new” single-season home-run king trotted around first-base and was given a high five by Mark Grace, who would’ve made the rest of the infield look child...

Look at the NBA being hypocritical in the way it honors Bill Russell
The honorable Bill Russell. Argue among yourselves about which player is the best in the history of the NBA, there is no name more revered in the 76-year history of the league than his....

Dick Butkus: Comedy icon
When the NFL’s 100 Greatest Players of All Time list was assembled back in 2010, legendary Chicago Bears middle linebacker Dick Butkus was voted 10th by the panel. He was presented by longtime Indianapolis Colts offensive line coach Howard Mudd. A story he told about Butkus pretty much sums up the l...

The best-laid plans of Bulls and Balls…
The ideal version of this Chicago Bulls roster — the one that started last season 27-11 and featured three wing-sized guys on the perimeter that played defense, scored, and shared the ball — is like so many teams whose bright future hinged upon versions of players that no longer exist. Whether via i...

Let's break down Thursday Night Football's series of bad beats
Sports betting is a cruel, fickle mistress. One day, you’re elated after hitting a two-game parlay, the next you lose all your money plus your dog and your firstborn. It’s an emotional rollercoaster that either goes off the rails or ends in thrilling excitement, begging winners to return. ...

The White Sox’s year finally dying the death it deserves
It’s not that you have to go back all that far for a season by an MLB team that was as disappointing, confounding, and overall just as big of a waste of time as the 2022 Chicago White Sox. It was just last year that the San Diego Padres acquired every player that wasn’t nailed down, and then finishe...

Hey, ho, Jack Del Rio’s got to go!
Jackass, I mean Jack Del Rio’s latest bout of idiocy was provoked by actually coaching football. That’s instead of shooting his mouth off about minimizing an insurrection....

60 is such a round number
It was a number we didn’t even think about when we were kids. Only if you were born in a specific time, where you were an impressionable youth between 1998-2003, would 60 seem reasonable, or even reachable, or something to be expected to happen semi-regularly. It was never even talked about....

Patriots roster is lacking, but at least their quarterback is willing to try to make a game changing play
In the oppressive South Florida humidity, the New England Patriots’ Week 1 loss to the Miami Dolphins was excusable — even more so after the Dolphins’ second-half comeback on the road against the Baltimore Ravens yesterday....

Tony La Russa was every bit the human gallstone you thought he was
It could end up being the pacemaker that saved Chicago, going down in history along with other objects we revere like a lamp next to a cow, disco records, and all the dirt we moved to reverse the flow of the Chicago River to send our shit to St. Louis (where it belongs and they deserve) to name a fe...