About 30 minutes apart on Tuesday night, Chicago Blackhawks All Star forward Patrick Kane suffered a fractured clavicle that required surgery and will sideline him for up to 12 weeks. As the news of the severity of Kane’s injury, the radio was reporting that Chicago Bulls snakebit guard Derrick Rose once again had a torn meniscus in his right knee and would require surgery. This was the first serious injury of Kane’s career but was emblematic of the difficult 2014-2015 Blackhawks season; but of course, this is the third knee injury to the former NBA MVP winner. Rose has missed almost two full seasons with his previous knee injuries.
The first reaction was that the winter sports are doomed (the Chicago Tribune sports section today has a picture of the Stanley Cup and the Lawrence O’Brien Award for the NBA Championship both shattered.). The Bulls have shown flashes of brilliance, but they have also shown flashes of mediocrity. As a team struggling to maintain its intensity, how will the Bulls react to being without Rose again? (Things didn’t start well with the Bulls losing to lowly Charlotte last night.) And the Hawks, limping along for all of 2015 so far after a solid start to the season, certainly don’t need another major roadblock to Lord Stanley.. Kane was by far the team’s MVP and could have been the first American born player to win the Maurice Richard Trophy for more points and the Hart Trophy as league MVP. That won’t happen now.
I am no cockeyed optimist by any means as long time readers of this site can attest. However, neither teams’ season is over. The Bulls have Joakim Noah and Pao Gasol and new All Star Jimmy Butler, so the Bulls should be competitive. They are not locks for a deep playoff run, but then again, they never were. The team was too inconsistent to be considered locks, but are they done? Can’t say that for sure. Plus, there is supposedly a chance for Rose to play again this season.
The bigger question is: should the Bulls cut Rose? Rose has been tentative this season, but showed flashes of his MVP play before the injury. However, sometime teams wait for players who never return (when we heard about Rose on the way home from the United Center after Tuesday night’s Hawks game, I called Rose the new Eric Daze. Daze was counted on as the Hawks cornerstone in the 1990s but numerous injuries especially a bad back forced Daze to retire early.) Perhaps the Chicago Englewood native needs a change of scenery? Maybe the Bulls need to pull the plug on their $96 million investment that has so far been for naught? I don’t have an answer for that.
As to the Blackhawks, it will be hard to replace Kane. However, the Hawks have scorers: Toews, Versteeg, Hossa, and Patrick Sharp who is beyond due. He has been hitting more posts than drunken drivers. Now, the team will be bringing up 20-year-old phenom Teuvo Teravainen. I think that this will force Coach Joel Quenneville to play the kid and leave him alone.
The problem with the team has been no scoring production from the third and fourth lines. Teravainen will help, but Marcus Kruger, Andrew Shaw, Bryan Bickell, Ben Smith and the others need to step it up. If they do, that will help.
The other big weakness has been on the blue line. After Duncan Keith, Breck Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmasson, the other defensemen have been poor. Johnny Oduya is currently injured, but he has not played well. Michal Rozsival has been abhorrent. The 36-year-old defenseman turns the puck over, and while he is currently +3 on the plus-minus ratio, he has to be better on the puck. He needs to take fewer chances with passes because he is no longer fast enough to get back if the pass is intercepted. It is possible that the team will deal for a defenseman as the NHL trade deadline approaches Monday.
So, it is not time to focus exclusively on baseball yet Chicago fans. There’s still some interesting play to come…

How big a dope does Alex Rodriguez believe we fans are? With the start of spring training on Friday, A-Rod star issued a formal apology on Twitter to the fans for everything about the Biogenesis situation. In the handwritten letter, Rodriguez expresses remorse and regret for what happened:

“I take full responsibility for the mistakes that led to my suspension for the 2014 season. I regret that my actions made the situation worse than it needed to be. To Major League Baseball, the Yankees, the Steinbrenner family, the Players Association and you, the fans, I can only say I’m sorry.
I accept the fact that many of you will not believe my apology or anything that I say at this point. I understand why and that’s on me. It was gracious of the Yankees to offer me the use of Yankee Stadium for this apology but I decided the next time I am in Yankee Stadium, I should be in pinstripes doing my job.”
The New York Daily News reported that Rodriguez was going to use Yankee Stadium as a way to make a public apology, but he (or his handlers) decided to go for a letter.

Well, Alex, let’s talk. You are ABSOLUTELY correct that I don’t believe anything you say. I cut you a break when your name was released as having failed drug tests in the early 2000s. I attributed it to youth and the pressure of the then-largest contract in sports history. You were publicly ridiculed and held accountable for drug tests that were supposed to be confidential (those tests were used in collective bargaining agreement negotiations to access the amount of doping in the sport. Since there were no penalties, these tests were supposed to be confidential. Major League Baseball and the Players’ Union dropped the ball allowing the results to become public.
Rodriguez admitted the PED use on national television and apologized back in 2009, and he said at the time that he would not be using these substances anymore. To an extent, A-Rod was correct when he claimed that Baseball was out to get him; I believe that since he couldn’t have been punished the first time, he needed to keep his nose extra clean otherwise, Baseball was going to use the first admission to come down harder. But A-Rod, narcissistic A-Rod, thought he could get away with it, and he was caught in the Biogenesys investigation, fair game to be reported and punished.
Rodriguez lashed out at baseball, Commissioner Bud “Head in the Sand” Selig, the investigators; everyone was conspiring to “get” poor Alex Rodriguez. This time however, he was caught in the new baseball rules. And Selig came down hard – an 18 month suspension, that was reduced to one full season, mostly due to injury.
So, the suspension is over, and while the Yankees have tried their best to wiggle out from under paying Rodriguez the end of his original $250 million contract, they still need a third baseman, and hope that, at 39 years old and having played just 44 games since 2013, Rodriguez can still be a big bat in the middle of the lineup. With Derek Jeter retired, the Yankees need some star power along with power hitting to contend in a very competitive American League East.
The odds are against him due to age, and the accumulative effect of the all the injuries. Also, you can bet that he will be the most scrutinized ballplayer perhaps in history. He will be getting random drug tests as frequently as allowed under the CBA. Around the rest of baseball, he will be booed and jeered like never before. And he has no one to blame but himself.
Only in the Bronx will he cheered, especially if he returns anywhere near his old production, and maybe, not even then.

As I’ve gotten older and I have learned to despise winter, I needed a goal to get through the winter. I needed a fixed point to count down to help me get through the lost winter days and nights. I know that Chicago weather is unpredictable and it could be cold until June (or July for that matter) and with climate change, everything is up for grabs. This winter has been no different, but the harbinger of spring is about to arrive.
For me, I use the day that pitchers and catchers arrive at spring training as my mental life preserver, and for the White Sox and Cubs, that day is Thursday. Here in Chicago, we are supposed to have a high temperature of 5 degrees above zero with nighttime low well below zero and wind chills that will be in the -20 range. Meanwhile however, in Arizona, men will be picking up the little round spheroid, beginning the long march toward the World Series. I admit that I watch a fair amount of spring baseball on television; not that I’m scouting teams or anything, its just good to see the boys of summer playing in the abundant sunshine.
We all need our coping mechanisms; this is mine. Play ball gentlemen; let hope for weather and our teams abound.

There are local Chicago sportswriters that I read religiously (Rick Telander, and a few others come to mind); there are some that I generally avoid like the plague (Rick Morrissey is on that list) and there are those who I occasionally read, but aren’t on either of the extreme lists.
Of the three catagories, David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune falls in the last group. Occasionally, I read his column, he’s ok, but every once in awhile I can’t understand where he’s coming from. I e-mailed him once because of an article he wrote about then Bear Head Coach Lovie Smith that seemed to take offense that Smith, who had just led the Bears to its second ever Super Bowl (the loss to Peyton Manning’s Colts), was using all of his leverage to get a bigger contract. Smith did nothing any different from any coach would do in that situation, but Haugh’s column did not come across that way.
More recently, Haugh leaped all over John Fox when he was fired by the Broncos, virtually anointing him the best candidate. His praise was relentless until Fox did get the job – it was like Fox was a relative. Here on evilopinion.com, I questioned Fox’s hiring, saying that while an improvement from Marc Trestman, Fox’s teams have been able to reach the Super Bowl, but he’s never won one, and there was always a question of Fox’s and his teams’ passion. Telander and Hub Arkush, who knows a lot more than most journalists having been publisher of the late, lamented “Pro Football Weekly” agreed with me, but I never contacted Haugh on it – it wasn’t worth my time.
Today, once again Haugh leaped into a situation and wrote something that had to be rebutted. In writing about the Jackie Robinson West Little League scandal, he barely got off the front of the sports section before decrying parents and others who were “inserting race into the equation.” So, I e-mailed him and I’d like to share it with you.

David,

Today’s column on the Little League team was sometimes right on the money, but I do take exception to your writing that you object to people “playing the race card.”
Cheating is cheating; the adults are responsible, the kids should remain proud of their accomplishment. However, it is naive and disingenuous for you to say that race had absolutely nothing to do with this decision. While I do not believe it was the ONLY factor here and probably not the major one, the protest coming from a white Evergreen Park coach to a mostly white Little League International body does have racial overtones.
For you to sit on your high horse of white privilege when you do have access to black athletes is lazy. In today’s more openly polarized America, how one looks, the color of one’s skin can mean life and death. For you to dismiss it is a mistake and hurts your reputation as a journalist.

Sincerely,

Tony Fernandez

We who have played sports, even on a playground know that sport teaches you teamwork, determination, and (hopefully) good sportsmanship. These are all life skills that kids need to learn and ones that you use for a lifetime. Unfortunately, organized sports all too often teach our kids a lesson in the real world: hypocrisy, rules breaking, and most often, a kick in the proverbial teeth.
One of the feel good stories in Chicago last year was the meteoric run of the Jackie Robinson West Little League, the first team from Chicago in several decades to make the Little League World Series, where it lost in the final game to Taiwan. Well, the good times are (in part) over.
Little League International has stripped Jackie Robinson West of its U.S. title after it determined that the team knowingly used ineligible players who lived outside of approved geographic boundaries. The title will be awarded to the team from Las Vegas that Jackie Robinson West defeated in the U.S. championship game, and the team will vacate all wins from the 2014 Little League World Series tournament, including their Great Lakes regional title.
The Little League organization said (quoted on Chicago Tribune.com) that “after an extensive review,” it determined that the team “knowingly violated Little League International rules and regulations by placing players on their team who did not qualify to play because they lived outside the team’s boundaries. “Little League International found that Jackie Robinson West Little League used a falsified boundary map for their 2014 tournament,” it added.
In addition, team manager Darold Butler has been suspended from Little League activity and Michael Kelly has been removed as administrator of Illinois District 4. The organization said the team “has been placed on probation, with its tournament privileges suspended, until such a time that new leadership have been elected or appointed, and that the league is fully compliant with all Little League International Regulations.”
According to the story, some of the kids are angry because they didn’t do anything wrong, and the kids didn’t. The coaches did and they knew it. Like high school and college coaches, cheating is acceptable as long as you don’t get caught. It is the way of the world, and the kids are learning that lesson all too well. It is the slippery slope that leads to grade tampering, false classes, papers and grades by colleges and universities, and of course, the use of performance enhancing drugs.
It is ironic to me that JRW is being penalized for something that has long been the dark cloud over the entire Little League Championship – bringing in “ringers” – great players in order to have a better chance at winning. It has been rumored for decades that this is what happens to the Asian and Latin American teams that have dominated the LLWS for decades. Kids who reportedly have never played together are suddenly teammates, which is fine if the win and don’t get caught.
However, these kids should hold their heads high; they brought together a city in a summer where the whole country seems to be divided along political, ideological and racial lines. They gained the attention of the city and when they were finished, they got a parade and a celebration in Grant Park that they should remember forever. Some kids’ families got well deserved and needed financial assistance from the public (one kid whose family was homeless got housing). Despite the Little League’s ruling, these kids are champions. Their coaches and administrators may not be, but what the kids accomplished cannot be denied and won’t be forgotten. (Anyone remember that Northwestern “won” the 1996 Rose Bowl because USC wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson, who shredded NU’s defense, was academically ineligible? I was there, and USC beat us, no matter what the NCAA later ruled.)
So young men, don’t get down, don’t get upset! What you did counts where it really matters – in the hearts of the people of this city!

It is ironic if not apropos that on the day that local heroes, the Jackie Robinson West Little League team was stripped of its U.S. Little League title; the world lost a man who bent and broke NCAA rules all the time. Former UNLV Men’s Basketball Coach Jerry “The Shark” Tarkanian died in Las Vegas at the age of 84.
Tarkanian led the Runnin’ Rebels of UNLV from 1972 to 1992, leading the team to four Final Four appearances and winning the national championship in 1990. In fact, his team’s dismantling of Duke in the 1990 NCAA Championship Game 103-73 remains the largest margin of victory in the title game.
Tarkanian retired in 2002 after 38 seasons of coaching, including 31 in Division I. At UNLV, he won 11 regular-season conference championships, seven tournament championships and made 12 NCAA tournament appearances, including a stretch of nine consecutive years. After unsuccessfully coaching the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs in 1992, Tarkanian coached at Fresno State, his alma mater, from 1995 until his retirement in 2002.
But Tarkanian was Las Vegas. “Sin City” with its gambling and lights and seedy underbelly was epitomized in UNLV. On the outside, the university was glitter, including calling the arena when they played home games “The Shark Tank” with a blow-up giant shark through which the home team players came out onto the court at the start of the game. They won a lot of games, they were a powerhouse in the NCAA as I alluded to earlier.
However, it appeared that the basketball players didn’t convey the image of the student portion of “student-athlete.” He was investigated several times in his career and once sued the NCAA in 1992 for trying to suspend him while at UNLV for violations found when Tarkanian was at Long Beach State. In 1998, while he was with Fresno State, the NCAA reportedly settled with Tarkanian for $2.5 million. He was bold and brash and didn’t cater to the NCAA, and while I’m sure he was no angel; you have to give it to him – he did mostly get away with it.
Tarkanian compiled a career record of 784-202 while at Long Beach State, UNLV and Fresno State. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013, the first UNLV coach or player to be enshrined.
Tarkanian is survived by his wife, Lois; four children; and seven grandchildren. My condolences to them all.

It is the common impression that college football and basketball coaches are well paid scoundrels, pimps to young men (and some women) who have talent and want to play professionally. So, the poster boy for underhanded football coaches has to be Bobby Petrino.
Surely you remember Petrino, he was the Head Coach of the Atlanta Falcons, but didn’t last a whole season, quitting the team with only a note. He convinced Auburn to fire his former boss, Tommy Tuberville, so he could have the job. He left Louisville in his first stint with the school after the university had rewarded him with a long-term contract. And, of course, he is most infamous when while working at Arkansas, the married head coach got into a motorcycle crash with a girlfriend whom he hired to work in the athletic department, then he lied about it to the police, the school and the press.
Louisville needed a good football coach though and when AD Tom Jurich re-hired Petrino, he said it was only after Petrino convinced him that “he’s a changed man.” Has he?
Matt Colburn was Mr. Football in the state of South Carolina, and last June, accepted Petrino’s offer a scholarship to Louisville. Like a conscientious young man, he turned away all recruiters after accepting Petrino;s offer, having given his word to the coach.
However, much like the NFL, Petrino changed his mind and left a young man hanging. Last Monday, two days before national signing day, Colburn was called out of his first-period physics class at Dutch Fork High outside of Columbia, South Carolina, to take a phone call. It was from Louisville assistant coach Tony Grantham.
Quoted by Bleacher Report’s Greg Couch (who used to be a Chicago sportswriter with the Sun-Times): “he…just told me I wouldn’t be able to sign with the 2015 class on Wednesday,” Colburn said. “I just didn’t really know what to say. He said, ‘We had some issues at defensive back.’ But they already knew that. They told me that before. I really thought he was joking. I chuckled. It didn’t make any sense. It was like a dream and I couldn’t grasp what he was saying.”
Colburn faced an uncertain future because Petrino went back on his word (and didn’t even have the balls to call the young man himself, leaving it to an assistant). Fortunately, Colburn visited Georgia Southern and Wake Forest over this past weekend, and he already had an offer from Marshall. Reportedly, he has decided which school he would go to, and will announce it tomorrow.
This past week, Colburn ran through a myriad of emotions and feelings, saying that “I was beyond embarrassed.” But he regrouped, and despite the embarrassment, Colburn told his younger teammates that when their time comes, they shouldn’t rush anything.
Colburn became the example for all high school football players and perhaps another example for why Northwestern’s football players voted to unionize last year. The kids, who put their hopes and dreams, health and lives in the hands of their colleges and coaches, had no say over what happened to them, and this was yet another example. While this is certainly evidence that Petrino hadn’t changed, he certainly isn’t the first one to have done this to a young man. The lesson Colburn’s situation showed it for high school kids to know there is zero to be gained by giving a verbal commitment and closing doors. When you negotiate a contract, you don’t tell the other side everything up front and tell everyone else to go away.
College football powers do not set up the rules to help high school kids. They do it to help themselves. Think about this: Petrino didn’t break any rules. But there are other ramifications that Petrino faces. Colburn’s coach at Dutch Fork, Tom Knotts, a highly successful head coach in North Carolina and now South Carolina for over three decades, immediately banned Petrino and his assistants from the Dutch Fork campus. Knotts said “I guess Louisville did what they thought was best for their program. … From our point, the timing could only have been worse if it had come (Wednesday) or Tuesday. Having shut down recruitment after the commitment makes it hard to find a suitable place.”
At his signing-day press conference, Petrino pointed out he had offered Colburn what is called a grayshirt. That meant he wouldn’t come to Louisville campus the Monday after high school graduation, as they had agreed, but would instead wait until January of 2016 and come on scholarship then. Petrino said this is a common thing, just one of the truths of college football recruiting. He meant it as a defense, but this made his excuse even worse.
“That whole span until January, I would have just been sitting at home,” Colburn said. “And who’s to say they wouldn’t rescind that offer again?” Fortunately, Coach Knotts, who was reportedly livid at Petrino’s behavior, immediately started calling coaches all over the country on his behalf. Colburn called, too, shamefully, after having rejected many of those same coaches months earlier.
It looks like it may work out for Matt Colburn; I think we all wish him good luck at whatever university he plays for, and best of luck in life. For Bobby Petrino, more bad publicity; certainly no young recruit will trust him again without some legal agreement in front of him. Meanwhile, the wheels of change are turning in the players’ favor.
It’s long past time