Sometimes, I think that people are stupid or oblivious, or just don’t get it. Instead of celebrating the start of Spring Training! the Chicago Cubs have been deflecting bad publicity. The fallout from last year’s Addison Russell wife beating incident, MLB suspension, but continued support from the team is bad enough. Then, racist emails to and from Joe Ricketts, patriarch of the ownership family came to light and everyone is (publicly) treating the old man like an Ebola patient.
Ever since 2014, when the Cubs severed their exclusive television relationship with WGN and limited their exposure on NBC Sports Chicago, it was plain that the Cubs were about to start their own television network. Of course, to fans who have had free games on television for decades or got used to one cable station for Chicago sports, see increased cost just to see Cub games. Already, there have been newspaper articles looking sadly forward to the last game on WGN.
The Cubs planned to tell everyone about their new station, which was bad enough, but the team is partnering with ultra-Right Wing Sinclair Broadcasting, the same network that attempted to buy the Tribune stations last year but were met with strong public opposition. In case you don’t remember, local Sinclair stations are like local Fox News – Republican propaganda inserted into the news, including mandated editorial manifestos that were disseminated throughout the network and forced to be read on air.
Before this week, we knew that the Ricketts family (with the exception of Laura, who supposes gay rights as an open lesbian) were Republican, which can now openly be called the white supremacy party. Joe’s emails expose exactly how racist he, and, more than likely, his children are. To announce your new TV venture, as you attempt to show that you aren’t as racist as we think, but to take up with another white supremacist organization is the ultimate in balls.
If they had waited just a few weeks, when most of the attention was on what’s happening on the field, this fact could have been missed, obscured, not news. By making the announcement now, its like saying “we’re not racists” they same week you partner with WGOP Network.
Maybe they are stupid? Or oblivious? Or maybe they just don’t give a damn – all they’re interested in is the money grab. No matter the reason, the Cubs have to fight another PR battle of their own devising.

Along with brain injury/CTE, the NFL has a big image problem – players committing domestic abuse. It’s bad enough from the league’s standpoint that it happens, it’s worse when it’s filmed and in this day that smartphones and social media allows for every human event to be captured and shared with the world, this is a big problem
Of course, the league shot itself in the foot with the Ray Rice incident: first a four games suspension which at the time was a lower suspension than for drugs; then, after the video tape surfaced of him punching his then-fiancée, a longer, then eventually indefinite suspension. This past season, it was the Chiefs’ star running back Kareem Hunt who was videotaped kicking and pushing a woman in the hallway of a Cleveland hotel. He was released by the Chiefs, but it was clear that if permitted by the league, Hunt would be playing again. Why do I say obvious? Because the way linebacker Reuben Foster was released by the 49ers after his arrest for domestic violence, then, as if by magic, the Redskins claim him off waivers. (It also should be noted that Hunt and Foster have jobs in the NFL while Colin Kaepernick remains unemployed by the league for protesting silently on one knee. Preposterous.)
Even the Bears were considered a likely place for Hunt to land, sine Head Coach Matt Nagy was offensive coordinator with the Chiefs before coming to the Bears. Team Chairman George McCaskey was unusually vague when asked about Hunt. I guess the Bears didn’t get their offers in fast enough – the Browns have signed Hunt to a one-year contract, and then he will be a restricted free agent. (I think the PR starved Bears didn’t need the bad press if they had signed Hunt.)
I believe that the domestic violence issue remains in part tied to steroids. “Roid rage is common among juiced athletes, and add the fact that football is testosterone amped to the highest levels, and domestic violence is much more likely to occur than in the general populace. The NFL, the win at all costs league, who will play anyone who can build a winner, continues to play this badly. The Rice case, all of the other players who have been arrested for hitting their spouses or girlfriends, the Foster case, and now Hunt, and it sends a message – we don’t really care if you’re a felon, as long as you can play football (especially if there isn’t video footage).
The league will say that only a few players actually are found guilty, but that’s BS – we all know that women can be “convinced” not to appear in court for monetary or retribution reasons. Rice married the women he beat; how many other abused women remain in these tortured relationships.
But Commissioner Roger Goodell doesn’t care. The owners don’t care about the players – CTE, short careers, players cut like yesterday’s newspaper; they certainly don’t care about the players’ wives and girlfriends – they don’t make any money off them. Many of the fans don’t care. They don’t care about their announcers either…

I have always been a bit indifferent to announcer Bob Costas. He did a decent job covering everything for NBC from football to the Olympics, to, it seemed, dog shows. He was omnipresent but basically innocuous to me. I hardly ever watched “Later,” his interview program in part because it was on late, and mostly because it never became required viewing to me.
I did notice that his profile had become much lower over time. He wasn’t on the Olympics; Mike Tirico took over for him as host of the Sunday Night pregame show. However, it seems that the NFL and NBC did not like Costas’ continued rants about head trauma in the league. Instead of honoring the end of his contract, Costas and NBC came to an agreement to part early. In return, Costas was interviewed by ESPN and Costas said that he had been relieved of hosting Super Bowl LII coverage last year because of his statements about concussions.
I guess going back at least to 2015 when the Will Smith film “Concussion” was released, Costas has been a vocal critic of the violence in the sport and the NFL’s reaction to it. At first, Costas was just going to stop broadcasting football (last year’s Super Bowl was supposed to be his final game), but as a result of attending and speaking at conventions of doctors and others, NBC decided that the innocuous had become too controversial.
There are three major issues that are an existential threat to the game: performance enhancing drugs, domestic violence and other crimes by players, and of course head injury. Of the three, the latter has the most significant impact: already participation in football at the pee-wee and junior levels in many middle class high schools has fallen precipitously. Many celebrities from the sports world like LeBron James, to the degenerative “president of the United States have said that they wouldn’t let their sons play football.
There is probably no more incompetent highly paid man in America than NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (other than POTUS of course). Goodell has blundered the Colin Kaepernick issue, failed on Ray Rice, been reactive on head trauma, and once again, by forcing Costas out (when he no longer wanted to do football anyway in great part because of the medical issues) makes the league look like a bully yet again and a petulant one at that. (However, the league’s revenues keep going up almost exponentially, so Goodell keeps his job even though he certainly doesn’t deserve to on almost every other front.) NBC comes out relatively unscathed as Costas has gone out of his way to say nothing negative about NBC, his employer for the past 30 years.
We all know Bob Costas will turn up on the air somewhere again, especially if given a chance to cover his favorite sport – baseball. We certainly won’t be having a tag day for him – he is very happy with his buyout. However, the more voices the league tries to silence, the more new voices will pop up.

The ownership tenure of the Ricketts family has been full of ups and downs. Of course, they brought the team’s first championship in over a century to the North Side. They have also instituted needed renovation of Wrigley Field and are in the process of building a “Cub Mall” around the park where concessions and food are available on game days. On the other side, the Ricketts family have gotten what they wanted despite making several critical PR and political blunders.
Family Patriarch Joe Ricketts funded a Super PAC that ran anti-President Obama commercials during his reelection campaign. Of course, the Mayor of the City of Chicago is Rahm Emmanuel, who was once White House Chief of Staff for Obama. The family has been very quiet about the son Pete who is governor of red state Nebraska. Ongoing fights with the neighborhood around the ballpark highlighted by Alderman Tom Tunney played out in the media. While it seems the Ricketts have gotten what they wanted in general, it appears to me that they have been forced to spend more of their own personal fortune than they wanted.
Cub CEO Tom Ricketts is publicly silent on most things even though it was reported that the family was considering leaving Wrigley Field/Chicago because they weren’t getting the support they wanted. (They never understood that former Mayor Richard M. Daley earned votes by not completely capitulating to the McCaskey Family who wanted the city to fund the renovation of Soldier Field or build a new stadium solely with public money.) The only member of the family who seemed to be well liked in the court of public opinion is sister/daughter Laura, who is gay and champions LGBTQ issues and often supports much more liberal causes and candidates than the rest of her family.
So, it wasn’t great for the Ricketts family that a number of racist emails about Muslims, African-Americans and Barack Obama issued by or supported by old man Joe surfaced in the media last week. The old racist issued a lukewarm, spin doctor written apology, and Tom has come out against his father’s comments and may be trying to have a meeting with Muslim groups. Of course, he can’t completely decry his father – Dad created TD Ameritrade, which built the fortune that helped Teddy fulfill his lifelong dream of playing fantasy baseball for real.
In addition, the family has been madding contributions to Ald. Tunney opponents in an attempt to get Tunney out of their hair so that they can do whatever they want at Clark and Addison. What hasn’t been as publicized is that the Ricketts are backing the latest Daley running for Mayor, Bill Daley, who also was Chief of Staff for Obama, but who seems to be, like Emmanuel, much more right of center politically than the other candidates.
Spin doctoring is still in vogue, but Joe Ricketts has always been a GOP supporter, which now, in the Party of Trump, means racists and 1 percenters. This generally doesn’t fly very well in generally Blue Chicago. I am not at all surprised at Joe Ricketts’ opinions or attitudes. I’m not a huge fan of Tom Tunney, but if I lived in his ward, I’d vote for him (grudgingly), and if I lived in Chicago (which I do not), along with my distain for a third Daley as mayor, I would be very actively supporting another candidate rather than one who is in the Ricketts’ pockets.

The Conference Championship Games held last weekend had everything a fan could want: compelling veterans (Tom Brady and Drew Brees); young phenoms (Jared Goff and Patrick Mahomes); high power offenses; a couple of strong defenses; teams to root for and a team nearly everyone roots against. Both games went to overtime, and both ended up with unsatisfactory endings. Unfortunately, the NFL, plagued by problems like CTE, kneeling players, the perception that owners are modern plantation owners, now has another problem – a Super Bowl that many may not watch.
There is plenty of discussion, broadcast, written material on the horrendous no call on the obvious pass interference call against the Saints in overtime which led to the Rams being in the Super Bowl. The call was so obvious and so egregious, pass interference calls may be reviewable situations, the first penalty that can be subject to review. The downside of course is that games will get even longer, and offenses, already with a tremendous advantage, could have a greater advantage since pass interference is often a matter of perspective.
The Rams are an interesting team, although my interest has waned since they lost to the Bears and shown that their high powered offense is best at home, and after a great start, the team showed serious flaws. This may have been the last chance for Brees to win a second championship. Already assured of an eventual Hall of Fame call, Brees seems to be a decent man, quietly going about his business on the field and raising his kids and taking care of his family off the field.
Then there is the AFC – the Chiefs have a budding superstar on their hands – Mahomes threw 50 touchdown passes this season, only the third QB to throw that many (along with Brady and Peyton Manning). The Chiefs’ defense was their Achilles ’ heel all season, but the offense would just outscore everybody. The Chiefs seem to have lost as a result of the NFL’s bizarre overtime policy, if a team takes the OT kickoff and gets a field goal, then the other team’s offense gets a chance to match the score or win with a touchdown. If the team with the ball first scores a touchdown, game over. Why did Andy Reid elect to kick the ball to the Patriots first in the extra session is a question that will be asked in Kansas City for years.
Then there are the New England Patriots. Nearly 20 years into dominance in the AFC East (Least?), they are appearing in their ninth Super Bowl. Add Boston area sports arrogance; Owner Bob Kraft’s arrogance and friendship with Donald Trump; Tom Brady’s arrogance and friendship with Trump; past cheating scandals surrounding the team and especially grumpy Head Coach Bill Belichick (who’s also a Trump friend); and just weariness of seeing them in line to win another title and this may be for many fans.
Outside of New England (and it’s not envy for many of us), the Patriots are the most hated team except for the Cowboys. Like I mentioned above, they are not above cheating to win; their coach is a boor; their owner is a living stereotype of rich white privilege, their QB is very WASPy with the perfect multimillion dollar wife and the “perfect kids.” It is enough to make one want to vomit.
Already the Boston fans are gearing up. It’s like, after decades of watching their New York neighbors win titles and get the country to hate them, New Englanders have taken notes and turned the obnoxious knob to 11. They will proclaim envy and say that the entire rest of the country has it out for them. Well they do, but its only with great success, expectation of winning every year bordering on entitlement, and general fan despicable, and the team becomes most hated. On the other hand, Los Angeles fans are notorious frontrunners, “fans” are just interested in being seen, getting some sun. L.A. went without an NFL franchise for 22 years and no one really seemed to care. There were too many celebrities, too much sunshine, and other things to so to worry about a football team. In those 22 years the Rams moved east and have been like a tennis ball going back and forth between St. Louis and L.A. It’s hard to have any feelings about the Rams one way or the other unless you’re in Southern California or Missouri.
I could be wrong, but I don’t see the Rams beating the Patriots. The savvy veterans are the obvious against the very young upstarts. (The only chance the Rams have is to run the ball like they’ve done in the playoffs to keep the ball away from Brady.) Either way, there’s the stink of cheating or at least incompetence with the league, making this match-up much less compelling.
Of course, many people will be watching for the commercials anyway.

I know that this will be blasphemy to Northwestern fans and alumni, but I was not 100% happy when, after NU’s improbable come from behind victory in the Liberty Bowl, Coach Pat Fitzgerald announced that he would not be leaving Northwestern for the Green Bay Packers. Yes, I know – he’s our former All-American linebacker; he is the winningest coach in school history; he had just led the team from a 20-3 halftime deficit to the number 8 ranked team in the nation to a 31-20 victory; he headed the building of the “Fitz Carlton” the state of the art football practice facility on the lake. How could you have any trepidation at all, Tony?
First, let’s give the 90% positives from my perspective. Fitzgerald is a motivator, sometimes to the point of absurdity. He bleeds Northwestern purple, which is a major selling point. He has brought top recruits to Evanston and his teams have won 9 games or more and three bowls in a row. This year, Northwestern appeared in its first Big Ten Championship Game. All incredible achievements, especially considering how far from the horrendous 1970s and 1980s football teams that we who were there all endured.
I have one major issue with Fitzgerald however, and they’re important and I write them with the intent for Northwestern to continue to do well and improve. The issue is that he and the players and the coaches are always talking about improving, but Fitzgerald and his staff are not improving in any meaningful way. Let me explain.
The thing is that he believes that winning more games than you lose means that you don’t have to make any changes to get better. I still believe that Fitzgerald makes questionable decisions during games. Especially in the two minutes before halftime, the offense seems to be torn between whether to go long and try to score or take a knee and run out the half. He has been head coach for 13 seasons and he does not appear to have improved in mid-game decision making.
Finally of course, his unwillingness to even consider a change at offensive coordinator is a major fault. The Wildcats have won 36 of 53 games over the past four seasons (a .679 winning percentage), they have done so with offenses leaded my Offensive Coordinator Mick McCall’s crew ranked 109, 100, 107 and 110 out of 129 schools. I have always thought that Fitzgerald’s most important move was hiring defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz when he was suddenly and surprisingly fired by Wisconsin in 2008. It has been NU’s defense that has been able to keep the team in games when McCall’s offense has done little or nothing. Long time readers know of my criticisms: simpleminded, repetitive play-calling, generally unimaginative schemes; and over-reliance on one running back which could have easily led to injury. I was at a friend’s house watching the bowl game and sitting on the couch, I predicted several calls which McCall’s offense then ran, mostly to a bad effect. Failure to even consider another coordinator despite the win total is a weakness.
While I did not hope that Fitzgerald would have left to go to Green Bay, my joke over the weekend was that if he did leave, he would take McCall with him. McCall wouldn’t be in Evanston anymore and he would have immediately weakened the Bears’ arch-nemesis. Still, why should we the fans have to wait for the team to go 0-12 before Fitzgerald will make personnel moves that are painfully obvious to everyone but him?
So, we have Fitzgerald, and angrily, we will once again be stuck with McCall (who must have blackmail material against someone to keep his job), but with a five star recruit Hunter Johnson who transferred from Clemson. Fortunately for Mr. Johnson, McCall’s poor offenses did not harm the NFL chances of Trevor Siemien, former starter in Denver and now a backup on the Vikings; or, presumably, departing senior Clayton Thorson.
It’s a shame that NU fans feel as though we have to root for losses before things can get better.

Call me a nonbeliever, but I don’t think that there is any way that yesterday’s Rose Bowl was Urban Meyer’s last game as a college football head coach. There’s just too much hypocrisy with the man.
“I know this is relatively young, but I started young — 17 years as a head coach, 33 years doing this,” Meyer, 54, said to ESPN.com. “And just very fortunate, and I do believe I’m done.” ESPN found one person who was definitely happy about the decision – Meyer’s wife Shelley. “I would be ecstatic if he didn’t [coach again],” Shelley Meyer said Tuesday. “I’m done. I want him to be done. He’s too intense.”
Which is exactly the reason that I think Meyer will be back again in 5 years or so. First of all, he retired twice while at Florida where he won two national championships. Illness and spending more time with his family are the usual reasons for people resigning/retiring and Meyer has used those both in the past.
This time is different however, as he is in effect being pushed out after it was discovered that he had covered for an assistant coach who had a record of physically abusing his wife/ex-wife during Meyer’s tenures in Tallahassee and Columbus. However, if Ohio State was truly concerned about its image and concerned about the message it sends about women and men and athletics, the probably wouldn’t have hired Meyer to become an assistant athletic director at the school. Again, Shelley Meyer is pleased and thinks Urban’s new role as an assistant AD will be a good fit because it will keep him busy and around the program’s players. Although she called the change “bittersweet,” she said she welcomed her husband taking on a job that doesn’t come with the stress of being a head football coach according to ESPN.
The most incredulous thing about this whole thing is that Meyer will co-teach a course titled Leadership and Character in Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business this spring. What will be taught? What not to do? How Leadership is fine for men as long as they don’t have to deal with women? And Character – what will Urban Meyer teach students in business school about character? That anything is OK until you get caught? And it must be asked how a very reverent Roman Catholic could have been wrong on sexual issues considering the system-wide sexual abuse that has been performed by members of the Church.
Still, I think that in five years or so, some smaller school will look past the scandals, look to put fans in the stands and give Meyer both the AD and Head Football Coach jobs. It will pay well, and stoke his competitive need. I’m certain that competition/testosterone is as addictive to coach-types as alcohol is for alcoholics, or drugs to addicts. The only coach that has been able to walk away and seems to be alright with it is Bill Cowher. (One could have also listed Jon Gruden until he left a great gig with ESPN to return to coach the Raiders this year.)
I don’t think that this retirement, like his last two, will last forever.