Bandwagon...and the Blackhawks

Per Merriam-Webster the definition of bandwagon is:

band·wag·on
: a popular activity, effort, cause, etc., that attracts growing support

It is quite the narrative (most popular word in sports talk at the moment) when discussing the loyalties of sports fans. I make no bones about the fact that I am:

• a Chicago sports fan. I grew up in Illinois so my loyalties lie there
• currently living in Indianapolis
• an advocate of preaching against the bandwagon phenomenon

Being a high school teacher and teaching a class like sports marketing I get into quite a few discussions about sports and sports teams. This generation is very different than my generation. With the advent of technology fans are no longer created by regions. Again, growing up in Illinois it was all about the local teams. Therefore, I rooted for the Bears, University of Illinois, Cubs (as opposed to the Cardinals since Peoria is close to halfway between St. Louis and Chicago) and the Blackhawks. Nowadays, young people have access to all the major sports teams on cable/satellite television and smart phones. They can root for whoever they choose. And that is where I feel the bandwagon epidemic has evolved.

It is extremely easy to root for teams that are good. And young fans in this day and age take full advantage of that opportunity. Let's take the Pacers for example. After the Malice at the Palace the attendance and fan support for the Pacers declined. Understandably, many fans didn't like the direction of the team. However, if you are a fan of a team, wholeheartedly, you have to stick with them through thick and thin. At that time I began to see many young people become Lakers fans (Kobe), Bulls fans (D Rose) or Cavs/Heat fans (LeBron). Granted, the NBA markets its players as opposed to teams, but staying loyal to your TEAM, as opposed to a player seems more virtuous.

Peyton Manning going to the Broncos is another excellent example. I am continually floored by the number of "fans" who now rock the Manning Broncos jerseys but are still "Colts fans". How is that possible? My answer to them is that they were never truly Colts fans but rather just a Peyton Manning fan. They like to argue with me about their allegiances, but I'm not buying it. As my Dad used to say, crap or get off the pot. :)

Now for me, I get a lot of flack about being a Blackhawks fan. Many sports fans accuse me of being a bandwagon fan because they are now one of the best teams in the NHL. Well, my response to that is usually one statement - my best friend (and roommate) and I went to bars in 1992 to watch the Blackhawks play the Penguins in the Stanley Cup Finals. I can name numerous players from that team and others in the years before they "got good". I also have friends, whom I love, who call the city of Chicago a bandwagon hockey city because fans are now "coming out of the woodwork because they're good". Here's how I would like to refute that statement.

Ownership is vital to the fan support of a team. This city is blessed to have a passionate owner like Jim Irsay. For many years, however, the Blackhawks were owned by one of the worst owners in professional sports, Bill Wirtz. Blackhawks home games were no televised locally because he thought is was "unfair to season ticket holders". At the same time, he would only televise games IF they were picked up nationally, which only happened in the playoffs. He was also extremely frugal, which lead to his nickname "Dollar Bill" Wirtz. He tried PPV for Blackhawks games for $29.95 a month which went over like a lead balloon. Per wikipedia.com "Under the ownership of Wirtz, the Chicago Blackhawks were named by ESPN in 2004 as the worst franchise in sports. In 2002, ESPN ranked Wirtz as the third greediest owner in all of sports."

The Blackhawks fan base, in my opinion, was dormant. The ownership traded the teams best players (Chelios, Roenick, Belfour, and Savard) for financial reasons, they couldn't watch the team on local television, and their beloved play-by-play announcer, Pat Foley was unceremoniously fired by Bill Wirtz as well. It was tough to be a Blackhawks fan. I couldn't watch them at all living in Indianapolis. And then, sadly, Bill Wirtz passed away. His son Rocky Wirt took over and things changed, immediately. He hire John McDonough away from the Cubs and he sought to completely rebuild the organization. He brought back great old timers like Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull. They got Scotty Bowman involved in the organization. Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were drafted. But most importantly, Rocky put the Blackhawks back on Comcast Sports Net Chicago and rehired Pat Foley. You cannot begin to comprehend how important those decisions were in the grand scheme of the club. The fan base got their sunlight back and came out of dormancy, even before they won the Cup in 2010. I can watch them all the time now and it's fantastic.

Dormancy and bandwagonism (word?) are two completely different adjectives to describe fan bases. And I'll be more than happy to tell you how I feel about each.

Until next time...

Shawn

The Baseball HOF and It's Voting...

Yesterday the Baseball Hall of Fame elected four new members – Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio. It is the first time that four players have been elected by the BBWAA in the same year since 1955. The controversy that surrounds the vote every year can be intriguing, but when is enough going to be enough for MLB to finally get it right?

Let’s look at the four who got elected yesterday. Pedro and The Unit are no brainers in my opinion. Two of the most dominant pitchers I have seen in my lifetime and of all-time. Very easy picks. But here’s where the process gets ridiculous. How can voters NOT vote for Unit or Pedro on the first ballot? I have never understood the logic in purposely leaving someone off the ballot just because it’s their first year of eligibility. Either they’re a HOF or they’re not. Are the writers that jealous because they couldn’t play? Is it a power trip for them to hold someone’s legacy in their hands? The process has to change.

Anyway, it gets interesting for the other two inductees. For me, John Smoltz gets in because his postseason performances bolster his stellar regular season numbers. One stat you need to know about Smoltz – his postseason starting record was 21-4 and in those four losses his teams scored him a grand total of four runs. Plus, any player who can be a dominant starter and then transition to a dominant closer is pretty special.

Finally, we get to Craig Biggio. And this is where my opinion of the status of the Hall of Fame becomes clear. First let me say that I loved Biggio as a ball player. Even though he played in the same division as my beloved Cubs I loved watching him play because he played the game the right way. He and Jeff Bagwell (who deserves to be in the Hall, btw) were two of my favorite non-Cubs.

Now, here is my hardline stance about the HOF. There are two types of players eligible to be enshrined in the HOF - ones you’ve seen their entire career and those you haven’t. For the latter, I have to completely rely upon statistics and comparisons. For the former, I have a simple test - were they they absolute best at their position in their league for an extended period of time? And that’s just the start. This, to me, is where Biggio falls short. The bigger problem is that Biggio hit the “magic” number - 3000. You get there you’re getting in. But that’s my gripe. Longevity is a great attribute to have as a player. yet it can skew our view of the player as well.

For any argument like this I love to browse to www.baseball-reference.com and hit up the JAWS and Similarity Scores sections. Jay Jaffe created the JAWS statistical comparison based on WAR. At the same time, the Similarity Scores rank the player in relation to other players in MLB history. Let’s look at Biggio. He is ranked as the 14th best overall 2B in MLB history. Not bad, but he is behind non-HOF’s such as Bobby Grich (7th), Lou Whitaker (11) and Chase Utley (12). As you may or may not know, Lou Whitaker and Bobby Grich have never even sniffed entrance into the HOF. Does this diminish Biggio’s case? I think so. At the same time, his statistical comparisons help his case as he is compared to Robin Yount, Derek Jeter, Roberto Alomar and Joe Morgan. Some statistics that stand out to me in the case for Biggio are that he was an All-Star only 7 times, a Gold Glover four times, and Top 5 in MVP voting twice. His case makes it very difficult for me to decided definitively if he is a slam dunk HOF or not.

A better comparison may be a battle of 3B - Brooks Robinson and Ron Santo. Robinson was a first ballot HOF and Santo had to wait for the Veterans Committee once he had passed away. Let’s look at the stats.

Initially, Brooks page makes a strong case as he was a 15 time All-Star and a 16 time Gold Glover. He even won the AL MVP on 1964. No-brainer, right? Let’s dig deeper. He only batted over .300 TWICE and only lead the league in an offensive statistic ONCE - RBI in his MVP year of 1964. As I scroll down to the JAWS and Similarity Scores area is when the red light really goes off for me. He is ranked 8th overall in MLB history as a 3B, BEHIND Ron Santo. And as I look at the the players on that list, the closest rivals in the AL at the time he played don’t show up until 15 and 16 (Buddy Bell and Sal Bando). His “similar player comparison” is Buddy Bell. If that doesn’t speak volumes, I’m not sure what can because nobody believes Buddy Bell is a HOF.

Ron Santo, however, was a the victim of baseball writers for years. The first statistic that stands out is that he is ranked ahead of Brooks Robinson in the JAWS scores for 3B. Secondly, in his early career he had to play in the shadow of HOF Eddie Mathews who is ranked 2nd in history at 3B (only surpassed by Mike Schmidt). Santo was a 9 time All-Star and a five time Gold Glover. He also finished in the Top 5 of NL MVP voting twice. Santo also finished with almost 80 more HR’s and just less than 20 RBI’s than Robinson in EIGHT less years.

The problem? Robinson had the infamous 1971 World Series where he was the “human vacuum cleaner” at 3B and helped the Orioles win the World Series. Are those few games enough of a disillusion to negatively affect Ron Santo’s HOF induction for all those years? I believe so. The writers are enamored with great performances and I understand that concept. However, at what point does the body of work not make the definitive decision?

It is a very slippery slope the voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame. And it needs to be changed. Not just in the manner of who votes, but the conviction of the votes. I believe every voter should have to release their results with explanations of said votes. I’ve voiced a few of my convictions on HOF players and you may not agree. That’s OK, but that’s also what helps make baseball the greatest game in the world.

Well....this is the year.

No, I am not talking about the Cubs winning the World Series, which would be nice. I give it a couple of years....and Vegas is getting a little ahead of themselves with the odds.

But I digress. In the last few months of 2014 I've done some serious thinking about my life goals and have decided it's time to crap or get off the pot. I'm 46 years old and I  need to stop dreaming about things I want to do in my life and start making sure the rubber hits the road. So I have made two commitments, not resolutions, for 2015 - writing and running. I need to exercise my mind and my body. One of my bucket list items is to write a book. Well, in my thought processes I came up with what I want to write my book about, but I feel as if it is like being an athlete - practice makes perfect. I can't, in my mind, just start writing a book. I need to hone my craft. That's where this blog come into play. This is my practice. Bear with me - the subject matter will vary like crazy. Well, maybe not. :)  Most of my musings will be about sports but I'm sure I'll sprinkle in some pop culture and family stories as well. Here's to a new year!

Normally I would hit a various number of topics on a Monday after a busy sports weekend, but one story stood out to me this weekend and that will be the focus of my first post - Stuart Scott.

I didn't get to watch ESPN regularly until I was in college in the late 80's. We lived in the boondocks of Central Illinois and didn't have cable until I went to the big city of Bolivar. MO for college. As a sports fan, this was a dream come true. A 24 hour sports channel? Are you kidding me? Heaven. I watched it non-stop. The signature show was obviously SportsCenter. In my early days there were the no-nonsense anchors for the show - Chris Berman, Bob Ley, Linda Cohn, Tom Mees and Chris Myers. At this point, I didn't know that the show could be anything more than just feeding me sports highlights and I was ecstatic with it. Little did I know...

Early in the 90's the show started to evolve and more personalities were hired to anchor SC. The two that stand out the most are Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann, calling it "The Big Show" during the 11pm SportsCenter. My eyes were opened as to the personality that could come out of the anchor while giving you the highlights and  news. Being a people person, this fascinated me. And I was even more hooked, if that's possible. And then, the crew came on. Rich Eisen, Craig Kilborn, Robin Roberts, Steve Levy and Stuart Scott. They made the show FUN. It's as if fans got a hold of the cameras and allowed us to see the highlights as if we were all hanging out together at someone's house going round table about sports. It was great.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't like everyone. To this day I cannot stand Chris Berman. He seems so contrived to me it's ridiculous. Olbermann started to wear on me as the "guy who is smarter than you and never lets you forget it" vibe. So I gravitated towards Eisen and Scott. Their personalities complimented each other so well during the broadcasts that it was must-see TV for me. At first, Stuart was difficult to for me to follow, but as I got out of college and on to my own and met other African-Americans his musings became language I understood and could find funny. It was almost as if he was a Civics teacher for life. He made no bones about the fact that he was going to be who he was, whether you liked  him or not, because he believed in himself. There have been MANY anchors that have sat at that desk that were not transparent and came across as fake and unbelievable. One thing you could never call Stuart was unbelievable.

As I have grown older I must admit I have grown apart from SportsCenter. The 90's were the zenith of the show, like SNL, and as society has changed, so has the people who sit at the desk. Don't get me wrong, I love Lindsey Czarniak and John Anderson and anchors like them. However, it's not the glory days of my youth and there was one guy who was still there as the conduit from that age for me - Stuart Scott. I knew he had been sick with cancer. What I didn't know, until the ESPY's this summer was that it bad. Cancer is a scary thing. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in November of  2014 so I have a pretty good idea of how scary the word cancer can be to someone. Thank the Lord my wife is now cancer free. Stuart was not as lucky.

I was awoken yesterday morning, sleeping in because I have been sick, by a notification on my phone. It was a SportsCenter update and it said that Stuart Scott had passed away. I immediately logged on to Twitter and began to scroll through all of the condolences. The one that broke me was Rich Eisen's beautiful eulogy on the NFL Network. I came downstairs in tears and my wife wondered what was wrong. I showed her the video and we cried together. She understood my love for sports and how this impacted me. I never met Stuart Scott. But through the TV we became friends because of a passionate love of sports. I lost a friend yesterday. And he was only three years older than me. It is sad, but it has been therapeutic hearing all of his friends tell stories about Stu. He will live on through the magic of TV. But I pray for his family, especially his daughters in this rough time. I've lost my Dad as well, at the age of 27 and I know how tough that is as well. So please keep them in your prayers.

Rest in peace Stu. You were always as cool as the other side of the pillow.

If I Were Booking WrestleMania 29....

I wrote this a couple of weeks ago and I tried to stick with the current storylines as best as I could. Some things have changed since then but these could still work.

Dark Match – Divas Championship that no one cares about

U.S. Heavyweight Championship – The Miz (challenger) vs. Antonio Cesaro (champion)
The Miz comes out with Ric Flair at his side. It’s a great match, back and forth, between both. Near the end of the match, Fandango comes out with two dancing partners. As he is watching the match The Miz locks in the Figure Four to Cesaro. Flair gets excited and starts dancing. He hops up on the apron to “distract” the referee while The Miz keeps cinching in the Figure Four. Flair comes through the ropes, yells “Wooo!” and drops an elbow on The Miz!! OMG. Just as quickly, Fandango leaps into the ring and covers the immobile Cesaro and gets the three count. Fandango screams “You will know my name!!” and then smiles and offers Flair one of his dancers as the leave the ring together.

Your NEW U.S. Heavyweight Champion – Fandango.  

Fatal Four Way – Tag Team Championship Match – Team Hell No (champions) vs. Prime Time Players vs. Broadus Clay and Tensai vs. Damien Sandow and Cody Rhodes (challengers)
Crazy weird fight and brouhahas break loose all over the place. At one point Broadus and Bryan are in the ring while everyone else is on the outside except Kane, who is on the apron. Broadus is destroying Bryan, but he makes an escape and tries to tag Kane. Kane jumps off the apron and walks away. Bryan is devastated as he watches Kane leave – then from behind Clay and Tensai double team Bryan and get the pin. Then the dancing begins…  

Winners and NEW Tag Team Champions – Broadus Clay and Tensai  

Intercontinental Championship – R-Truth (Challenger) vs. Wade Barrett (champion)
Blah-blah-blah. Barrett wins with Colin Farrell at ringside to promote their crappy movie.  

Winner and still Intercontinental Champion – Wade Barrett  

Chris Jericho vs. Dolph Ziggler with AJ Lee and Big E Langston
One of the best matchers of the night. Both combatants have control at certain points. AJ and Big E try to get involved on certain occasions. At one point, when Dolph is incapacitated at ringside, Big E tries to interfere. Vickie comes out and starts wailing on AJ while Chris locks Big E in the Walls of Jericho. Booker T comes down and throws out everyone from ringside. Vickie and AJ fight back up the ramp as Big E tries to break them up. Chris and Dolph go at it. Dolph tries to hit the Fameasser, or whatever he calls it, but Jericho pulls an amazing counter and locks in the Walls of Jericho. With no one to help, Dolph passes out and loses the match.  

Winner – Chris Jericho  

Mark Henry vs. The Big Show
This is a Body Slam Match, the person who can body slam the other wins. Both go back and forth and near the end (thank god), Big Show hits Mark Henry with the punch. Mark doesn’t flinch. Big Show looks at his fist and hits him again. Once again, Mark doesn’t flinch. Mark yells “This is what I do!” Big Show looks at his fist and walks out of the ring. As he is walking up the ramp out comes Alberto Del Rio, RR, Sheamus and anyone else who has been victimized by the punch. Big Show goes back down to the ring and gets bodyslammed by Mark Henry and the ring collapses.  

Winner – Mark Henry  

War Games Match – Two Rings Enclosed by a Cage: Sheamus, Ryback, Orton and HHH vs. Team Heyman – the Shield and Brock Lesnar
Earlier in the month, Brock accepted HHH’s challenge with one caveat: if he wanted a fight they were going to do it on Heyman’s terms, which is the War Games. Triple HHH agrees and gets Sheamus, Ryback and Orton to be his partners. Longest and most brutal match of the night: Team Heyman wins the coin flip and gets the first entry at 5 minutes. Match starts with Ambrose and Orton. In succession, here are the entrants: Rollins, Sheamus, Reigns, Ryback, Lesnar and HHH. Trips and Lesnar go off into their own ring and proceed to get into a bloody mess together. After the beating commence, the Shield tries to protect Lesnar from HHH, but then Vince, Steph, Shane and HHH’s kids come down to ringside to cheer HHH on. With this the faces fo wild and it ends up with Ryback and HHH double teaming Lesnar and HHH pedigrees him and gets the pin. HHH walks off with his family. Once they get to the top of the ramp, HHH thanks the fans and officially retires.  

Winners – Sheamus, Ryback, Orton and HHH  

World Heavyweight Championship Match – Jack Swagger w/Zeb Colter (challenger) vs. Alberto Del Rio (champion)
This is a back and forth match; where even Zeb Colter and Ricardo Rodriguez get into a ringside scrap. Both competitors put on their finishing moves, but Jack is close to ropes when ADR puts on armbar so he gets a reprieve. ADR kicks out of Swagger’s finisher and Zeb jumps up on the apron. Jack goes over and Zeb hands him a foreign object. ADR comes over and drop kicks Swagger and he knocks Zeb off the apron. But Jack gets up and hits ADR with the brass knucks and gets the three count. Just as he is celebrating AJ comes down to the ring and distracts Swagger as Ziggler and Big E come from behind and beat him up. Dolph then cashes in the MIB and gets the three count.  

Your NEW World Heavyweight Champion – Dolph Ziggler  

The Streak Match – CM Punk vs. The Undertaker
This is going to be an awesome match. Longest match of the night with both contestants going back and forth. After about 35 minutes Taker hits a Tombstone but Punk kicks out of it. After more action Punk hits the GTS. But Taker kicks out. Punk hits the GTS again, Taker kicks out. One last time Punk hits the GTS and Taker kicks out. As the last GTS is being put on Taker, Mick Foley comes down to ringside. He pleads with Punk, “He’s not human, you can’t win!” Punk listens to Foley and walks away, being counted out. Foley convinces Punk to give him the urn. Taker goes to 21-0, but Punk doesn’t lose. Once Punk is counted out Foley jumps in the ring and screams at Taker – “This is for Hell in a Cell” and takes the urn to Taker, beating him within an inch of his life. As Foley is leaving, Kane meets him on the ramp and beats him to a pulp. He them slams Foley off the ramp. Kane then gets the urn from Foley, he then lifts it up in the air at ringside. Taker rises. Kane and Taker hug and lift the urn together in tribute to Paul Bearer.  

Winner – Undertaker  

WWE Heavyweight Championship Match – John Cena (challenger) vs. The Rock (champion) Typical WWE Heavyweight match with both guys having runs of success. It’s pretty much just like last year’s match except the ending – as the match is finishing Punk comes down and watches from ringside. He does not interfere, however. Cena tries AA and Rock kicks out. Rock tries Rock Bottom and Cena kicks out. Vince comes down to the ring and it looks as if we may have another “corporate champion” as it was back in the Attitude Era. But then, The Shield comes down from the stands and seeks justice after their loss in War Games. They beat down Rock, Cena and Vince. CM Punk just watches and then walks away at the end of the match, laughing, but taking no credit for The Shield. Match ends in a double count out after The Shield triple power bombs both Rock and Cena. They kidnap the WWE belt and tell everyone that the champ won’t get it back until justice is served. End of show.  

Winner – no one. Double count out.

#pray4rebecca

The #pray4rebecca t-shirt was created via the CustomInk website. The shirt is pictured below. Go to the CustomInk site and fill out the information then return here and use the PayPal button to pay for your shirt. Let's show Rebecca how much she is loved!!

Put shirt size in notes

The Cardinals and Scottie Pippen

I grew up in Central Illinois, just north of Peoria, in a little town called Chillicothe. It was a big baseball area and the fan lines were drawn between the Cubs and the Cardinals. It was almost as if the AL only existed to get beat in the All-Star Game and then play in the World Series. My family was a die-hard Cubs family. I liked to tell people, once I got to college and beyond, that where I grew up you rooted for the Cubs or the Cardinals and my Dad brought me up right. Yes, there as quite a bit of playful animosity between the two fan bases since they were rivals, but other than 1984 when the Cubs finally went to the playoffs after 39 years, the Cardinals ruled the rivalry. As I have grown older the “playful” part of the enmity has gone by the wayside. It’s nice to have a rival – I’m a huge Bears fan and we hate the Packers, but I respect loyal Packers fans – but there is an underlying issue that has been bothering me for a while….and I think I might have stumbled across some reasons as to the purpose of this enmity.

Let me go back to my Little League days to help explain my theory. I LOVED Little League. After Valentine’s Day I would get the itch for practices and bug my Dad about signups. I lived for the summers when I could play all day and all weekend. My birthday was in the middle of August, which doesn’t seem like a big deal at first glance, but my parents started me in school early. I was always the youngest person in my class. As the related to Little League, I hardly even played with my classmates. Most of my teams consisted of guys who were a year behind me in school. I also had an older brother, two years my senior, who played as well. I always watched and studied my classmates and my older brothers teams and noticed a few interesting tidbits.

I can’t explain it, but there was always one guy who was far and away the best player. Usually, this was the guy who matured the fastest and therefore could throw faster and hit it further than the rest of the team. Two names stand out for me, Bill Akright and Dana Bannister. Both were absolute flamethrowers who scared the bejesus out of any little kid, like me, who had to face them. Now, I’m not tooting my own horn, but I was a pretty good ball player. Never the first pick, but I considered myself a dirtbag who would do anything to win. Consequently, there were times where I got called up to the leagues above me to substitute for missing players. A very cool reward…unless I ended up having to face Akright or Bannister – then it was just making sure I didn’t piss down my leg as I walked to the plate.

A little about me: yes, I was a scrappy ballplayer, but once boys got to the age where physical things started to happen, I stalled. To say I was a late bloomer is a gross understatement. Let me put it plainly for you – the day I graduated high school I was 5’3” tall….and I had grown about 3 inches the last nine weeks of my senior year. Make sense now? I digress. When I played Little League these giants throwing BB's at what seemed like 100 mph scared me to death.  I didn’t back down but I was never hugely successful when I got called up. I liked playing with my own age group. Again, there was always the easy first pick for any coach putting together any of my teams. After that though, it got interesting. After the mega-starts were a lot of really good ballplayers. At the time, I liked to fancy myself as one, but who knows how they looked at me. These guys were so close in talent that the position they chose could make all the difference in the world in getting noticed. My brother is a great example of this – he was a catcher (I was too, but also played the other positions up the middle of the field in 2B and CF) so he set himself apart. Was he the mega-star? No. But he was a really good player who played a vital position. One thing that always bit me and my brother in the rear in Little League was that we didn’t play the political game. We didn’t toot our own horns and neither did our Dad. Our play would tell the story. I understand that choice.

So how does this all this relate to Cubs and Cardinals fans? Let’s connect the dots. There were three major types of players in Little League – the mega-stars, the really good players who had to be political to get ahead, and the little scrappy guys (like me) who just wanted to play all day long but would never carry a team. I think we can correlate each of these players with a team in MLB today – the mega-star would be the Yankees. 27 World Championships is all we need to day about that classification. The really good player would be the Cardinals – 11 World Championships, great history, but will never reach the Yankees level. Finally, the little scrappy kid – that’s the Cubs – think Squints from the movie “The Sandlot” or Tanner from “Bad News Bears”. He needs a LOT of help from better players to help them win. In my opinion, Cardinals fans HATE being the really good player who never seemingly gets his due. They want to be the alpha dog who can preen and pose while everyone ooh’s and ah’s at their greatness. That’s not going to happen – ever.

We can classify this as the Scottie Pippen complex, if I may. He is one of the 50 greatest NBA players of all time. But he will never be Mike. When Michael went to play baseball and Scottie was left to be “the man”, what happened? Nothing. Once Scottie left Chicago did he ever win anything? Nope.

For me, the classic example was Wilber Marshall. LOVED this guy when he was with the Bears; he was my second favorite player after Walter. He was a beast. But when he became a FA he bolted to be the man in Washington and…..he was never the same. Yes, he won a ring there but he was never the main cog of the defense.

This is the problem with Cardinals fans. They want the adulation for being a Jordan when they are a Pippen. Let me clarify – there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a Pippen. But you can’t expect to be looked at as a Jordan when you aren’t Jordan. That’s the Yankees. So to make themselves feel better – they pick on the Penny Hardaway of the group, the Cubs. Yes, we’ve had a few great years but could never put it all together to win the title. The more Cardinals fans feel disrespected, the more Penny gets derided.

Yogi Berra had a famous line as he was talking to Bernie Williams during the 1999 ALCS. He said, “"Relax. We've been playing these guys for 80 years. They're never gonna beat us." What a dig! There aren’t many things more derisive than indifference. The Yankees (until 2004) were indifferent towards the Red Sox because they knew they would always beat them. Why aren’t Cardinals fans like that towards Cubs fans? Can we help it that the media is fascinated with the “lovable loser” tag (I HATE that moniker)? That we have an historic ballpark with ambiance in a great neighborhood that sells out every game? It is not our fault, as Cubs fans, that the media has made the club and their fans darlings because of on the field failures; billy goats, called HR shots, Leon’s glove, Bartman….it’s all a fascinating story. But if I was a Cardinals fan (and I shudder at the thought) I would have indifference towards the Cubs until they actually won something. 

Give it a try Cardinals fans, ignore us. Enjoy being Scottie Pippen. Maybe someday we will get a chance to be Jason Terry.

By the way....

Even though I sent them in late, the uniforms below made it to the contest at http://www.uni-watch.com/. If you'd like to vote for my entry, go to the site starting this weeked and vote for my Barons design.

Thanks!
Crull

New Uniform Design

Our friends over at Uni Watch recently had a contest to redesign the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins uniforms so that the mascots would be less offensive. I chose to take on the Indians. One of the stipulations was choosing a name that had significance to the city and/or team. They gave some suggestions and I decided on one that they suggested - Barons. Here are my designs for the Cleveland Barons:

Home Uniform



Away Uniform

Alternate Uniform

Hat

Let me know what you think....

BTW, Paul Lukas has also issued a challenge on ESPN.com to rename and redesign the New Orleans Hornets logo and uniforms. Details here. I think that's my next uniform.

Meyers Leonard Gets a Surprise...

This is the best...

Meyers Leonard's brother, Bailey, returned from Afghanistan...Meyers did not know he was retruning and Bailey surprised him by showing up at the shootaround before the Michigan game on March 1.

Thank you Bailey for your service.

Full MiLB Sports Marketing Project

If you read my last post, and from the looks of it, no one did - I recently assigned my sports marketing classes a project where they needed to come up with the name of a Class A Chicago Cubs affiliate that was coming to our area. They needed to procure a sponsor for the stadium, name the team, create a logo and promote a press conference where they would reveal the aforementioned tasks.

Now that we are at the end of our unit they are building upon that base with the rest of their project. At this point, they have to:
1. Design home and away uniforms, as well as a cap
2. Create an Opening Day promotion for both adults and children. They need corporate sponsors for both promotions.
3. Create a local 30 second television commercial, design a billboard and choose four locations to put them around the city, and create a social media campaign as well.
4. Finally, thanks to Benjamin Hill at Ben's Biz Blog, they are creating a unique food item to sell at the stadium. It must be indigenous to the area, not already created/sold at another establishment, and be unique enough to draw fans on it's own accord. It can be a contest or just a grandiose item. The students will then build these food items in the FACS kitchen next week.

I'm pretty excited to see what I get. There were a couple of groups where I had to strongly suggest they go back and reconsider their team names and logos (I have a lot of comedians as students). Once the project is finished I will post results here.

Sports Marketing Project

Today I assigned the first part of a project for my sports marketing classes. The scenario at hand goes like this:

"Fishers, IN (city of our school) has approved a deal to build a baseball stadium near Hamilton Town Center (a shopping center two miled from our school) that will house the new Class A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. Your team has been hired on as marketing consultants with the city and the Cubs to name the team, create the logo and to find sponsorship for the stadium."

The end game of this section of the project is for the students to have a press conference revealing the name of the team, the logo, and the stadium sponsor. They also need to create a newspaper ad promoting the press conference and a flyer to hang at Hamilton Town Center. The press conference needs to take place (figuratively) at a place near Hamilton Town Center.

I'm very interested to see what my students create in this project. So far, some of the names are pretty creative. I wish I could reveal the rest of the project...but I can't just in case I have some students check this blog. But it's pretty cool. :)

Liam Duddy

One of my former students, Liam Duddy, saw this blog and thought it was pretty cool. He also thought I should have a post about him. This is his post.

This is a picture of him playing football. He's alright. It's better if I put a picture of him on here with his helmet on, because without it....not to mean, but yikes.


The End.

Baseball TIme

Here is a uniform I designed for an assignment in Sports Marketing. I love baseball and found Ben Hill on Twitter. He is a blogger for MLB and reports on the minor leagues. He has a great job (yes, I'm jealous). One day I ran across this post on Pensacola getting a AA team and voting on a name. I took that and made it an assignment in Sports Marketing. My students drew one of the names and had to create uniforms, a mascot, and an Opening Night promotion. I was so humbled when Ben created an entire post about my assignment. You can see it here. Anyway, I gave the uniforms a shot too - I chose the Aviators. Here are my unis.

Home uni

Away Uni

Alternate Uni

Change is good...

Made some changes today. Decided to make the focus of this blog sports marketing, which is one of my passions. You will probably see a lot of uniform creations here because that is my current obsession. And without further adieu...

This is my first shot at a uniform set from my Sports Marketing class last year. I called the team Fire Ants and borrowed the logo from USC-Sumter.

Here are the uniforms. My students said I "stole" too much. So I created another set...

This is the Black Knights. Created logo all by my lonesome. The uniforms lean towards Oregon's football uni's. The helmet is supposed to be like the helmet Oregon used in the National Championship. The shoulders are supposed to look like diamond plate. Oregon had a faux-diamondplate look a few years ago. I kept the actual color of silver to make it look cooler.

Home uniforms. Created three sets: home with white pants, away with black pants and alternate with green pants.

A Change is Needed....

There has been some movement in the AQ Qualifying Conferences (Utah, TCU, etc..) I thought I would share my thoughts on a possible alternative to the BCS.

It can be viewed here:

Alternative to the BCS

View more presentations from illini3sc.

The Challenge

Last week I was in Cleveland, TN with the youth group from my church for a conference called CIY Move. It was an excellent conference with some amazing speakers. The main speaker was Jeff Walling and he was incredible. His message and delivery knocked me to my knees and I was moved (no pun intended). Many of the kids had some great spiritual challenges presented to them that week as well. I had a blast hanging out with the teenagers, in spite of the lack of sleep, :)

Anyway, the last day we were all handed what was called a Kingdom Worker card. It was a challenge to help us activate our faith after what we experienced at the conference. You could hand the card back and not take the challenge, but if you opened it you committed to accepting the challenge. In my zeal, not only to be a leader, but to help push me to show my faith, I instantly opened the card. Wow. If anyone doesn't think God has a sense of humor - well, you're not in my shoes, because I know he was laughing as I read my challenge card.

It said this (paraphrase) - You must drink only water (not bottled water) for the next year. Pray for the millions who do not have easy access to clean water. Use Active Water as a tool in your challenge."

Talk about hitting me where it hurts. I LOVE my sodas and G2. I hardly ever drink water. But I accepted the challenge and am going to do it. I am currently on Day 5 and so far it hasn't been too bad. Last night, I had a serious Coke jones. But I got through it and today is another day.

I'll keep you updated on my challenge and also keep you abreast of any fundraising I might do for ActiveWater during the year.

Here We Go Again....

Once again, in my sporadic nature, I am trying to get this blog going consistently. While I love Twitter (@illini3sc), it tends to abbreviate topics I'd like to elaborate on a little more. Hopefully I can find some consistency in this.....

For today, it's my annual MLB Predictions Post. Today is Opening Day (probably the greatest day of the year) and I need to put my picks down in print so that I can see how bad they turn out once the season is over. So, without further adieu:

American League
East - Boston Red Sox: offseason moves and better health this year is too much to deny
Central - Chicago White Sox: adding to Dunn to potent lineup with good staff wins it
West - Texas Rangers: A's are sexy pick, but don't trust their offense. Rangers can mash.
Wild Card - Tampa Bay Rays: Yes, I am not picking the Yankees. Rays have great pitching and added Damon and ManRam to lineup.
AL Champ - Chicago White Sox: Lefties will shut down AGon & Papi in playoffs.
C y Young - Justin Verlander
MVP - Josh Hamilton: lots of candidates, but I can't pick against my boy!

National League
East - Philadelphia Phillies: even with their injuries that rotation is too stacked to lose
Central - Milwaukee Brewers: Not buying Reds pitching and think Cards will be hurt by Wainright loss enough for Brewers to sneak up an win it. Greinke HUGE get by them.
West - San Francisco Giants: again, pitching. Oh yeah, that Posey kid is good too.
Wild Card - Colorado Rockies: the consensus is the Braves, but I'm holding off on them for another year.
NL Champ - Phillies: Who else? Great pitching beats great hitting in postseason.
Cy Young - Roy Halladay
MVP - Troy Tulowitzki

World Series Champs - Philles: read above about pitching. So, there you have it. Picks destined to go horribly wrong because I picked them. Let the brow beating begin!!

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Thoughts on Bears Offseason

Hello tweeps! Hopefully you made the trek to my blog to check out my thoughts on the Bears off-season to this point.....and it's definitely been newsworthy.

So where do we start.....? Let's work our way backwards. The Bears yesterday hired Mike martz to be their new Offensive Coordinator. Honestly, I am not sure how I feel yet on the hire. Yes, he can get pass happy. But he did also mold Kurt Warner into an MVP and Super Bowl champ. It goes both ways with opinions on him. My brother, who is a HUGE Rams fans tells me that Martz isn't very good at adapting once the game starts. Well then, I guess that makes him Ron Turner 2.0. Scary.

But why did it take that long to find an OC? Both JA and Lovie assured us that coaches would be lining up to coach here. It is very irritating when people say stupid crap just to make themselves sound and look better. We all knew the truth - Lovie is a lame duck. If the Bears stink up this year he is gone. And that makes sense as to why some coaches wouldn't want to come here. But one thing I haven't heard mentioned is the schedule. Have you looked at it closely? It's brutal. We have the AFC East and the NFC East next year. So a coach on a short leash + hard schedule = very little job security. It makes sense why coaches would rather take jobs in Seattle and Oakland.

And I've never understood the whole concept of firing everyone except the head guys. Doesn't accountability start at the top? Yes I know he is owed a ton of money, but in this business that $11 million can be made up REAL fast with a winning team. And yes, I know it's a business. But when you lose site of the sports side of it - the side the people buying the tickets and merchandise see - then it becomes a problem. Winning doesn't mean as much as making money. And how can you have that attitude as an owner? I guess it you didn't build it then it wouldn't matter. But I would much rather have an owner like Jerry Jones or Daniel Snyder than the penny pinching McCaskey's.

As you can see, IMHO, the REAL problem is ownership. I have been a Bears fans since they drafted my hero, Walter Payton, so I have seen a lot of ups and downs. But the one thing that never changed was the family ownership of the Bears. Shoot, I've read Halas' biography twice. And I guarantee you if he came back to life today he would be tearing through the backsides of those running the ship. Virginia gave the reigns of the ship to her neophyte son Michael (who George begged them not to let run the team) it was gonna be a bumpy ride. Yes, they did win Super Bowl XX (thank God!!), but who hired Ditka? Papa Bear, that's who. I don't get it with my teams...why do the most incompetent about sports end up running the team (PK Wrigley, Mike McCaskey)?!?!?

Look at Jim Irsay. Living in Indianapolis since 1990 I have seen the Colts shape themselves into a perennial winner. Why? Jim understands that "if you build it they will come". As in fans. Yes, most of the Colts fans I know are bandwagon, but they have a new stadium and are going to their second Super Bowl in 4 years. He knew that it wasn't so much about dollars as it was building the right team - then the dollars would come. He hired a sound football guy in Bill Polian (love him or hate him he can spot talent) and let him run the show. Do we need to list how many of the current Colts were drafted players as compared to FA signings? It's sick. It infuriates me that doofus Mike and Ted are still in charge. The greatest thing that could happen to the Bears right now is for the McCaskey's to sell.

So now we have to pray that the OL can block for Jay's 5 and 7 step drops so that he doesn't get killed. We have to pray that Lovie's beloved Tampa 2 can actually work again. We have to pray that the teams on our schedule make a lot of bad off season moves that hurt their teams. And I have to pray that the Colts don't win on Sunday or again next year so I don't have to hear about it every day......looks like another long year for a Bears fan in Colts country. :(

OK, dissect away!!