No Need To Panic…

Urlacher is done for the year. Cutler looked lost in Green Bay. We’re still checking to see if Lovie has a pulse. The Steelers, the defending Super Bowl champions, come to town this Sunday afternoon.

Reason to freak out? Not really.

Hey, The Maestro was a bit shaken too after the debacle in Green Bay last Sunday night. However, it was only one game, and it was a game that the Bears were expected to lose anyway. Same goes for this week with Pittsburgh. An 0-2 start was a definite possibility we were all looking at BEFORE the Week One disaster against the Packers.

The Bears can survive without Urlacher. Cutler can only get better (and he will). The issues Chicago really has to address in the coming weeks are as follows:

1) Can Lovie Smith continue to coach up the defense without Urlacher? Smith is a dopey automaton as a head coach, but he can definitely guide a defensive unit. Look at how the D kept the Bears in the game against Green Bay despite Cutler’s picks and the early loss of two starting linebackers. Will Lovie be able to keep this unit focused like that for the next 15 games?

2) Speaking of coaches, can somebody fire Ron Turner already? I’ve seen that stupid middle screen he calls constantly burn Grossman, Orton, and now Cutler. Yet Turner continues to keep it in the playbook. Yes, the receivers are young and inexperienced, but a good o-coordinator should be able to overcome that to some extent. Turner can’t. He needs to take the fall this year if the offense continues to struggle. If Jay Cutler stinks after working with a new coordinator next season, then we can write him off too…

3) Will Jerry Angelo keep sitting on his butt, patting himself on the back for the Cutler deal, or will he go out and try to make this team better immediately? Yes, Derrick Brooks, Amani Toomer, and Marvin Harrison are getting old, but this team needs help NOW. Without a #1 pick next year, contingency plans have to kick in after that embarrassing Packers loss. A minimal amount of cap space will get you Brooks, Toomer, and Harrison to help out this year. If one or two of the trio pan out, Angelo looks like a genius again. If he does nothing, Jerry is obviously the Vanderbilt-obsessed moron some of us think he truly is…

There you go, Bears fans. Chill out, take the Pittsburgh spanking with class (“Thank you, Ben!!! May I have another?!?!”), and look forward to the rest of the year with some measure of optimism. The playoffs may not loom for us this season, but the future’s so bright, I gotta wear my Devin Hester jersey with pride everywhere!!!

The Maestro’s Late Summer Rants

Yes, I know I’ve been away for too long, people…time to get back in blogging shape!!! Here are the sports stories from the last few weeks that have The Maestro fuming…

Rick Pitino, The Arrogant One: Dude, stop talking about the salad bar tryst you had with the woman you paid off to get an abortion. Stop saying everything is a lie except what comes from you. Maybe I’m a cynic, but the ‘concrete’ statement she made to the police rings true. Notice the resemblance between ‘Don’ Pitino and Al Pacino circa “The Godfather, Part II”??? Me too…

Brett Favre, The Excuse Maker: The yearly retirement waffling is bad enough, Wrangler Man. Now you’ve got to give us a list of physical ailments that you can use as built-in excuses for poor performance once the regular season begins? Cracked ribs, torn rotator cuff, creaky elbow, small balls…whatever. Get over it and play. Urlacher & Briggs are waitin’ for ya, bud…

Michael Vick, The Persecuted Man: Okay, I agree with the basic tenet that every person makes mistakes and deserves a second chance. I’ll even give Mike a pass on the Grey Goose incident (although I concur with Tony Dungy - you can’t do that). However, let’s not play the race card on this one, people. The NAACP has no place staging rallies for Vick outside of Eagles games just because PETA may be there to protest as well. This debacle is yet another example of how the NAACP (along with the ACLU and most labor unions) always goes too far in ‘protecting their own’…

Donovan McNabb, He Who Wants To Have His Cake & Eat It Too: Speaking of Vick, you’ve gotta love the ‘throat slash’ McNabb used on his o-coordinator to essentially end Mike’s first preseason appearance with Philly. News flash, Donovan - you can’t lobby for your team to pick up a guy (another QB, no less) and then decide six plays into his first game that ‘there’s no rhythm’. That excuse may work with Vanilla Ice, but not here…

Milton Bradley, The OTHER Persecuted Man: No, Milton - Cubs fans aren’t booing because you’re black. They’re giving you the catcall treatment because you’re petulant, you’ve underperformed, and you’re just a nasty person. When Tim McCarver (among others) says the Cubs should eat the $20 mil left on your deal & cut you after the season, maybe the man in the mirror is the one you should be chastising…

Mark Martin, The Gambler: You’re not old enough to use senility as an excuse, bud. When you have a chance to lock down a Chase spot (as you did at Michigan a few weeks back), play it safe! If your crew chief wants to gamble on fuel, tell him to kiss your wrinkled ass and pull into the pits for a top-off!!!

Lou Holtz & Beano Cook, The Two Stooges: Notre Dame in the BCS Championship? Really? We all know Holtz is a blatant homer, but enough is enough. Great coach, terrible analyst. And Beano? How the hell is he still allowed in front of a television camera? His turkey waddle scares my kid, and his ‘Ron Powlus will win multiple Heisman Trophies’ prediction scarred me for life…

Well, now I feel better. Hey, be sure to check out “Sports Frenzy 2.0” on YouTube for the latest vitriol from the rest of the crew. After all, The Maestro simply conducts…The Conquistador, The Elder Statesman, Huggy Bear, The Cleveland Kid, and Mr. 300 are the REALLY angry ones!!!

Jake Peavy on the South Side

Over the past week, I have been wrestling with my feelings over the Jake Peavy deal that White Sox GM Kenny Williams made, 4 for 1. Four young, up and coming pitchers, two of whom are power lefties (Clayton Richard, Aaron Poreda, Adam Russell and Dexter Carter) given up for one injured, former Cy Young Award winner. Too much was given up in my humble opinion and I’ll tell you why...

Jake Peavy is not going to be available to the Sox until late August at the soonest, meaning Chicago is facing four weeks without a starting pitcher. That leaves a consistent 3 man rotation of Buehrle, Floyd and Danks. Fourth in the rotation is Contreras who right now couldn’t find the strike zone if it was bright pink in the middle of an open field. As far as a fifth starter, it will be by committee. Clayton Richard should not have been part of this deal. The White Sox need a solid 4th man during this wait for Peavy and that was Richard. Kenny once again acted like it was a seller’s market, when in reality it was a buyer's market (e.g.: Cliff Lee and Jared Washburn).

If Peavy can stay healthy over the next couple of years and pitch up to his history, it will be a great move overall. I am thrilled to have a pitcher of his caliber, but I say this with some trepidation, as we have been burned in the past by the likes of David Wells and Bartolo Colon (twice now).

I think I would prefer to have taken my chances with Clayton Richard, the young left hander who throws mid-90’s and is learning his control and secondary pitches.

Trade Deadline Ramifications 2009

Okay, the ’09 MLB trade deadline has come and gone...who won and who lost?

Nah, that’s too simple - with the economics of baseball being in worse shape than the American stock market, we should filter what we’ve seen over the last few weeks into categories. Welcome to “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”, ‘Sports Frenzy’ style!!!

Moving Players Like Freakin’ Chess Pieces: Must be nice to be a Red Sox fan. Um, we need a first baseman...let’s trade for Adam LaRoche! A few days pass. Ummm, can’t we do better than LaRoche? Let’s trade LaRoche for Casey Kotchman PLUS get Victor Martinez to boot!!! There’s the ticket...

Fire Sale!!!: See ‘Pirates, Pittsburgh’ & ‘Indians, Cleveland’. Also see ‘Disgraceful’ and ‘Pathetic’...

Waiting In The Weeds Like A Viper: The Cardinals didn’t do much last year to improve themselves, and St. Louis fans wondered aloud if they were being hosed like the Pirates faithful...their team opens a new ballpark and then abruptly stops trying to excel on the field as the cash registers overflow. Not so in 2009. Mark DeRosa, Julio Lugo, and Matt Holliday have joined Ryan Ludwick as Albert Pujols’ posse, and the Phillies have started sweating a bit...

How Do You Spell Relief???: The Cubs and Dodgers decided to bolster their bullpens and stick with the lumber they already had. John Grabow comes to The Windy City from Pittsburgh, and George Sherrill goes from the East Coast (Baltimore) to the West Coast (L.A.). Now if Lou Piniella can just get Kevin Gregg straightened out again...

Aces High: The Phillies already had Hamels, the White Sox already had Buehrle. Both pitchers helped lead their teams to World Series championships within the last five years. Now, Cole has Cliff Lee to watch his back & ‘Mr. Perfect Game’ will have Jake Peavy (by late August) to ride shotgun for him...

What does it all mean? In the end, we’re still looking at the haves vs. the have-nots. We’ll probably see the Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers, and Cubs (wild card) in the NL & the Red Sox, White Sox, Angels, and Yankees (wild card) in the AL. Sure, the postseason will be entertaining, but people will still drift en masse to pro football come September. Why? Because hope springs eternal everywhere in Roger Goodell’s world...the NFL makes it much more realistic for a team to stage a turnaround or comeback than the flawed financial structure of Major League Baseball does...

Just ask fans of the Pirates, Indians, Nationals, A’s, Royals, Orioles, and Blue Jays...

Perfect!!!

Perfect history on a perfect afternoon. One of the rarest feats in all of sports was accomplished yesterday afternoon on the South Side of Chicago when White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle retired the Tampa Bay Rays in order, 27 up and 27 down. Only the 18th perfect game pitched in Major League Baseball history (the first since 2004), Buehrle backed up his no hitter last year against the Texas Rangers. In that game, Buehrle walked only 1 batter, Sammy Sosa, and promptly picked him off first base.

What Mark did yesterday was a thing of beauty. It was not only his pitching ability, but the overall defensive performance by the team. What also makes this a special game was that not all of the White Sox regulars were playing on what was called a getaway day as the club prepared to leave for Detroit after the game. Josh Fields (hit a grand slam) played first in place of Paul Konerko and Ramon Castro catching in place of A.J. Pierzynski.

Dewayne Wise made THE CATCH of the season and probably his career by leaping the fence and taking a home run away from Gabe Kapler leading off the 9th inning. This was the first inning that Wise played, coming in as a defensive replacement. As a huge Sox fan, I have been very critical of the organization's decision to keep Wise around this season. I was more impressed with Brian Anderson’s defense, and Anderson was hitting a moderately better .238 to Wise’s .196 before Anderson was sent to the minors. After yesterday, I will cut Dewayne some slack for a few days. The determination he showed in going after that ball and the concentration he displayed in holding on to it have earned him that...

Congratulations to Mark Buehrle and thank you Dewayne Wise! You have made all of us White Sox fans proud!!!

Lou Tries To Gets His Cajones Back From Soriano & Hendry...

Call it a copycat move (See Francona/Ortiz, Manuel/Rollins, Leyland/Mags) but Lou Piniella finally made an attempt to get his balls back. Cubs fans (The Maestro included) don’t really care at the end of the day about contracts. We don’t give a rat’s ass that Alfonso Soriano is making roughly $18 million a year. We want the best players possible in the lineup every stinkin’ day...

So when Piniella sat Soriano for two games in favor of Sam Fuld earlier this week, it marked a baby step forward for the Cubs manager. The Cubs won both games & had a vastly improved energy level. Then Lou caved on Friday (7/3/09) and put Soriano back at the top of the starting lineup. The result? A hitless game with a couple RISP stranded. So much for the time off clearing Soriano’s head...

Now, on Independence Day 2009, Piniella has pushed Soriano down to the sixth spot in the batting order. Regardless of the outcome (which looks to be an ugly Chicago loss, due more to an ineffective Rich Harden than anything else), Sweet Lou is trying to push buttons. And that’s a good thing, because Piniella was beginning to resemble a Build-A-Bear a few weeks ago...

With Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, and Milton Bradley, Lou is stuck with Jim Hendry’s playthings. However, young players like Fuld, Jake Fox, and Micah Hoffpauir should give Lou options...namely, to sit the overpriced Hendry mistakes and play the potential bargain-basement gems. A manager should not have to kiss the GM’s hindquarters. The GM gets the pieces and the manager should then be able to use them how he sees fit. In the case of the Cubs, if that means benching the ‘Little Three’ (as I so eloquently call them), so be it...

After all, what big-league manager wouldn’t want $40 million worth of pinch-hitting prowess available for those late-inning heroics???

The Summer of the Maestro’s Discontent

Image Courtesy Baseball Hall of Fame
Wow. It wasn’t enough that the Orlando Magic teased me like Megan Fox in all of her release party “Transformers” pics, but now the hammer has officially fallen on this humble blogger’s head. My second favorite Cub has been busted...Sammy Sosa used PEDs, according to the New York Times. Thank the heavens & Harry Carey that I never renounced my ultimate devotion to Ryno...hey, put the needle down, Sandberg!!!

Anywho, I’m not naïve (except when it comes to the universally-shared middle-age male fallacy that I could still be attractive to 98% of women...Megan Fox included...with just a sly turn of phase and a manly toss of my thinning hair) but I still wanted to hold out hope that the “I don’t speak English” crap from the Congressional hearings a few years back was the act of a stupid man, not a cheating man (hey, there’s a country song in there somewhere)...

So now Sosa joins McGwire, Palmeiro, Tejada, Giambi, A-Rod, and all the rest of the charlatans of baseball who duped us for over a decade. I could go into how New York Yankee rogues seem to get a lighter guilt trip from the media than those from the Midwest (“Pretty Boy” Alex vs. Big “I’m Not Here To Talk About The Past” Mac in a handicap match!), but what’s the point? They’re all basically liars and scum. Unfortunately, I’m convinced that a few will find a way into the Hall of Fame (here’s betting that Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez somehow get a bust after being busted). Not Slammin’ Sammy, though. His homer hop & impish grin will fade into obscurity like mood rings & Vanilla Ice.

This I swear - if Jay Cutler breaks his leg in training camp, I’m switching from sports to macramé...or macaroni...or Macarena...

Should’ve Left Well Enough Alone…

All true Cubs fans want to win. The drunk college kids in the bleachers who pretend to be Cubbie supporters will drink fourteen Old Styles whether the score is 12-0 or 2-1, but those of us who bleed blue & red just want this Goat/Bartman/Garvey thing to go away and want the Northsiders to WIN A FREAKIN’ WORLD SERIES ALREADY!!!

Ahem…anyway, it is just after 5:00 PM EST and I have witnessed yet another disappointing loss (in this case, to the Twins 2-0, where the mighty Cubs offense could muster only 5 hits and zero runs) in what is rapidly turning into Season of Discontent #101. Who’s to blame? I can’t call Lou out. He can only do so much with what he’s given. Therefore and ergo, I blame the giver…

AP Photo/M. Spencer Green
Mr. Jim Hendry. I supported you through the brilliant trade for Randall Simon, Aramis Ramirez, and Kenny Lofton years ago. I thought you were a genius for the Alfonso Soriano signing (oops…my bad). Harden, DeRosa, Reed Johnson…all strokes of genius. Now, I look back at the last year & a half and I wonder if you didn’t sustain a severe blow to the head right before you fell in love with Kosuke Fukudome…

Hell, I can even forgive the Fukudome deal. You took a shot, right? Hey, you wouldn’t be the first GM to get hosed by a ‘can’t miss’ prospect from the Far East. But some of the acts you have perpetrated recently (especially over the last eight months) make me wonder if a rubber room in the press box at Wrigley needs to be constructed just for you.

First, let’s chat about the man who played you like a board game, Milton Bradley. I screamed and yelled for you to take a hard look at Bobby Abreu…a cheaper option with more speed and a hitter still capable of a solid .300/20/80 year…but NOOOOOOOO. You ignored Bradley’s temperament and lack of consistent time in the field and threw money at him. The result as of June 13, 2009? A .226 batting average, an abysmal .380 slugging percentage, and a whopping 16 RBI. Wow – two more years of this and Cub fans will be playing Life and Chutes & Ladders instead of attending games at Wrigley Field…

Second, shipping Mark DeRosa out of town simply because he was going into the last year of his contract was Gump-like, without the unintended & naïve positive twist result. Every time his erstwhile replacement, Aaron Miles, takes the field, I cringe. If Tony LaRussa dumped the guy, why would you think he’d be a stud for us?!?! Wait…maybe that’s the ticket. It’s sabotage! Those stinkin’ Cardinals!!!

Third, and finally, Aaron Heilman, savior of the bullpen…enough said.

If things keep going like this in ’09, you may need to reserve a seat (fully equipped with buckled restraints, of course) for me in that ultra-cool safe room they’re gonna build you, buddy…

A Moment with “Holier Than Thou” Tony

I feel so dirty. I must be a sinner. Why? Well, I guess it boils down to the fact that I don’t think I could ever live up to the high and pious standard of human existence that Tony Dungy has established for me, let alone for the rest of humanity. I mean, if Pope Tony is going to call out Jay Cutler for a little nighttime partying on Rush Street, what hope is there for the rest of us???

Okay, I admit that I’m being a bit sarcastic here, but I’ve never been on the “Tony Dungy Traveling Snake Oil Bandwagon” like most pundits and players in and around the professional football world. I know that he’s done wonderful things for various churches, charities, and communities far & wide, but then again, so did Jimmie Swaggart and Jim Bakker.

NOTE: Please keep your distance with the pitchforks and torches until I explain myself, kids!!!

First, let’s take a look at Coach Dungy through the same humble eyes he professes to gaze upon God’s realm with. Michael Vick, a perjuring animal abuser, has somehow earned Dungy’s forgiveness & well wishes because he went to jail for a few years and came out a ‘changed man’; Jay Cutler, however, will burn in Satan’s realm for all eternity because he likes to go out and down a few shots after practice.

Give Tony some thick glasses, a frumpy dress, and a goofy wig, and we’ve got the Second Coming of the Church Lady!!!

Seriously, is this the insight we can expect from Dungy as a studio commentator? What pearls of wisdom can we look forward to next? Will he break the story on President Obama predicting the Steelers to repeat as Super Bowl champs as he walks on water?

Which one walks on water, you may ask? Flip a coin, I guess…

I am compelled to confess at this point in the proceedings that my two favorite teams are the Chicago Bears and the Tampa Bay Bucs, so I can simultaneously express outrage at Coach Dungy’s comments about Chicago’s new franchise quarterback as well as articulate gratitude for his helping to guide Tampa Bay to new heights…until Jon Gruden came along.

Blasphemer!!! Those were Tony’s players that The Evil One known as Chucky won with!!!

Hmmmmm. First off, I thought the GM selected the players, not the coach (unless you’re Mike Holmgren, of course). Second, the simple fact is that Dungy couldn’t get the job done. Gruden could. Same team, better results for Chucky…

Now, let’s move on to Indianapolis. As in Tampa, consistently solid winning percentages followed Coach Dungy year after year. A dynasty in the making? Nope. One Super Bowl victory over a Bears team led by the legendary Rex Grossman. Not exactly the stuff that Hall of Fame coaching legends are made of. Heck, the aforementioned Holmgren got to the Super Bowl with two different franchises, winning one with Green Bay & losing another with Seattle in a badly officiated debacle to the Steelers. Yet Dungy is mentioned as a mortal (or immortal?) lock for Canton while Holmgren might get in if he comes back for one more go-round to pad his numbers.

Again, I stress that Dungy is easily a better man and better coach than this humble sports blogger could ever hope to be. However, every man is flawed and every man can be prideful. Question authority, question your elders, and question those among us who seem too good to be true. In summation, question Tony Dungy because others don’t have the cajones to.

Let us drink…um, pray.