It doesn’t get much better than mid-December, when the MLB winter meetings, college football and basketball, and the NFL, NBA and NHL are all in motion at the same time, competing for precious space in sports fans’ heads.
In a dizzying 48-hour stretch, baseball’s Hall of Fame announcement collided with the selection of the College Football Playoff field, while the Chicago Bears and Blackhawks debuted new interim head coaches Thomas Brown and Anders Sorensen, and the White Sox signed Cubs cult hero Mike Tauchman as a free agent.
Here are six takeaways from the weekend that was.
Dick Allen’s entrance to the National Baseball Hall of Fame was long overdue, and particularly sad because he failed to get in while he was alive, coming one vote shy twice. But at least he is in, and Sox fans can look forward to rekindling the memories of Allen during July’s induction ceremonies in Cooperstown, N.Y.
“Dick Allen’s historic exploits during his seasons with the White Sox in 1972-74 enjoy a legendary, almost mythical status across this city and within the Sox organization even to this day,” Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement. “Dick was just that good and that dominant in the batter’s box. His prodigious strength and jaw-dropping power are still talked about to this day.”
Nice words. But perhaps if Reinsdorf had offered his support for Allen in 2014, when the Sox great fell one vote shy of being elected, it might have made a difference. Reinsdorf was upset when Minnie Miñoso and Billy Pierce didn’t get in that year, when all three ex-Sox stars were on the same veterans committee ballot.
When I asked Reinsdorf that day about Allen’s candidacy, he replied: “Dick Allen had kind of a checkered career. If I had been on the committee I wouldn’t have voted for him. He only really had six really good years … But when he was with the White Sox he certainly had Hall of Fame years.”
Fortunately, the classic baseball era committee felt Allen had more than a “checkered” career. Congrats to Allen’s family and David Fletcher, co-author of the Allen biography, “Chili Dog MVP,” for keeping his name alive for all these years.
Alabama complaining about having to schedule easier nonconference opponents in the future for a better shot at making the College Football Playoff is quite amusing.
“We have said that we would need to see how strength of schedule would be evaluated by the CFP,” Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne posted on social media after SMU was selected over the Crimson Tide for an at-large spot. “With this outcome, we will need to assess how many (Power 4) nonconference games make sense in the future to put us in the best position to participate in the CFP. That is not good for college football.”
The Crimson Tides’ 5-3 record in the SEC, including losses to Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, was what did them in. But nice try, Byrne.
By the way, next year’s nonconference schedule for Alabama consists of Florida State (2-10 this year), Wisconsin (5-7), University of Louisiana-Monroe (5-7) and Division 1-AA Eastern Illinois (3-9). It doesn’t get much weaker than that.
When I first heard the news that Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki might waive his no-trade clause, I incorrectly assumed he had just lost it in the lights.
Inquiring minds want to know: Yes, interim head coach Anders Sorensen confirmed he was able to watch the Hawks games on TV in Rockford, where he coached the IceHogs before replacing Luke Richardson behind the bench Saturday.
Many in Chicago are deprived of watching the Hawks because the Chicago Sports Network is still not carried on Comcast or YouTube TV. So I wondered if Sorensen was also deprived of his Hawks’ fix.
“Yeah, I saw a lot of games,” he said. “Packages, TV packages, streams and all that.”
I’m not sure if “all that” meant he had an antenna in Rockford and got it on WSLN-TV’s digital subchannels, 19-3 and 19-4. If so, hopefully Sorensen can now expense the antenna for Danny Wirtz’s approval.
You don’t think too hard about what you’re writing when you’re on deadline, as evidenced by these In the Wake of the News columns with no point to them.
A couple of weeks ago, in a column on the firing of Matt Eberflus, I casually mentioned former Bears coach Abe Gibron and his TV commercial partner, Melody Rogers, of the “Abe and Melody” Ford commercials.
They were as ubiquitous on Chicago TV in the early 1970s as kids show host Ray Rayner, yet I don’t recall much venom being aimed at Gibron, a rotund guy with a big personality who coached some equally inept Bears teams.
Bears fans seemed disgusted with the team itself, and few blamed Gibron for the losing. Many instead directed their anger at the aging owner, George “Papa Bear” Halas, who was not as beloved then as he is now, 41 years after his death.
Any mention of Gibron brings a smile, including to Melody Rogers herself.
“I only remember Abe as just a sweet guy, and trying so hard to make everything work whether they’re on the field or in our commercials together,” Rogers wrote from her Los Angeles area home. “He was a true joy.”
Rogers was also a dancer, an actress (“Saved By The Bell”) and a talk show co-host with Steve Edwards in LA, among her many career ventures. “At this point, you begin to wonder what are you contributing to the world? What are you doing,” she wrote. “And then, when you get a reminder of some of the things you did do, it makes you feel proud, and happy … You made this chronologically gifted old broad feel very good.”
Somewhere Abe is smiling.
Former Blackhawks star Dirk Graham, now a scout for San Jose, was in the media dining room at the United Center on Saturday when I ran into him by the pop machine. I reintroduced myself and thanked him for buying a new Hawks writer a beer at a Detroit hotel bar at the end of the 1993-94 season.
Graham didn’t remember it, but 30 years later I feel much better.
It’s never too late to say thanks.
