Hey, look who had more of a "starring" role in The Last Dance than at least a dozen Bulls players did

^
You know, it sure was nice that relative nobodies such as Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and Phil Jackson could follow my lead so we could work together to give sports fans the awesome viewing experience that was ESPN's The Last Dance.

Here I am, about 43 minutes into Episode 3, standing on the periphery of a January 1998 locker-room scrum around Jordan, dutifully taking notes.

ESPN

If you're reading this (and you are), you almost surely know that I was a newspaper guy back then. At the time of that 10-second cameo, I was a reporter for The Associated Press, but just a couple months later I started my columnist career for Copley Newspapers.

Anyway, I still own that green Faconnable shirt, which is now older than at least a half-dozen players on the current Bulls roster.

I made two more "appearances" in the series ... which means I had more air time than Jason Caffey, Dickey Simpkins, Joe Kleine, Robert Parish, Bison Dele, James Edwards, Keith Booth, Rusty LaRue and David Vaughn ... combined!

About 42 minutes into Episode 8, as Jordan was just starting to sit down at his post-game press conference following the Bulls' 1996 Eastern Conference Finals sweep of the Magic, I asked the opening question:

"Was it extra sweet beating Orlando for you? That had been a motivating thing for you for over a year now."

Jordan's answer: "Because of last year, the number change, and (Nick Anderson saying) 45 didn't look like 23, and whatever. But we all were disappointed, and we came back to redeem ourselves as a unit. I think we did that - effectively."

And then about 16 minutes into the series finale, I asked Michael a long (probably too long) question after the Bulls won Game 4 of the NBA Finals to move within one win of Title No. 6:

"What are your thoughts, that it might not only be your last game with the Bulls but your last game ever? You know, you're sitting on a pedestal here, and obviously it's the thing that the world wants to know."

Jordan's response: "Well, I mean, the world basically is gonna hafta wait and see what happens. The job is not done, so let's not celebrate yet."

He ended up being right; the Bulls actually lost Game 5 at home and had to go back to Utah, where they clinched No. 6 after Michael stole the ball from Karl Malone, calmly dribbled down to the offensive end, found his spot, gave Bryon Russell a little shove, swished the championship-winning jumper and then held his follow-through extra long.

AllPosters.com

A few other random thoughts after having watched the series ...

++ What an undertaking it must have been to edit the hundreds of hours of film they had and to turn it into such a compelling story. I heard some criticism about the story jumping around some, but I thought they did a remarkable job.

++ Jordan had control over the series' release, and I was impressed at the breadth of information he allowed to be shown. The stuff on his gambling (including a late-night outing during the playoffs), his father's death, and his brawl with Steve Kerr especially resonated. He cussed easily and often. He often revealed himself as a bully and a tyrant and, to quote Will Perdue, "a dick." 

++ The scene in which Jordan defended his dickishness as necessary to foster a winning atmosphere was one of the most memorable for me as a viewer. Tears were starting to well up in his eyes before he called for a "break" and took off his microphone. Although it's hard to argue with the results, the fact is that plenty of great teams in all sports over the years did not have a singular star who treated co-workers the way Jordan did the Bulls.

++ Jordan's blanket dismissal of Gary Payton after being shown an interview of Payton saying he could defend Michael was classic.

++ Michael never got into his failings as an executive, first with the Wizards and more recently as the Hornets' owner. Also, his family and his love life were kept almost completely out of it, and I don't blame him.

++ I joked about me being in the series more than several Bulls players, including Bison Dele (aka, the late Brian Williams). But I think it would have been interesting had they done a little something about him. He came up huge during the 1997 playoffs, when Rodman went off the rails a little, and his life story (and the tragic ending to it) would have been a great subject. Having said that, I know they had only so much time to profile so many players.

++ The only playoff game I missed during the second threepeat was the infamous "food poisoning game" in Utah, in which a dehydrated, ill Jordan carried the Bulls to an amazing victory and then had to be helped off the court by Pippen. My Mom had died a couple of days earlier, and I had to fly to Philadelphia for the funeral. She was buried that day, and I watched the game on TV with my brothers that night.

AP Photos

++ One of the most quoted people in the series was Mark Vancil,  Jordan's long-time biographer, award-winning author, and the guy who ran Rare Air Media for nearly two decades. 

I got to know Mark when we were both young sportswriters in Minneapolis in the late-1980s: He covered the Twins for the Star Tribune, and I was the local AP guy. I always liked him, and I like to think the feeling's mutual. I also have to admit that Mark did a lot better job of advancing his career than I did.

++ No player in sports history was as good at finding "insults" to motivate him as Jordan was. He would use any and every slight - even if he had to invent it - to be so pissed off that he needed to get "revenge" on his opponent. It would have been comical ... except it worked pretty much every time.

++ I was glad to hear Jordan say in the final episode that the dynasty didn't have to end, and that the team would have had a very realistic chance at a 7th title ... but neither Jerry Reinsdorf nor Jerry Krause wanted to let them try.

Reinsdorf had bought into Krause's plan: Blow up the dynasty and then use the enormous space under the salary cap to reload quickly by signing 2-3 superstar free agents. Unfortunately for Reinsdorf, neither he nor Krause anticipated the players association being as resolute as it was, nor did they anticipate collective bargaining agreement changes that would offer significant incentives for players to not change teams.

And finally, Reinsdorf had way too much faith in Krause's ability to attract free agents who would want to play for a blown-up franchise and an unproven coach. One of the saddest/funniest things to watch during the summer of 2000 was the way one free agent after another led Krause and Tim Floyd around on leashes in public dog-and-pony shows, only to choose other teams. After getting rejected by the likes of Tim Duncan, Grant Hill, Tracy McGrady and Eddie Jones, the desperate Bulls ended up throwing piles of money at Ron Freakin' Mercer.

Reinsdorf, through Krause, badly bungled the Jackson situation. Even if you didn't want to keep him beyond 1998, publicly embarrassing the best coach of modern times due to a vendetta was horrible management.

Despite Jordan's insistence that he would have only played had Jackson stayed, the truth is that he almost surely would have stayed had Jackson been replaced by somebody he respected (such as John Paxson or Bill Cartwright) and had Pippen been taken care of. After speaking to somebody very close to Jordan, I actually wrote a column to that effect in 2002 during Jordan's comeback with the Wizards.

So all it would have taken for the Bulls to be favored to win another title or two would have been for Krause to have eaten his pride and for Reinsdorf to have been willing to spend the money out of the golden pockets that Michael had lined for him for years. Instead, Reinsdorf let Krause hire Floyd, watched the best player in basketball history walk away, and then saw his franchise spend the next several years as NBA laughingstocks.

Many organizations in all sports chase even one elusive championship for decades. I mean, just look at the Cubs for over 100 years. When you win as often as the Bulls did, however, sometimes you undervalue what it means to win titles. You also think that you easily can replicate the success if you start over because, "hey, we did it once so we can do it again." 

Reinsdorf made a big bet on Krause, and he's now a bazillion miles away from anything close to success happening for his franchise again for the rest of his life.

++ There is little doubt that Jordan had several great seasons left after 1998. He was still the best player in the league, still playing 82 games a year. When he came back in 2001-02 to the Wizards at age 38 after having sat out three full seasons, he was averaging 25 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists through the first 50 games. He personally had willed a bad Washington team into playoff contention and was a leading MVP candidate. 

Getty Images

++ So you keep Jackson and Jordan, you give Scottie the contract he deserved, you still have Kukoc and Harper, each of whom had a few good years left, maybe you get Rodman to accept another cheap 1-year deal, and you build around all of them with good role players, something Krause did very well. But Reinsdorf didn't want to pay them all, and Krause desperately wanted to prove he could win without Jackson and Jordan. Which he couldn't.

++ The baseball stuff involving Jordan was fascinating. I actually had moved to Chicago to work for AP shortly after Michael wrapped up his one minor-league season (1994), but my talented colleague Rick Gano handled most of the Jordan/baseball stuff. 

++ As I watched Kerr talking about his fistfight with Michael, my mind drifted back to the fall of 1995, when Kerr had an autograph-signing session at the Dominick's grocery store right down the street from where we lived in Chicago.

Ben, who was 8 years old, found a Kerr basketball card and begged me to take him. There were no fans there when we arrived, nor did anyone else show up as he talked with my son for several minutes, nor was anyone else coming up to see him as we left the store.

Kerr might as well have been Jud or Dickey.

Obviously, he ended up having some big moments for the Bulls after Jordan returned, including the title-clinching shot in 1997. 

NBA.com

Michael eventually made him a ton of money, as Kerr got a way-too-big contract from San Antonio. And of course Kerr has gone on to be a great coach, and he was an outstanding announcer, too.

But for 10+ minutes in 1995, nobody gave a rat's rump that Steve Kerr was signing autographs for free at Dominick's. Had he done the same even a year later, when everybody associated with Michael & The Bulls achieved rock-star status, there probably would have been a line out the door and around the block.

+++

So ... what was my relationship with Michael Jordan?

I'd be lying if I claimed we had a "relationship." I was never a daily beat writer, so I wasn't around him all the time, at home and on the road. Nor was I one of "his guys" in the broadcast media, such as Ahmad Rashad. I was always big on the separation of "church and state" when it came to writer/subject relationships, and it's not as if Jordan had time for or interest in that kind of thing anyway.

But I did have the advantage of having a recognizable face (and head), so he definitely knew who I was even if he didn't remember my name. Most importantly, I always felt he treated me with respect (as I did him). As the series showed, I also was pretty aggressive in asking questions early and loudly in post-game settings, because it was the only way to get heard over the hype. I think he recognized that, too.

+++

I was not a big autograph guy or memorabalia collector. Mostly, I liked saving snapshots of my sportswriting life, especially my press passes from big events. 

A few of my favorite keepsakes are newspaper clips of photographs in which I happened to be part of the scene.

For example, on the wall of my office, I have a framed edition of the New York Times sports section from March 29, 1995. The previous night, Jordan - who had just come out of retirement 9 days earlier - pulled off his famous "Double Nickel" performance, in which he scored 55 points in a win at Madison Square Garden.

Most of the Times' front sports page was a huge photograph of Jordan taking a shot from the baseline. And in the lower left corner of the photo, there I am on press row, my face seemingly right next to Jordan's airborne Air Jordans.

Here's another one I like from a post-practice press conference in Portland during the 1992 NBA Finals.

The Oregonian

Jordan is looking up at me as he answers my question. As always, I have my 4-color Bic pen in my hand. I also still had a decent amount of hair, though my future lack thereof is pretty easy to foresee.

+++

One of our family jokes was that if one of my kids' friends asked if their dad got to talk to Jordan, they were supposed to respond, "No ... Michael Jordan gets to talk to my Dad."

I'm not sure either Ben or Katie actually ever used that line, but thinking about it still brings a smile to my face.

+++

Gotta run now and collect my 7-figure royalty check from ESPN ...

^

Ardrey Kell's Lady Knights take over Wilmington

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A few photos from Ardrey Kell's 50-40 victory over two-time defending champion Hoggard High School (Wilmington, NC) in the championship game of the Leon Brogden Holiday Basketball Tournament at Wilmington's Laney HS ...

The 2017 Leon Brogden Tournament champion Ardrey Kell Lady Knights
Front: Riley Littlejohn, Deniyah Lutz, Journey Muhammad, Stephanie Sherril
Back: Ast Coach Mike Nadel. Head Coach Jeff Buseick, Ast Coach Queen Smith,
Kennedy Cash, Michelle Ojo, Shy Booker, Meghan Rogers, Evan Miller,
Emerson Harding, Shonti Lutz, Nia Griffin, Lucy Vanderbeck.

When our standout senior Shy Booker boxes you out, you stay boxed out!
Shy has signed a national letter of intent with Austin Peay.

Our senior captain Journey Muhammad is our best 3-point shooter and
offensive engine, but she also is a fine defensive player.

Senior Deniyah Lutz puts suffocating pressure on a Hoggard player.
Deniyah, bound for Wofford College, also is one of our offensive stars.

Our bench looks on intently in the first half.

Fourth-year Coach Jeff Buseick has taken the AK program to new heights,
and we are off to a school-record 13-1 start this season. 

Yours truly joins some of our reserves as we listen to
Coach Buseick during a time-out.

The long and short of it ...
Journey and Shy made the All-Tournament Team.
Shy, who scored 11 fourth-quarter points in the
title game, was named Tournament MVP.

It's always great to line up for post-game handshakes
with another big victory on our record!

(All Game Photos Courtesy of Rodney Williams Photography.)

The tournament was held at Laney HS, most famous for being Michael Jordan's alma mater. Not surprisingly, the school has taken advantage of the link to one of the most recognized athletes in the history of mankind. We played our first game, against Wilmington's Ashley HS, at "the old gym," which is called Michael Jordan Gymnasium. Note the large photos of Jordan to the upper left and right, and his iconic Jumpman logo behind the basket.

We played our second game, against Wilmington's New Hanover HS, and the title game in the school's recently opened new gym, part of the Michael Jordan Sports Complex. If you look closely at the floor behind our team in first photo in this post, you can see the Jumpman adorning center court.

Below is a photo of the new gym's lobby display case, featuring MJ's Laney jersey and prototypes of every Air Jordan shoe.

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend. In addition to beating three Wilmington schools en route to the tournament title, we had a fun bowling outing, a great team dinner, and the opportunity to get to know each other even better. The latter was especially valuable for me, the newbie to the program.

With the holiday break just about over, I'm looking forward to getting back to what we all hope will be a State Championship season.

Go AK!
^

Oct. 13: Birthday Of The Stars (and a certain bald schlub)

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An early Happy Birthday wish to my former Marquette classmate Glenn Rivers (now universally known as Doc), who was born Oct. 13, 1961, exactly one year after I was.

And while I'm at it, early Happy Birthday wishes to ...

Jerry Rice, the greatest receiver ever to lace 'em up.

Marie Osmond (even though, unlike her, I'm a lotta bit rock 'n' roll).

Paul Simon, who still can get me feelin' groovy.

Dark comedian Lenny Bruce (RIP)

Sacha Baron Cohen, who no doubt will celebrate by making sexy time.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who hasn't won a lick since naming himself GM.

Clutch hoopster Paul Pierce (and far-less-clutch hoopster Jermaine O'Neal).

Nancy Kerrigan, one of sport's all-time victims.

Kelly Preston, Jerry Maguire's squeeze.

Kate Walsh. Is there any TV show she hasn't been mediocre in?

Sammy Hagar -- The Red Rocker.

Margaret Thatcher -- The Iron Lady. (RIP)

Ari Fleischer, who as Dubya's press secretary had the dubious assignment of making his boss sound intelligible.

"Foolish" songstress Ashanti.

Trevor Hoffman, who saved 601 games even though his fastball could be measured by a sundial.

Wow ... what a great list of October 13 birthdays!

And while I'm at it, an early Happy Birthday To Me!

For yours truly, it's double-nickels -- a term I'll always associate with Michael Jordan's 55-point performance at Madison Square Garden shortly after his first un-retirement in 1995.

Jeesh ... was that really 20 years ago? How time flies when you share a birth date with Ari Fleischer!

---

And in other less-important news ...

++ Of course Chase Utley's slide was dirty. The rent-a-Dodger was practically past second base when he wiped out Ruben Tejada, breaking the Mets shortstop's leg. Kudos to MLB executive Joe Torre for suspending Utley. It's worth noting that Torre, who has as much integrity as any man in baseball, used to manage the Dodgers.

++ "These things are scripted, I guess, and I wasn't in the script this time." -- Anirban Lahiri, International team golfer, after he missed a short putt to lose to Chris Kirk and cost his team a tie in the Presidents Cup. Hey man, if you want to believe God chose Kirk instead of you and the Americans instead of your team as a rationale for your choke job, go for it.

++ I keep thinking the Seahawks are going to start dominating games again, but they keep avoiding doing so. I hope they delay it at least another week, as they face my Panthers next Sunday.

++ Oh, and one more early birthday shout-out to Phil Arvia, my good buddy and fellow former Chicago sports columnist. Phil has traded in his laptop for a bass guitar, and he's just more proof that there's life after the newspaper biz. I am still waiting for him to invite me on stage to sing, though. You haven't rocked or rolled until you've heard my rendition of Del Shannon's "Runaway"!

The Art of The Scoop -- Remembering Ozzie & Others

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What is a scoop? Everything from getting the tiniest fact before a competitor to bringing down a president through months of exhaustive research -- a la Woodward & Bernstein -- has been labeled "scoops."

In these days of Twitter, Vine and other miracles of the interwebs, it's muddled even more. If Reporter A finds out that Joe Quarterback has stubbed his toe 20 seconds before Reporter B does, is it a "scoop"? (Sure. Why not? It's at least a mini-scoop.)

Many stories labeled as scoops developed from interviews -- the subject tells something newsworthy to the reporter, who becomes the first to chronicle it. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 100% of the scoops during my newspaper days were of this variety.

I'll discuss this a little more in a bit, but first, here's the impetus for me thinking about this right now:

It's is the 10-year anniversary of what was probably my final "scoop" as a journalist.

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen believed he was being mistreated by fans and was so distraught he told me he would seriously consider quitting ... but only if his team went on to win the World Series.

For those who might not remember, here is the column I wrote for the Copley Newspapers and its news service ...

---

September 22, 2005

Feeling so stressed out that he regularly vomits and feeling unappreciated by Chicago's boo-first fans, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen says he might quit after the season if his team wins the World Series.

"I've got (championship) rings already and I'm proud of them, but if I win here, if I help the White Sox do this, it will give me a chance to walk away if I want to," an emotional Guillen told me before Wednesday night's 8-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians.

"I will think about it. I will think about it twice. The way I'm thinking right now, I will tell (general manager) Kenny Williams to get another manager and I'll get the (bleep) out of here. I'll make more money signing autographs instead of dealing with this (bleep)."

I have heard Ozzie say some wild things during his two seasons as Sox skipper, but this one floored me.

Here's a 41-year-old, second-year manager who has guided a modestly talented team to the American League's best record, a guy who in just a few weeks could be the first Chicago manager in 88 years to spray championship champagne, a former White Sox All-Star who gets misty-eyed when discussing his love of the organization ... and he is seriously contemplating his grand exit.

I wanted to make sure I heard him correctly, so I asked him repeatedly to clarify his comments. And he kept saying the same things, often raising his voice to accentuate certain points.

"I'm not kidding, not at all," Guillen said. "I want the fans to be able to say, 'Hey, we finally did it!' I want to make them proud. I want to win the World Series, and then maybe i'm gone. I'll even help Kenny look for someone else.

"I don't give a (bleep) about the money; I've got all I need. The thing is, I'm stressed every day.

"Do I have the best job in the world? Yes, because I'm managing the team I love. I'm managing my team. But every time we lose, I feel sick. I (vomit) sometimes. I get mad. I throw things in my office. It makes me crazy.

"I went to the World Series as a player (with Atlanta) and won one as a coach (with Florida). If I can do it as the manager here, I can say: 'Everything I want to do in baseball, I did it.' Then I'll make my decision."

Frankly, I doubt Guillen will have to worry about winning the World Series.

Although Wednesday's loss reduced their one-time 15-game AL Central lead over Cleveland to 21/2 games, I still think the Sox will make the playoffs (perhaps only as a wild-card team). I simply don't believe they have enough firepower or pitching to advance beyond the first round.

The Indians are so much more talented it's ridiculous. Travis Hafner alone is as good as any three White Sox. Nevertheless, with the division lead dwindling, many fans are taking out their frustrations on Guillen.

A half-hour after telling dozens of reporters that he didn't mind being booed at U.S.Cellular Field - even joking about "the 30,000 managers helping me out" - Guillen showed his vulnerable side during our long conversation.

"It makes me sad when they boo me," he said. "Sometimes I think they don't appreciate me. They should, because I played my (bleep) off for them and now I'm managing my (bleep) off for them.

"You know how many managers are dying for 91 wins right now? And we have that and they don't appreciate that? It makes me wonder what happens if I only have 71 wins, how are they gonna treat me? I mean, they treat me like (bleep) when I'm winning 91.

"My kids are here at the ballpark and they ask me later why I'm getting booed. I say it's part of my job, but deep down inside, it hurts. If I was doing a (bleep) job, sure, go ahead and boo me, but I think I'm doing pretty good."

So do I. With his boundless energy, confident personality, brutal honesty, zany (and often profane) sense of humor and aggressive style, Guillen convinced a completely retooled team - one many preseason prognosticators predicted would finish in fourth place - to believe it could accomplish anything.

The White Sox have blown most of their 15-game lead largely because the starting pitchers have slumped these last seven weeks. Just when it seemed the Sox were ready to choke completely, Guillen led them to a series victory in Minnesota.

Then came the first two games of the Cleveland series, in which the Indians kept taking leads and Ozzie's resilient Sox kept battling back. If the White Sox do qualify for postseason play, credit Tuesday's stirring comeback. Guillen's forceful, can-do attitude played a huge role in that triumph - and in the team's other 32 one-run victories.

Though it's easy to quibble with in-game decisions, the true measure of any manager is his ability to steer his ship through both smooth and choppy waters. That's why he's often called a "skipper."

Ozzie Guillen has been a superb skipper. If White Sox fans don't realize that, they don't deserve him.

---

A few interesting things (hey, at least I think they're interesting) about this column on its anniversary:

++ The genesis of it was this: Guillen was talking to a couple dozen reporters before a game, as managers routinely do. Unlike most managers, Ozzie had absolutely no filter and would say anything anytime. This particular time, he was grousing about the fans, and he felt he was being treated unfairly. After about a 2-minute discussion, the subject changed to something else. (Probably about Jay Mariotti being a jerk.) But as I stood there, I couldn't help but think that Ozzie really was deeply hurt by fans booing him, and I decided that if I had an opportunity to follow up with him about it, I would.

++ On some occasions in the past, my instincts had been wrong. Either the subject didn't feel like discussing a situation in greater detail or there simply was nothing there. This time, though, I happened to be right. About a half-hour after his session with reporters, I pulled Ozzie aside near the back of the batting cage and asked him a question. He went on a 3-minute, stream-of-consciousness rant that would form the basis of my column. When he said he was so upset about the perceived mistreatment that he "pukes sometimes," I knew I had something worth writing. I asked a couple of follow-up questions and he kept going, his voice rising. Friends up in the press box could see Ozzie making exaggerated hand gestures as he talked. Because Ozzie sometimes spoke in broken English and because he often was a jokester, I asked him several times if he was serious; I didn't want to report something only to be told later I hadn't gotten the joke or I hadn't understood. He assured me he was serious and he continued to talk.

++ The result was the column. By the next morning, it was the "water-cooler topic" in Chicago sports. I was asked to go on several radio shows to discuss it. Many newspapers that had nothing to do with my employer mentioned it, as did ESPN. That afternoon, before the White Sox's next game, Guillen again met with the media. My column was the main topic of conversation.

++ To his credit, Guillen never claimed he was misquoted, never tried to back away from what he said and never claimed to have been taken out of context. (The "out-of-context" lie has become the preferred lie of public officials everywhere, as they know they can't say they were misquoted because reporters all use recording devices now.) I liked Ozzie well before this interview, but this situation helped cement his status as one of my favorite people I have covered.

++ A couple of my Chicago sports journalism colleagues tried to say it wasn't a story at all because Guillen had jokingly made similar claims in the past. I don't blame those folks for being dismissive or trying to come up with an excuse, because it's never fun to get "scooped." My fellow columnists at the Tribune, the Southtown and other publications stuck up for me, which was nice.

++ In the ensuing weeks, everybody from USA Today to the Christian Science Monitor made references to Ozzie's remarks to me. In a book he wrote about the 2005 White Sox, Tribune reporter Mark Gonzalez devoted a few pages to it. For a reporter, having written something that kept people talking for weeks or even months definitely was satisfying.

++ I was dead wrong about one thing in that column: my assessments that the Indians were "so much more talented it's ridiculous" and that Guillen wouldn't have to "worry about winning the World Series." The White Sox caught fire again just in time -- in great part because of Ozzie's motivational skills and his handling of the pitching staff -- and Ozzie became the toast of the town.

++ I never really thought Ozzie would quit, and not just because I doubted they'd win the Series. I was quite sure he was just reacting -- some would say over-reacting -- to a perceived slight. Ozzie often was guilty of being "very human," the classic example of the cliche, "he wears his emotions on his sleeve." He often got in trouble because of his knee-jerk emotional reactions.

++ I'm pretty sure most intelligent observers agreed with me that there was little to no chance of Ozzie quitting. But that wasn't really the point. The column opened a window into the soul of a major sports figure in Chicago history. I mean, the man was so distraught about the fans booing him that he regularly puked! It was news.

---

Three more favorite scoops:

1. As a 23-year-old reporter for AP in Madison, I interviewed Badgers forward Cory Blackwell, the Big Ten's leading scorer and rebounder that season. During the course of a long interview, he told me he was planning to leave after his junior season to go pro.

That was news enough because it wasn't all that common in 1984 for players to leave early for the NBA, especially if they weren't shoo-in superstars. Even more telling was the way he said it: He played in Chicago summer leagues against the likes of Isiah Thomas and Doc Rivers, and he schooled them! During the course of the interview, he also ripped Badgers coach Steve Yoder.

It ended up being a great read. And of course, the next day, Blackwell denied it all, said he was misquoted, yada yada yada.

After he spoke to the other reporters, pointing at me and calling me a liar, I confronted him at the end of the court, about 60 feet away from where the other reporters were gathered. It must have been a hilarious scene, as we weren't exactly talking quietly and our hands were moving in exaggerated gestures. 

The next day, the Wisconsin State Journal took Blackwell's "side." The Milwaukee papers also were skeptical of my article.

I ended up doubling down -- getting a source to confirm Blackwell's intentions. And, naturally, he DID go pro. He was Seattle's second-round draft pick but played in only 60 NBA games. Maybe he dominated Isiah Thomas in the summer leagues -- riiiight! -- but he wasn't good enough when the games actually mattered.

2. During my time as AP's sports guy in Minneapolis, I used to joke with my newspaper friends that they should be fired immediately if I ever got a "scoop." After all, their entire job was to closely follow the ins and outs of their teams, while I had to cover four pro sports, a major university and even some preps.

But of course, sometimes scoops "just happen." That was the case in 1991 when, near the end of a difficult season, I interviewed Timberwolves coach Bill Musselman after practice. Even though the T-Wolves actually had exceeded expectations their first two years in the league, Musselman was being criticized by some for not giving young players more court time. Mostly, he was accused of stunting the development of 1990 top draft pick Gerald Glass; the ultra-intense Mussleman wanted Glass to actually earn playing time.

Not long into the interview, Musselman started expressing the belief that even management was against him. Just as I knew I had a great column about Ozzie when he mentioned puking, I knew I had something with Musselman when he said Timberwolves president Bob Stein "hates me."

There were denials all around. Musselman, who had always been a straight shooter with me, disappointed me by claiming he had been taken out of context. Stein denied there was a rift. Everybody tried to put on a happy face.

Of course, a month later, Musselman was fired.

And Gerald Glass? He was a soft player who refused to play defense and was soon out of the league -- Musselman had been right about him.

3. A year after Michael Jordan came out of retirement the second time (to play for the Wizards), I had heard from some "friends of friends" that he never really wanted to retire after the 1998 season but felt he had to when Jerrys Krause and Reinsdorf insisted upon pushing out Phil Jackson and bringing in college coach (and Krause buddy) Tim Floyd.

So I began asking around and several sources confirmed that, despite saying he was gone if Jackson left, Jordan would have stayed had the Bulls promoted assistant coach John Paxson or maybe even hired Bill Cartwright, another trusted former teammate. Then, on Dec. 31, 2002, I had a great conversation with then Trail Blazer Scottie Pippen, who said on the record: "I know Michael would have played for Pax."

With that, I knew I had a decent column, but it really came together two days later when a source extremely close to Jordan told me: "Michael would have loved playing for Pax. John Paxson would have been the perfect solution."

It was great to have the truth come out: Reinsdorf let Krause convince him he could rebuild the team quickly by dumping all the big-money players who were starting to get up there in age -- even Jordan. The Bulls would draft early (hello, Eddy Curry and Marcus Fizer), would sign big-name free agents (Tim Duncan! Grant Hill! Tracy McGrady!), and Floyd would guide the Bulls back to prominence.

As Rick Perry would say: Oops.

The Bulls stunk for years and, soon enough, Floyd and Krause were unemployed. Ironically, the man Reinsdorf chose to replace Krause was Paxson.

---

A couple of final thoughts about scoops ...

In 2005, when the Ozzie situation happened, the Internet was becoming a powerful tool -- but Twitter did not yet exist and Facebook, mostly a college curiosity, was in its infancy. When something happened on Sept. 22, it wasn't until it appeared in the newspaper on Sept. 23 that its impact was really felt -- which had been the case for more than a century.

Within a year or two, that was no longer true. Scoops happen fast and furiously, often several in a day. Now, there are what I call SCOOPS and mini-scoops.

It's hard for me to get excited about a mini-scoop -- a relatively minor story that's broken at 10:33 a.m. only to be matched by another outlet at 10:35 a.m.

I'm more impressed than ever by actual SCOOPS, though. There is so much competition and so much immediacy. Also, public figures are so guarded. So to actually "work it" and have an interesting and/or important story come to fruition ... I really respect that.

---

Lastly ...

I hope people don't read this as bragging. The mere fact that I can remember so few scoops so clearly is evidence that I wasn't exactly a "scoop machine." I fully admit that I fell into at least a couple of them.

Having said that, it definitely was a rush when an instinct played out and resulted in a legitimate story.

Real scoops are like no-hitters. If they happened all the time, they wouldn't be special.
^

Fun With Numbers

^
Here are some of the more interesting statistics and numbers I've seen (or experienced) recently ...

0-for-39

Shaq Thompson, a linebacker from the University of Washington who last week was the Carolina Panthers' No. 1 draft pick, also once was enough of a baseball prospect to have been selected by the Red Sox in the 18th round of the 2012 MLB draft.

In his very brief professional baseball career, however, Thompson arguably put up the ugliest statistical line in the sport's history.

In 13 Gulf Coast (Rookie) League games, Thompson went hitless in 39 at-bats -- with an incredible 37 strikeouts. He did draw 8 walks ... so in 47 plate appearances, he put the ball in play in fair territory exactly twice. Twice!

No wonder he's now an ex-baseball player. Michael Jordan was Babe Ruth compared to this guy.

^^^

4-0

That's the record of the mighty Sons of Pitches so far this season.

I'm not hitting squat (although I've got more hits than Shaq Thompson had), and I'll blame my bum shoulder for that (gotta have an excuse, right?), but I'm still having a blast being part of this talented and fun group of fellow 50-and-overs.

Maybe we'll do what Kentucky couldn't!

^^^

13

In his first game at Davidson College, Stephen Curry committed 13 turnovers. Folks had to be wondering if Wildcats coach Bob McKillop had lost his mind offering the skinny son of Dell Curry a scholarship. Winthrop had been Steph's only other Division I suitor.

I guess McKillop's decision ended up working out all right for Davidson, for Curry and for the Golden State Warriors. Steph was just named NBA MVP.

Here's what I wrote shortly before the 2009 draft:

NBA teams are in love with the potential of Spanish teen Ricky Rubio, who is expected to be either the second or third player drafted Thursday. 

Well, he might be the goods. Or he might not be. Nobody really knows.

Give me Stephen Curry. He can handle the ball, he's an excellent passer and he'll be a big-time 3-point shooter.

A stiff breeze could carry Curry into the next county, true, but we know he has a lot of game.

Can anybody really say as much about Ricky Rubio?

When healthy, Rubio has been a pretty good NBA point guard. Much to the chagrin of the Timberwolves and their fans, however, he hasn't been Steph Curry -- truly one of the great shooters ever to lace up a pair of sneakers.

Hey, even I get one right every now and then.

^^^


$99.95

The amount of money I'm very proud to say I didn't spend to watch Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao paw at each other for 36 minutes.

For one thing, I wasn't going to give a serial woman-beater and reprehensible human being like Mayweather one dime of my money.

For another, I used to love boxing years ago but I can't get into such barbarism now. I guess I've gone soft, and not just in my belly.

^^^

26-14-13

That was Blake Griffin's box-score line in the Clippers' Game 1 playoff victory at Houston.

L.A. needed its all-star forward to come through big-time with Chris Paul being unable to play due to a hamstring injury, and he delivered as the Clips stole home-court advantage from the Rockets

Will this be the year Griffin and the talented Clippers finally realize their potential? I am rooting for them -- and my old Marquette friend, Glenn Rivers (we didn't call him Doc back then). I hope Paul gets back in the lineup soon.

Those who say they "hate" the NBA for whatever reason, and therefore refuse to watch it, recently missed an instant sports classic: Game 7 from the Clippers-Spurs series.

Playing on one leg, Paul was incredible. He scored 27 points, including a last-second circus shot to win the game (and the series) in a performance every bit as impressive as Jordan's "food poisoning game."

Yes, your average January NBA regular-season game can be a bore, but playoff basketball is often sensational. These guys very well might be the best athletes in the world. Add in the motivation of a possible championship, and it's pretty special stuff.

^^^

60,000

Thanks to good initial readership, and then to links imbedded in subsequent articles, my Dec. 17 piece for the investing Web site Seeking Alpha just passed the 60,000 page-view mark.

I used to reach hundreds of thousands of readers back in my sportswriting days, so I'm not getting overly excited about this milestone. Still, 60K is a pretty big number for a single article on most financial sites. It's almost twice as many as any other article I've written has received.

I get paid per page-view, and the money I'll get from that article will help fund the new siding I just found out our house needs.

It's hard to beat that for a fun way to spend one's money! But hey, at least I didn't give any of it to Floyd Mayweather.

^^^

0

The number of declared presidential candidates for whom I want to vote.

If these men and women are supposed to be our best and brightest, that's pretty effin' depressing.

^

An unforgettable basketball journey, with the promise of more to come

^
On The Scholars Academy website, the most recent addition to the photo rotation is of my middle-school basketball players doing their famed, "Fly, Fly, Fly, Eagles!" cheer after our tournament semifinal victory.

I love this photo because, to me, it captures what sports for kids this age should be about. Look at the smiles on those faces. Can't you feel the joy, the love, the camaraderie, the spirit?

At that moment, these girls felt they could accomplish anything. They especially felt they could win the conference championship.

Unfortunately, in that title game, Back Creek Christian Academy simply played better than we did. They jumped on us early and we never really threatened to make it a game.

They defeated us three times, representing 75% of the losses in our otherwise amazing 15-4 season. Remember how dopey Patrick Ewing used to sound when he claimed his Knicks were better than the Bulls even after Michael Jordan & Co. repeatedly whupped 'em? Well, I'm pretty dopey, but I'm not that dopey.

Back Creek deserved the title, and we have no choice but to settle for having reached the championship game for the first time in our school's 15-year history.

A few days have passed since that defeat, and time is a great healer. On Saturday night, we had our team party. It was a festive event, filled with jokes, reminiscences, anecdotes, awards, gifts, laughs, hugs, photos and food. Oh, and it also was filled with a middle-aged bald dude rambling on about how special these last four months were for everybody involved.

We talked about Ruta, our Rookie of the Year and leading scorer, sprinting the wrong way toward a layup, realizing the error of her ways, and slamming on the brakes as if a deer had just appeared in the middle of the road. And we talked about Sholeh, winner of our Coach's Award for Aggressiveness, stealing the basketball and going in for the basket just a second or two after I told her, "I need a steal." (Now that, my friends, is great coaching!)

We talked about Olivia, winner of our Coach's Award for Leadership, being the classic "coach on the floor" by regularly noticing things I didn't so we could make critical in-game adjustments. And we talked about Sienna, our two-time MVP, playing every position in the lineup (and playing them well) these last two seasons.

We talked about Celeste blocking more shots than any other player in the league, including several resounding two-handers against our smaller semifinal opponent -- an example of how being a bully is sometimes OK! We talked about Beijul's transformation from timid lamb to fierce combatant.

We talked about Malika somehow being able to make baskets with that funky, feet-together, no-knee-bend, line-drive shot of hers. And we talked about how Susanna, the last player to make the team, went on to be an instrumental contributor thanks to her competitiveness, intelligence and unselfishness.

We talked about Ritika, our only sixth-grader, making nine 3-pointers -- many of them "daggers" that turned games in our favor. (It's quite possible that there weren't nine treys made by the other 100 or so players in the conference combined.) And we talked about our captain, Margaret, leading us in scoring down the stretch and then delivering a touching, heart-felt speech before the title game.

OK, so I did most of the talking. (That won't surprise my high school classmates who named me Most Talkative.) The girls and their parents did most of the listening and applauding and laughing and picture-taking.

There also was much talk - and not all of it from me - about the program we're building at Scholars Academy.

My first year we had an incredibly young team filled with players who had little or no experience. We quickly established our identity: We might not beat all of our opponents, but we were going to wear them out with our aggressiveness and effort. We flashed our potential with a stunning comeback victory in the playoffs before losing in the semifinals to the eventual champion.

This season, in Year 2, we brought back five good players and added two high-level athletes as well as three super-solid role players. We used our relentless defense, our quickness and our determination to finish the season with exactly twice as many points as our opponents (28.8 points per game to 14.4 points per game), but we fell one victory short of our ultimate goal.

We will soldier on in Year 3 without three valuable players in Sienna, Margaret and Susanna, but we should return seven -- including six 8th-graders. We will have experience and talent and height and speed. Our defense should be especially good. And it cannot be understated how the trust, respect and love the girls have for each other will translate into still more success.

If the coach doesn't mess things up too badly, the 2015-16 Eagles just might end up fly-fly-flying away with the big trophy.

But enough looking ahead. I'm still basking in the glow of the season that was and of the unforgettable journey we all took together.

Look again at that picture, folks. It really is better than 1,000 words ... so I'll just shut up now and smile.
^

Not-so-happy anniversary: Five years of permanent vacation

^
I'm not going to go all FDR and call Jan. 15, 2009, a date which will live in infamy, but ...

The previous evening, I had received this email from a GateHouse Media mid-level manager:


We need to have you come into the office at 10 a.m. tomorrow.


When Roberta asked me what I thought the cryptic message meant, I said: "Well, I don't think they're calling me in to tell me my last column won the Pulitzer Prize."

Braving blizzard-like conditions, I drove the 30 miles from Lakeview to Downers Grove and was greeted by somber-faced GateHousians. Yes, I was being laid off. No, there would be no severance pay, as that longstanding policy had been terminated along with me. Yes, I would receive compensation for my unused vacation time (but not before they tried to job me out of several weeks of it). No, I would not be allowed to write a farewell column to the readers who had gotten to know me over the previous 11 years.

Just like that, I was an ex-columnist, an ex-sportswriter, an ex-newspaper man, an ex-journalist, an ex-working stiff. All I had ever known professionally was kaput.

GateHouse was going broke. Its stock price had plummeted near zero. It needed every available cent to lavish salary increases and bonuses on its top executives. (A practice that continues to this day even though the company is even more broke. Ah, capitalism!) So, even though I had been reassured just one month earlier that my position was in the budget for 2009, it wasn't exactly shocking that the pencil-necked geeks had deemed me a luxury they chose not to afford.

Sometimes it's hard to believe it's been five years since I was a full-time sports hack. Other times, it seems like forever ago.

I spent the better part of two years trying to get a decent job in the field. I wrote freelance articles for AP, my employer from 1982-1998. I kept writing this blog and, for a while, let the Chicago Tribune publish it. Some months, my check from the Tribune totaled as much as 18 whole dollars! I am not making that up. When I told my editor there I no longer wanted to write for 1/5th of a cent per hour, he actually seemed insulted. I had a guy at one Chicago online sports site jerk my chain for nearly a year: Yes, we might hire you; no, we don't have the budget for it; wait, maybe we do; no, actually, we don't.

Enough. In the summer of 2010, when my wife had the opportunity to work at Charlotte's children's hospital, we decided to move on, literally and figuratively.

Aside from the tripe I occasionally post here on TBT, I have not written a single sports story since becoming a North Carolinian. I write personal finance articles about once a month for SeekingAlpha.com, I do some "survivor stories" for the American Heart Association and I've written a few op-eds for the Charlotte Observer, but mostly I have left that part of my life behind.

I am fortunate that, at 53, I am not hurting financially because Roberta and I were big savers, because we have no debt and because she is a wonderful Sugar Mama. So I earn a little dough doing stuff I want to do, and I get a lot of enjoyment out of being a coach, a referee and an umpire, among other things.

Nobody likes to be told they no longer can come to work. We want the decision to be ours, not theirs. But life gets messy sometimes, so we adjust on the fly.

Do I miss it? Sure, some of it. Not all of it.

In honor of the fifth anniversary of GateHouse sending me on permanent vacation, here are five things I miss about my former life. But first, just for giggles and snorts, five things I don't miss ...

WHAT I DON'T MISS

Interviewing Jocks.

When my son was little, his friends would ask, "Does your dad get to talk to Michael Jordan?" I told him to respond: "No, Michael Jordan gets to talk to my dad." It was a cute line, especially when delivered by an 8-year-old, but it wasn't true. From 1995-98, I spent a huge portion of my life standing around waiting to be part of a big media scrum around Michael Jordan.

For the most part -- and definitely by the time the new millennium had arrived -- everything was packaged for the media. We were led around from one press conference to another. Comments usually were generic. I'd sit down to transcribe my tape and realize I hadn't gotten one freakin' quote worth using.

On the rare occasion that a coach or athlete said something remotely funny, the press corps would pretend to laugh as if Steve Martin and George Carlin were on stage trading barbs. It was embarrassing.

People thought we were lucky that we got to talk to these guys, but more often than not they had nothing to say. When we did get to cover an Ozzie Guillen or a Jeremy Roenick or even a Milton Bradley, it was like manna from heaven. Mostly, the routine became a chore. These guys didn't particularly want to talk to us and, for the most part, I didn't want to talk to them.

Deadlines.

When I was with AP, the slogan was "a deadline every minute." And yes, we did have to write quickly. But as I discovered when I became a columnist, there are deadlines and then there really are deadlines. If the game didn't end until 1 a.m. when I was with AP, I still waited to write until it was over. But if I didn't have my column in on time when I was with Copley (and, later, GateHouse), the newspapers I served would run something else in its place -- maybe even an advertisement.

As newspapers strove for earlier and earlier delivery, the deadlines became earlier and earlier, and I often had to write before an event had ended. If the event was big enough, as when the White Sox were in the 2005 World Series and Game 3 went 14 innings, I'd do several versions of the column for all the different editions of the papers.

Not to make it sound like I was mining coal in West Virginia but it wasn't easy!

The Internet Effect.

When I agreed to start blogging in 2007 (in addition to the columns I already was writing), I didn't get one more cent out of it. What I did get was a ton more work to do, thank you.

Couple the sheer workload with the immediacy of the Internet and there's no such thing as putting a story to bed. In addition, readers suddenly had the right to comment anonymously and in real time. It's always fun to be called a douchebag by some guy who goes by Illini69.

My last year and a half in Chicago, I covered a lot of baseball games as a freelancer for AP and I was in awe at the amount of work -- and the quality of the work -- that the city's baseball writers did: blogs and tweets and photos and notes and game stories and feature stories and graphics. Incredible. Day after day, all year long -- because there no longer is an offseason in baseball, what with all the news that takes place from November to March. Honestly, I doubt there is a more difficult newspaper job in America than baseball beat writer. It was always tough, but the Internet has made it ridiculous.

When I columnized about Erin Andrews' inappropriate behavior in the Cubbie clubhouse, I knew it would be read by a lot of people. But I severely underestimated the Internet effect and her popularity out in cyberspace. For some two weeks, I became a target out there in Dweeb Land. It was interesting ... and a little bit scary.

"Wow. You Get To Go To Games For Free?"

Later in this post, I acknowledge that my job carried a certain amount of prestige, or at least the perception of prestige. At the same time, plenty of folks thought my job consisted of hobnobbing with the athletes, relaxing at the ballpark and rooting on the home team.

Even some of my family members and close friends used to "joke" about how easy I had it, as if they knew. And what was I going to do, get mad and defend myself by telling them how much work I was doing? So I usually went the self-deprecating route instead.

Once, one of my relatives was complaining about all the housework she had to do. After a few minutes, I interrupted and said, "Hey, you're only a housewife. I have to go to football games for a living!"

The Stress.

When I was with AP, I was almost always stressed out. It was a high-pressure job, and talking with friends who are still with the company, it appears that is even more the case now. I excelled under pressure, but that doesn't mean it was easy or fun to deal with. There were several occasions I would wake up in a cold sweat at 2 a.m. or 4 a.m. and realize I had left something out of the final version of my story (a.k.a., the dreaded PMer, a rewrite for afternoon newspapers). I would call the office to make the correction.

By 2006 or so, there were constant rumors that David Copley was going to get out of the newspaper business and sell all of our properties (he did), that the new owner would care only about profit and not about journalism (yep), and that GateHouse would clean house (bingo!). It was a stressful time.

Then, of course, there was the stress I put upon myself. I never was able to "mail it in" on even the most routine AP stories, so I really tortured myself when writing my column. If I wasn't on deadline, I would read, re-read and re-re-read my column until I didn't find even one comma out of place. Sometimes, I would be 3 or 4 hours into a column and say, out loud, "This is complete crap." I'd delete the whole freakin' thing and start over. Not only was my name on my column, but so was my ugly mug. I put a lot of myself in most of what I wrote. It was only a story about a jock or a game, but it still mattered, and I had to do it right.

Now, I live a mostly stress-free existence. Maybe one of the things I like about coaching, refereeing and umpiring is the immediacy of each moment, a non-journalism way to get a little stress back into my life.

WHAT I MISS

The Travel.

I got to see the world, all on somebody else's dime. Many of the trips were mundane -- flying into Detroit for a night game and then going back home the next morning was far from exhilarating -- but I also got to go to some amazing places.

AP sent me to five Olympics (Calgary '88, Albertville '92, Lillehammer '94, Atlanta '96, Nagano '98) and dispatched me all over North America covering hockey, basketball, baseball and football.

During the first three years I was Copley's columnist, I got to manage my own travel budget, and my only restriction was that I shouldn't go over budget. I took full advantage, giving myself some great assignments. In the process, I learned how to stretch a dollar when making travel arrangements, a skill that still serves me well.

After Copley sold its Chicago papers and I became more aligned with the fine folks of Central Illinois, I still had a lot of input into where I traveled. A few times, I even got to fly on David Copley's private jet to the California desert resort town of Borrego Springs for editor meetings. I felt like a VIP, even though I wasn't one.

The Writing

Every once in awhile, I got to write something that actually touched readers. When I wrote a column after my dad passed away, I received more than 100 condolence letters -- not email, mind you, but actual hand-written letters, including one from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin. When I wrote about my daughter getting ready to graduate high school and leave home, lots of people told me the column made them shed a tear.

One time after covering a Cardinals-Cubs game, I ran into a guy outside Busch Stadium, and he pulled from his wallet a folded, tattered copy of the column I had written years earlier about Darryl Kile's death. That's right: The guy actually carried it around with him.

I got paid to express myself through my observations and my words, and that was pretty damn cool.

As a reporter, I occasionally got a scoop, and watching my peers have to play catch-up for a day or two always was an amazing feeling.

One thing I really used to love was sitting in the media room after a huge event, the only sound being thousands of fingers banging away at laptop keyboards.

The Paycheck.

Let's not sugarcoat things: We work for money. In addition to being able to buy things we needed and wanted, that regular paycheck helped me and Roberta sock away money for the future.

Who knew the future was going to arrive -- with a thud -- just a few months after I turned 48?

The Press Box.

Basically, sportswriters are a bunch of adolescent goofballs. As we watch the Cubs collapse, the Bears fall apart and the Bulls implode, anything that enters our warped minds somehow finds its way out of our foul mouths. The amount of crapola we spew about the jocks we cover is topped only by the amount of crap we give each other.

I miss debating my peers about important issues such as our Hall of Fame ballots, which Chicago coach or manager would be the next to be fired, and whether Jay Mariotti was the worst human being we ever had encountered or just one of the bottom two.

Sadly, even before I was sacked, many of my best friends in the industry had been sent packing or been reassigned by their employers, so the press box wasn't what it used to be.

The Prestige.

I never considered my job to be particularly glamorous, but others did. I could be in a room filled with million-dollar lawyers or doctors ... and all of them thought I had the best job.

On its good days -- and there were many -- they were right.

As is the case with folks in most professions, my job gave me an identity. Five years later, I still struggle a little when asked, "And what do you do?"

Am I retired? Semi-retired? A freelance writer? A coach? A part-time golf ranger? An ex-journalist? All of those things are true, none rolls off my tongue like: "I'm a sports columnist, and you?"

As stressful and frustrating as it occasionally was, I never lost sight of the fact that what I did for a living was considered a dream job by many.

You know what? It was considered a dream job by me, too.
^

Baldy's back, and just in time for my favorite month

^
10. My Internet buddy (and faithful reader back when my columns appeared in the Springfield, Ill., newspaper), Doug Nicodemus, has been asking me repeatedly why I haven't been blogging much lately. On Monday, after checking TBT regularly the last 5 weeks but finding no new entries, he posted this on my Facebook page:

"no blog for awhile ... are we all done ... maybe ..."

No, I'm not all done. But as I have explained to Doug -- and as I explained earlier Monday to my softball buddy Johnny, whom I saw at a local golf course -- the little bit of writing I'm doing these days has involved me getting paid. Crazy concept, I know.

Not that money is the end-all and be-all, but it buys more things than bupkis. Which is what I get paid for posting here on The Baldest Truth.

So to my tens and tens of regular readers, I thank you for your loyalty but I make no promises other than to say that I'll continue to blog when something strikes me as relevant or when I have some spare time to write pro bono.

9. As much as I'd like to see the Pirates or Rays or A's win for the small markets or the Indians or Reds win for underdogs everywhere, I can't bring myself to predict multiple champagne showers for those teams this October.

I'm thinking the Tigers, with their fine starting pitching and powerful middle of the order, will meet the talented, high-priced Red Sox, for the AL pennant. And the Dodgers, with their incredible pitching, will take on the Cardinals, who always seem to rise to the occasion, for the NL crown. 

If the Tigers had a stud reliever, I'd pick them to beat the Red Sox. But they don't. So I won't. 

I'd like to see the Cardinals do it with Mike Matheny managing, because I always appreciated him as a player, but the Dodgers remind me of recent Giants teams that won championships despite mediocre hitting.

So I'm saying Red Sox vs. Dodgers in the World Series.

The champion? I'm leaning Dodgers, but I'll hold off with an "official" prediction until we get to the Series.

There. I've committed to another blog post later in October. That should make Doug and Johnny delirious with joy!

8. Folks keep trying to find all kinds of reasons that somebody other than Miguel Cabrera should win the AL MVP. Please. This is one of those it's-so-obvious-there-must-be-another-choice situations, like when NBA MVP voters used to try to find somebody not named Michael Jordan to win the award.

Mike Trout had a fine season for a sub-.500 Angels team that finished 18 games out -- a team that started poorly in part because Trout started poorly. And yet Cabrera still had better stats almost across the board, almost won a second straight Triple Crown, and did it all for a team he led to another division title.

This is the no-brainer of all no-brainers. Sabermetricians and other misguided souls need to stop trying to make this "race" something it isn't. 

Cabrera should be the unanimous MVP choice.

7. Meanwhile, if I had an NL MVP vote, I'd be going with Braves closer Craig Kimbrel, the single biggest reason Atlanta led its division from wire-to-wire.

When a team blows a late-inning lead, it's bad. When that happens repeatedly, it's catastrophic -- not only in the standings but in the psyche of every player on that team.

What a great joy and comfort it must have been all season for manager Fredi Gonzalez and all the Atlanta players to know their team pretty much was never going to blow a ninth-inning lead.

6. My "hometown" NFL team, the Panthers, better not have spent their bye week patting themselves on their backs for their blowout victory over the Giants. 

Everybody blows out the Giants!

The only team worse than the Giants right now is Jacksonville. And yes, I said "right now" for a reason. The Giants might still be able to find a new low.

5. I have started umpiring youth baseball, something I hadn't done for at least two decades. My first game was supposed to be this coming Wednesday but the umpiring coordinator was in a pinch and asked me call the bases for three games last Sunday involving 9-year-olds.

The first game began at noon. It went so long -- walks, physical errors, more walks, mental mistakes, still more walks; these are 9-year-olds, after all -- that the second game started 45 minutes late. That game also went long, so the third game started more than an hour late, and didn't end until 6:58 p.m.

So I spent 7 hours standing on a hot, dusty field. I tried to stay hydrated but almost surely didn't drink enough. I ate only an apple. By the time I drove home, I had one of the worst headaches of my life.

Next time I have to work more than one game, I will make sure I sit down between innings, will find some shade between games and will force myself to consume several gallons of water. Oh, and I'll take some Advil before the first pitch of the first game!

4. Because I umped all day Sunday, I watched zero football. Just saw a few highlights on ESPN; I couldn't watch it with the volume on because my head was pounding. 

I couldn't help but notice that Jay Cutler was back to his old give-the-ball-away tricks, playing a huge role in the Bears falling to the Lions.

That team will go only as far as its QB takes it, and I wouldn't want to bet my life savings -- or even one-billionth of my billion-dollar portfolio -- on that guy.

3. October is my favorite month.

The World Series (and the playoffs that precede the Series). The NFL in full swing. College football conference games (rather than the creampuff schedules that permeate September). The start of the NHL and NBA seasons. The start of college basketball practice. Wonderful weather here in Charlotte. 

October also is my birthday month. And given that my immaturity prevents me from getting old, what's not to love about that?!?!?!

2. In Monday's least-surprising sports story, the Cubbies fired manager Dale Sveum.

No matter who is running the show, including current Pooh-bah Theo Epstein, firing managers is what the Cubbies do best. 

They're not so hot at pitching or hitting or fielding or running the bases. Firing managers? They are championship-caliber in that domain!

The hot speculation is that Joe Girardi will be the next sucker. Girardi is a Peoria native, a Northwestern grad and a former Cubs catcher, and his contract with the Yankees expires in one month.

Even if he decided to leave New York, why he would want to manage in Cubbieland? Wouldn't several other organizations that have a chance to win before 2020 be more interesting to him? If he doesn't like the scrutiny in New York, why would he like it in Chicago, where Lou Piniella and Dusty Baker each went from genius to dolt (in the fans' eyes) in the space of less than one season? 

Then again, there does seem to be this amazing allure to the Cubs. Everybody wants to be The Guy to fix them. Piniella and Baker are recent examples of proven winners who went to Cubbieland, made an early splash and soon learned the hard way what all the trappings of Cubdom really mean.

If I'm Girardi, I stay with the Yankees. Or I go to just about any other team where winning actually happens. Or I chillax for a couple of years being a TV yakker.

I do just about anything but sign on to be part of Championship-Free Years No. 106, 107, 108 and 109. 

1. I'd come up with a memorable, spectacular, sensational conclusion to this blog post except I'm so excited about the Republicans in the House voting for the gazillionth time to either repeal or defund Obamacare that it's hard to think!

Never mind that repealing Obamacare was the No. 1 Republican goal of the 2012 election ... which they lost ... handily. Also never mind that the GOP also questioned the constitutionality of Obamacare in front of the Supreme Court ... and lost that, too.

This time, they're willing to shut down the entire government and possibly willing to refuse to pay the bills the country already has due. All for a fight they can't win, all to please the tea-partying extremists, all to avoid being "primaried."

What a country.

^