Finally time for the Finals!

^
The NHL is the most egalitarian league. If you make it to the playoffs, you have a chance. Not a chance only in a cliche kind of way - I mean, every team that makes the playoffs in every sport thinks it has a chance even though the opposite is true - but a legitimate shot at winning the Stanley Cup.

Look at what the L.A. Kings, who finished sixth in the Western Conference during the season, have done to reach the Stanley Cup Final. They fell behind the Sharks 3 games to none but stormed back to win the series, taking Games 5 and 7 on the road. They then met the Ducks, the No. 1 seed, and fell behind 3 games to 2 before winning the last two games. Then came the defending Cup champion Blackhawks. This time, the Kings got the 3-1 series lead and let Chicago back in it before rallying from a late Game 7 deficit to win in OT.

On L.A.'s winning goal, Al Martinez flipped a soft 50-foot shot from the point. The puck appeared to nick somebody's stick in the shot, changing directions slightly. Its trajectory continued upward until it hit the shoulder of Chicago defenseman Nick Leddy. That changed the direction of the puck yet again, and it fluttered past goalie Corey Crawford and into the net. Wow!

When was the last time an NBA team made it to the Finals on a basket that deflected off an opponent's shoulder?

Whereas David Tyree's catch in the 2008 Super Bowl is considered one of the most miraculous (and fortuitous) plays in sports history, goals like Martinez's happen ALL THE TIME in the NHL. Luck is a bigger factor in hockey than in any other sport, as the puck takes wild bounces constantly. Then there's the goaltender factor - a hot goalie can (and has) carried seemingly inferior teams to great heights. There is no real equivalent in other sports.

So with the Kings getting great goaltending from Jonathan Quick - a native of my hometown of Milford, Conn. - and getting even greater bounces at the most crucial moments, they were able to win three Game 7s, all on the road. Amazing.

By comparison, the Rangers had an easy road to the Final, although the Eastern Conference's No. 5 seed did have to overcome a 3-games-to-1 deficit to defeat the heavily favored Penguins in the second round.

So the Final, which starts Wednesday, will pit the clubs that had the league's 9th- and 12th-best records.

Is it a total cop-out to predict that the luckiest team will win?

Yes? Tough, because that's the best I can do!

+++

Meanwhile, it was far easier to predict what happened in the NBA, where the team with the best regular-season record (Spurs) will meet the two-time defending champs (Heat). What else is new?

I can't remember the last time the NBA produced a true surprise at this stage - and that's fine, too. We have the NHL for that. The NBA tends to reward teams for proven, sustained excellence.

I enjoy watching the Heat thanks to the amazing LeBron James. Plus, his second fiddle is Dwyane Wade, arguably the greatest basketball player in Marquette history.

Even with those stars, however, Heat games sometimes are boring because they can be slow-paced defensive battles. LeBron and Wade also tend to go 1-on-1 quite often, which leads to a lot of standing around by their teammates and a lot of 3-pointers jacked at the 24-second-clock buzzer.

The Spurs, on the other hand, are almost always a pleasure to watch. They share the ball beautifully and play sound fundamental basketball. They also are much taller than the Heat, helping to create even more of a contrast of styles.

The teams met in a memorable NBA Finals last year. The Spurs seemingly had the title won in Game 6 but a questionable coaching decision by the usually outstanding Gregg Popovich helped cost his team the game and, eventually the title. (Popovich inexplicably benched Tim Duncan down the stretch, leading to Chris Bosh grabbing key offensive rebounds, including one that set up Ray Allen's tying 3-pointer.)

Now Popovich and the Spurs get a chance at revenge ... and it says here that they'll get it.

The Spurs have homecourt advantage, which is always huge but is even bigger now that the league has returned to a 2-2-1-1-1 format for the Finals. The change (from 2-3-2) means the Spurs will be home not just for Game 7 if necessary but also for the always pivotal fifth game.

Beyond that, I just like the way the Spurs match up with the Heat. Popovich can go big and the Heat really can't answer that. Popovich can, however, match the Heat if both teams want to go small. Kawhi Leonard is an excellent defender who will make LeBron work for everything, and if Manu Ginobili's shot is on, he will cause big problems for the Heat.

And I just talked about two Spurs difference-makers without even mentioning future Hall of Famers Duncan and Tony Parker.

The Heat will need Bosh to justify his $100 million salary and also will need major contributions from several supporting players, most notably Allen, Mario Chalmers and a couple of bigs.

I'm saying Spurs in 6, and they won't even need a basket that deflects off of Udonis Haslem's earlobe to do it.
^

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.
^

As Blackhawks bring Chicago another title, Boston is a double loser

^
I'd have really been impressed with the Blackhawks if they had won the Stanley Cup while skating on a two-inch wire stretched between the Hancock and Willis towers.

But you know ... scoring twice late in whatever the Boston arena is called these days will have to do.

With titles in 2010 and now 2013, the Blackhawks are undisputed kings of the Chicago sports scene.

That's right ... ranked even ahead of DePaul basketball!

Seriously, it was a heck of a lot of fun watching Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews and Corey Crawford and Patrick Sharp and Duncan Keith and all of the fine supporting players this postseason -- a postseason that almost didn't happen because the season almost didn't happen because a collective bargaining agreement almost didn't happen.

Good thing the NHL solved that mess, because, if you haven't noticed, Chicago doesn't produce many championship teams these millennia.

Selfishly, I was hoping the Bruins would hang on to win just because I wanted to see a Game 7. Not only for the riveting hockey but for the incredible announcing of NBC's Mike Emrick.

Still, for all the Blackhawk backers I know -- including Ben and Katie, the fair-weather Hawkey fans I sired -- I'm glad the team in the Indian head "sweaters" won the Cup.

And to think: The Hawks have won two more titles in the first four years of this decade than the Cubs have won in the last 10 decades combined!

++++

Rough week for Boston sports fans, who also lost their basketball coach to the Clippers.

Yes, the coach of the Celtics left for a better situation with the freakin' Clippers! If this isn't a sign the world is coming to an end, I don't know what is.

Doc Rivers, the guy I knew as "Glenn" when we were taking classes together at Marquette, decided he wanted to leave the sinking Celtic ship to take a stab at leading the young Clippers to prominence.

The Celtics landed a first-round draft pick in the deal, but I can't help but think they got the short end of it. Rivers is that good.

A couple of interesting tidbits here:

-- For the second time, Vinny Del Negro coached just well enough to be sent packing for being not quite good enough. The first time, he was dumped by the Bulls, who hired Rivers' top assistant in Boston, Tom Thibodeau. I guess it takes a Celtic to clean up after Vinny.

-- Though it hasn't happened often, this wasn't the first time a team has traded for an NBA coach. Thirty years ago, the Bulls did it, acquiring Kevin Loughery from Atlanta for a 1983 second-round pick that the Hawks used to draft ... wait for it ... Glenn "Doc" Rivers! Pretty cool, huh?
^

Today's High 5: Asking politically correct golf fans and Game of Thrones nerds to chill out

5. Those who believe the PGA should have suspended, fined or punished Sergio Garcia in some other way for his racist "fried chicken" remark aimed at Tiger Woods, get a clue.

Garcia already has been punished in the court of public opinion. With his muted reaction, Tiger came off as classy while Sergio merely sounded assy.

And then there's this: Garcia punishes himself every time he plays a major by choking like the dog he is. The U.S. Open figures to be yet another failure for the whining Spaniard -- an "athlete" who is the diametric opposite of countryman Rafa Nadal.

Pro sports leagues shouldn't legislate political correctness. Society does a great job deciding these things.

4. I'm pretty sure the Spurs just made a half-dozen more 3-pointers. Which is incredible because, as I write this, Game 3 has been over for about an hour.

Look, the Spurs made every shot they launched toward the basket and the Heat pretty much stunk. Kind of the exact opposite what happened in Game 2.

LeBron & Co. are in no more trouble than the Spurs were after they were routed two nights earlier.

Now, if the same thing happens in Game 4 ...

3. The Sons of Pitches, the oldie-but-goodie-league softball team for which I play, closed out the regular season Tuesday with our fourth straight victory.

We are hitting the ball, making most of the plays in the field and taking care of business on the mound. We were especially sharp Tuesday, overcoming our few bad plays by playing sound fundamental softball and delivering timely hits. Afterward, nine of us went out for a beverage -- which is about three times as much as the typical turnout last season. That's what I call camaraderie!

The playoffs start next week and we have as good a chance at the title as anybody does. We will be missing our shortstop and best player, Tom, for the first couple of postseason games, but I still feel really good about this team.

We have fun, we like each other and we're playing well. That's what this is supposed to be about.

2. The Cubs and White Sox owe the Blackhawks big-time.

Chicago is ga-ga over its hockey team's second Stanley Cup Finals appearance this decade. The Blackhawks play the Bruins in a series that will last almost until the Bears start training camp. Baseball hasn't mattered this little in the Windy City since Mayor Daley was handing the Sox taxpayer money for Comiskey Park while telling the Cubs they couldn't spend their own to upgrade Wrigley.

On Monday, both the Cubs and Sox played home games in heavy fog.

A perfect metaphor, my friends.

1. Yet another fantastic season of Game of Thrones has concluded, and, speaking on behalf of all of us dummies who are watching the HBO series without having read all gazillion G.O.T. books ...

Hey, book-reading nerds: Stop telling us what is going to happen next!!

From what I understand, the show is quite faithful to the novels, which means every G.O.T. reader already knows all the stunning developments before each episode airs. I guess these folks just want to see how HBO pulls off the best scenes, but as a sports guy who will not watch a sporting event I have taped if I accidentally find out what happened, I like to be surprised.

Game of Thrones has had some of the most shocking scenes in recent TV history. Again, speaking for us television-watching dopes, I want to keep being shocked going forward.

Is that too much to ask for?
^

Unlike Cubbies, Blackhawks found a way to win -- not another way lose

^
If that had been the Cubs playing the Red Wings, they would have lost in overtime ... and "cursed" again would have been the word of the day, week, month, year, decade and century.

If that had been the White Sox playing the Red Wings, they would have lost in overtime ... and Hawk would have been whining about the dadgum dodobird who cost them the series.

If that had been the Bulls playing the Red Wings, they would have lost in overtime ... and conspiracy theorists would have opined that "of course, the NBA wanted the Red Wings to win."

If that had been the Bears playing the Red Wings, they would have lost in overtime ... and Jay Cutler would have shoved an offensive lineman after J.C.'s game-losing interception.

Thankfully, the Blackhawks were the Chicago team playing the Red Wings.

They weren't happy that a bad offsetting-penalty call nullified Niklas Hjalmarsson's apparent game-winning goal with less than 2 minutes left in regulation. But they quickly got over the disappointment, regrouped during the break before overtime and won it on Brent Seabrook's goal early in OT.

Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, who is trying to lead his squad to a second Stanley Cup championship in four years, rallied the team after regulation, reminding his mates that the refs hadn't cost the Hawks the series. The Blackhawks, he said, still controlled their own destiny.

"Keep working," Toews said. "We were not going to go away that way."

Yes, it sucks to be victimized by a bad call. But every game in every sport includes hundreds of good plays and bad plays by both teams, good moves and bad moves by both coaches and good calls and bad calls by the officials. It's especially pathetic when a team caves after a bad call or an unfortunate bounce that doesn't even end the season -- yes, I'm talking to you, 1985 Cardinals, 1986 Red Sox and 2003 Cubs.

Many people forget that even after Don Denkinger's screw-up, Bill Buckner's blunder and Steve Bartman's foul play, the Cards, Sox and Cubs still had a chance to prevail. Each memorable moment came in a Game 6 and only tied the series. Instead, St. Louis, Boston and Chicago shrunk from the challenge and folded in Game 7. To this day, fans of those teams blame Denkinger, Buckner and Bartman.

If only those teams -- if only ALL teams -- took fate into their own hands, held themselves accountable and got the job done.

You know, just as Toews and the Blackhawks did.
^

So long, Chicago

^
Well, folks, this is my last post as a Chicagoan. By the time I get around to my next edition of TBT (whenever that may be), I will be a Southerner.

Y'all.

As Roberta and I frantically finish our packing - and I get wrapped up in some heavy-duty worrying about my ability to handle the 24-foot truck I'll be driving to Charlotte - so many thoughts about my 16 years in Chicago are running through my mind ...

For example, I know I'll miss the views from my 17th-floor apartment.

From my living room to the south, I've got my favorite skyline in America. It's a beautiful day, and there's the Hancock. And there's the Sears (sorry, but the only Willis I ever cared about was Reed).

From my master bedroom to the east, I've got Lake Michigan. All that deep blue water, dotted with sailboats. I love this view when I need some tranquility.

From my dining room to the west, there's Wrigley Field, its light towers seeming so much a part of its very essence that it's hard to imagine they weren't even there less than a quarter-century ago.

Then there are the many people who have made my experience here so unique.

Characters such as Ozzie Guillen, Dennis Rodman, Jay Mariotti, Marty DeMerritt, Curtis Enis, Tony La Russa, Sammy Sosa, Cade McNown, Dusty Baker, Terry Bevington, Lovie Smith, Michael Barrett, Lou Piniella, Jerry Krause, Jeremy Roenick, Skip Bayless, Carlos Zambrano, Michael Jordan, Ron Artest, Frank Thomas, Chris Chelios, Bruce Weber, Eddy Curry, Joe Cain, Dave Wannstedt, David Terrell and so many more - I know I'm leaving dozens out.

That list of characters includes people I liked very much (Ozzie, Dusty, Barrett, Lou, Roenick, Weber), people who weren't exactly role models (Worm, Mariotti, Enis, Sammy, McNown, Cra-Z, M.J., Artest, Curry) and people representing every race, creed and color.

Chicago is a great sports town - certainly the best in which I've lived and/or worked - and I probably will miss that even more than I think I will.

As for my media colleagues ...

What can I say about the beat writers? I doubt newspaper and Web-site readers realize how hard these talented folks work. The Internet simply piles on additional duties to the work they already were doing. I have so much respect for people such as Paul Sullivan and Gordon Wittenmyer and Bruce Miles and Tim Sassone and K.C. Johnson and Brad Biggs and Joe Cowley and Mark Gonzalez and Scott Gregor and Chris Kuc and Brian Hamilton and Herb Gould and John Supinie and Paul Klee and Vaughn McClure and, well, I hope I didn't forget anybody I worked alongside these years. As I think about them, I really am in awe of the volume and quality of their work.

A special shoutout to the media mavens to whom I've grown especially close: Phil Arvia, Rick Gano, Gene Chamberlain, Rick Morrissey, Teddy Greenstein, Nick Hut, Seth Gruen, Mike Ramsey, Rick Telander, Mike Imrem, Mike Downey, Casey Laughman, Andy Seligman.

And of course, the late, great Gene Seymour; I'm always thinking of you, big guy.

Away from sports, I will miss all the close friends from so many different walks of life: Linda and Gary Mark; Darcia and Mike Brundidge; Laura and Tony Pellikan; Laura and Tony Garza; Kristi and Jim Johnson; Barb and Jeff Grunewald; and so on and so on.

Not to mention our son, Ben, who will continue to represent the Nadels here. He'll give Roberta and I a major reason to visit as often as schedules allow.

I also will miss being able to walk to work, but I won't miss the traffic when I have to drive. Will miss Millennium Park, won't miss the politics of Chicago (and Cook County and Illinois). Will miss all the great restaurants, won't miss the overpriced burger joints popping up on practically every corner. Will miss the farmer's market, won't miss trying to park the car in my crowded neighborhood. Will miss Bobtail ice cream, won't miss the sirens we hear, oh, every 10 minutes or so. Will miss taking long walks at the lakefront, won't miss the bumper-banging boneheads who "park by feel." Will miss taking advantage of the best downtown in all of the U.S.A., won't miss having to drive so darn far every time I want to play 18.

While my kids were born in Minneapolis, they were raised in Chicago. They spent their formative years in our little 3-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath house on Bell Ave. The backyard was so small that we gave up trying to have a real yard and just paved most of it to make a basketball court. There, Katie and Ben learned to become pretty darn good ballers, and the times I spent watching them play basketball in rec leagues, grade school and high school were among my favorite times as a parent. As I said, Ben is staying but Katie already has moved to Seattle. Still, if you ask her where she's from, she'll say Chicago. Both got great educations at public grade and high schools and both learned a lot about people in the melting pot that is the city.

While I was born in Connecticut, went to college in Milwaukee and became a full-time sportswriter in Minneapolis, it was in Chicago that I lived my journalism dream of being a major-metro sports columnist. I honestly believe that from 1998, when I joined the Copley newspaper family, until mid-2007, when the yahoos at GateHouse bought (and promptly started ruining) the Copley properties, I had the single best newspaper job in Chicago. I covered the Jordan Bulls, the champion Sox, the Bartman Cubs, the '06 Bears, the Deron-Dee Illini run to the Final Four, Sosa and McGwire, Tiger vs. Sergio and so many other amazing events, I have nothing but the very fondest memories.

Roberta ran in the Chicago Marathon, went back to school at a Chicago city college and got a job taking care of sick kids at Children's Memorial Hospital. We renewed our vows in Chicago on our 20th anniversary in front of family and friends.

Yes, the politics and the taxes and the parking tickets and the traffic started getting to me, especially the last couple of years. But for most of these last 16 years, I would tell anyone willing to listen how much I loved Chicago. And still do.

I could go on, but I've got to stop somewhere.

Thanks, Chicago. It's been a blast.
^

Approaching life sans Chicago sports

^
I already can tell that once I make the move down south, one of the strangest things for me will be not caring a lick about the Chicago teams.

Those who know me know that I never have "cared" in the same sense fans do. Whether the Cubs, Bears, White Sox, Bulls or Blackhawks win or lose never has mattered to me and never will. It wasn't my job to cheer them on or to wish them ill. When they did well, I tended to make nice. When they sucked, I was less kind.

Three decades plus in this business, and I've never understood how journalists could get close to the teams they cover. That's always seemed wrong to me.

Having said that, I have followed those Chicago teams - as well as the Illini and, to some degree, Notre Dame and Northwestern - very closely. They have been a big part of my life.

Even after the fine folks at GateHouse liberated me from full-time employment and helped me learn 100 new ways to prepare Little Friskies - I suggest a splash of white wine and a dash of coriander - I kept following the teams because, well, because I was in Chicago and I was still covering games and it was the right thing to do.

But when I'm 800 miles away and there's nary a Paulie nor Kaner in sight, how will I react? Will I still check out the Cubs-Cards box scores online? Will I be especially interested when the Bulls are on ESPN? Will I wake up in a cold sweat still hearing Bruce Weber's unmistakable screech?

Or will those teams I followed for so many years quickly fade from my realm of thought? (Literally, out of sight, out of mind?) Sixteen years of memories becoming just that: a mere memory?

As Vinny Del Zzzzzz used to say - repeatedly - it will be a process. It will take until Thanksgiving or New Year's Day or maybe even Purim ... but soon enough, I'm pretty sure I'll be forever cleansed of A.J. and Kenny and Oz (oh my).

Does that make me feel happy or sad or something in between?

Well, I'll let you know when it happens.

What Bulls won't do for LeBron

^

Man, do the Bulls want LeBron.

I mean, they're even getting the Blackhawks to clear oodles of cap space and gut a championship roster.

Cubs and Sox play for none of the marbles

^

Lou verbally attacked Stoney ... Ozzie and Kenny feuded ... Ted and Gavin almost threw no-no-no-no's ... Pierre performed prestidigitation on the basepaths ... Silva sounded ready to sue for lack of support ... A.J. tormented Cubbieland again ... Wells said "thanks but no thanks" when offered a new pitching plan ... Buehrle turned back the clock ... The Blackhawks showed off Lord Stanley's hardware ... Lou sat Tyler 2 out of 3 games but vowed for about the 10th time to play the kid more ...

All in all, a typically loony Cubs-White Sox shebang.

And when it was all over, the Lovable Losers and the South Side Stiffs had almost identical records that accurately reflected their futility.

We should have expected no more from two disastrous teams playing for the BP Cup, right?

Chicago celebrates: There's a winner in town!

^

Huge night for Chicago sports, baby!

The Fire managed a 2-2 draw with the Colorado Rapids in thrilling MLS action!!!

What's that? There was a hockey game, too? And the Blackhawks won it, beating the Flyers in OT? Do tell.

Hey, big props to the Blackhawks. Anybody who paid any attention at all knew way back in October that they had the talent to win the franchise's first Stanley Cup in 49 years. But actually doing so took a lot of drive and grit and hard work.

And, in the case of Duncan Keith, a whole mess of teeth.

As I write this, I'm sitting in the office area of my 17th floor, North Side apartment listening to the revelry outside. TV news helicopters are flying over the nearby Wrigleyville area doing live shots of all the partying in the streets. Hopefully, stupidity and hooliganism will be at a minimum so fun can be at a maximum.

I've lived in many metro areas, I grew up near New York and I've covered championship events in just about every major city in North America ... and I consider Chicago the best sports town. It's nice to see folks here getting all revved up about one of the teams.

Three years ago, the Blackhawks were a non-story in Chicago. Tonight, they are The Story in Chicago.

Pretty cool.

1961: A long puckin' time ago!

^

The Blackhawks are one win away from doing something they haven't done since just a few months after JFK was inaugurated.

The last time Chicago's NHL franchise sipped champagne from the Stanley Cup ... the Bulls were still 5 years away from getting an NBA expansion franchise, Ron Santo was coming off his rookie year, the Bears had just drafted Mike Ditka, and American schoolchildren were taught that crouching under their desks was the best way to avoid being annihilated by Russian A-bombs.

Oh, and I was 6 months old. (I didn't have much hair back then, either.)

I'm not a Hawks fan, but I'm not a hater, either. So I'll say only this: It's time.

Win the damn thing already for all the fans who stuck with the team through thin and thinner.

Another Chicago sports day from hell

^
The Cubs were helpless against a pitcher who had been 0-7 this season, losing 3-1 to the awful Astros.

The White Sox were hapless against a pitcher who had been 0-11 since last August, getting humiliated 10-1 by the inept Indians.

The suddenly vulnerable Blackhawks fell behind big, lost Game 4 to the Flyers and now the Stanley Cup Finals stand tied at 2-apiece.

But hey, at least LeBron is leading on Bulls fans, so it's all good.

Cubs appreciate losing Blackhawks, raining Pittsburgh

^

Wednesday sure was a nice night for sports ...

Nice of the Blackhawks to lose to the Flyers, guaranteeing an extended Stanley Cup Finals and keeping the Cubs and White Sox off the front pages of the Chicago newspapers for a little while longer.

Nice of Ken Griffey Jr. to wake up long enough to announce his retirement.

Nice of it to rain in Pittsburgh, preventing all those Pirates fans - like, 2,000 of them! - from celebrating yet another win over the Cubbies.

Nice of Jim Joyce to admit perhaps the biggest umpiring gaffe since Don Denkinger's 1985 all-timer: "I just cost the kid a perfect game."

Nice of Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga to provide the perfectly classy quote about Joyce's screw-up: "He probably feels more bad than me. Nobody's perfect. Everybody's human. I understand."

Of Blackhawks, Pujols, Marquette memories and Cubbie angst

^

Took a break for a bit. It was tough to sacrifice the huge paycheck I usually get for my work here at TBT, but that's the kind of guy I am.

Anyway, a few random thoughts ...

+++ As impressive as the Blackhawks have been - which is plenty damn impressive - it's still too early to assume they'll beat the Flyers and win their first Stanley Cup in the Color TV Era. Many, many, many times throughout history, a team has gone up 2-0 only to lose a series. In fact, the Hull-Mikita-Tony O-Martin-Pappin-Stapleton Blackhawks of 1971 did just that. So I'd advise Blackhawks fans - both longtime loyalists and Pucky-come-latelies - to enjoy every moment, cheer on the lads and keep their playoff beards growing.

+++ Nice to see Mark McGwire fix Albert Pujols because, you know, Pujols was nothing before Big Mac saved his career.

+++ Ubaldo Jimenez = Bob Gibson. Except Jimenez is dominating from a regular-height mound in a hitter-friendly era.

+++ The Nationals have handled the Stephen Strasburg situation perfectly every step of the way. Folks who disagree understand neither modern Major League Baseball nor economics.

+++ Those who know me well know that I root for no pro teams. Still, I can't acknowledge the pending Celtics-Lakers championship series without wishing best of luck to my former Marquette colleague, Glenn "Doc" Rivers - surely one of the worst soccer players ever to take Charlie Nader's team sports class.

+++ The Pirates beat the Cubs 6 times in May. They beat the other teams on their schedule 5 times. If you're waiting for a punch line, I don't need to provide it. The Cubs already have.

+++ And speaking of punch lines ... Aramis Ramirez is only one hot streak away from hiking his batting average all the way up to .175.

Blackhawks make hockey matter again

^
A mere three years ago, the Blackhawks were less relevant in Chicago than snowplows in July. During most games at the United Center, entire sections were empty. I didn't know a dozen people who would admit to being Blackhawks fans - and I knew (and continue to know) a lot of hard-core, big-time sports fans.

Now the Hawks are in the Stanley Cup Finals ... and people who used to make fun of hockey are waxing poetic about the penalty-killing unit, growing playoff beards and getting misty-eyed just thinking about a Dustin Byfuglien forecheck .

Ah, winning. Cures apathy every time.

Windy City Winners (Mostly)

^

Quite a weekend for Chicago's intrepid sports squads:

Puck Pluck (& Luck)

Try as they might to give away Game 5 (and quite likely the series), the Blackhawks weren't able to get the Predators to accept their generosity. All Preds star Martin Erat had to do was freeze the puck behind the Hawks net for a few more seconds. But he got greedy and made the mistake of the series - and his blind pass actually sent the Blackhawks on their way to the tying goal. At that point, it was a given that the Blackhawks would win in OT, and now it's a given that they'll win the series. Yes, the Hawks were fortunate. But unlike the Predators, they were willing and able to accept a gift - and they deserve credit for that.

Blessed Bears

Every, single player the Bears really wanted was available every time it was their turn to draft. It's an effen miracle!

Cubbie Clubbing

A Cubs team that just got finished losing five of six to the 'Stros and Mets went into Miller Park and outscored the Brewers 25-4. Which tells us all we need to know about Brewers pitching. And reminds us what we already knew about the Pirates.

So Close To Smallball

Ozzie can keep talking all he wants about the style he wants his Mighty Whities to play ... and we all can laugh our asses off. If they hit homers, they win ... as usual. If they don't, they lose ... period. Against the Mariners, they hit homers - dramatic, late homers. I know those aren't quite as exciting as sacrifice bunts, Oz, but you'll have to live with them.

A Cavalier Attitude

Be honest: You were surprised the Bulls won even one.

BONUS QUOTE

"Clearly, after this game, he's moved into first place as the best player to come out of Marquette." - Doc Rivers on Dwyane Wade.

Really? Rivers apparently forgot all about my killer moves in intramural action when we were at MU together in the early '80s!

End of an era?

^
It hit me as I was standing among my fellow media mopes before Tuesday night's Bulls-Celtics game: This might be the last time I ever step foot in the United Center.

Even now, many hours later, writing that sentence seems strange.

I covered a couple dozen Bulls and Blackhawks games for AP and other outlets this season. I won't be doing any playoff games, as I'm more needed at Chicago's ballparks. And by the time next season rolls around, I have no idea what I'll be doing or where I'll be doing it.

My wife and I are talking about relocating to another city if the right opportunity presents itself for one or both of us. Even if I still am in Chicago, I might be doing something else with my life by the time next fall rolls around.

I mean, I've already had so many offers to be a male model, I can't keep turning them down, right?

No matter what, I sure won't be buying tickets for events at the U.C. Not only would I have to be employed, I'd need two jobs - two good jobs! - to afford those ticket prices.

So maybe Tuesday night (when I was freelancing for the suburban Northwest Herald) marked the end of a personal era.

If so, it's been a pretty fun ride. This airplane-hangar of a place lacks the charm and intimacy of the old Stadium. It lacks the history, too. Still ...

I covered the Bulls' second threepeat, writing about Michael Jordan so often that his name would appear on the screen of my laptop as soon as I turned it on. (Just kidding - but that would have been a neat trick, huh?) I've also covered more than a few big moments for the Blackhawks since arriving in Chicago in 1994.

Then again, I mostly witnessed godawful basketball and hockey.

I'll never forget Bill Wennington promising the first post-Jordan crowd that the Bulls might not win much but that they'd never stop hustling. He then didn't move an inch as he lost the opening tip - the perfect coming attraction for the joke Bulls basketball would become.

As for the Hawks, they've come back nicely to be contenders again. It only took them a dozen years. Alpo Suhonen, we hardly knew ye! It got so bad that I rarely bothered writing about them for most of that time. My mom (like yours, probably) always said: "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

OK, I've waxed nostalgic long enough. Here's to new horizons.

Urlacher's bald head is unfair advantage in sexy-athlete competition

^

The Bald Truth

This e-mail, from the Bulls, was a pleasant diversion from the normal humdrum fare I usually get in my in-box:

VICTORIA'S SECRET NAMES DERRICK ROSE AS

“WHAT’S SEXY NOW CHICAGO” NOMINEE

Model Marisa Miller to present Rose with his nomination Thurs. at the Berto Center

WHO: Derrick Rose, Bulls Guard

Marisa Miller, Model and Victoria's Secret Angel

WHAT: After practice on Thursday, Victoria's Secret Angel Marisa Miller will make a special appearance to present Derrick Rose with his Victoria's Secret “What’s Sexy Now Chicago Athlete” nomination.

Rose will compete for the award against the Bears' Brian Urlacher and the Blackhawks' Patrick Sharp.

To cast your vote and see the full list of Chicago nominees, visit VSChicago.com, celebrating all things sexy in Chicago.

This event is taking place in conjunction with the opening of the new Victoria's Secret flagship store located at 734 N. Michigan Avenue on Thursday.

The List

Five events in which Rose, Urlacher and Sharp will compete as they vie for the "What's Sexy Now Chicago Athlete" honor:

5. Looking sexy in stylish glasses while taking the SAT. (That's a college entrance exam, Derrick, in case you never heard of it.)

4. Most sex leading to children fathered. (Wait ... I think Urlacher has this one clinched.)

3. Swimsuit competition. (No thongs. Please! No! Thongs!)

2. Sexiest pout while demanding a new contract. (Urlacher is the overwhelming favorite because he has so much practice.)

1. Ice-Dancing with the Stars. (Hey, Sharp deserves to have one event he can win.)

The Balder Truth

If it seems strange that 47-year-old Chris Chelios has signed to play in the minors for the Chicago Wolves, just remember this:

He's not even 7 in wolf years.

The Quote

"We're two plays away from being 5-0." - Robbie Gould, Tuesday on WSCR-AM.

Yep. And his Bears are two plays away from being 1-4, too, but we won't talk about those.

3-2 ... that seems just about right for Lovie's Lads.

THE BALDEST TRUTH

Thanks to a new iPhone application costing a mere $4.99, fans of Chad Ochocinco can keep tabs on the Bengals receiver's tweets and such. As a bonus, the AP story says, "They can ask his device on dating or anything else."

Oooh! Oooh! Me first!

"Mr. Ochocinco, is it best to kiss a girl before or after I whisper sweet trash-talk in her ear?"

A serious hockey comeback and a seriously good movie

^
The Bald Truth

As I prepare to start covering Blackhawks games again for the first time in years - my first assignment is Wednesday - I ventured to the United Center for Monday's wild game against the Flames. Playing about as horrendously as a team can play, the Hawks fell behind by five goals ... only to come back and win 6-5 in OT.

As has become the case during the team's renaissance, the crowd at the United Center was amazing, and the Blackhawks were all smiles afterward.

But let me tell you: This team has zero chance to live up to the Stanley Cup hype with Cristobal Huet in goal. For all of the Blackhawks' offensive firepower, pretty much every team they'd play in the playoffs would have a huge advantage in net.

Let's see how good Bowman & Son are at finding a championship goalie in a hockey haystack.

The Quote

"That first period, I think we were still in our pregame nap." - Kris Versteeg

THE BALDEST TRUTH

Earlier Monday, the missus and I saw the Coen brothers' latest flick, A Serious Man.

You'll enjoy it more if you're Jewish. So if you're not, I highly recommend converting before plunking down your 10 bucks.

Seriously (pun intended), it was a fun period piece and a funny biblical parable, and it had the kind of witty writing and zany characters typical to the Coens' work.

As a comedy, it certainly wasn't Fargo, one of my 20 favorite movies ever. As a drama, it wasn't in the same league as No Country for Old Men (nor did it attempt to be). But I'd put A Serious Man against any of the Coens' other flicks - and that's some pretty good company.

15 years, 15 characters

^

It's been 15 years since I jumped on my '82 Yamaha Seca 650 and rode in a cold, steady late-September rain from Minneapolis to Chicago, eager to begin my new life writing about Bears and Cubs and Bulls and White Sox and Blackhawks.

I haven't ridden a motorcycle for more than a decade now and I no longer am an everyday newspaper hack. But I do still live in Chicago, I do still cover some events and I do still have memories in abundance - of great games, great athletes, great individual performances, great plays, great series and, mostly, the hundreds of great characters I've covered.

In celebration of my 15 years in a city where the sports news never sleeps, here are my 15 most memorable Chicago sports characters:

15. KEVIN O'NEILL ... I didn't know the f-word could be used in so many creative ways until I attended one of his Northwestern basketball practices. He had the Wildcats going in the right direction until his players mutineed and the team had an 0-16 Big Ten season in 2000. He then left to be an NBA assistant, once telling me he preferred the pros to the colleges because the recruiting process was borderline criminal: "I hated always having to lie to some teenager's mother." Well, look who's back recruiting kids again: O'Neill is now at USC, where he replaced another ex-Chicago "coaching legend," Tim Floyd.

14. A.J. PIERZYNSKI ... As Ozzie Guillen has said of the White Sox irritant: "If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less." The catcher is an arrogant agitator. He also happens to be one of the smartest ballplayers I've ever covered - no wonder bizarre-but-big plays seem to follow him wherever he goes.

13. DUSTY BAKER ... After he was introduced as Cubs manager in 2003, Baker had separate sessions with beat writers, broadcast media and newspaper columnists. I participated in the latter. When one of my colleagues asked Baker about his reputation for being a strong motivator who was strategically weak, Dusty responded: "Hey, I'm the strategizingest dude around." Well, he wasn't, part of the reason he lasted only four years in Cubbieland. But the managing job he did in 2003 was among the best I've seen. Taking over a flat-lined franchise, Baker quickly got players to believe in themselves and each other ... and he became the only Chicago manager in 86 years to win a postseason series. Yes, it all started falling apart the following year, when he became an enabler and excuse-maker for his players. But I fondly remember the many conversations I had with Dusty, a sensitive, intelligent man who loves winning ballgames but knows that other things in life matter more.

12. CURTIS ENIS ... The only time in my career I ever was a victim of an anti-Semetic slur, it came from this putz, who in three years went from No. 1 Pick to Big Zero.

11. JEREMY ROENICK ... Not long after I came to Chicago in September 1994, the NHL locked out its players in a labor dispute. As AP's lead hockey writer at the time, I covered the mess. Roenick, then the Blackhawks' player representative (as well as their star forward), became one of my best sources for news. Sometimes, he'd call me to see what I was hearing from the owners' side. We weren't friends because that would have been walking an ethical tightrope, but we respected each other professionally. As a player, J.R. always gave an honest effort and I enjoyed watching him play. The Blackhawks went into the toilet after trading him for career underachiever Alex Zhamnov, and they're just now pulling themselves out of the bowl.

10. DAVE WANNSTEDT ... The most imitated man in Chicago during the 1990s. Even as I write this, I can hear him talking about an injured Bear: "Aaaap ... he has a knee ... he'll be foyne." Amputation was as likely to follow as a return to health. In 1996, he declared that "all the pieces are in place." Within days, the Bears were in pieces; by '98, Wanny was gone (but not forgotten).

9. SCOTT SKILES ... Probably the most honest coach I've encountered - yes, even more than Ozzie Guillen. Skiles, who helped lead the Bulls back to prominence in the post-Jordan era, was more direct than Ozzie and not as self-important. Asked what 7-footer Eddy Curry needed to do to be a better rebounder, Skiles simply said: "Jump." You can't get better economy of words than that.

8. MIKE BROWN ... It's a shame that injuries curtailed his career, because he was a great safety for the Bears. As he was one of the most intelligent athletes I've covered, I'm not surprised he was always around the football. He ended consecutive victories in 2001 - the Smoke & Mirrors Season - with overtime interception touchdowns. I'll also remember Brown's many candid pronouncements about his team's shortcomings. Just last year, he said everybody needed to stop thinking the defense was as good as its reputation. He was right about that - and most other things.

7. MICHAEL BARRETT ... He began the 2004 season having to replace catcher Damian Miller, who was very popular with the pitching staff, and ended it by going hitless in his last 20 at-bats as the Cubs choked away a playoff spot. In 2005, his pitching staff was decimated by injuries to Mark Prior, Kerry Wood and others. In 2006, Barrett sucker-punched Pierzynski, launching a brawl and getting suspended. In 2007, he was cold-cocked by Carlos Zambrano and sent packing shortly thereafter. A real unique guy. About 363 days a year, Barrett was the most reasonable fellow around; those other two days ... watch out! His temper would take over and he'd go ballistic. For some reason I never discovered, Barrett always liked me, calling me by name and engaging me in conversations that had nothing to do with sports. Truly, a character I'll never forget.

6. CADE McNOWN ... The first-round QB who didn't last long around these parts was one of the biggest jerks ever to don a Chicago sports uniform. At least some others I've covered - the Albert Belles, Ted Washingtons and Ben Wallaces - accomplished a few things. McNown was a lazy, do-nothing yahoo with a sense of entitlement. He was despised by his teammates and was too stupid to figure out why. A fitting symbol of the post-McMahon, pre-Cutler years in which the Bears stumbled pathetically through the Quarterback Wilderness.

5. ROD BECK ... His arm was shot. His body was ravaged by years of hard living. (I was in on the postgame interview when he uttered his immortal line: "My weight isn't a problem; I've never seen anyone on the disabled list with pulled fat.") Somehow, The Shooter compiled 51 saves for the slightly-better-than-mediocre 1998 Cubs, who needed an extra game to capture the NL wild-card spot. Sammy Sosa carried the Cubs statistically and Kerry Wood was a revelation, but it was Beck's heart and will - and the duct tape holding it all together - that made the playoffs possible. Years later, I caught up with Beck in Des Moines, where he was living in a trailer behind the ballpark and throwing 80 mph fastballs for the Cubs' Triple-A team while trying to make a comeback. Fans would swing by after games and he'd share a brewski and some baseball talk with them. When I heard that he died in the summer of 2007, I held my own personal moment of silence.

4. SAMMY SOSA ... Probably the most insecure egomaniac I've covered. This wasn't Michael Jordan motivating himself at perceived slights; Sosa was a guy who truly felt slighted whenever anybody refused to kiss his ring. When I first arrived in Chicago, Sammy could beat opponents by stealing bases, hitting home runs and throwing out baserunners. In 1998, when he started consuming "Flintstone Vitamins," he became a bulked-up slugger. His legacy will be tarnished forever, but the man did put together one of the great five-year stretches of run-production ever from 1998-2002. As great as his longball race with Mark McGwire was in '98, Sosa had the finest single season I've seen three years later, when his 160 RBIs were nearly 100 more than any teammate. He singlehandedly kept that bad team in the race into September. Though he tried to come across as a macho guy, at his core he was desperate for attention and acceptance. He corked his bat, he ingested God-knows-what, he helped get four managers fired and he had few friends in the clubhouse - all part of his fall from Cubbieland sports hero to tragic pariah. If there's been a harder, faster fall in Chicago sports history, I sure didn't witness it. One more thing I'll never forget about him: He gave one of the best answers to any question I've ever asked at a press conference. In spring training 2001, when I asked if he thought his desire for a new contract might alienate average fans, Sammy said: "You cannot compare an average person with a professional athlete. It's a big, big, big difference. A lot of people want to complain, but if they really had my shoe, they probably would be doing the same thing that I do, maybe worse."

3. JOHN SHOOP ... As Bears offensive coordinator under Dick Jauron, Shoop was in so far over his head, he had to stand on his tippy-toes to see the ground. His offenses were simple and ill-conceived and his attempts to explain himself were painful. After every 13-3 or 20-9 loss, he'd stand in the middle of the locker room holding a yellow legal pad. He'd stare down at his scribblings, reading word-for-word everything he thought went wrong. When a reporter would ask a question, he'd search the legal pad for the answer. If he couldn't find it - and he usually couldn't - he'd stammer through a few nonsensical comments. When the TV cameras came on, Shoop was the very definition of a deer in headlight. Absolutely hated by the fans, Shoop was the single most vilified assistant coach I've covered in three decades in this business. Though I often poked fun at him in my columns - "Shoop happens" was a favorite phrase - I actually felt sorry for the man. It wasn't fair of the Bears to put an unprepared 32-year-old in charge of an NFL offense.

2. DENNIS RODMAN ... The classic example of a guy who turned himself into a cartoon character - Hey Everybody, I'm The Worm! - partly because he was a nut, partly because he was a self-marketing genius. Do Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the Bulls win their last three NBA titles without Rodman pulling down every rebound and defending the opponent's best post player? We'll never know. What I do know is that Tex Winter and Phil Jackson used to rave about Rodman's basketball smarts. On the court, he usually was a great teammate, doing the dirty work so M.J. and Pip didn't have to. Off the court, Worm was all about drama and shock value. He'd show up late to games, say outrageous things, hang with Madonna, gamble millions in Vegas, you name it. I used to joke that he'd really shock the world if he washed the dye out of his hair, wore a tailored three-piece suit, ditched the jewelry and acted "normal." Early in the 1996-97 season, I had a long one-on-one interview with Rodman, who was trying to promote his vapid MTV reality show. When we sat down, he reached out and shook my hand, enveloping it in both of his massive mitts. He then removed the sunglasses he had worn for the TV interviews he had just conducted. He was completely at ease during our half-hour chat, making eye-contact, calling me "bro" and "dude," giggling as he talked about his own wackiness. At one point, he said: "People would like to see Michael doing something crazy, not always having to be Mr. Perfect, Mr. All-American. People would like to see me and Michael Jordan walking down a nude beach together." I laughed and asked: "Hand-in-hand?" Without missing a beat, Worm had the perfect response: "Nah, Michael would never go for that."

1. OZZIE GUILLEN ... Every reporter digs athletes, coaches and managers who will say absolutely anything about any subject at any time. I've never covered anybody else quite like Ozzie. I rarely wrote about the White Sox during my first few years in Chicago; as one of two AP sportswriters in town, I was assigned to the Cubs. So I didn't get to know Guillen when he was the South Side shortstop. From the moment he was hired as Sox skipper after the 2003 season, however, I realized things would be quite different from the way they were under low-key Jerry Manuel. Sure enough, while Guillen protects his ballplayers like a pitbull if he thinks they're being unfairly attacked, Ozzie rips them with great gusto when he thinks they deserve it. "Ozzie's throwing us under the bus again" quickly became one of the most-uttered phrases in the White Sox clubhouse. No matter what he does or says, though, Guillen always seems to win the fight. He took some heat after calling sportswriting nemesis Jay Mariotti a "faggot," but hundreds of gays promptly stuck up for Ozzie and said they weren't offended at all. When he grew tired of a player's attitude, he'd arrange to have that player shipped elsewhere; far more times than not, the White Sox ended up being better for it. Late in the 2005 season, I sensed that Ozzie was feeling unloved by the fans. I pulled him aside and asked him one question and he went on a 15-minute, emotional, arm-waving, expletive-filled diatribe; he threatened to quit - but only after the White Sox won the World Series. That probably is the most-referenced interview of my career, having been mentioned in several books, magazines and newspapers. Just a little while back, a national TV announcer brought up Ozzie's threat of four years ago.

All I know is that I sure am glad he decided to stick around. The day Guillen leaves (or, more likely, gets fired for something he'll have said), the Chicago sports landscape will be a lot more boring.