Chicago Sun-Times

Why would Joe Girardi want the Cubs’ job?

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 09:56:00 -0500

RICK MORRISSEY: Next victim, please. The Cubs axed manager Dale Sveum on Monday, presumably because they have somebody bigger and better in mind.

Bears are living between awesome and awful

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 19:28:51 -0500

RICK MORRISSEY: Heading into Sunday’s game, the question had been whether the Bears were for real and whether there was something fundamentally wrong with those of us who couldn’t quite get on board with a 3-0 team.

MORRISSEY: Make a believer out of me, Bears

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 02:40:09 -0500

For us Bears agnostics, for those of us who don’t know how good this 3-0 team is just yet, the giddiness around town has been a bit isolating. When we delicately raise a question about the progress of the offense, we find ourselves in timeout, charged with communist tendencies. The Bears have beaten two 0-3 teams (the Vikings and Steelers) and one 2-1 team (the Bengals). Now they face the 2-1 Lions in Detroit. This figures to be their toughest test yet, what with it being a division game on the road against a team with talent on both sides …

MORRISSEY: As SI’s Oklahoma State series shows, sportswriters can’t be fans

Sun, 22 Sep 2013 02:40:42 -0500

MORRISSEY: The Oklahoma State scandal has turned into a journalism lesson, but perhaps not in the way many of you think it has.

MORRISSEY: Cubs’ manager is getting a raw Dale

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 18:06:40 -0500

RICK MORRISSEY: The idea that manager Dale Sveum deserves to be sent packing because of this Cubs mess is laughable.

MORRISSEY: Tiger Woods’ bizarre penalty phase

Sun, 15 Sep 2013 02:43:36 -0500

Tiger Woods and the rules of golf are still estranged. When officials penalized him two strokes Friday during the second round of the BMW Championship, it was his third violation of the year. That’s a crazy number for a pro golfer. If Woods were a car, there’d be a Denver boot affixed to his wheel right now. Then he’d get struck by lightning twice. Three rules violations would seem to suggest he doesn’t know the rules well or is having trouble with his eyesight. Or, to put a happy face on it, things certainly do happen to Tiger! ‘‘It’s just …

Bears’ Martellus Bennett talks, plays a big game

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 11:31:32 -0500

RICK MORRISSEY: It’s early yet, but it seems best to step aside when Bears tight end Martellus Bennett gets on a roll, which is most of the time.

Marc Trestman starts slow, but Bears are 1-0

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 12:33:37 -0500

RICK MORRISSEY: It was an odd start for a man who radiates calm — a hazy, crazy, Bizarro World beginning to an NFL coaching career.

MORRISSEY: Bears are one big unknown, but mystery beats misery

Sun, 08 Sep 2013 02:46:55 -0500

If you’re not good at dealing with the unknown, I would strongly suggest you isolate yourself from all things Bears this season. Put a V-chip in your TV and swear off any contact with the Internet. Earplugs wouldn’t be a waste of money. The other option is sedation — but enough about last year’s 28th-ranked offense. Nobody knows what’s going to happen with this team this season. Nobody. If someone approaches you and confidently lays out a vision for it, tell him he’s seeing things. A new head coach, a new offense, two rookies on the offensive line, Jay Cutler …

It’s Cutler’s decision-making that needs an adjustment, not his attitude

Fri, 06 Sep 2013 02:27:21 -0500

MORRISSEY: It might be better if you sit down for this.On Thursday, Jay Cutler prefaced his answer to a reporter’s question with, “Good point.’’ This was groundbreaking stuff in that he generally sees the media as pointless. I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn here, though it’s possible Jay has a profound love of reporters he has been hiding lo these many years.

2013 Cubs were a losing supposition

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 18:10:10 -0500

RICK MORRISSEY: Is it acceptable for a team to purposely lose games to get a higher draft pick?

MORRISSEY: Huskies seemed dead in water, but they rally to top Hawkeyes

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 02:41:31 -0500

IOWA CITY — Northern Illinois’ slogan for 2013 is “Finish the Fight,’’ but who was kidding whom Saturday? The Huskies were finished. They were done, overcooked, in danger of being burnt to a crisp. They trailed Iowa by seven with 6:42 left, and although that might sound like a perfectly reasonable deficit for a team to overcome, the truth was that Northern’s offense had moved like oil sludge in the second half. There was no indication the final minutes would be any different. There might have been determination (fight), but there certainly wasn’t a passing attack (flight). The Huskies pulled …

Despite huge payout, NFL concussion issue hardly settled

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 17:24:19 -0500

MORRISSEY: Now that the small matter of $765 million has been tentatively settled, what about the big stuff? What about the future of football? What about the safety of NFL players going forward?

Brian Urlacher goes from media snob to media slob

Tue, 27 Aug 2013 10:32:39 -0500

RICK MORRISSEY: I heard someone mention Brian Urlacher was going to be a TV analyst. I thought I must have heard wrong. No way the former Bears linebacker would join the Dark Side.

Regarding NFL, ESPN has become worldwide follower

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 06:28:34 -0500

MORRISSEY: What, you thought ESPN was in business for the humanitarian buzz? The surprise isn’t that the network backed out of its collaboration with PBS’ “Frontline’’ on a documentary film project about concussions in the NFL. It’s that it ventured out of the bed it shares with the league in the first place.

MORRISSEY: Bears’ dominant first half fueled by impressive offensive diversity

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 06:30:54 -0500

OAKLAND, Calif. — I’d like to point out that my finger didn’t hit the panic button last week about the subject of the Bears’ offense. It might have been hovering while considering an emergency landing, but did it touch down? No, it didn’t. I was worried, however, and it’s why I had asked Jay Cutler whether he consciously would try to pass the ball to someone other than Brandon Marshall in the preseason game Friday against the Raiders. That’s because he had thrown five passes to Marshall the previous game — four caught by Marshall and one caught by the …

Mike Ditka was back where he belongs

Sun, 22 Sep 2013 06:41:34 -0500

RICK MORRISSEY: I never have pretended to understand the bewildering ways of the McCaskeys, and I’m fairly sure a Daisy Cutter bomb wouldn’t be able to penetrate Mike Ditka’s pride.

MORRISSEY: Warren Brown was sports columnist for different age

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 09:42:43 -0500

I’m visiting a lost world. I’m sitting in Pete Brown’s kitchen in the western suburbs, and spread out between us are mementos of his late grandfather, Chicago sports columnist Warren Brown. There are letters to Brown from Gene Tunney and Ford Frick. Photos of Brown with Damon Runyon and Ed Sullivan. A letter from former Notre Dame star Jack Elder, who, along with Brown, had dined with Knute Rockne the day before the Irish coach died in a plane crash. This is the columnist who gave Red Grange the nickname ‘‘the Galloping Ghost.’’ Some credit him with being the first …