Chicago Sun-Times

TELANDER: Brian Urlacher carried on proud tradition of Bears’ MLBs

Thu, 23 May 2013 09:29:26 -0500

When you think of the Bears, you think of middle linebackers. And when you think of middle linebackers, you think of Brian Urlacher. Or, you should.

NU women’s lacrosse and its title collection border on unbelievable

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:23:33 -0500

It’s hard for the average sports brain to process a team this good. I’m speaking of the Northwestern University women’s lacrosse team, a female paving machine that has crushed foes into dust for nearly a decade. The Globetrotters don’t clown the Generals the way the Wildcats do their foes. After making it to the NCAA tournament quarterfinals in 2004, the Wildcats have won seven national championships in the last eight years and finished second in 2010. With their 15-7 victory against Penn State last Saturday in Evanston, the lacrosse women have now made it at least as far as the …

TELANDER: Studying CTE as a bomb component

Sun, 19 May 2013 02:43:10 -0500

What if terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev was brain-damaged? What if the elder of the two alleged Boston Marathon bombers, who was killed three days after the April 15 attack, incurred brain trauma during his amateur boxing career and suffered the disabling effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy? Would that make any difference? Would it help in any way to better understand the alleged killer and the tragedy he and his sibling supposedly caused? And would it tell us anything we don’t already know about the dangers of repetitive head blows from sports like boxing, football, hockey, soccer, etc.? CTE is the degenerative …

TELANDER: Carlos Marmol only latest to learn anything can be made public

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:19:42 -0500

You can run, you famous athletes. You even can walk, skip or whisper. But you can’t hide. Isn’t that true, Carlos Marmol? The Cubs reliever met with his agents for what he thought would be a casual, off-the-record discussion in a community lounge Wednesday in his Chicago condo building. But an alleged ‘‘neighbor’’ took sneaky photos of the visit, apparently jotted down notes, then posted the stuff — via Twitter, of course — on a Cubs-related blog. Boom! It’s a story! What did Marmol and his posse — allegedly, as reported by an anonymous human — say? Only that the …

Bulls’ future looks more murky than perky

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:43:50 -0500

RICK TELANDER: Thank you, Heat! Thank you for putting the mess that was the 2012-13 Bulls down the drain and into the septic system. Was the season fun for you, fans?

With Rahm’s DePaul plan, we’ve entered a new arena of stupidity

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:26:54 -0500

RICK TELANDER: There are head-scratchers, and then there are ones that burrow right through your cranium. We got the latter here, folks. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is set to announce plans to build a $300 million, 12,000-seat arena for DePaul University . . . dum-dum- dum (suspense) . . . at McCormick Place.

TELANDER: Bulls doing their best, but LeBron gives Heat edge it needs

Sun, 12 May 2013 02:43:08 -0500

Something about this isn’t fair. Three of the Bulls’ starters in Game 3 on Friday against the Miami Heat — Jimmy Butler, Marco Belinelli and Nate Robinson — would be bench guys in a fair world. Where are Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng and, as ever, Derrick Rose? All injured. Oh, and once-counted-on scorer Richard Hamilton? Brittle, antique. The world isn’t fair, kids. And the Bulls can’t make it fair just by being dumb-ass pseudo-thugs on the court. (Note: Those guys in the stripes are referees. They might not be right, but they will throw you out of the game, if …

TELANDER: Blackhawks, fans have it better than other Chicago franchises

Fri, 10 May 2013 02:31:52 -0500

After the Blackhawks’ severe 5-1 trashing of the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night, I’m gonna say Hawks fans are . . . spoiled. Whoa, whoa there, Jimmy ‘‘Golden Jet’’ Jersey! Easy now. I don’t mean spoiled as in bratty and snooty and wears Gucci. That is, Hawks guy fans don’t wear Gucci. The gals, perhaps. Under their red team sweaters. A lot of the women at Hawks games are drop-dead gorgeous, you know. They are. Why are they with you guys, anyway? But I digress. I mean, Hawks fans are lucky they’re not living in the Cubs’ world. Or the White Sox’ …

TELANDER: Game 7 victory a work of heart

Sun, 05 May 2013 02:43:35 -0500

NEW YORK — How did they do this? How did the mutilated, nauseated, eviscerated Bulls gallop past the higher-seeded Brooklyn Nets, kicking their soft borough butts 99-93 in a seventh game on the Nets’ home court? Amazing, but they did it. This was a game the home team is meant to win. It’s why you play the regular season, as Nets coach P.J. Carlesimo put it earlier. There were ‘‘Black Out’’ T-shirts, rally towels, a throbbing sub-sub-woofer bass playing Jay-Z poetry and dance music low lines that rattled the floor like an earthquake. There was dreadlocked-to-the-waist ring announcer David Diamante …

TELANDER: Jason Collins’ announcement big step for him, giant one for sports

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:16:27 -0500

So has the gay dust settled? After journeyman NBA center Jason Collins came out last week as the first active homosexual men’s player in a major U.S. team sport, it seemed everybody on the planet weighed in. Most congratulated him for his courage. First lady Michelle Obama was supportive. Former President Bill Clinton had sweet words. So did Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, on and on. You might have thought Collins had become the first man to set foot on Mars rather than taking a difficult, intimidating and very personal step out of the closet. Among the interesting elements to the …

TELANDER: Ricketts has moving speech

Thu, 16 May 2013 12:20:11 -0500

On Wednesday morning, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts took off one of his chain-metal gauntlets and dropped it with a clank to the floor. “The fact is that if we don’t have the ability to generate revenue in our own outfield, we’ll have to take a look at moving,’’ Ricketts told the audience at the City Club of Chicago. “No question.” When you say, “No question,’’ that means, well, no question. Like, you’ll do it. That is, you’ll leave antique Wrigley Field to the preservationists, let the rooftop owners view weeds inside a crumbling brick mess and head for the suburbs. …

TELANDER: Game 6 is ailing Bulls’ last, best chance to advance

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:40:21 -0500

NEW YORK — Here at the ‘‘Rusty Tug’’ — also known as the Barclays Center — we had another Blackout Night for Brooklyn Nets fans. For Bulls fans, it was pretty much Blot-Out Night. They might as well forget the 110-91 loss Monday in Game 5 of the first-round Eastern Conference playoff matchup. The Bulls still lead the series 3-2, so all is not gloom. Plus, you have to tip your hat to the fans who started ‘‘ooh’’-ing while Nate Robinson was in the midst of an ankle-breaking drive in the second quarter. The play ended in a layup and …

TELANDER: Payton Prep parents’ apparent overreaction only costs sons a chance to play

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:15:18 -0500

Oh, boy, this is one of those rolling hand grenades. Some parents of baseball players from Payton College Prep on the Near North Side didn’t want their sons traveling to Brooks College Prep on 111th Street between Michigan and King Drive for a 7 p.m. game Saturday. Their alleged reasons: fear about safety. Payton baseball coach William Wittleder told the Sun-Times he was flabbergasted after having to forfeit the game because not enough players would show up. ‘‘This is probably one of the most embarrassing moments I’ve had,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s very heartbreaking.’’ Heartbreaking, for him, at least, because parental …

TELANDER: Derrick Rose should return for the playoffs, where anything can happen

Thu, 02 May 2013 09:14:24 -0500

For everybody who loudly proclaims that knee-rehabbing Derrick Rose should not even consider coming back this postseason, I offer some nuggets of differing thought: Sunday marks exactly one year since he tore his left anterior cruciate ligament, and improvement in strength, agility and confidence should mean Rose is closer to fit every day. The season is so long that most players are hurting by May, forget June. The Los Angeles Lakers’ battered Steve Nash gets epidurals just to play. Oh, and have you seen his Hall of Fame teammate, Kobe Bryant? Not since Bryant’s Achilles tendon snapped two weeks ago …

Bears ‘100 percent yes’ for lineman Kyle Long

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:26:51 -0500

RICK TELANDER: The Bears did it. They took somebody you’ve never heard of, never watched, have no opinion about. That is, unless you view a lot of Pac-12 teams and you focus on in-close offensive line play. Which you don’t.

Why is Derrick Rose held to a different standard than Jay Cutler?

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:56:06 -0500

RICK TELANDER: He comes out before the game, sits on the Bulls’ bench and starts to lace up his new Adidas D Rose 3.5s. Derrick Rose is ever friendly, ever courteous, so you ask him, ‘‘When are you going to play?’’ He doesn’t say anything, just smiles. Not a happy smile. Not a sarcastic smile.

TELANDER: Derrick Rose’s absence doesn’t make sense, leaving many questions lingering

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:48:22 -0500

NEW YORK — There he was on the bench Saturday night at the Barclays Center with his teammates as they were demolished by the Nets 106-89. The only difference was that he was dressed in a gray, tailored business suit, and they were dressed in basketball sweats and uniforms. It can’t be fun for Derrick Rose to sit impotently and watch such blowouts. It can’t be easy to fidget and stand up at every timeout and take a place behind sweating, panting, lesser guards Kirk Hinrich and Nate Robinson. It can’t be pleasant to hear the yells from the crowd …

TELANDER: Nets’ win a feel-great story for Brooklyn

Wed, 22 May 2013 07:18:39 -0500

NEW YORK — The best, simple, on-key rendition of the national anthem I’ve heard in years came Saturday night from Nets guard/forward Jerry Stackhouse. The 38-year-old vet wore his sweatsuit and held the mic close, and with eyes closed, sang the tricky song at halfcourt of the Barclays Center before the Bulls-Nets playoff game. I made a mental note to ask him how much he got paid. ◆ It was “Blackout in Brooklyn’’ night, and a number of fans wore the handout T-shirts, which were so dark that, naturally, they could barely be seen. And, of course, they couldn’t be …