Chicago Sun-Times

TELANDER: EA Sports payout small potatoes for college athletes

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 02:40:34 -0500

According to early leaks, EA Sports and Collegiate Licensing Company, the producer of the hugely popular college football video game, will pay somewhere around $40 million to former NCAA players (and some current players) for using their likenesses in the game without their permission or any compensation. The number of players covered in the mandated legal payout is reportedly between 200,000 and 300,000. I don’t know how far back the settlement goes, but if it takes us all the way to 1971, then I’m in the money! Northwestern, baby! Then it hit me: Forty million dollars divided by 300,000 is …

TELANDER: Big game beckons Bears

Wed, 25 Sep 2013 23:40:15 -0500

It’s only the third game of the season for the Bears, but — pardon the cliché — it’s a BIG game. The Steelers, whom the Bears play Sunday night in Pittsburgh, are winless this season. But if anybody thinks they aren’t going to win a game in 2013, I have some Heinz ketchup stock to sell them. Maybe mustard seeds, too. The Steelers might not be what they were in the past, but they have Ben Roethlisberger, Troy Polamalu and once-gimpy tight end Heath Miller apparently ready to play. This is a Steelers home game, the Bears haven’t played on …

White Sox provide doze of reality at the Cell

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 09:26:00 -0500

RICK TELANDER: The press-box windows were open on this lovely late-summer day, and it would’ve been easy to take a nap. I had a few — OK, six — hot dogs in my belly, and my eyelids were drooping.

TELANDER: Literally sick of Boise State’s turf

Sun, 15 Sep 2013 02:44:00 -0500

I have never turned off a college football game because of the condition of a field. Until Friday night. I tried to watch the Air Force at Boise State game on ESPN, but the blue-vomit color of the fake turf started to affect me in an unpleasant way. I actually felt queasy. I know the field is ‘‘different’’ and ‘‘crazy,’’ and those things are to an 18-year-old awash in testosterone as deer guts and salmon are to a grizzly. But the novelty’s gone, in my opinion. What’s left is hallucination. If God wanted us to have blue grass, he would …

TELANDER: Alfonso Soriano’s new scenery has made him a beast

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 02:44:13 -0500

What is it about not being a Cub? Here’s Alfonso Soriano, for 5½ years a Cub but since July 26 the starting left fielder for the New York Yankees, stepping to the plate against the Baltimore Orioles. It’s the fourth inning, the Orioles are up 2-0 and the Yankees are hitless. Never a patient batter, Soriano lifts his left knee and jacks pitcher Miguel Gonzalez’s first pitch deep into the right-field bleachers for a game-tying two-run blast. Fire buckets, please! The guy is aflame. Yes, he’s 37, but this is his 11th home run in the month of August — all …

TELANDER: Let Ryno prove mettle as manager elsewhere first

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 10:11:59 -0500

What do we think about former Cubs star and Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg getting his first major-league managerial job with the Phillies? I know a lot of Cubs nuts think the Cubs blew it when they didn’t hire Sandberg in 2011, opting for Mike Quade instead. I’m not so sure. First of all, every manager is a doomed sheep with the Cubs. Do you think the much-courted Joe Girardi didn’t know that? Second of all, Sandberg was a lovely second baseman for the Cubs and a good manager in the Cubs’ minor leagues. But what does any of that …

TELANDER: Jay Cutler is nothing special

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 12:25:29 -0500

Say what you will, watch what you want, but this Bears season is about Jay Cutler. And for reasons I’ll explain that make me — and, I’m guessing, you — very nervous. There are the stories about the Bears’ O-line, the aging defense, the demise of ‘‘receiver’’ Devin Hester (please read my colleague Mark Potash’s insightful piece) and the new coaches, rookies and free agents. But the NFL is driven by the man at the wheel, the quarterback. Think of it: Nobody else can turn the ball over to the other team on every play. That’s just hypothetical, of course. …

TELANDER’S SUNDAY STEW: Mike Tice gets a yay for the neigh

Thu, 12 Sep 2013 06:29:53 -0500

It’s a mixed bag being an ex-Bears top coach, something that might concern Marc Trestman as his Chicago clock ticks. Dave Wannstedt left town, fizzled at the University of Pittsburgh and now is a special-teams coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Dick Jauron slid down the coaching pole after getting fired by the Bears and Bills and not being renewed as defensive coordinator for the Jaguars or Lions. He waits at the bottom for a job scrap to drift from above. At the other end, there’s Papa Bear George Halas, who had a long life and is in the Hall …

Cubs dealing with many of same issues from historic first night game

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 14:55:15 -0500

TELANDER: I remember it like it was a quarter century ago. Or yesterday. Or 1800. That first night game at Wrigley Field, on this date 25 years past, was such a big event you might have thought somebody had invented electricity and Old Style simultaneously .

TELANDER: Pro Football Hall dinner not something anyone present will forget

Thu, 05 Sep 2013 06:37:23 -0500

CANTON, Ohio — On and on they came. This old scribe isn’t easily impressed, but here was one of the most stunning, dramatic things I’ve seen in my life: one NFL Hall of Famer after another parading across the floor of the Canton Memorial Civic Center on Friday. If you love football — if you even care about football — this would set your soul spinning. It sent me into reverie. Fred Biletnikoff, Ron Mix, Roger Staubach, John Elway, Rickey Jackson, Bob St. Clair, Forrest Gregg, Steve Largent, ‘‘Mean’’ Joe Greene, Paul Krause, Lem Barney, Mel Renfro. Each was clad …

TELANDER: Bears, Cubs improving, but rival Packers, Cardinals aren’t going away

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 07:56:40 -0500

Yes, fans, we have the Bears and Cubs being retooled, reschooled and rebuilt. The White Sox are going through a similar process, but they are further behind and more confused and less is expected of them. For our purposes — because the Sox don’t have an archrival FOE, in capital letters — we’re leaving them out of this entirely. You see, as the Bears and Cubs improve (or seemingly improve), they each have a hurdle the Sox don’t: a juggernaut in their own division that simply won’t go away. We’re talking about the Green Bay Packers and St. Louis Cardinals, …

TELANDER: Red Sox reportedly have winning hand for Peavy in poker standoff

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 00:31:13 -0500

This is the time for baseball poker players to do their thing. If you are White Sox general manager Rick Hahn, you look at your dubious hand and say, ‘‘I fold,’’ ‘‘I hold’’ or ‘‘I’m raising you a minor-leaguer.’’ If you’re another GM in the game, you have to fold, accept the deal or raise it so one of the other gamblers doesn’t get the pot. And the pot is right-hander Jake Peavy, whom the Sox confirmed late Tuesday had been traded to the Red Sox in a three-way deal that also involved the Tigers. Of course, it’s more complicated …

TELANDER: Lack of living inductees dampens ceremony, but Hall already was hurting

Tue, 30 Jul 2013 20:28:24 -0500

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — The chill rain. Perfect. Here it is, the big day for inductions into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and the weather, which has abruptly turned cold and dark and wet, is the ideal atmosphere for a hallowed institution that is slowly killing itself. Soaked to the bone is the 49-year-old mayor of Cooperstown, Jeff Katz. A baseball fan of epic proportions, Katz huddles with other attendees in the open field in front of the induction stage. The ceremony will be delayed an hour. There are no living baseball players getting in and very few spectators here, …

TELANDER: Stars of the past fill induction void in Cooperstown

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 06:47:33 -0500

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — They roll toward the red-brick National Baseball Hall of Fame in this fairy-tale village as the sun starts to drop toward the Catskills. First comes old Ralph Kiner, in the back of a shiny pickup truck. He steps gingerly down a portable stair, aided by a worker, as fans cheer, “Kiner! Kiner!’’ Next is Henry Aaron, with his wife. ‘‘The Hammer’’ descends from his truck to the staccato chant of “Hank! Hank! Hank!’’ He is followed in a minute by Frank Robinson. Then the controversial, bat-swinging Juan Marichal. Then ball-scuffing Don Sutton. Then controversial Orlando Cepeda. Then …

Are Bears buying into Marc Trestman at training camp?

Tue, 27 Aug 2013 06:39:57 -0500

RICK TELANDER: There’s no doubt it’s a new day in Bearsville. The question is: Is it a better day? Quarterback Jay Cutler hinted at the potential turbulence of change when he reported to training camp Wednesday in Bourbonnais.

TELANDER: MLB can try to keep up, but cheaters will stop at nothing

Tue, 23 Jul 2013 21:31:45 -0500

Add Ryan Braun to your Hall of Shame list, please. Put the Brewers outfielder, who was suspended for the rest of the season Monday, in there with Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and the dozens — if not hundreds — of other cheating baseball players of the last quarter century or so. The president and CEO of this group, of course, is career mental case Jose Canseco. He’s the bulging-bicepsed, gloating whistle-blower who showed the world how easy it was to circumvent baseball’s almost non-existent anti-doping rules, then ratted on himself and others. Now, the prevailing attitude is that …

TELANDER: Ump who called ‘Merkle’s Boner’ to be enshrined in Cooperstown

Mon, 22 Jul 2013 12:15:23 -0500

Maybe this is what we’re left with in baseball. Ghosts. Dennis McNamara looked at the tombstone of his great uncle, Henry ‘‘Hank’’ O’Day, who has rested quietly in Evanston’s Calvary Catholic Cemetery for more than three quarters of a century. ‘‘Kind of amazing, isn’t it?’’ said McNamara, 69, a retired Chicago policeman. McNamara meant the fact baseball’s highest honor somehow found its way to this quiet niche a wave’s length from Lake Michigan. But he also meant how amazing his relative is to the history of the ever-striving Cubs. Or the sad truth that steroids and blatant immorality have robbed …

TELANDER: NCAA will answer for denying players their cut

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 06:30:38 -0500

Paying Division I college athletes in entertainment-driven, revenue-producing sports — men’s football and basketball, primarily — is probably not a good thing. But it beats not paying those athletes by an ethical mile. Not only is the NCAA a cartel by definition, it also — with the willing cooperation of the member schools — sells its high-level amateur athletes and their sporting services the way a street pimp hawks his stable of girls. There is no athlete representative involved in any monetary decision-making at any level in big-time college sports. The decisions are all made by athletic directors, coaches, ex-coaches, …