Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer speaks with the media in March.
AP
WHILE A SURREAL SUMMER IN AMERICA skids on, there is frustrating predictability to being a Major League Baseball fan in The Captive Sports City.
The White Sox find new ways to underachieve, this season perhaps historically.
The Cubs play primarily to neuter the competitive hearts of their followers. The grand bypass at Addison and Clark remains the pricey splendor of the sights and sounds of Wrigley Field.
The regional media generally flail scratching for hopeful speculation. After all, there are always all of those promising prospects somewhere down on the farm.
SO AS A SUMMARY DIAGNOSIS, here’s a 7-second primer on what ails the dueling Fort Discourages in Baseball Chicago:
— On the South Side, Jerry Reinsdorf is the problem;
— On the North Side, Jed Hoyer is not part of the solution.
Boom zappo — end of All-Star Break analysis.
UNTIL REINSDORF SELLS OR DEPARTS, who can do anything but root that the ’24 Sox finish with 121 losses to wipe away the comic ineptitude of the ’62 Mets?
And until Tom Ricketts jettisons Hoyer — who was front-office salutatorian in 2016 only because he got to copy off valedictorian Theo Epstein — the Cubs appear on permanent horizontal mold.
Sure it’s not nirvana but it is midsummer MLB ’24 in The Captive Sports City.
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WHEN PAUL SKENES AND CORBIN BURNES were penciled in as starters for Tuesday’s All-Star Game, the sacred jurists up in The Baseball Valhalla had to be taking note.
Skenes is the 22-year-old Pirates phenom who has had two extended no-hit outings going — in 11 career starts — before being pulled by manager Derek Shelton (Warren High ’88).
Apparently no one has told Shelton that a no-hitter by an extraordinary young arm is one of the best publicity tools of any kind that the contemporary game can generate.
Shelton’s soft-shelled decisions are perfectly in keeping with the metric mouse capades of MLB 2024. That’s part of the reason the NFL rules.
AS FOR BURNES, he was cast to be the first Oriole to start an ASG since — get ready — Steve Stone in 1980.
Stone’s appearance came during his magical Cy Young campaign. As Stone later said, “One 25-7 season is worth five 15-15s.”
He wasn’t wrong. ABC — with Don Drysdale, Howard Cosell and young Al Michaels among the booth brethren — presented the game from Dodger Stadium.
Stone pitched three perfect innings, striking out three including Cubs “Konger” Dave Kingman.
KEITH JACKSON SAID: “Stone is 5-foot-8-and-a-half-inches tall,” debunking the baseball-card myth that he was 5-10.
Two years later, Stone was retired and toeholding a broadcast career with the very same ABC.
Today, after more than four decades calling games in Chicago, he’s stuck inside of White Sox purgatory with the Reinsdorf blues again.
STREET-BEATIN’:
With the fresh Bears now limbering up in Lake Forest, there are credible reports of some smoldering tensions within the Hall of Halas. The reign of Kevin Warren is not being regarded as universally uplifting by some crisply versed in the collective psyche of the McCaskey family. …
From Odenac the Magnificent: If the M-Squad finishes 9-8 or better, Cole Kmet is a Pro Bowl selectee. New OC Shane Waldron first touched the heavy mettle of Notre Dame-basted tights ends with Anthony Fasano back in 2005 on the inaugural staff of Charmin’ Charlie Weis in South Bend. …
The decision of Fox Sports to finally ashcan daytime dreg Skip Bayless is more overdue than a revamping of the Federal Reserve. The press-row poseur flashed marginal promise at daytime ESPN and then took lobotomized paymasters at Fox to the vault. He also spent three years columning at the Chicago Tribune (1998-2001) and no one knew he was in town. ,,,
Bunker Bill Carstanjen and Churchill Downs Inc. once again insulted the legacy of Dick Duchossois with an “Arlington Million Preview Day” at their Colonial Downs that drew 5 starters in the Beverly D pre and 3 — 3! — in the Million advance. CDI mitigators will insist that overnight rain compromised the lush Colonial grass. The more seasoned will say, “Boo-shay!”
Jim O’Donnell’s Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at [email protected]. All communications may be considered for publication.