The Schloss-Blog doesn't usually talk brackets until the NCAA Basketball Tournament, but the College Football Playoff bracket has generated some discussion. So have the Bears. So has Chicago sports in general, where five - count 'em 5 pro teams will have new, full-time head coaches/managers for their 2025 seasons.
***
The Chicago Blackhawks only recently fired their head coach and are now being "interim" coached. In other words, thanks for stopping in, Anders Sorenson.
The Chicago White Sox, who set a record for most losses in a season in 2024, will have new manager Will Venable for 2025, promising, as all new mangers and head coaches do, to put a competitive team that will hustle on the field.
Sure you will, Will, sure you will. But can they run the bases, hit the cutoff and get the clutch hit?
Finally, the Bulls - no, wait - have Billy Donovan, who, at five years, is the longest-tenured head coach in Chicago pro sports right now. But with the Bulls perhaps looking to trade their best player (Zach LaVine), will that last?
Those three teams are the ones on the new Chicago Sports Network, which, while available on the satellite networks and Fubo, is not available on Comcast's Xfinity cable network, effectively cutting them off from the vast majority of the Chicago-area market.
So, not only are Chicago-area teams sucking, so is the ability to watch a lot of their action.
The Chicago Fire MLS franchise will have a new coach next season as well, Gregg Berhalter, the former USMNT head coach.
Tyler Marsh takes over as head coach of the Chicago Sky, who are not all that far removed from their WNBA championship year (2021).
They are not what you would call a winner either these days.
***
The United Healthcare CEO shooter (OK, alleged), is a hero online.
People who have beefs with their insurance companies over claim denials are praising him as a hero and companies in the industry have had to "beef up," if you will, security around their executives.
T-shirts are praising the shooter as a hero, the industry as the villains. According to NBC News, there were more than 100 items available for sale online, holding the shooter up to be a hero. "Hoodies, stickers, mugs, and even fake bullets" that include the three words that were on the shell casings found on the scene are popular ("Deny, Defend, Depose").
In the United States of America, who do we love? Luigi Mangione, apparently.
***
Donald Trump, the president-elect, attended the Army-Navy football game on Saturday. In attendance with him, VP-elect J.D. Vance, Secretary of Defense-designate and alleged drunk and womanizer Pete Hegseth and Daniel Penny, recently acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in the NY Subway strangling case. The ex-Marine restrained a rider in a chokehold who was an apparent nuisance on an NYC train until authorities arrived.
Luigi Mangione couldn't be released yet or Trump might've had him on board as well. Wonder if he'll pardon him upon an almost-certain conviction down the road, along with the hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters Trump has pledged to pardon.
***
Speaking of pardons, does ABC and George Stephanopoulos deserve one?
They will pay Trump $15 million for Stephanopoulos referring to him as "a rapist" in an interview with South Carolina Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace, questioning her support for him in the wake of the E. Jean Carroll civil verdicts against him. Because he was found liable of sexual assault, the jury’s verdict did not mean that Ms. Carroll had “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.'"
Trump's administration is expected to carry on its campaign against mainstream media once he's sworn in, except now, the Department of Justice is likely to bring the fight against, prospectively, the NY Times, MSNBC, et. al.
Of note, Harvard's Laurence Tribe, the esteemed law professor, said in a Blue Sky post that ABC likely wouldn't have paid Trump $15 if he wasn't president-elect.
***
The Onion was denied the opportunity to purchase Alex Jones' "Infowars" website, ostensibly to convert it into a parody of itself.
The bankruptcy court judge who made the ruling said it failed to maximize the amount of money it could've yielded to the families who have long suffered in the wake of Jones' defamation of them since the Sandy Hook school shooting.
Onion owers say they will continue to seek ways to to provide said relief, or, in other words, make even more of a buffoon out of Jones and Infowars.
Hopefully, Onion ownership will win on - aheam - a-peal.
***
There's been so much talk about the College football Playoff bracket, most of it in Alabama.
Or on ESPN.
And it can stay there.
***
Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Cheryl Sweet.
More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.
Speaking of RFP (https://radiofreephoenix.com), welcome back to the airwaves, Cheryl Sweet, now in the 4-8 p.m. slot weekday afternoons (Arizona time, that is). And be with RFP on Christmas Eve, when station-founder and face Andy Olson starts his 36th annual "Rock 'N' Roll Christmas" at 6 p.m. and goes 30 hours straight, live, through all of Christmas Day.
