The IHSA, the governing body of Illinois high school sports, for all its flaws (sometimes perceived, sometimes actually legitimate) tries its best to be fair to everybody.
But when a school uses that ideal to help its own cause, it really can make it difficult to keep everything fair.
In postseason play for sports like baseball, basketball and volleyball among others, the state is divided into 16 sections, with roughly 20 or so schools in each section. The schools in each section meet at a designated time and place to rank the schools 1-20 (or whatever the number is) in order from best to worst, sort of like the college football coaches’ poll.
The goal is to reward the best teams with a favorable postseason schedule. This usually works, but only when everybody votes with honesty and integrity. This is apparently something St. Francis de Sales chose not to do a couple weeks ago at the sectional seed meeting, when it ranked Momence, with just three wins at the time, wellllll ahead of Grant Park, the team with the fourth-best record of all the teams in the section.
Momence wasn’t the only team ranked ahead of Grant Park. In all, 12 (Twelve!) teams were considered better than the Dragons by de Sales, who said that Momence was the sixth-best team there.
Why would de Sales do that? It’s simple. De Sales was hoping to be the top seed at its regional. To do so, you need to be ranked in the top four of your sectional. Grant Park was thought to be a contender for the fourth spot. So, by ranking the Dragons down at 13th, de Sales was (apparently) hurting their cause on purpose, which in turn helped its own. Two other Chicago schools pulled a similar trick at this meeting — Latin ranked Grant Park ninth and Seton Academy had the team 11th.
Nonetheless, Grant Park coach Ruth Junker has said her team will simply focus on itself and not worry about seeds. I don’t know if she’ll complain officially to the IHSA (in fact I’d be alarmed if she did), but she absolutely should. It’s unsportsmanlike, it sets a bad example for the students at the school, it’s despicable, dishonorable and should not be allowed. Officials at the school should be ashamed and the coach (or whoever voted at the meeting) should be given a warning, if not fired.
St. Francis de Sales is looking at a potentional regional championship match against Donovan (my alma mater) next Thursday. I have absolutely nothing against the athletes from de Sales (I’m sure they’re 100 percent innocent in this mess) and to root for a de Sales loss would be entirely unprofessional of me.
But let’s just say that if my old school ends up clobbering de Sales for the regional title, I won’t shed a tear.
Monday was, obviously, a wild day for Chicago sports. Lou Pinella was named the new Cubs manager and the Bears won in the most wild game since the comeback against the Cleveland Browns in 2001.
The reaction to Pinella is split. He’s undeniably crazy. Will that help? Probably not, but we’ll see. Steve Stone seems to like him and for lots of people, that’s enough. Most Cubs fans tend to agree with anything Stoney says, so if he likes Pinella, then OK. Stoney could probably tell fans that tearing down Wrigley Field would be a good idea and they’d believe him. (Tearing down Wrigley WOULD be a good idea, but that’s for another blog).
So we’ve got our manager. Now all we need is a third starter, a fourth starter, a fifth starter, a closer, a set-up guy, a seventh-inning guy, a left-fielder, a power hitter off the bench, a pitching coach that doesn’t have a “please shoot me” look on his face, a hitting coach, a trainer who actually has the ability to properly diagnose and heal injuries, GM who didn’t let the game pass him by three years ago and a real owner. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find Larry Rothschild. I need to borrow the look on his face.
Now on to something that doesn’t make me want to hang myself by my underpants quicker than a mentally unbalanced murderer on death row — the Bears.
That game on Monday was insane. The best part was watching the replay of Brian Urlacher ripping the ball from Edge. If you look closely, you see Lack horse-collaring Hunter Hillenmeyer for stability, then using that leverage to gain more force as he tugged at Edge’s arm. Lack’s triceps muscle on his right arm looked like it was going to explode from his skin. Then, after jarring the ball free, Lack throws HH to the ground like a dummy and nearly steps on his head while Peanut grabs the ball and runs it back. Urlacher’s awesome. If the game would have gone any further, I think he would have tried to rip Edge’s still-beating heart out through his chest, Temple of Doom style. All that said, why do I still have an uneasy feeling about a playoff loss to Philadelphia? Am I the only one?
I don’t believe it. Many thought it couldn’t be done, but sure enough, Andy MacPhailure can’t even leave without screwing it up.
Maybe I’m nuts. Maybe, to steal a line from Will Ferrell’s character in Zoolander, I’m taking crazy pills.
But stick with me. I need to get this off my chest.
As you know, the Cubs are not owned by a person, like most sports franchises are. They are owned by a company. To make things easier, the Cubs hire a CEO to take care of things.
So, when that CEO (i.e. MacPhail) suddenly leaves at the end of the year, with no warning as far as the public could tell, he really REALLY hamstrung the organization as it tries to get better this offseason.
Let me explain.
The CEO of the Cubs, in essence, is to the franchise what the owner is to most other franchises. He decides what prices to make the peanuts, what prices to make the tickets, who to put in charge of arranging horrible celebrities to sing the 7th-inning stretch. He’s also in charge of the hiring and firing of the general manager, currently filled by the gooey Jim Hendry, who looks like a cross between John Goodman on the last season of Roseanne and the guy at the end of the bar that can’t get the jukebox to take his dollar.
The Cubs’ empty CEO position, currently filled in an interim role by Kool-Aid drinker and former MacPhail lacky John McDonough, needs to be filled ASAP, post-haste. Yes, even before a manager gets hired.
Why?
What if the new CEO actually has a brain and cans Hendry for his gross negligence of anything not jelly-filled? I know this is far fetched, as the Tribune company is most likely to hire someone that it can fit neatly into its back pocket, but let’s just say the new CEO is mildly competent. If he is, good-bye Hendry. The Cubs’ problem is this: they don’t have a CEO yet, so Hendry’s not gone yet. Instead, he is apparently hiring a manager now. What if the new GM doesn’t like the newly-hired manager? Will there be fights in the dugout between the two? Parking lot? In the newspapers? I don’t know what will happen. No team in MLB history has screwed this up before. You hire the GM first, then you hire the manager. Or, if you’re the Cubs, you hire the CEO first, then the GM, then the manager. A-B-C. That way, you know everyone is on the same page.
The way the Cubs are working now is this: Hire a manager. Find a CEO. (Maybe) find a new GM. (Possibly) fire manager. Hire new manager. Drive away free agents. Make fanbase go nuts. Alienate players. Lose 90 games. Repeat.
Even if the Tribune company moves swiftly in filling the CEO position (which I have no doubt they won’t), the offseason will have probably already begun. It will have begun with the Cubs having no CEO, no manager and a GM whose job is in limbo. You tell me, what kind of free agents would agree to go to that situation? The Cubs are a hard sell as it is, between the day games, the media and the wretched, awful, career-ending talentless hole that is the franchise. I’m sorry, no free agents WANT to come here anymore. If they say the do, they’re lying. I’m sorry. Cub fans need to admit this.
Therefore, the team at least needs to have a semblance of organizational structure. But there is none.
Maybe I’m nuts. Maybe I’m taking crazy pills. I seem to be the only person worried about this. Who knows.
Things would have been easier had MacPhail stepped down in July, letting McDonough take over for the rest of the season and giving time for the Tribune Company to hire a full-time replacement. That new CEO would have time to evaluate Hendry properly, make the correct decision to kill Hendry’s career, and hire a new GM, perhaps even choosing one that understands the game of baseball in the 21st century.
The new GM would then hire the manager of his choice. Free agents would know what the heck the team was trying to do and fans would at least have reason for hope. Granted Cub fans never lose hope, but at least then, there’d be a tangible reason to have it.
But no.
Only a Cubs’ CEO could screw up leaving town. What a MacPhailure.
