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More later,
Mark
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Jay, Ye Hardly Knew Me
Turns out, Jay Cutler has more in common with Greg Olsen than having good ol' No. 85 as a dinner companion...
He has also blocked me on Twitter.
Wow. It feels kinda like one of those pussified Bert Favrerer chop blocks.
For the record, I jumped all over Ochocinco last week. He never blocked me. Perhaps he's the real pro here...
Ouch. THAT hurt.
Hey, it's not like I am the one who stunk up the field Sunday. I sat there in front of the home plasma in my Urlacher jersey with my assorted Bears good luck items, beers in my Bears cooler, drinking from my Bears frozen pilsner glass, tuned into the Bears team home call on WBBM-AM via the Bears Internet and cheered. Until I started ranting. But, at least I didn't call anyone names, at least as far as I recall.
I did question the, ah, pluck of Hunter Hillenmeyer who checked in for almost a half Sunday. What's he got? Six quarters so far this season?
The closest ribs as tender as these should get to the football field is out in the parking lot on someone's tailgate grill.
Or in bed next to Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Or, the IR list.
Just sayin' ...
So, what have we learned? Apparently fans are not supposed to quit players, but in this crazy New Media world players can quit fans. Really? If only it were that easy...
Jay, I'm still a proud Bears fan and I will still cheer for you, even if you need to learn a thing or two about what it means to both be a Bear and to be a Bears fan. I will continue to teach you. I'm kinda hard to ignore (perhaps you're better aware of this now). And I have confidence you'll come around.
Meanwhile, thanks to all who have checked out my blog or my Tweet feed in the past week! Go Bears!
More later,
Mark
He has also blocked me on Twitter.
Wow. It feels kinda like one of those pussified Bert Favrerer chop blocks.
For the record, I jumped all over Ochocinco last week. He never blocked me. Perhaps he's the real pro here...
Ouch. THAT hurt.
Hey, it's not like I am the one who stunk up the field Sunday. I sat there in front of the home plasma in my Urlacher jersey with my assorted Bears good luck items, beers in my Bears cooler, drinking from my Bears frozen pilsner glass, tuned into the Bears team home call on WBBM-AM via the Bears Internet and cheered. Until I started ranting. But, at least I didn't call anyone names, at least as far as I recall. I did question the, ah, pluck of Hunter Hillenmeyer who checked in for almost a half Sunday. What's he got? Six quarters so far this season?
The closest ribs as tender as these should get to the football field is out in the parking lot on someone's tailgate grill.
Or in bed next to Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Or, the IR list.
Just sayin' ...
So, what have we learned? Apparently fans are not supposed to quit players, but in this crazy New Media world players can quit fans. Really? If only it were that easy...
Jay, I'm still a proud Bears fan and I will still cheer for you, even if you need to learn a thing or two about what it means to both be a Bear and to be a Bears fan. I will continue to teach you. I'm kinda hard to ignore (perhaps you're better aware of this now). And I have confidence you'll come around.
Meanwhile, thanks to all who have checked out my blog or my Tweet feed in the past week! Go Bears!
More later,
Mark
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Bears First Block This Week? Me!
I suspect there are very few more loyal, more emphatic, more true-blue Chicago Bears fans than me.
I became a true fan almost exactly 40 years ago, when my Dad took me to Father and Son night at St. Teresa Catholic Church in Kankakee, Ill. My 9-year-old eyes took in the enormous personality of Dick Butkus and I was hooked. My Dad wowed me by successfully answering Dick's trivia question – Q: Who put the hit on Gale Sayers to injure his knee? A: Kermit Alexander of the San Francisco 49'ers. – and a few weeks later a football arrived in the mail featuring the autographs of the 1969 team, including Brian Piccolo, et al.
That ball hangs this very day on a wall in my Bears room surrounded by 100's of pieces of memorabilia I've collected since that fateful night.
I think this is a point that many NFL players and coaches have a hard time grasping: We, the fans, are the constant. Players come and coaches go. We are forever. Our fandom pays the bills. You want great gobs of money? Great. With great gobs comes great responsibility...
So, when a team goes out and embarrasses the Bears nation like the Bears did Sunday and when the Bears coach admits he failed to get the team properly prepared for the second week in a row and a team with great potential falls to 3-3, fans get to have their say. We paid for it in money, time invested, fandom as well as in blood, sweat and tears.
You might be a Bear. But this is our team. Never, ever forget this.
This year, I started to follow some Bears players on Twitter. It's been interesting. But after the Sunday collapse, I sent a message to @ricknoach @alexbrown96 @JayCutler6 @D_Hest23 @gregolsen82 @chitownforte22 and @RealDeal91 (Tommie "Bad Attitude" Harris) explaining that it might be best to not Tweet this week. Save any messages for the field on game day.
I thought it was pretty good advice, especially for those guys who have not spent 40 years immersed in the Bears nation culture. We reward great play with never-ending support. We criticize overt stupidity very loudly (ask Wanny and Mauron). Our media coverage can be savage.
We are proud. We are loud. No B.S. is allowed.
So, the Bears players' Tweets were quiet, for the most part, this week. Alex Brown tried to post a feeble " :( that's a shame we have to play better than that" which was pounced on for its sheer insipidness of understatement. Matt Forte tried to share some awkwardly supportive tweets about "people who never played the game."
Lame. Those people are called "fans."
Tuesday night, Greg Olsen thought maybe we had all moved on and wanted to plug his latest sushi find. And Jay Cutler reminded us of his Web site. I gently reminded both it might be too early to Tweet.
Frankly, I thought this was smart coaching advice; perhaps something new in their Chicago experience.
Olsen, who I like enough to have on all four fantasy teams, responded by blocking me.
Really.
Is he going to block every upset fan? He couldn't even block against the Bengals.
Sorry. Cheap. But fun.
I used Twitter-speak to try to get him to understand my larger point:
"Not trying to be a jerk. Just letting u know: Nothing u could tweet in 140 words will make Sunday go away. Only better play."
In case that fails to get any traction, allow me to expand beyond 140 characters with some more advice for Jay, Greg and all the relatively new Bears players who do not have 40 years of Bears experience: Heed the friendly warnings.
When you suck, lay low. Re-earn your respect on the field; that's where you lost it, after all. Don't be surprised that we bleed Bear blue and orange. We wait all year for about 20 weeks of competition and entertainment. We spend the other 32 weeks dreaming of what might be to come. We understand that our expectations might be unreasonable at times. By the same token, we don't ever expect to have our heritage tarnished by the spectacle that unfolded this past Sunday.
Understand the game is bigger than you; that a team's legacy is built by an organization, players AND the fans. Fans are ultimately deserving of your best on-field – and off-field – performances. Failing that, our views deserve respect.
You might even learn something, especially if you waltz into town and don't even pause to consider why something like this was seen by many as so offensive even before the kickoff Sunday:
Bears don't consort with the enemy. We knock opponents in the teeth. Feel free to shake hands after the game, though.
Block me, Greg? I doubt it. You can't possibly understand the depths of the passion of Bears fans until you've been a Bear for a while. And you'll never learn anything along the way by blocking out that which you find a little harsh.
You have bigger things to worry about, in the end. Let's get it back together in time for the Browns Sunday.
More later,
Mark
I became a true fan almost exactly 40 years ago, when my Dad took me to Father and Son night at St. Teresa Catholic Church in Kankakee, Ill. My 9-year-old eyes took in the enormous personality of Dick Butkus and I was hooked. My Dad wowed me by successfully answering Dick's trivia question – Q: Who put the hit on Gale Sayers to injure his knee? A: Kermit Alexander of the San Francisco 49'ers. – and a few weeks later a football arrived in the mail featuring the autographs of the 1969 team, including Brian Piccolo, et al.
That ball hangs this very day on a wall in my Bears room surrounded by 100's of pieces of memorabilia I've collected since that fateful night.
I think this is a point that many NFL players and coaches have a hard time grasping: We, the fans, are the constant. Players come and coaches go. We are forever. Our fandom pays the bills. You want great gobs of money? Great. With great gobs comes great responsibility...
So, when a team goes out and embarrasses the Bears nation like the Bears did Sunday and when the Bears coach admits he failed to get the team properly prepared for the second week in a row and a team with great potential falls to 3-3, fans get to have their say. We paid for it in money, time invested, fandom as well as in blood, sweat and tears.
You might be a Bear. But this is our team. Never, ever forget this.
This year, I started to follow some Bears players on Twitter. It's been interesting. But after the Sunday collapse, I sent a message to @ricknoach @alexbrown96 @JayCutler6 @D_Hest23 @gregolsen82 @chitownforte22 and @RealDeal91 (Tommie "Bad Attitude" Harris) explaining that it might be best to not Tweet this week. Save any messages for the field on game day.
I thought it was pretty good advice, especially for those guys who have not spent 40 years immersed in the Bears nation culture. We reward great play with never-ending support. We criticize overt stupidity very loudly (ask Wanny and Mauron). Our media coverage can be savage.
We are proud. We are loud. No B.S. is allowed.
So, the Bears players' Tweets were quiet, for the most part, this week. Alex Brown tried to post a feeble " :( that's a shame we have to play better than that" which was pounced on for its sheer insipidness of understatement. Matt Forte tried to share some awkwardly supportive tweets about "people who never played the game."
Lame. Those people are called "fans."
Tuesday night, Greg Olsen thought maybe we had all moved on and wanted to plug his latest sushi find. And Jay Cutler reminded us of his Web site. I gently reminded both it might be too early to Tweet.
Frankly, I thought this was smart coaching advice; perhaps something new in their Chicago experience.
Olsen, who I like enough to have on all four fantasy teams, responded by blocking me.
Really.
Is he going to block every upset fan? He couldn't even block against the Bengals.
Sorry. Cheap. But fun.
I used Twitter-speak to try to get him to understand my larger point:
"Not trying to be a jerk. Just letting u know: Nothing u could tweet in 140 words will make Sunday go away. Only better play."
In case that fails to get any traction, allow me to expand beyond 140 characters with some more advice for Jay, Greg and all the relatively new Bears players who do not have 40 years of Bears experience: Heed the friendly warnings.
When you suck, lay low. Re-earn your respect on the field; that's where you lost it, after all. Don't be surprised that we bleed Bear blue and orange. We wait all year for about 20 weeks of competition and entertainment. We spend the other 32 weeks dreaming of what might be to come. We understand that our expectations might be unreasonable at times. By the same token, we don't ever expect to have our heritage tarnished by the spectacle that unfolded this past Sunday.
Understand the game is bigger than you; that a team's legacy is built by an organization, players AND the fans. Fans are ultimately deserving of your best on-field – and off-field – performances. Failing that, our views deserve respect.
You might even learn something, especially if you waltz into town and don't even pause to consider why something like this was seen by many as so offensive even before the kickoff Sunday:
Bears don't consort with the enemy. We knock opponents in the teeth. Feel free to shake hands after the game, though.
Block me, Greg? I doubt it. You can't possibly understand the depths of the passion of Bears fans until you've been a Bear for a while. And you'll never learn anything along the way by blocking out that which you find a little harsh.
You have bigger things to worry about, in the end. Let's get it back together in time for the Browns Sunday.
More later,
Mark
Friday, October 16, 2009
Falcon Exposes Lie
Most of the media spent Thursday worried about whether a 6-year-old boy was aboard a runaway balloon. Turns out, it was a ruse...
Out of the mouths of babes:
Mom and Dad are publicity-seeking, reality-show wannabes...
More later,
Mark
Out of the mouths of babes:
Mom and Dad are publicity-seeking, reality-show wannabes...
More later,
Mark
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