Team Saturdazzle: The One With Downtown Chicago

Third Saturday of the year. Third Team Saturdazzle post. For Christmas this year I gave Amy tickets to a Bulls game. We used them this weekend and drove to the city to watch The Bulls lose a close one to the Charlotte Hornets. Amy likes either playing sports or watching them live. I like those as well as watching sports on TV. , listening to sports on the radio and reading the accounts of a game in a newspaper or online.  But being with Amy makes everything even losing to the Hornets better.

Horace Grant 87-94 Bulls (1st 3 championships)
Randy Brown 95-00 Bulls (Last 3 championships)

A case in point is after I gave Amy the tickets she decided that staying overnight in Chicago would be better than driving back to our home in the suburbs. This is why I sit here at a Chicago hotel chronicling our adventure so far early on a Saturday morning.

One thing Amy and I like about staying in a hotel is television. In the 26-plus years we’ve been married many of those years have been spent without a TV. A few more years have been spent owning a TV. You can only watch DVDs or video cassettes.  So on those  occasions when we have stayed in hotel rooms we have enjoyed watching broadcast television. Yesterday after the game we watched a couple episodes of Seinfeld followed by an episode of Friends.  After that we turned on TUBI and watched a part of an episode of What's Happening and part of an episode of The Floor,  We watched the former because one of the Bull's bench players, Jalen Smith gives off a big Roger vibe from the show.

The latter is because we have been catching up on the 2nd season of the Fox game show sporadically over the past few months.  

This morning I went downstairs for some breakfast and I encountered a young man with a Hornets hoody and a Bulls Cap.  It's the kind of thing I would do with Cubs and Sox gear so he let me take a pic of him. The breakfast was good.  I don't see grits as an offering very much in the Chicago area but was glass to partake.

Bulls Cap Hornets Hoodie

Breakfast these days takes grits and hard-boiled determination.

Checkout at the hotel wasn't until noon.  So we lingered and then on the way home we stopped by a restaurant I'd seen on Friday that appealed to several parts of my nature.  

1. It's a classic Chicago Hotdog spot.

2. The name of the place, LuLu's is also one of our nicknames for our youngest daughter.

3. Three Words: Home Made Chili

4. Art work reminiscent of the Little Lulu comics without giving any of the credit. 

5.  When I went  in I decided I would see if they could put Chili on my Polish.  Not only could they but the Chili Cheese Polish, which I thought I had invented seconds before, was their special of the day.

While I don't subscribe to the no ketchup on hot dog 

theory, I do appreciate the wry wit of this poster.

For the last 3 years our Saturdays were too busy in the winter to get away for the weekend.  Almost every weekend, we were judging a speech tournament which took a huge portion of our Saturdays.  Even yesterday we drove by a high school on our way home blissfully unaware that the Larkin Speech Team was participating in a tournament there.  

Last 5 Sporting Events

1/17/2025 Charlotte Hornets Defeat Chicago Bulls 125-123 @ The United Center Chicago Illinois

11/16/2024 Class 7A Football Quarterfinal IHSA Batavia 17 Downers Grove North 7 @Batavia High Scool Batavia IL

11/2/2024 Dad's Day Weekend Minnesota 25 Illinois 17 Memorial Stadium Champaign IL 

10/26 Mt Carmel 34 Loyola Academy 20 Mt. Carmel High School, Chicago IL

10/19 100th anniversary game of Dedication of Memorial Stadium Illinois 21 Michigan 7 Memorial Stadium Champaign IL 

 

STBFI (Soon To Be Fired Index)

 After today's Bears game, I thought it might be prudent to provide this content sooner rather than later. Anytime one of the 5 Major Chicago sports teams hires a new (non-interim)  head coach or manager I do a process in my head.  In this process, I rank the 5 coaches/ managers including the most recently hire one from 1 to 5 based on which one I feel will lose their job next,   I call this the Soon to be Fired Index or STBFI for short.  When The White Sox hired Will Venable to be their manager on Halloween this year I started putting together the next iteration of the index.  It proved difficult after Mister Obvious at one, but I did my best. 

1. Matt Eberflus Chicago Bears - six straight losses says it all.  I don't think he's going to make it to the Team Holiday party.

2. Luke Richardson Chicago Blackhawks—Richardson has fluctuated between 2nd and 5th on the list in my head since Venable's hiring. My understanding is that the front office is fine with him finishing his contract. However, I don't think anyone in the organization is thrilled that expansion Utah is 3 points ahead of the underperforming Blackhawks as of this writing.

3. Billy Donovan Chicago Bulls - Many feel that Donovan's days are numbered as the Bulls head coach but their current winning percentage of .400  is 5-7 games ahead of full-season win projections.  If the Bulls' almost total lack of defense continues that percentage will go down and cries for Donovan's dismissal will continue at an increasing rate.

4. Will Venable  Chicago White Sox - Generally, the last person hired is usually the last person on this list.  That is good conventional wisdom.  I have reason to hope that given time Venable may be able to help the White Sox navigate past the historically bad season they just experienced.  It seems to me that White Sox management will give him a long leash especially if the team shows any signs of continual (even if it's slow) improvement.  However, if Venable looks like Pedro Grifol reincarnated the aforementioned leash could get mighty short mighty quick. 

5. Craig Counsell Chicago Cubs - 83-79 was not good enough for the Cubs in 2023 so David Ross was fired and Counsell was pilfered from Milwaukee.  In 2024 m the first season with Counsell at the helm, the Cubs achieved the very same 83-79.  Not good enough? Yes.  Bad enough to get Counsell on the hot seat? No, I don't think so.  Counsell should be around for a while. 

The next time one of these 5 men is fired, retires or stops leading their team for any reason, I will post a quick update as to where on the STBFI the former skipper was situated.  I won't post the next STBFI until a full-time replacement is hired.  

This is quite Awesome

While I have an Instagram account, I am never on it. The only thongs I ever see from Instagram are what's posted to other platforms such as this really cool reimagining of NBA jerseys that I saw on NBCsports.com. 

 

View this post on Instagram

My favorite jersey is the Bulls one, of course. It ties in my favorite 2 sports teams (Sorry Bears!) in 2 ways. First they have the same owner (Jerry Reinsdorf) and by using the #23 we are reminded how Michael Jordan played minor league ball in the White Sox organization in the mid 90's. My 2nd favorite is the Bucks and my least favorites were the Heat and the Rockets.  

 

Circus without a Circus Trip :(

Every year about this time in Chicago, like clockwork, a familiar pattern repeats itself. The Bulls begin their NBA season and almost as soon as it began they hit the road for thier longest trip of the year. This road trip is generally called the Circus trip as the trip is necessitated by the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus coming to town and landing smack dab @ the United Center AKA the house that Jordan built.


This year the NBA season has not gotten underway so while The Greatest Show on Earth must go on, it can do so without disturbing one of it's tenants. Sure the Blackhawks still have to take a Circus trip of their own, but hey that's just Hockey.








The Bulls loss can be your gain if you are in the Chicago area.

The circus will be at the United Center November 16th through the 27th

It will also be at the All State Arena in Rosemont starting tomorrow and running through the 13th.


I am passing on a special promotion for the event. You can get 4 tickets for $44.00 for weekday shows or save $4.00 per ticket on weekend *Friday -Sunday) shows.

So be a good sport and head over to the UC or ASA and have a great time.

For more info on the event click here to chck out my other blog.