My dad’s not one to take it easy on radio broadcasters. If there’s a sport available on AM radio in the greater northern Illinois area, Dad’s got an opinion on the play-by-play voice, and he’s got an opinion on the color commentators, and as the son of a fierce Irish Catholic farmer mother, those opinions are firm and fervent. Darrin Jackson? Arrogant and sniveling. Don Criqui? Full of spite. Pat Hughes? “What a humble likeable guy.”
I think this is why our family took on the Cubs rather than the White Sox or Brewers. My dad’s allegiances, coming from a far corner of Iowa, are to the Giants and Packers by way of Willie Mays and Bart Starr. He successfully passed the Packers on to us—all that takes is a trip or two to Lambeau Field and a childhood spent exposed to Bears beat media—but the Giants were a tougher sell. Half their games happened after bedtime. Candlestick and then Pac-Bell/AT&T/Oracle Park were a long way away. The Cubs were always on the radio, always on TV. And while a favorite pastime of ours when we went to Comiskey was to, as a family, mock Hawk Harrelson’s home run call by bellowing it when various opposing hitters took various accursed White Sox relievers deep, we treated the Cubs with respect. We were Cubs fans, not at a deep familial level—my dad still favors the Giants, one brother favors Cleveland, and my other brother and I were Baltimore and Boston fans respectively before gravitating more primarily to the Cubs in our teens—but instead in this unusual way where it went Pat Hughes, then Ron Santo, then the Cubs themselves. When games weren’t on, we’d sometimes listen to Pat & Ron’s greatest hits on a CD in the minivan, driving to our own baseball tournaments from Frankfort to Rockford to DeKalb.
So, every time something meaningful happens in Pat Hughes’s career, it’s cause for family celebration, and the announcement of his induction into the Cubs’ Hall of Fame last night was no exception. You can’t celebrate Pat Hughes enough, and the Cubs doing so in a fashion they seemed excited about—with Crane Kenney breaking the news to Hughes himself, live on the radio, with the TV broadcast aware of what was going on—was just about perfect. One of Pat Hughes’s greatest gifts is the ability to strike a balance between inserting himself into the broadcast and making the broadcast about himself, and the best way to honor someone prone to such humility is to pull them into the spotlight. Not to make them uncomfortable (and I don’t think the Cubs crossed that line), but to make them face their earned applause.
To a small set of Cubs fans—those of us who are radio-inclined and came of age after 1996—Pat Hughes is the Chicago Cubs, a piece more core to the franchise than even Ryne Sandberg or Ernie Banks. I never saw Sandberg play. I never saw Banks play. I learned about them from Pat Hughes.
Cock Commander, Dick Rodriguez
Ok, college football’s finally underway.
Richard Alan Rodriguez, acclaimed former West Virginia coach who also coached at Michigan and is now evidently at Jacksonville State, has accused Stephen F. Austin—Jacksonville State’s “Week Zero” opponent this weekend in the FCS’s premier kickoff game—of spying on the Gamecocks. In what appears to have been a press conference this week, Rodriguez said SFA’s sent coaches to Jacksonville’s little corner of Alabama (the northeast corner, more or less) on multiple occasions this offseason. The quotes, compiled by on3 and lightly edited for clarity:
“Pretty good sources say that they had a couple staff members at our spring game,” Rodriguez said. “Which is not really supposed to happen but we’re making plans accordingly. So if they’re over there, thinking they have our plays, signals, or something like that, we changed them since the spring.”
…
“Then, we caught somebody trying to film something the other day,” said Rodriguez. “First, my daughter saw them. Then, we caught them again. Saw them peering through with his camera and I sent the biggest guy in our program, Cru (Birdyshaw), one of our assistant strength coaches. He’s about 6’7”, 350. Probably benches like 1,000 pounds or something. Sent him up to the bleachers to run them out and that guy disappeared again pretty quick.”
Now I want to see Cru Birdyshaw bench.
The other Gamecocks (Gamecocks the lesser) are facing legal issues ahead of their Week 1 game next weekend against Georgia State. Sir Big Spur, a rooster who serves as the University of South Carolina’s live mascot, was transferred in recent years from being the charge of Mary Snelling and husband Ron Albertelli to a couple named Beth and Van Clark (sounds like we’re on the seventh rooster, for those into royal lineage stuff). Snelling and Albertelli were getting older, bringing a live chicken to sporting events was getting more difficult, and the Clarks were willing to step up and take on the duties. But there was an issue. The Clarks and the Snelling-Albertelli family disagreed on one thing.
Roosters have combs, red crests on top of their heads which help their bodies regulate temperature (the same role filled by human sweat glands or canine slobbery tongues). When those roosters are made to fight one another, the combs are removed (“That’s one more part that can bleed,” per Albertelli), and so gamecocks traditionally do not have combs. South Carolina Gamecocks, though? Usually combed. Per The Post and Courier, “The large Gamecock statue in front of Williams-Brice (Stadium) has a comb, something Snelling abhors,” and “Cocky has several stuffed appendages…that flop around whenever he’s performing.” (Cocky, a Google search reveals, is South Carolina’s costumed mascot, and omitted in favor of that ellipse is an explanation that the appendages resemble a comb but I couldn’t help myself.)
Over this spat, Snelling and Albertelli have refused to give the Clarks the rights to use the name ‘Sir Big Spur,’ meaning a new name is in order, and in a poll run by The State over what the new name should be, Cock Commander is in the lead. This has no bearing over what the Clarks will name the bird, but that hasn’t stopped the headlines from flying stating that the University of South Carolina might rename its live mascot something that sounds like a nickname evil woke teachers could drag your kids to hear at a drag brunch (if I’m understanding the headlines from those stories correctly).
It’s important, in a moment like this, to hear both sides. So, God bless The Post and Courier, both sides:
“We raised these gamecocks to be mascots. The mascot needs to be, I feel, branded with the university,” Van said. “We also want the birds to be as healthy as possible. When the combs are off, they can’t handle heat as well. These birds are raised to be mascots, and at many games, the heat is nearly unbearable. We want to keep the mascot healthy. That’s our job now.”
…
“A chicken is a chicken but a fighting gamecock is something different. This is dumbing down the Gamecocks,” Albertelli said. “Whenever a new coach goes to a school that’s been struggling, you always hear a statement similar to, ‘You’ve got to change the culture.’
“I don’t know what culture in our day and age means, but if it means making a gamecock look like a chicken, or not hurting him because it might make the chicken feel good, it’s not preserving what we’ve built. This is dumbing down our culture.”
“Sir Big Spur’s going to look like Barney the Barnyard Rooster,” Snelling declared.
Ok. So it sounds like this really boils down to whether or not we should hurt a live chicken that we’re already dragging to sporting events. Tough call!
Tacko Fall Is Going to China
Dammit. One day after Joe Stunardi ripped the Jinping regime.
Tacko Fall has singed with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers, and I mean, how can you quarrel with a team called the Flying Tigers? Genocide? Yeah, that’s probably enough.
Hopefully Fall gets back here before China invades Taiwan. I don’t want him to become a POW. No matter how badass the action movie about his escape would later be.
Fargo Has Been Balling
Great week for the Fargs. She made her triumphant return to daycare on Monday and Tuesday, coming home both times with no poop in her fur. Tuesday night, she discovered herself capable of destroying tennis balls, especially the Petco-brand imitation tennis balls that squeak. Last night, she dug up a gigantic one we’d bought her over a year ago that she’d never liked, then promptly tore it in half, much to her own delight.
The one downside here is that while she tries to spit out inedible things, she doesn’t always succeed, which means she’s probably swallowing tiny pieces of tennis ball. It’s probably only the fuzzless parts (she likes to chew rubber, not fuzz), but still. Not great. They’re definitely small enough for her to pass, but she’s been trying to eat grass the last few days and it’s unclear if it’s the tennis ball chunks or the daycare (and potential poop-eating at daycare) that’s making her belly upset. Took away the last half of the ball this morning. It was a good run. Gonna give her a few days to regulate. Thankfully the poop’s all pretty normal.
Burnley’s Gonna Make ‘Em Crawl
Great draw for Burnley in the League Cup. Crawley Town will be coming to Turf Moor in November for the Round of 32, and while Burnley might be playing a team of reserves, getting to play that team against a League Two club is better than playing it against Man City.
In other Clarets buzz: We haven’t heard from Bertie in a minute, Sean Dyche is evidently teaching a Masterclass, and the FA is investigating Burnley and Blackpool over the Sonny Carey incident from Saturday. Also, tons of transfer rumors but not seeing a firm report on any yet.
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Viewing schedule:
2:20 PM EDT: Cardinals @ Cubs (MLB TV)
The Cubs are honoring Yadier Molina in addition to Albert Pujols before today’s game, and I guess the only spin is that they’re not giving him the satisfaction of not being honored? I don’t know. He’s gone after this year, and he’s already washed. The guy isn’t going to hurt you anymore. Honor Pujols and not Molina. Triangulate. Put the Cardinals in an awkward position.
7:05 PM EDT: White Sox @ Orioles (MLB TV)
Will Joe Kelly get in tonight? I kind of think so. Lance Lynn’s quietly been struggling, the Sox have been using their other bullpen guys, it feels like a Joe Kelly Thursday. You heard it here first.
8:00 PM EDT: Packers @ Chiefs (NFL Network, second screen)
I like to know what’s going on.
Just read the Pat Hughes notes…👍🏼😊