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Arguably one of the biggest issues facing the Chicago Bears this offseason was the progression of their offensive line. With Cody Whitehair, Sam Mustipher, and James Daniels all back in the fold and healthy, the interior of the line appears to be set. However, serious questions remain on the outside. The Bears parted way with […]

Chicago Bears: Morgan Moses would be a solid addition for 2021 – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & More

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The Dingers crew discusses the Cubs solid month of May, the injury bug that bit them, and the brutal stretch the Cubs will face in June. Plus, Cubs prospect Brennan Davis stops by the show!

The post Dingers: A Chicago Cubs Podcast – Episode 43 – Running and Limping with Special Guest Brennen Davis first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, a Democrat from St. Petersburg challenging DeSantis for governor next year, called it “cruel legislation … creating an issue where one doesn’t exist.”

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law Tuesday a controversial ban on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports at the high school and college levels, seizing on a trend coursing through conservative states.

The Republican governor enacted the measure on the first day of Pride Month. But DeSantis denied that was a factor.

“It’s not a message to anything other than saying we’re going to protect fairness in women’s sports,” DeSantis said after signing the bill (SB 1028) at Jacksonville’s Trinity Christian Academy.

“We believe it’s important to have integrity in the competition and we think it’s important they’re able to compete on a level playing field. You’ve seen what happens when you don’t have that,” he added.

U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, a Democrat from St. Petersburg challenging DeSantis for governor next year, called it “cruel legislation … creating an issue where one doesn’t exist.”

Indeed, when approved by the Republican-controlled state Legislature in April, lawmakers struggled to find any examples of transgender girls or women competing in Florida sports.

While similar measures have been filed in 30 states, an Associated Press survey earlier this year found only a few instances among hundreds of thousands of teenagers nationwide playing high school sports.

Read more at usatoday.com

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The mayor’s proposal creates a temporary commission that she will largely hand-select. Mayoral control over policing is consistent with the status quo, and the status quo has been a disaster.

The Sun-Times last week endorsed Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan for civilian oversight over the Chicago Police Department. This endorsement is based on two faulty premises.

First, contrary to what the Sun-Times asserts in its editorial, the mayor’s proposal is not consistent with what activists have demanded. This is because the mayor’s ordinance takes the community out of community oversight. The mayor’s proposal creates a temporary commission that she will largely hand-select. This temporary commission, controlled by mayoral appointees, will likely retain power for a long time because Mayor Lightfoot’s ordinance will not create a permanent commission that is selected with true community input unless state law is changed. Thus, without a change in state law, the commission responsible for providing oversight over CPD is likely to largely be an extension of the mayor and not representative of communities most impacted by police violence.

SEND LETTERS TO: [email protected]. Please include your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes. Letters should be approximately 350 words or less.

Second, the Sun-Times argues that the mayor must retain control over key policing policy and personnel decisions because ultimately the mayor will be held responsible by voters for policing failures. This position misses the mark. Mayoral control over these areas is consistent with the status quo and the status quo has been a disaster. CPD is currently under a federal consent decree because the Department of Justice found that it had engaged in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing. Under this mayor’s leadership, CPD has consistently missed consent decree deadlines.

Moreover, while the mayor may be held responsible electorally for a spike in crime, those who truly suffer from both crime and police misconduct are the people of this city. For these reasons, the people should have a much greater say in how are they policed.

Therefore, City Council should pass the Empowering Communities for Public Safety Ordinance, not the mayor’s proposal.

Aaron Gottlieb, Jane Addams School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago
Member, Chicago Consent Decree Use of Force Working Group

Why no amendment on pension reform?

It amazes me how the state Legislature passed an amendment to put collective bargaining rights into the Illinois Constitution, and that it will not be diminished by any future law (sound familiar?), apparently to appease the unions. But legislators have not been able to manage an amendment to fix the employee pension problems.

I hope that the voters in 2022 will see through our legislators’ devious scheme.

Mario Caruso, Lincoln Square

Teach the truth about voter suppression

Winston Churchill, while paraphrasing the philosopher Santayana, said ’those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” So many Republican-led states, trying desperately to suppress the vote, are now trying to leave out important eras of American history. By avoiding controversial topics like past racism, slavery and Jim Crow, teachers are being forced to lie to students. How can today’s students become tomorrow’s informed electorate without knowing the history of voter suppression in this country?

I was lucky enough to have taught American history and political science in a high school district (Riverside-Brookfield) for almost four decades. My immediate bosses and school boards even allowed me to create an elective class that dealt with recent Chicago history. That class included much discussion about racism. Teenagers love controversy and they love learning that their past presidents and heroes were flawed human beings. They also love thinking for themselves and coming to their own conclusions. But they cannot do that unless they are armed with all the facts, no matter how unpleasant or divisive the adults around them think they are.

If teaching the truth in these states will get them fired, teachers should consider moving to a state that welcomes debate. The purpose of a well -ounded education is to create good citizens. That cannot be done if teachers are censored.

Jan Goldberg, Riverside

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Naperville also made the top 200, coming in at spot 123, according to the study.

Chicago offers a lot to bicyclists but comes up short in certain areas such as year-round climate and safety, according to a new study that ranks it 30th out of the 200 best biking cities in the U.S.

The study, done by LawnStarter, tabulated an overall score (out of 100 possible points) for 20 different U.S. cities using four metrics: access, climate, community and safety. Access looked at things like miles of bike lanes per square mile and local ride-sharing programs (such as Divvy). Community was gauged through a city’s bike clubs, bike tours and the share of workers who bike to work.

Chicagoans can blame climate for why the city is sitting in 30th place despite having higher access and community scores than other cities that ranked higher. Snowy and icy winters don’t allow for safe bike riding for about a quarter of the year.

Safety is also a metric Chicago did not score well in, contributing to the 30th ranking. Cyclists and pedestrian have been calling for the city to make changes to existing bike lanes to create safer paths for everyone. Less than a week ago, musician and actor Kevin Clark was hit and killed while biking in Avondale at an intersection cyclists have long said is incredibly dangerous.

Earlier this month, transportation commissioner Gia Biagi said Chicago’s cycling plan is “a decade old” and that updates are necessary, floating the idea of installing more raised bike lanes throughout the city.

Chicago isn’t the only Illinois city to crack the top 200. Naperville comes in at spot 123, with high marks for community, specifically.

Below are the top 15 cities in the rankings. Read more about the methodology used and check out the full top 200 list here.

1. San Fransisco, California
2. Portland, Oregon
3. Fort Collins, Colorado
4. Eugene, Oregon
5. Minneapolis, Minnesota
6. Seattle, Washington
7. Washington, D.C.
8. Salt Lake City, Utah
9. Boise, Idaho
10. Boston, Massachusetts
11. Vancouver, Washington
12. St. Paul, Minnesota
13. Tempe, Arizona
14. Hayward, California
15. Fremont, California

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The boy next door has a little edge to him to go with that .400-plus on-base percentage, 1.000-plus OPS and unsurpassed versatility in the field. A little edge is a very good thing.

Kris Bryant still doesn’t give a you-know-what. It might just be the biggest deal in baseball this season.

Let’s put that right at the top, though we’ll leave out the boy next door’s memorable expletive uttered in September 2020 for the sake of your virgin ears.

But back to that in a blanking minute.

As Chicago’s baseball teams neared the conclusion of last year’s 60-game regular season, things were coming apart at the seams.

The White Sox were spiraling — from best record in the American League to coldest team in the playoff field — with a dizzying 2-8 finish. If there was a low point, it came in Game 55, during a four-game sweep in Cleveland, when the Indians won on a 10th-inning blast by Jose Ramirez to cap a four-run rally.

Cubs hitters, meanwhile, were missing everything that moved. Especially the big bats — linchpins Javy Baez, Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant — and that foretold inevitable doom. The end of the season felt like the beginning of a long, hard goodbye to three stars who each had one season to go before free agency.

So we can all agree that 2021 is going far better on both sides of town, even if the records through nearly 60 games are similar. The Sox’ starting pitching has become the backbone of a deeper, more well-rounded team. Rookie designated hitter Yermin Mercedes has been a revelation. Jose Abreu throws another RBI on the pile before pouring his morning coffee. For the Cubs, a parade of little-known players has stepped in for injured veterans and come through. The bullpen has been startlingly good. And Baez and Bryant, at least, seem to be all the way back.

The Sox look like real World Series contenders, not the pretenders they were a year ago. And the Cubs? They don’t quite stack up that high, but — like any group that adds up to more than the sum of its parts — they’re easy to get behind.

And when you wake up on June 1 and both teams are not only in first place but also coming off blistering months of May — 19-10 for the Sox, 19-8 for the Cubs — you don’t even want to reach for the snooze button.

OK, back to Bryant. Did we mention he still doesn’t give a rip?

To put a finer point on it, as if it weren’t obvious enough: The former MVP’s days of fretting about what fans and media say he is or isn’t are buried in the rearview.

“I’m kind of to the point where whatever is said, just anything in general out there in the public, it’s not of concern to me,” he said the other day. “That’s important to kind of get to that point in your career, because everybody goes through it. I don’t know if everybody goes through huge successes and then failures, getting to the top of the mountain and then kind of falling down a little bit and working your way back up, but it’s just kind of a natural career arc for me so far.”

The boy next door has a little edge to him to go with that .300-plus average, .400-plus on-base percentage, 1.000-plus OPS and unsurpassed versatility in the field. A little edge is a very good thing.

Not resilient enough? Not clutch enough? Not happy enough on the field? Not worthy of an elite-level extension from the Cubs? Give him a break. Not that he needs the likes of us to validate him anymore.

“I feel like I’m just in a good place for me to just not worry about anything out there,” he said.

No worries? Now that’s a breakthrough. Two months in, there isn’t a better player story in the league.

JUST SAYIN’

In the wild-card era (starting in 1995), according to the Elias Sports Bureau, teams alone in first place on June 1 have won their divisions approximately three-fifths of the time. On a coincidental note, approximately three-fifths of these predictions will come true:

1. As appreciation of his has-gloves-will-travel versatility spreads, Bryant will become the biggest climber the rest of the way in the NL MVP race. He’s currently seventh in odds to win the award, according to DraftKings. Seventh is silly.

2. Just give the Mets’ Jacob deGrom his third Cy Young already, will you?

3. Another RBI title for Abreu in the AL? It doesn’t matter. The Sox will win their division going away. That’s what matters.

4. I’m still taking the Cardinals in the NL Central. Look, what do you want from me?

5. Cubs president Jed Hoyer will sleep next year. That trade deadline is coming like a freight train.

• Bryant has a terrific message for kids who love to play baseball:

“Pride yourself in being able to play all the positions that you can,” he said. “Real baseball players want to see someone who can just go out there and play baseball and be thrown in different positions and different gloves and be able to look like they’ve done it before.”

One more time for the helicopter parents in the back.

• No offense to Padres second baseman Jake Cronensworth, but Baez probably was referring to Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Eric Hosmer when he said: “That’s a great infield. It’s an expensive infield.”

Translation: We’ll have what they’re having.

All three are on essentially career-length deals, for a combined $788 million. At the least, Cubs ownership could’ve had the decency to kick in some pocket lint to go with Yu Darvish.

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See Red Fred is joined by legendary Athletic Senior Writer Jon Krawczynski to discuss a multitude of Bulls and Wolves-related topics.

The post The Big Red Bus Chicago Bulls Podcast – Episode 68 – The Jon Krawczynski Interview first appeared on CHI CITY SPORTS l Chicago Sports Blog – News – Forum – Fans – Rumors.Read More

A few lines into ‘Girls Girls Girls,’ the Motley Crue singer apologizes and walks off stage at the Boone River Valley Festival.

Telling the crowd “my f- – -in’ voice is gone,” Motley Crue singer Vince Neil walked off a solo show Saturday a few lines into the band’s hit “Girls Girls Girls.”

Fan video shows the vocalist struggling with the song’s opening words and then stopping and saying, “I’m sorry, you guys. It’s been a long time playin’.” Neil tells the fans, “Hope to see you next time,” and walks off as the band continues to play the song and belt the “Girls! Girls! Girls!” backing vocals.

Loudwire reports that Neil made it through 14 songs in the set, also appearing to forget the words during a cover of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” It was Neil’s first solo show since COVID-19 brought on a long hiatus for live music.

Motley Crue is scheduled to hit the road next year on a stadium tour that also includes Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. First announced for summer 2020 but postponed twice, the tour now is set to come to Chicago’s Wrigley Field on July 8, 2022, with ticket prices ranging from $109 to $4,631 for the “Motley Crue Wild Side Ultimate Package.”

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