The Embarrassed Chicago Sports Fan

What has happened to my beloved home town?

In all my life I have never seen Chicago suffer so much from collective bad sports team management and performance since I was born in 1970.

Sure the Bears had their dog days and the Bulls were Kornell Henried while the Cubs are, well the Cubs.

But those teams were bad and just playing how they were meant to perform: badly.

Now? Now, the town is run amok by talented underachieving squads that are so badly coached and even worse, littered with questionable character amongst the rosters it makes this hard-boiled, proud Chicago-born man in near athletic tears.

Sure the Blackhawks finally broke through and won the Cup with a young, talented, group of players while looking like a dynasty in the making.

Um, not so fast...

Now they are dumping payroll so fast that yeah the Baby Blacks may be still good but any major injuries and the lack of depth will definitely come into play.

All this after a great two-year run which followed decades of penny-pinching and woefully poor playing squads with neither the talent and/or desire to perform.

Well at least we got the Cup.

Still I have never seen so much collective disappointment in my city at one time due to team's letting the fans down.

When a team stinks, they stink, but you still complain about the lack of performance.

But when a team is just mailing it in, that is crushing.

Take a look at the current state of affairs in the not-so-WIN-dy City.

The Bears:  Lovie Smith is a complete joke of a coach. He blew a second Super Bowl title by starting Rex Grossman over Kyle Orton. To this day I truly think Rexy is the only player I've seen single-handedly lose a football game. Lovie is a pushover lacking any toughness and the team's drop from the top fits him to a tee. To top it off management has sold the Bears' soul for the alleged better good. In all my years did I ever really hear of a "BAD" Bear? Tank Johnson? He owned guns...whoopee. Alonzo Spellman? The man was ill. But to trade for Jay Cutler??? Seriously? Really? He came off as an over-athletic loser with an attitude so bad he actually comes off as evil. He then comes to Chicago and completely stinks as expected. All accounts are that the man drips of bad but hey let's ruin our legacy with this scuz? What happened to the memory of Sweetness and Mike? Gayle and Fencik? This team, my oldest love, has broken my heart.

The Cubs: What people do not realize is that over the past decade the Cubs have actually had some of the more talented teams in the Majors to only crap it away. But, then I realized why: The ignorant fans. YOU FANS are the ones who blamed Steve Bartman for the NLCS collapse in 2003. Really? Seriously? Blame some doofus in the crowd but don't blame the TEAM'S LEADER, Moises Alou for pissing his pants over a missed foul ball? Gee up 3-0 in the 8th, five outs a way, with a 3-2 series lead, and you FREAK OUT with an impressionable 22-year-old rookie phenom on the mound? I blame Moises for the implosion because if he had acted cool I know in my heart the Cubs would have advanced. Instead the fans point the blame in the wrong direction. And the past few years with Boo Pinella? Shoot. Two years ago they walked up to the plate against the Dodgers and you could see the could have cared less only to be swept out. Of course the Cubs will always lose because the dumb fans still cheer and make excuses while getting ripped at Wrigley. Pathetic.

The Bulls: We were so close to getting back on track after the nearly 10 years of the Jordan-Hangover. The club was young and talented and were led by one of the top three coaches in the NBA (next to Larry Brown and Pat Riley, don't get me start on Full of it Jackson). Then they trade for a center, needing a presence, and pick up Ben Wallace? Then coach Skiles tries to instill discipline and Wallace divides the team and management dumps Skiles. Really? Seriously? They bring in Vinnie Del Negro and there goes the discipline and defense and they barely scrape into the playoffs two years running. D-Rose is nice but they dump salary to get LeBron (thank God they didn't) and end up with Ronnie Brewer? Yeah, way to go.

The White Sox: May actually be the only team that has competed consistently since 1990. But even then we are stuck with Ozzie Guillen who is so busy saying one smart thing followed by 10 stupid things and embarrassing the city even more.

Heck, even, the,

Fire: Over the past five years the soccer club has had some of the more talented squads only to blow it over-and-over. They were coached by Dennis Hamlett who brought with him the disease of choking and after getting fired never left with it. They give away leads and even ties at such a alarmingly-frequent rate it's almost enough to make one throw up. The players are mental midgets but at least we got rid of that classless, thug, and overweight Blanco who was such an embarrassment. But who picks him up? The Fire. For what? 10 good passes in a match, no defense, and constant diving? Really? Seriously? To top it off the fans sing the praises of Chicago by mispronouncing the city's name? Sh-Ka-Go. NOT, Chee-Ca-Go.

I miss the days of our bad Cubs, Sox, Bulls, Hawks, and Bears, teams. At least then they were just bad at sports. Now they are just embarrassing on all fronts.