Ten Foot Mailbag: Who Wins A Chicago Championship Next And Jersey Etiquette

By Tim Baffoe-

(CBS) I was very impressed with the way the Chicago Blackhawks handled themselves Thursday night in their first meeting with Raffi Torres since Torres injured Marian Hossa on an illegal hit last year. There was question as to whether or not the Hawks would enter with a brawling mentality looking for blood or if they'd take the high road while also perhaps looking like they were easy to push around.

All it took was—OH GOD KENNETH FARIED IS DUNKING ON ME. HE WON'T STOP. AHH! IT'S LIKE GOD'S WRATH INCARNATE. SOMEBODY TRANQUILIZE HIM. PLEASE CEASE, FARIED. I LIKE BOB MARLEY, TOO. HAD A POSTER IN MY DORM ROOM. NO, NOT ANOTHER DUNK. WHAT HAVE I DONE TO ANGER YE?

And now there's snow!

In your opinion, which Chicago team will be the next to win a championship and why? #TFMB—@PrazMaster

The Blackhawks or Bulls have the best chance right now.

The Bears will likely have a playoff-worthy roster come Week 1 of the 2013 seas—I MISS NFL FOOTBALL PLEASE COME BACK I NEED YOU. Sorry. And getting your foot in the door can be half the battle. Just look at the Ravens, who were not the best team in the AFC, let alone the NFL, despite being Super Bowl Champions. If they had to play the Broncos, Patriots, or 49ers again, they'd again be underdogs, and rightly so. That said, a team like the Ravens usually doesn't win the Super Bowl, and I doubt the Bears will in February 2014 either.

The White Sox won't be awful in 2013, but they've probably regressed from 2012. Nothing about their roster screams championship, and with a farm system that doesn't show great promise for the near future, new GM Rick Hahn has quite the puzzle to solve.

The Cubs… will suck this upcoming season, hopefully will be markedly better in 2014, and by 2015 should be contender-worthy. Please. Oh, Theo, please.

That leaves the Blackhawks and Bulls. The latter is not winning a championship this season. They will be a playoff team and quite the dangerous one at that once Derrick Rose is back. Tom Thibodeau is the best coach in the city who consistently finds ways to squeeze blood out of what can be at times a bunch of turnips. They just are not better right now than the Heat, Thunder, Spurs, and probably a few other teams. Regardless of the Bulls record or playoff seed, the regular season is a completely different animal than the playoffs. Thibs has success in the regular season getting every drop out of his guys every time they take the court, but that sometimes can be against teams that are on autopilot until a seven-game series starts. 2014, though, if another big name joins the roster somehow…

The Blackhawks could win the Stanley Cup this year. It's understood that they are in the upper crust of the league, and the incredible start they've had has created an optimistic buzz. They score pretty often and as of now have had some good goaltending. The smushed schedule would seem to favor a fairly youthful roster like that of the Hawks, and the Kings showed last season that anything can happen in the NHL playoffs. Their ultratalented core of Kane, Toews, and Hossa is the envy of much of the league. Even without a 2013 Cup, the Hawks would certainly be a top team next season, too.

will you please write a column dedicated to the stupidity of wearing your favorite NFL team jersey on Super Bowl Sunday?—@rgallik_10

Me [disheveled, in cockney accent]: Mightn't I please do a 'ole column on this tawpic, sirrah?

Adam Hoge [webmaster, taskmaster, possible human trafficker]: NO. RELEGATE IT TO YOUR PAULTRY MAILBAG. AND WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT WRITING WITH THE FURNACE ON?

Me: But… I work from home. How did y—

Hoge: SILENCE. SHUT OFF YOUR THERMOSTAT. HEAT IS FOR CLOSERS AND SALARIES LIKE BERNSTEIN'S.

I've often encountered such people you're referring to while delivering pizzas on weeknights when the Bears were playing (I don't deliver on Sundays). It's been made clear through this column that I'm not a fan of adults wearing jerseys at all. But I can at least understand a quasi-argument to wearing one to a game one is attending. But wearing a jersey around the house or to a bar just because a game is on? Really?

By such logic, it would not be weird to dress up like a character in a favorite film anytime it was on TV. "SHUT UP, WEARING THIS GIMP OUTFIT MAKES THE PULP FICTION EXPERIENCE MORE ENJOYABLE FOR ME." What does that say about you if television programming dictates your choice of dress? "HOCKEY IS ON. MUST. WEAR. KANE. SWEATER." "DOCUMENTARY ON STALIN IS ON. MUST. WEAR. TATTERED. RAGS. AND. BULLETHOLES."

What does Ray Lewis think about when he sees the Don Cheadle in a white suit at the doughnut shop scene in Boogie Nights?—@JunderscoreCo

Notice how I used a film discussion to segue into this question. It's called being a pro.

I'm sure that Lewis considers himself a sympathetic character of Buck type. While he likely hasn't been punished appropriately for his involvement in what went down years ago that resulted in two men being stabbed to death and certainly hasn't treated the situation appropriately since, the Boogie Nights situation is a tad different.

Cheadle's Buck is a sympathetic character. He has a dream of owning an electronics store but gets discriminated against by a bank because of his work in adult film (and possibly because of his race and/or interracial relationship with Jessie). His wrong place/wrong time situation in the donut shop robbery scene becomes an opportune one when he's left the only survivor staring down a bag of cash. While morally wrong to grab the bag of cash and flee the bloody scene that he otherwise committed no crime in, the average viewer doesn't condemn Buck because he/she already feels bad for him after a the heartwrenching scene in the bank. Had he "done the right thing," also don't underestimate the pre-CSI era of police work where it wouldn't be unusual for cops to ask themselves why this black man who was recently denied a loan the only survivor of this random robbery attempt, and then the good deed might really not go unpunished for Buck.

Ray Lewis was never a sympathetic character. It would be hard to call his a wrong place/wrong time situation because he chose to hang around with those unnamed bad guys that killed two people. Lewis' case also is more of a covering his own butt, while Buck's was not.

Thanks for emailing, tweeting, and reading. If your question did not get answered this time, that does not necessarily mean I am ignoring it. It may be saved for the next mailbag. Hopefully you're a slightly better person now than you were ten minutes ago. If not, your loss.

Want your questions answered in a future Mailbag? Email them to tenfootmailbag@gmail.com or tweet them with the hashtag #TFMB. No question, sports or otherwise, is off limits (with certain logistical exceptions, e.g. lots of naughty words or you type in Portuguese or you solicit my death). If you email, please include a signature.

Tim Baffoe attended the University of Iowa and Governors State University and began blogging at The Score after winning the 2011 Pepsi Max Score Search. He enjoys writing things about stuff, but not so much stuff about things. When not writing for 670TheScore.com, Tim corrupts America's youth as a high school English teacher and provides a great service to his South Side community delivering pizzas (please tip him and his colleagues well). You can follow Tim's inappropriate brain droppings on Twitter @Ten_Foot_Midget, but please don't follow him in real life. E-mail him at tenfootmailbag@gmail.com. To read more of Tim's blogs click here.