Baffoe: Everything Is Bad
By Tim Baffoe-
(CBS) Kent Brockman: "Professor, without knowing precisely what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers to crack each others' heads open and feast on the goo inside?"
Professor: "Yes I would, Kent."
As usual, The Simpsons is right. You get to freak out. You get to emote, whine, demand satisfaction in the form of other cities' sympathy. None of it will solve a dang thing, but screw it. You deserve trying to get the poison out in any nonviolent, nonderogatory way you want.
Everything is immediately bad right now. Really bad in Chicago sports.
This doesn't happen. Injuries do, of course. Heartbreaking season-altering (or ending?) injuries. Chicago knows this. Chicago has endured that like every sports town has.
But not the double whammy on the same night with the faces of two franchises going down, one literally in front of our eyes and the other somewhere in the cold lonely February night in the city. Arguments can be made that Derrick Rose is not the focal point of the Chicago Bulls anymore or that Patrick Kane is the sexiest skater on Chicago Blackhawks but not the overall best, but their respective injuries Tuesday night tear and crack at your joy and confidence in the games you turn to.
The Bulls can still sort of do something in the playoffs. A series win, sure. Maybe two of them. A title is not happening, and this was a year where the collective health that was kind of pretty good with the Bulls as of Monday carried realistic championship contention. That's gone now. Rubik's cube the hypotheticals about this season all you want in your Kübler-Ross coping, it's over.
The season and any shred of hope that the Rose you knew could return. His body has let him down again, maybe permanently. It's fair to assume his psyche will heal less than his knee. Overshadowed by your horror at the present situation as Chicago sports fan is the humanity in you that should ache for a guy who is again denied the ability to do the job he is best at. Few if any can fathom three times being demoted to incapacitated in the milieu in which they work. Fewer can make a third journey toward returning to some semblance of the worker he or she once was. Not only did a team's season die Tuesday night, but so may have a singular superstardom.
With that comes the self-satisfactory chidings of Rose. The worth as a human being gets questioned because somehow it's his fault his body hates him. You tore your meniscus saving orphans in the war, so what's his problem? Jokes get made that rub up against various prejudices. He gets dismissed for having lots of money, as though that disqualifies someone from sympathy. Some blame for what is guessed to be the impending departure of head coach Tom Thibodeau gets put on Rose (and conversely some unfair blame for Rose's situation goes to Thibs). The Bulls procession to the 2015 grave of an early playoff exit (and perhaps a dismantling of the team as you know it at the moment) becomes the cruel joke of spring yet again.
There is a lot of time to unpack all that. Right now, though, it all sucks. Yell into the nothingness. Post reassuring quotes from the Greek philosopher Anonymous on social media. (Wait, actually don't do the quotes thing.)
The Kane injury is different, though awful nonetheless. Certainly less permanent physically and mentally, but its current ambiguity is torturous. "Looks like he might miss some time," Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville said after Tuesday's game. That's Q-speak for "We just lost the league's leader in points, and I'm going home to watch Beaches on repeat with a vat of mint chocolate chip."
At best, Kane returns as the Blackhawks plug their way into mid-April and you ride the gamble of NHL playoffs tending to be weird. But missing a significant part of the postseason is a realistic possibility, if not all of it. Winning a series or more without its leading scorer just seems too idealistic. Being way more uncertain of how Kane's absence impacts this team's season might even be more agonizing than the finality of the Bulls situation.
And then straws are grasped at. Trickle in the inevitable calls for retaliation against the Florida Panthers for a hit that really wasn't that cheap or dirty in the pantheon of scummy events in the NHL because frustration in the form of violence solves as much on the ice as it does in real life. You broke your collarbone jumping from a stadium's upper deck seats (because you ain't paying those ludicrous lower-level prices) to stop an immigrant from burning the American flag. What's Kaner's problem? Stan Bowman did not have Kane insurance and has not made some asinine trade in the last twelve hours to make absolutely make it all better, damn it. Something something Corey Crawford's fault something something.
All that in due time as well. Now is not the time for reason or cool-headedness. But right now everything is bad. And, oh hell, you had repressed the Chicago Bears. Why all this after that flesh-eating disease at a public swimming pool?
Cry, curse in private, scream at houseplants. (Don't burn a jersey.) Tell New Yorkers and Angelinos and Texans and even Clevelanders that you in Chicago have it the worst right now. Seek Twitter hugs. Type in all caps on that message board with the other sociopaths. Blame Rahm Emanuel's evil sorcery for the city not electing him Tuesday night.
Right now all your frustration and panic and sadness and anger and numbness are warranted. Go and eat your feelings, gorging yourself on the terrible goo.
Follow Tim on Twitter at @TimBaffoe.
