O’Donnell: Sitting on a pillow, Cubs-Padres will be over in a flash
IN THE SPIRIT OF A BANG-BANG-MAYBE BANG National League Wild-Card Series, fleeting bric-a-brac on the Cubs-Padres:
· Unless a critical groundball shoots through the legs of a Cubs infielder, any mentions of the 1984 Chicago-San Diego NLCS should be off-limits after Tuesday's Game 1;
· That said, the Cubs front office was so fair with media ticketing back in 1984 that such luminaries as film critic Gene Siskel and premier anchor woman Linda Yu were in the left-field bleachers for that Game 1. And Siskel wasn't happy — until he almost caught Gary Matthews' first-inning home run off of Eric Show;
· The Disney decision to assign Boog Sciambi and Doug Glanville to the Reds-Dodgers series on ESPN (Game 2, 8:08 p.m. Wednesday) and leave Jesse Rogers as field reporter for the Cubs-Padres on ABC (Game 2, 2:08 p.m. Wednesday) — alongside Kevin Brown, Jessica Mendoza and Ben McDonald — was a weak one.
Sciambi, Glanville and Rogers have flashed a compelling rhythm in the past and are intrinsically familiar with so many of the nuances of day ball at Wrigley Field. Their insights would be consistently smart.
The audience is being short-changed.
Also, an LAD-CIN call — with the gold-leafed Terry Francona directing the long dog Reds — would be a notably constructive postseason broadcast experience for the junior crew of Brown, Mendoza and McDonald.
· Matt Shaw has shown that he's a young lad of conscience. Now if he would show that he's a young lad with a live bat in the money moments of the NLWCS, all will be reconciled with the Wrigley blue.
STREET-BEATIN':
If Ben Johnson gets bored during the Bears bye week, he can spend some time reviewing his updated financial portfolio. Sportico reports that Johnson is drawing the 10th-highest HC salary in the league at $13M per. The top five: Andy Reid ($20M), Sean Payton ($18M), John Harbaugh ($17M) and Mike Tomlin and Jim Harbaugh (tied at $16M). Nice work if you can get it. …
CBS Sports whizzes proved that they really know how to throw a B-list telecast with their tepid presentation of the Bears' win at Las Vegas. Bigger takeaways were that the Raiders really are a poorly coached team and that the Pete Carroll of 10 years ago would have let Caleb Williams and Co. score on the first play inside of the final two minutes to have more latitude on a drive toward a winning score. …
Was it Guglielmo Marconi or Li'l Tommy Edwards who said that a rising wild card lifts all horizontaling radio stations? Boosted by its Cubs programming, WSCR-AM (670) is up close to 20% in listenership since the ides of July. The current postseason run is also strengthening ad sales for next year at the pared-down operation. …
Mention the 2026 Winter Olympics at Milan-Cortino and one of the last names that comes to mind is Snoop Dogg. Nonetheless, the Dogg-eared rapper will be front and center when NBC presents the February spectacle, most frequently during daily debriefings alongside benign counterpoint Mike Tirico. (Yesterday's outlaw is today's center square; NBCUniversal also has a Snoop biopic in the works.) …
Also from the Peacock, NBC's edited audio from the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black (N.Y.) only partially sanitized just how disgusting the behavior of segments of the current America can be. Crowd chants at golf tournaments featuring vulgarities are about as clever as triple exclamation points in social media posts. Rory McIlroy had every right to voice extreme chagrin at the runaway jingoists. …
With the Bulls now bouncing balls at training camp, the roster remains uninspiring, the front office packs all the wallop of a Joe Namath hearing-aid commercial and a quasi-serious run at an Eastern Conference play-in slot is the team's new annual ceiling. Best preseason viewing is Billy Donovan's Naismith Hall induction speech; “Enduring D” checked all key direct-deposit boxes. (Rick Pitino and Mo Cheeks were his presenters.) …
For the L-Vegan/Pepto Bismol-Malort crowd, college football ending of the week came with Indiana (minus -5½ to 6½) leading host Iowa 20-13, with the ball, fourth down and three seconds remaining. Hoosier QB Fernando Mendoza took the snap and ran 35 yards backward for a game-ending safety and a Hawkeyes' wagering win. It was dream-scream stuff; he later apologized to “cooked” Indiana backers. …
Fox Chicago Plus (WPWR-TV) will air 30 Wolves games this season, beginning Oct. 18 vs. Rockford. Jason Shaver and Billy Gardner return to the booth. Astute puck people can recall that Gardner was once a teen mate of Wayne Gretzky in Toronto-area junior hockey — and emerged as the team's MVP. …
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.