Clubhouse Chatter: Who is the most overrated player in Chicago sports history?
Daily Herald Sports staff
Clubhouse Chatter is what our Sports staff has to say while waiting for the games to resume. Today's question: Who is the most overrated player in Chicago sports history?
John Dietz:
Tough to choose between Ron Santo and Mike Singletary. Santo was a fantastic ballplayer and a wonderful human, but he wasn't deemed to be a Hall of Famer until the Golden Era committee elected him three-plus decades after his career ended. Meanwhile, Singletary - a leader of men if there ever was one - nonetheless greatly benefitted from playing with the best defense of all time. Would he have been a Hall of Famer with any other franchise? Unlikely.
Kevin Schmit:
I'm going with a team - the 1984 Chicago Cubs. I adored them as a 14-year-old, but let's be honest. Much of the lineup was made up of castoffs from other teams. Larry Bowa and Ron Cey were a combined 74 years old. Gary Matthews was in his 13th season when he joined the Cubs. As heartbreaking as it was to lose in the NLCS, there's no way the Cubs would have beaten the Tigers in the World Series.
Dave Oberhelman:
Though I was among those who blindly celebrated that crazy 1998 season, my pick is the Cubs' Sammy Sosa. His apparently sole-minded pursuit of dingers turned him from a 5-tool player to a 1-tool player who seemed to place personal gain over team accomplishment. A suspected steroid abuser, a corked-bat user, he slunk out of the clubhouse on his last day as a Cub with the game still in progress. Not cool.
Jerry Fitzpatrick:
William "the Refrigerator" Perry. I won't go as far as former Bears defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan, who in 1984 called Perry, "A wasted draft pick," but 29.5 sacks in a 10-year NFL career is less production that any front office wants from a first-rounder.
John Leusch:
There's probably been quite a few since the media has become such a major evaluator on an athlete's expected value. But can't really pick one who stands over the others. There is so much analysis for each sports' draft that you're going to see more and more players overrated as well as underrated for that matter.
- John Leusch
Patricia Babcock McGraw:
I love them ... but the Bears' William "the Refrigerator" Perry and Jim McMahon.