TWO WEEKS AGO, I wrote this:

Here’s an email that made me happy:

For those who don’t understand Matt-speak: My go-to baseball dude Matt Musico wrote an article about Pete Crow-Armstrong (PCA) for his Substack page, MLB Daily Dingers (MLBDD), and, out of the kindness of his heart, is allowing me to post it here on Chicago Sports Stuff (CSS).

I love sports acronyms.

Anyhoobs, three reasons why this is a beautiful thing:

• Matt is a baseball writing stud, and baseball writing studliness is something Chicago Sports Stuff seriously lacks.

• Cubs MVP candidate Pete Crow-Armstrong ranks super-high in Google Trends, and having his name in a headline could prove to be a massive SEO win.

• I get a day off.

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Last night, it happened again — Matt hooked me up. And I’ll stand by the above.

Take it away, Mr. Musico…

IT WAS A GOOD MONTH for the Chicago Cubs. Some may even say it was historic in some respects. A lot of that can be attributed to the offensive production from center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong and third baseman Alex Bregman.

Manager Craig Counsell’s club went 16-12 in August and entered September with a 78-60 record. While the Milwaukee Brewers have a secure hold on the National League Central divisional lead, Chicago also has a firm hold on an NL Wild Card spot as we enter the regular season’s final month.

What PCA and Bregman did certainly opened some eyes around the league, though. Bregman had entered the 2026 season with zero career three-homer games...and he put up two such performances in August alone. As for PCA, he registered his own three-homer game and also entered the exclusive club of players with a leadoff and walk-off home run in the same game.

Combine their August performances, and you’ve got something special we haven’t seen in a while.

PCA and Bregman Enter an Exclusive Club

HERE’S A LOOK at Crow-Armstrong’s month of August (which also saw him join the 30-30 club for the second straight year): .280/.366/.703 with 14 home runs, six doubles, 16 walks, 28 RBI, and 29 runs scored in 28 games.

And this is what Bregman did in August: .296/.364/.661 with 12 home runs, six doubles, 12 walks, 30 RBI, and 23 runs scored in 28 games.

Combine their homers, walks, RBI, and runs scored, and they’ve reached heights we haven’t seen since 1961, according to OptaSTATS:

And if we boil down their performance to only homers, the club is still pretty exclusive. According to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, it’s happened just four times. However, PCA and Bregman are the first duo to do it this century:

• Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman, August 2026 (Chicago Cubs)

• Iván Rodríguez and Rafael Palmeiro, August 1999 (Texas Rangers)

• Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, July 1961 (New York Yankees)

• Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle, June 1960 (New York Yankees)

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What Happened the Next Month For These Teammate Duos?

WHENEVER I SEE stats like these, it always makes me stop in my tracks because they’re incredibly cool. But I also immediately wondered how these duos performed the following month after making history.

So, let’s find out!

Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle (June 1960)

June 1960 was Maris’ third straight month with an OPS north of 1.000. He finished with a 1.157 OPS, 14 home runs, and 34 RBI in 30 games. Mantle posted a 1.184 OPS with 12 homers and 23 RBI in 28 games during the same month.

Here’s what happened in July of 1960:

• Maris: .774 OPS, six homers, and 17 RBI in 26 games

• Mantle: .973 OPS, nine homers, and 26 RBI in 27 games

Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle (July 1961)

This duo was pretty impressive, don’t you think? The 1961 season was, of course, the campaign in which Maris broke Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record by slugging 61 taters. Mantle finished further off the pace at 54, but that was a single-season record for switch-hitters until Cal Raleigh passed him in 2025.

In July 1961, Maris put together a 1.158 OPS with 13 homers and 31 RBI in 28 games. Mantle checked in with a 1.362 OPS, 14 homers, and 28 RBI in 29 games.

Here’s how things looked for both sluggers in August of 1961:

• Maris: .945 OPS, 11 homers, and 24 RBI in 31 games

• Mantle: 1.051 OPS, nine homers, 22 RBI in 31 games

Iván Rodríguez and Rafael Palmeiro (August 1999)

This is probably the best comparison for PCA and Bregman. I know Pudge and Raffy did this during the height of the steroid era, and MLB’s offensive environment was fundamentally different, but at least it happened less than three decades ago.

Rodríguez posted a 1.028 OPS with 12 homers and 28 RBI in 29 games during August 1999 for Texas. Palmeiro did even more damage, evidenced by his 1.165 OPS, 15 homers, and 39 RBI in 30 games.

This is how each player finished out the regular season in September of 1999:

• Rodríguez: .965 OPS, five homers, and 22 RBI in 25 games

• Palmeiro: .945 OPS, seven homers, and 21 RBI in 27 games

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What kind of encore performance do PCA and Bregman have in store for us in September?

Time will tell, but they’ve done themselves a huge favor by entering the final stretch of the regular season on incredible heaters as the Cubs eye another postseason appearance.

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THE THING ABOUT fantasy football punditry is that we’re all working from the same numbers.

Every fantasy content creator knows how and where to find metrics and analytics, advanced or otherwise, then tweak them so they can justify touting Malik Willis over Brock Purdy.

The only thing I can offer fantasy managers that nobody else can is…me.

To that end, here during Chicago Sports Stuff’s fantasy football preview week, rather than throw a bunch of DVOA crap at you, I’m going to pick my three draft yesses and no’s at each skill position using my eyes and gut. (Like any respectable pundit, I’m blowing off defenses and kickers.) The only actual information I’ll bring into the mix is team schedules.

Take that, Matthew Berry.

Editor’s note: We’ll be using an iteration of this intro in each of our preview articles this week because A) the numbers thing needs to be hammered home, and B) we’re lazy.

YES

Trevor Lawrence - Jacksonville Jaguars

One of my 13-year-old daughter’s favorite modifiers is “low-key” — actually, pretty much every 13-year-old uses “low-key” these days — and it’s now in my lexicon, and I’m going to bust it out now, because it’s apt af. (She also uses “af.”)

The Jaguars low-key have one of the NFL’s best one-two wide receiver punches.

Brian Thomas Jr. is going to be one of Those Guys, and during the second half of the 2025 season, Parker Washington was playing at a WR1 level, and that will continue to be a thing. And at some point, Jags coach Liam Coen has to unleash fantasy-beast-in-waiting Travis Hunter at receiver, doesn’t he?

If that all indeed comes to pass as I expect, Trevor Lawrence — should he find himself even an iota of consistency — will have himself a career year.

T-Law might not be your dream QB1, but considering the Jags’ will face their fair share of cupcake defenses (Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Cincinnati, Tennessee, Washington), QB1.5 is a reasonable take.

Dak Prescott - Dallas Cowboys

Prescott — who’s generally good for a pair of 400-yard games each year — is a borderline Hall of Famer and a stat monster, but for some reason, at virtually every fantasy draft ever, he falls into the zillionth round, selected well after whatever shiny new second- or third-year quarterback is on the scene, e.g. Jayden Daniels.

But the ‘Boys have the best one-two WR punches in the league — low-key way better than Jacksonville’s — in CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens. (And don’t sleep on TE Jake Ferguson.) Two top-15 fantasy receivers should equate to one top-seven quarterback.

Tyler Shough - New Orleans Saints

I spent a good six minutes debating whether this final slot should go to Shough or Jaxson Dart, but since I’m not using stats, I can’t give you a concrete reason I rolled with Tyler.

Actually, now that I think about it, it’s probably the Chris Olave factor. If the Ohio State product stays healthy — always an iffy proposition — then Shough has a top-eight receiver at his disposal. (No slight to Malik Nabers, but I need a bigger sample size before I hop on that particular train.) Plus TE Juwan Johnson is a fantasy monster, and newly-arrived RB Travis Etienne Jr. is a fantastic dump-off option.

And here’s a bonus bold prediction: After seven minutes of debate, I decided the Saints and the Giants will both make the playoffs.

NO

Jalen Hurts - Philadelphia Eagles

This, kiddies, is an eye-test spectacular.

Last season, every time I stumbled onto the Eagles on either national tube or RedZone, Hurts was mediocre-ing up the joint, looking like anything but the Michael Vick-y fantasy option we thought we’d see each season since 2023. The fact that he doesn’t have much receiver-wise beyond Devonta Smith — Dontayvion Wicks? Hollywood Brown? Makai Lemon? Oy. — doesn’t help his cause.

If he’s around later on in your draft, sure, grab him, he’ll be a nice QB2. But I’d put him way behind the Lawrences and the Prescotts of the world.

Jordan Love - Green Bay Packers

I promise, I’m not sticking Love into the no section just because he’s on the Packers, and the Packers are simply gross.

No, this is a Hurts-esque situation: Whenever Love popped up on my telly, he was getting sacked, or chucking the ball way over Romeo Doubs’ head. Now that he’s lost (alleged) girlfriend-beating RB Josh Jacobs for the foreseeable future, there’ll be more pressure on him to make hay with a wide receiver battalion that’s as uninspiring as uninspiring gets — suffice it to say Christian Watson and Jayden Reed ain’t exactly CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens.

The Packers do have an easy schedule to start the season — three of their first five games are against the Jets’, Bears’, and Falcons’ respective defensive sieves — but it’s a long season, and Love has “bust” written all over him.

Baker Mayfield - Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Four words: Mike. Evans. Is. Gone.

Listen, I loves me some Emeka Egbuka as much as the next guy, but after that, Baker doesn’t have much to play with. We all know Chris Godwin Jr. will be on IR by mid-September, and after that, it’s Jalen McMillan and a cast of thousands.

Plus Baker is 31, but it feels like he’s been in the league for 19 years. And this is the season he’ll look like he’s been in the league for 19 years.

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BE HONEST, KIDS: What gets you more tingly, the NFL’s Opening Day, or your fantasy league’s Opening Day?

Unscientifically speaking, I’ll put it at about 50/50.

And speaking of unscientific-ness (Unscientific-ocity? Unscientific-ness-ocity?), dig on the final preseason edition of Chicago Sports Stuff’s renowned unscientific fake pigskin analysis here in Chicago Sports Stuff’s renowned Chicago Bears fantasy football stock watch.

Editor’s note: If you’re getting deja vu vibes, it’s because this article is entitled “Chicago Bears 2026 Fantasy Football Stock Watch,” and I doubled down and threw “Chicago Bears fantasy football stock watch” into the previous paragraph. But the more often I write “Chicago Bears fantasy football stock watch,” the better my SEO ranking, especially if I make it an H2 headline. So…

Chicago Bears fantasy football stock watch

SEO is stupid, amirite?

Caleb Williams: Quarterback

• July ADP: 70

• Early-August ADP: 83 (-13)

• Late-August ADP: 86 (-3)

• July Positional Rank: QB7

• Early-August Positional Rank: QB7 (=)

• Late-August Positional Rank: QB7 (=)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: QB9

• Alan’s Early-August Unscientific Positional Rank: QB7 (+2)

• Alan’s Late-August Unscientific Positional Rank: QB5 (+2)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: To exactly nobody’s surprise, the Instagram algos throw dozens and dozens of Chicago Bears postings onto my IG feed, and a goodly number of them feature some pundit or another giving Caleb Williams a shot at MVP. (Colin Cowherd, for instance, is very much on Team Caleb.)

Few are touting Jalen Hurts as an MVP candidate, yet he’s being selected one spot ahead of Williams. And Jayden Daniels sits at QB5, which is even more baffling, because Washington’s receiver depth chart is Terry McLauren (not super-trustworthy for a WR1), Stefon Diggs (possibly washed) and Luke McCaffrey (show me). Plus the Commanders’ starting tight end is Chig Okonkwo (TE24), who ain’t exactly Colston Loveland.

Thusly, my Caleb leapfrog feels right.

D’Andre Swift: Running Back

• July ADP: 51

• Early-August ADP: 53 (-2)

• Late-August ADP: 51 (+2)

• July Positional Rank: RB21

• Early-August Positional Rank: RB25 (-4)

• Late-August Positional Rank: RB21 (+4)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: RB24

• Early-Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: RB30 (-6)

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: RB20 (+10)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: I’m not, never have been, nor ever will be a Swift truther. But I am a Ben Johnson truther, and if Johnson dips into his run-heavy Detroit playbook a few times this season — which he most definitely will — Swift might rack up some Jahmyr Gibbs-like fantasy points.

If Swift goes off in five or six games, he’ll be a better option than Bucky Irving (RB20, splitting carries with super-sub Kenny Gainwell), Jeremiyah Love (RB14, unproven, splitting carries with red zone stud Tyler Allgeier), or Breece Hall (RB17, the Jets blow).

Kyle Monangai: Running Back

• July ADP: 93

• Early-August ADP: 72 (+21)

• Late-August ADP: 77 (-5)

• July Positional Rank: RB34

• Early-August Positional Rank: RB31 (+3)

• Late-August Positional Rank: RB34 (-3)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: RB31

• Early-Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: RB31 (=)

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: RPB34 (-3)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: Once Monangai gets 100% healthy, he could become Johnson’s goal line bowling ball, but we’re not sure when that’ll happen. If the second-year man is still on the board relatively late in your draft, pounce. But don’t get cute.

Luther Burden III: Wide Receiver

• July ADP: 42

• Early-August ADP: 39 (+3)

• Late-August ADP: 42 (-3)

• July Positional Rank: WR21

• Early-August Positional Rank: WR20 (+1)

• Late-August Positional Rank: RB25 (-5)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: WR11

• Early-Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: WR7 (+4)

• Alan’s Late-August Unscientific Positional Rank: WR20 (-13)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: From Stock Watch 2.0: “My philosophy in terms of valuing fantasy receivers is: If you have the opportunity to grab a WR1 for a top-ten quarterback, you do it, and you do it early.”

I’ll stand by that…but not here. Y’see, Burden missed about half of training camp, thus losing a few weeks of on-field bonding with Williams. It might take a game or three for them to get on the exact same page, and even a small handful of meh performances from your WR1 could lose you a couple of games, and two early-season L’s might well screw up your whole season.

That said, Burden be a beast by Week 4, so do with this take what you will.

Rome Odunze: Wide Receiver

• July ADP: 60

• Early-August ADP: 56 (+4)

• Late-August ADP: 65 (-9)

• July Positional Rank: WR30

• Early-August Positional Rank: WR28 (+2)

• Late-August Positional Rank: RB27 (-1)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: WR30

• Early-Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: WR36 (-6)

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: WR29 (+7)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: If Burden trends down, it would stand to reason that Odunze should trend up. He’s looked fantastic in camp — healthy, fast, sticky hands — so the former Huskie could be a steal in round six or seven.

Zavion Thomas: Wide Receiver

• July ADP: 244

• Early-August ADP: N/R (x)

• Late-August ADP: N/R (x)

• July Positional Rank: WR102

• Early-August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Late-August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: WR88

• Early-Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: N/R 100 (+100)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: On Saturday, dude caught a legit 97-yard tuddie on his first NFL touch. Is he baby Tyreek Hill? I’m 200% taking a late-round flyer to find out.

Kalif Raymond: Wide Receiver

• July ADP: 283

• Early-August ADP: N/R (x)

• Late-August ADP: N/R (x)

• July Positional Rank: WR120

• Early-August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Late-August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: WR125

• Early-Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: WR119 (+6)

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: WR111 (+8)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: You might not want to draft Raymond, but you’d damn well better keep a weekly eye on the waiver wire. He’s reliable, and he and Williams look like they’re on the same page, so if the Bears are facing a garbage defense — say, Atlanta in Week 6 — the former Lion might be a slick DFS sleeper.

Jahdae Walker: Wide Receiver

• July ADP: 348

• Early-August ADP: N/R (x)

• Late-August ADP: N/R (x)

• July Positional Rank: WR152

• Early-August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Late-August Positional Rank: N/R (=)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: WR140

• Early-Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: N/R (x)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: The sophomore has developed a semblance of a mind-meld with Williams, but I’m concerned about hands and consistency. Leave him on the wire. For now.

Colston Loveland: Tight End

• July ADP: 47

• Early-August ADP: 48 (-1)

• Late-August ADP: 45 (+3)

• July Positional Rank: TE3

• Early-August Positional Rank: TE3 (=)

• Late-August Positional Rank: TE3 (=)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: TE3

• Early-Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: TE2 (+1)

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: TE2 (+1)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: The Las Vegas Raiders are a Dumpster fire, and Fernando Mendoza looks like Cam Ward 2.0, and Kirk Cousins is 53 years old, thus Brock Bowers is headed for a sophomore slump, and Ben Johnson loves himself some tight ends, and my zillion Bears IG posts tell me that Williams and Loveland have developed an on-field bromance, so ladies and gentlemen, meet the second-best tight end in fantasyland.

Cole Kmet: Tight End

• July ADP: 263

• Early-August ADP: N/A (x)

• Late-August ADP: N/A (x)

• July Positional Rank: TE43

• Early-August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Late-August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: TE32

• Early-Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: TE32 (=)

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: TE31 (+1)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: I remain baffled that Kmet isn’t on many, if any fantasy radars, as Johnson is going to draw up a whole lot of two- and three- tight end packages, and Kmet is a reliable target. Plus there are absolutely not 32 TE’s who are better than the Notre Dame product.

If you’re in a two-TE league and he’s around in the second-to-last round, pounce.

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TWO HOURS and 41 minutes.

That’s the approximate running time of Avatar, and Dances With Wolves, and The Right Stuff, and Heat, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Classics all, but most movie aficionados will agree those justifiably acclaimed flicks would’ve been just as acclaimed had James Cameron, or Kevin Costner, or Philip Kaufman, or Marty Scorsese, or any of their respective editors shaved five or ten minutes off of the final cut. In the case of Dances, maybe 20.

Two hours and 41 minutes was also the average length of a 1985 Chicago White Sox game. For context, in 2025, the average MLB contest was 2:36, down a whopping 74 minutes from the peak boring season of 2021, so here in 2026, 2:41 seems eminently reasonable.

But when you’re at the ballpark for approximately 60 of those games — and when you add on an arrival four hours before the first pitch and a departure three hours after the final out — it’s not at all reasonable. It’s freakin’ exasperating.

I spent the summer of 1985 in a constant state freakin’ exasperation.

MY FATHER WORKED at NBC in Chicago for almost 40 years, the majority of which were spent as an engineer for their radio affiliate, WMAQ. For several years in the 1980s, ‘MAQ was the radio home of White Sox, and Dad was tabbed to produce their games.

Early in the 1985 season, I was tabbed to be his unpaid intern.

Now you’d think that would be a dream gig for a lifelong baseball nerd and periodic Sox fan. (Confession: When it comes to Chicago baseball, I’m a total frontrunner, thus, right now, I’m all Wrigleyville, all the time, which is why this’ll likely be the last Sox piece for months.) I mean, I could tell my friends I worked for a professional baseball team, and I get to watch every home game from the radio broadcast booth, and I go on the field before and after the contest, and I break bread with Tom Seaver! (I didn’t break break with Tom Seaver.)

But the whole intern deal wasn’t nearly as much fun as it sounds. Not even close.

THE SOX FINISHED THE 1985 SEASON in third place with a record of 85-77-1 — yes, there was a tie buried in there; don’t ask — and the numbers accurately reflected the squad: Good, but not good enough.

That said, the South Siders had some legit players on the roster: Seaver, Carlton Fisk, and Harold Baines are Hall of Famers; lefty Britt Burns — my favorite hurler of the early-‘80s, probably because he had a cool name — notched 18 wins; and 1983 Rookie of the Year Ron Kittle jacked 26 homers in just 111 games.

But a sprinkling of legitimacy doth not a World Series contender make. Seaver and Burns were the only starters to have a record above .500, while Baines was the lone regular position player to rack up a batting average over .300. And manager Tony La Russa wasn’t yet TONY LA RUSSA, so there wasn’t much inspiration or creativity coming from the dugout.

More problematically for me was that aforementioned 2:41.

As an actual time-frame for a sporting event, 2:41 is A-okay: It’s less than a 2026 NBA game — the average there is about 2:16 — or an NFL game, which, last season, clocked in at 3:12. But when you add on all the pre- and postgame rigamarole under my purview, that brings us to nine-plus hours. And nine-plus hours is a helluva long time to hang out at Comiskey Park.

Especially when you aren’t getting paid.

HERE’S A TYPICAL DAY in the life of White Sox Intern Alan:

2:00 PM: Arrive at Comiskey.

2:01 PM: Head up to the broadcast booth and help Dad plug stuff in.

2:07 PM: Nibble on the over-salted, neon yellow popcorn provided to the media.

4:00 PM: Stroll down to the field where, during batting practice, I’d try to wrangle a player for a pregame interview. This was far more difficult than it sounds, as that iteration of the Sox — a wholly average team that had zero chance of winning a ring — was allergic to doing interviews. Hell, they should’ve been thrilled somebody wanted to talk to them.

4:12 PM: Convince, say, Luis Salazar or Rich Dotson to hop on the mic and answer softball questions from play-by-play guy Lorne Brown. (Note: Generally speaking, the only way I was able to lock down an interview was to remind the player that for his five-minute chat, he’d be rewarded with a pair of sunglasses from the pregame show’s sponsor. This used to drive me nuts, as MLB players had an average salary of almost $400,000, value adjusted to almost $1.2 million in 2026 dollars, well below the current MLB average salary of $4.6 million, but if you have a million-dollar salary and can’t spring for some shades, you need a better financial planner.)

4:39 PM: Roll back to the radio booth. Eat more popcorn and an institutional hamburger.

7:05 PM: First pitch. Spend the next 2:41 hoping Kittle doesn’t get hurt, Fisk moves the game along, and Baines does cool Baines things, all while making sure I’m available to help Dad plug in stuff that gets unplugged.

9:30 PM: Head down to the field to wrangle a player for the postgame interview, again utilizing sunglasses as a bribe, er, a premium.

Some point between 9:50 - 10:30 PM: After the postgame chat, walk back to the booth and help Dad unplug stuff. (When it came to doing his job, my father was, depending on your view of the situation, impressively meticulous or annoyingly slow. This is why we never got out of the park until…

11:46 PM: Trudge to the parking lot and head home.

Then I’d do it again the next day, and the next day, and the next. By the time August rolled around, I’d be counting down the minutes until the Sox went on a lengthy West Coast road trip.

THREE OBSERVATIONS from my White Sox tenure:

1) The 1985 Chicago White Sox were in desperate need of a strength coach.

Hitting the Sox locker room before and after the game meant I had the distinct displeasure of encountering the roster in various states of undress. Now I have no issues with naked male bodies, but I do have issues with professional athletes who don’t take care of said naked male bodies. With little muscle tone and baby-bump beer bellies, Fisk (6’2”, 200 pounds, nickname of “Pudge”) and Kittle (6’4”, 220, nickname of “The Naked Biker”) were the chunkiest offenders.

2) The 1985 Chicago White Sox were grouches.

I realized the Sox were notably salty when I had to track down a California Angel outfielder named Gary Pettis for an interview. The Angels — who racked up a playoff-less record of 90-72 — were way more more cheerful than any team I dealt with. Pettis happily accepted the interview invite before I even mentioned the sunglasses thing; Rod Carew and Bob Boone were teasing each other, laughing their asses off; and some of the players jokingly busted my balls, saying stuff like, “Who let a Sox guy in here?” and “You’re not even old enough to have a beer with us, are you?” I wished the Sox would make an intern-for-intern trade with Cali, so I could root for the Angels for the rest of the season.

3) The 1985 Chicago White Sox were in desperate need of a strength coach.

Did I mention that Carlton Fisk and Ron Kittle should’ve been doing more sit-ups and eating fewer brownies?

THIS ALL MAKES me curious as to how the 2026 Chicago White Sox have treated their interns.

Do they tell the kids, “Go away, I don’t want any goddamn sunglasses”? (To be honest, I’m not sure if there are premiums involved these days, because I haven’t watched a White Sox pre- or post-game show in decades.) Or are they accommodating and cool, knowing that the team — and, for that matter, the entirety of MLB — needs all the positive vibes they can get?

Regardless of how today’s Pale Hose treat the kiddos, one thing is for certain: Everybody on the roster is in way better shape than Carton Fisk.

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THE AMERICAN BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION merged with the National Basketball Association in 1977. But is “merging” really the proper way to describe the melding of the two preeminent hoops entities of the day?

Depends on what your definition of “merge” is.

If you’re comfortable calling an esteemed older league absorbing a flailing younger league’s only four viable franchises a merger, then sure, it’s a merger. But let’s be honest, here—that ain’t a merger.

The ABA, however, had its own way of spinning things, so they insisted it was, indeed, a merger. Because that’s the way they rolled.

From the free-spirited players to the plaid-suited coaches, from the scrappy front offices to the never-say-die league officers, from the warp-speed style of play to the whimsical logos, from the goofball mascots to the arresting red, white, and blue ball, from the sardonic announcers to the goofy pre-game festivities, the ABA was electric, delusional, brave, rowdy, pugnacious, scintillating, cocky, and oftentimes hilarious.

Few, if any of those adjectives applied to Version 1.0 of the National Basketball Association.

BETWEEN 1946-58, the NBA was not a sexy place to be.

For the first decade-plus of its existence, the NBA’s look and feel was, oh, let’s be polite here and go with bland. Offenses were plodding and heavily-scripted, defenses boringly fundamental and awe-inspiring athletes were few and far between. This isn’t to say the league’s small fan base wasn’t treated to some compelling basketball—the George Mikan-led Minneapolis Lakers took four titles in five years by simply pounding their opponents into submission; and even before they began racking up championships, the Bill Russell/Bob Cousy Boston Celtics demonstrated what kind of havoc could be wreaked with telepathic teamwork—but there was little grace to be found.

Things began to get a tad hotter in 1958, when the Minneapolis Lakers drafted an athletic 6’5” forward out of Seattle University by the name of Elgin Baylor. A straight-up scoring machine, the speedy Baylor was arguably the first truly modern basketball player, a strong yet graceful athletic specimen who could either own you in the post or take you off the dribble. His twisting, turning, hanging finishes at the rim were unlike anything the NBA had seen. Elgin was Michael Jordan before there was Michael Jordan.

Baylor was such an incomparable outlier with a style so rare, original, and beautiful that the NBA didn’t see anybody with a similar skill set until the ABA knocked down the front door and took over the joint.

THE AMERICAN BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION was far from an altruistic venture.

The league wasn’t a charity created to give players who couldn’t find a home in the NBA a gig. It wasn’t there to reshape and beautify the sport of basketball. No, the league’s founders had two goals, and two goals only: To force a merger with the NBA, and to make tons of money.

In their inaugural season of 1967, the ABA trotted out 11 teams: the Anaheim Amigos, the Dallas Chaparrals, the Denver Rockets, the Houston Mavericks, the Indiana Pacers, the Kentucky Colonels, the Minnesota Muskies, the New Jersey Americans, the New Orleans Buccaneers, the Oakland Oaks and the Pittsburgh Pipers.

Eleven teams. Only one less than the NBA. The upstarts weren’t messing around.

But considering the NBA’s monopoly on the product and the general public’s hot-and-coldness about professional basketball, they couldn’t mess around. The chances of success were slim, but if the ABA didn’t go all-in—if they slapped together, say, a six-franchise, West Coast-only league—they’d be lucky to survive a single year.

The ABA’s first season was defined by empty stadiums (the league claimed to have averaged over 2,804 attendees per game, but that was, by all accounts, a huge lie), shockingly violent on-court fights (Minnesota center Mel Daniels said, “To survive the ABA that first year, you really had to be pretty tough. In my case, it was 78 games and 78 fights.”), and lots and lots of scoring (The baskets began raining down on opening night, when Oakland beat Anaheim, 132-129.)

Once the new league’s fans got past the fights and the pregame cow-milking contests, they were treated to some colorful, newfangled basketball: The ABA offenses were more jazz than classical, improvised rather than composed. And defensively-speaking, there was more chance-taking, more jumping in the lanes, more ball-swipes, and more fists to the jaw. The skill level wasn’t up to the NBA’s standards, but they more than made up for it with their breakneck playground approach to the game.

While the ABA’s nightly scoring average was a tad lower than the NBA’s—117.4 to 108.9—it felt as if the upstart league was putting more points on the board, thanks primarily to what would prove to be their greatest contribution to the game: The three-point basket.

THE ABA DIDN’T INVENT the three-pointer. They just perfected it.

The NCAA briefly experimented with the long shot in a 1945 Columbia/Fordham contest, but apparently nobody was impressed, because it was dropped immediately, not to be revisited for decades. In the early-1960s, two short-lived professional leagues—the American Basketball League and the Eastern Professional Basketball League—gave the three-ball a whirl; sadly, the ABL and the EPBL both folded without making a mark in the basketball world, so the three-pointer was forgotten.

That is, by everybody but Dennis Murphy and his merry band of ABA-ers.

Murphy, a sports entrepreneur who co-founded the ABA, explained to author Terry Pluto in his must-read ABA history book, Loose Balls, “The three-point play was going to be a part of our league from the beginning. Everybody involved in putting together the ABA liked the idea because it was good for the little man. The three-point shot was exactly what our league was supposed to be about: Something a little wild, a little out of the ordinary from the basketball they played in the NBA.”

The ABA’s first commissioner, George Mikan, in a mismatched sports metaphor, affectionately referred to three-pointer as a “home run,” but he would’ve been better off using a weapon metaphor, something like “missile” or “bomb,” because the top of the ABA’s original arc was located a whopping 25 feet from the basket, while the corner shots were 22. (It was eventually determined that 25 feet was, um, nuts, so the line was moved in to its current distance of 23 feet and nine inches. The corner remains the same.)

Hubie Brown, who coached the Kentucky Colonels from 1974-76, knew how and why the trey altered a coach’s entire approach to managing a game. “The three-point play is a form of mental gymnastics. All your life, you’ve been trained that a basket is worth two points. That was how you always played the game, how the game was always played, until the ABA made the three-point play popular. So a guy makes two field goals, you figure that’s four points. But in the ABA, it could be six points and that can shake you up as a coach. It makes you constantly check the scoreboard.”

Brown also noted coaches weren’t the only ones who had to readjust their approach. “You have to tell your players to remember who the shooters are and when those guys are 25 feet from the basket, get in their jocks, and guard them,” Brown explained. “Don’t give them the 25-footer, which is something players had been conditioned to do all their lives. And as a coach, if you have a shooter with range, you have to give him the freedom to take the 25-footer, which is a philosophy that goes against what you learned as a young coach—namely, pound the ball inside. The three-point play forced ABA coaches to be more creative and to give their players more freedom.”

The NBA eventually adopted the three-pointer for the 1979-80 season, and the initial reviews were mixed, many citing it as a gimmick. It took a good 10 years for the shot to be woven into the fabric of the league: From 1979-1987, the most made threes in a season came from Darrell Griffith, who canned 92 of them for the Utah Jazz in 1984-85. But once the 1987-88 season rolled around, outside shooters decided it was time to take advantage of the new-ish weapon at their disposal. Danny Ainge led the league that year with 148 made threes, and from that point on, it was bombs away.

But is the three-ball a useful weapon? Yes and no.

Since 1990, only one championship team has had that season’s leader in made three-pointers on their roster—that being Stephen Curry from the 2014-15 Golden State Warriors—so it could be argued the shot isn’t something that should be prioritized, as it’s not a sure-fire way to help your team earn a ring.

LEGENDARY BROADCASTER BOB COSTAS, who got his start covering games for the ABA’s Spirits of St. Louis, once mused, “The [ABA] players, their fashions and lifestyles were a reflection of the times, from the huge Afros to the beards, bell-bottom pants and platform shoes. I remember Larry Brown coaching while wearing farmer’s overalls. But the real flair was on the court.”

Costas was exactly right: All the external flair in the world wouldn’t make one iota of difference if things weren’t bubbling on the hardwood. And in the ABA, things bubbled from the get-go.

Players like the Florida Floridians’ speedy point guard Mack Calvin, Indiana’s silky-smooth Roger Brown and Kentucky’s hard-nosed Dan Issel helped make the ABA an exciting, viable, unique product. The league’s first three years were a blast, but the real fun didn’t begin until the summer of 1971.

First, let’s backtrack.

In 1969, after only two seasons in Oakland, the Oaks relocated to Washington DC and christened themselves the Capitols. Despite the presence on their roster of future Hall of Famer Rick Barry, savvy point guard Larry Brown (yes, that Larry Brown), and Warren Jabali—a former ABA Rookie of the Year who was acknowledged by his peers to be the meanest man in the league—the Caps couldn’t sustain local interest. So they packed up their gear, drove 200 miles south on I-64 East, planted a flag on the campus of Old Dominion University, and dubbed themselves the Virginia Squires.

The Squires’ first year in Norfolk was a partial success: Led by coach Al Bianchi, Virginia won 55 regular season games, but were upset in the second round of the playoffs by the 44-40 Kentucky Colonels.

That summer, word got out that the star of the University of Massachusetts basketball team was going to turn pro after only two seasons with the Minutemen, the second of which he averaged 26.3 points and 20.3 rebounds.

That star was Julius Erving. Erving inked with Virginia, and basketball was never the same.

Erving wasn’t fazed about spurning the NBA and joining a band of renegades. “In some respects we were a maverick league,” he said, “but so what? What was wrong with a red, white and blue ball? What was wrong with the three-point shot or creating a faster tempo so that the little man would have an opportunity to play? What’s wrong with a little experimentation and encouraging an individual to excel in a team sport?”

In his first season with the Squires, Erving more than excelled: He put up numbers that, even in a league filled with statistical freaks, were eye-popping — 27.3 points on 50 percent shooting, 15.7 rebounds and 4.0 assists in 42 minutes a night. And he did it with style—dunking, driving and generally creating mayhem both in and out of the paint.

To this day, Bob Costas still gushes about Erving’s first couple of ABA seasons, saying, “You know that play Julius made against the Lakers in the fifth game of the 1980 playoffs, where he went under Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and then under the basket and then hit that incredible reverse layup? I saw him make plays that good or better several times just in my two seasons covering the ABA.”

(It should be noted we have to rely on eyewitness accounts of Erving’s exploits to understand his impact, because, as Costas pointed out, “There was no ESPN or CNN to bring Julius into the nation’s living room. Julius and the rest of the ABA stars performed in this netherworld of pro basketball that really wasn’t pro basketball because the NBA didn’t sanction it. It was almost as if the ABA players were a bunch of unappreciated artists saying, ‘We may die impoverished, but one day our work will hang in the Louvre.’”)

Erving’s best individual work came during his five years in the ABA, two of which he spent with the Squires, and the other three with the New Jersey Nets. He averaged 28.7 points, 12.1 boards and 4.8 dimes, but the points weren’t as important as his vibe, both on and off the court.

Then, as now, Erving was an enthusiastic basketball emissary, always eager to extol the virtues of both his league and the sport. Carl Scheer, Denver’s team president, echoed the sentiments of the entire ABA: “The spirit of the ABA was the spirit of Julius Erving. One night, I came into the old Charlotte Arena. The game had been over for at least an hour and I saw about 50 kids in the balcony and Julius sitting in the middle of them, signing autographs and talking. There was no press around or anything like that. He took the time because he wanted to do it.”

After the ABA went belly-up, Erving’s spent the remaining 11 years of his basketball-playing life with the Philadelphia 76ers, and while he had an undeniably brilliant career, there’s a good chance that had the ABA not given him the opportunity to let his creativity flow, he never would have evolved into the transcendent gentleman who influenced multiple generations of basketball players.

THE ABA’S FINAL SEASON was a disaster.

In most ABA arenas, there were thousands of empty seats, and the cash-flow was so limited that two of the franchises—the San Diego Sails and the Utah Stars—shut it down during the first month of the season. The remaining seven teams limped to the finish, the gimpiest being the Virginia Squires.

In his diary of the Squires horrendous 15-68 season, Virginia broadcaster Warner Fusselle related tales of late payments (”The players have said that they won’t play two days from now in Indiana if their checks don’t show up.”), desperate attempts to raise quick cash (”[Virginia forward] Willie Wise came into a restaurant in our hotel in Denver and told us that he heard that unless 50 Squires banners were sold [for $5,000] by tomorrow, the team would fold.”), and questionable business decisions (”Heard that Squires got a $250,000 bank loan to save the team.”).

The league’s myriad off-the-court issues began to affect the games themselves, most notably the increasing level of violence. Rod Thorn, who spent time coaching both the Spirits of St. Louis and the New York Nets, explained why the games were more brutal than ever. “With only seven teams left at the end of the ABA, rivalries became very heated and bitter because you played the same teams so often. If you had a fight with a guy, you probably would see him again next week. There was no time to cool off.”

After a whole bunch of legal wrangling—some of which was of the shady variety—the NBA/ABA merger came to fruition. (It bears mentioning that the NBA refused to refer to the transaction as a merger, the ABA’s general counsel, Mike Goldberg, saying, “The four ABA teams in essence bought their way into the NBA and the NBA considered it an expansion.”) The NBA welcomed the four ABA teams whose rabid fan bases made them legitimate NBA cities: the Denver Nuggets, the Indiana Pacers, the New Jersey Nets and the San Antonio Spurs.

The Nuggets, Pacers, Nets and Spurs respective rosters remained more or less intact, while the remaining ABA players were made available in what was termed a “dispersal draft.” With the first pick, the Chicago Bulls selected center Artis Gilmore, who went on to become a franchise cornerstone. Next came forward/center Maurice Lucas, who helped lead the Portland Trail Blazers to the 1976-77 NBA Championship. Three picks later, the Blazers snatched up future Hall of Famer Moses Malone, who, much to their eternal regret, they traded to the Buffalo Braves. Ugh. (And much to the Braves eternal regret, they traded Malone to the Rockets. Again, ugh.)

Unlike the Denver, Indiana, New Jersey and San Antonio owners—who were aware they were only a few years away from making boatloads of money—many of the ABA players weren’t pleased. Not one bit.

Doug Moe, who played and/or assistant coached for four teams in his five-year ABA career, echoed the sentiments of dozens of ABA-ers when he said, “One of the biggest disappointments in my life was going into the NBA after the merger. The NBA was a rinky-dink league—listen, I’m very serious about this. The league was run like garbage. There was no camaraderie; a lot of the NBA guys were aloof and thought they were too good to practice or play hard.”

For his part, Bob Costas was thrilled for the merger—but not for the reasons one would expect: “There was such pride in a league that had to endure so much simply to survive, and we wanted the world to know how great our players were. It was an obvious contradiction, but both feelings were understandable. I’ll tell you this: we saw so many of our players do well after the merger, it was an incredible feeling for those of us who had been in the ABA. We could say to the world, ‘See, we told you so.’”

Ron Grinker, a legendary NBA agent who represented his fair share of ABA players, agreed with Costas, saying, “The standard of excellence in the NBA was the Boston Celtics, who were the masters of fundamental basketball. Those guys would pick-and-roll you to death. They played right out of the textbook. The ABA was Julius Erving, it was glitzy, get the ball out and let’s run and jump and play above the rim and we’ll make things up as we go along. People weren’t sure exactly what they did even after they did it. They felt something and they tried it.”

They tried it. And they succeeded. And they helped make the game what it is today.

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SO I WROTE UP a super-clever 300-word intro to this piece, but then it dawned on me:

You do not want a 300-word intro.

But you do want a name for your fantasy football team.

Welp, Chicago Sports Stuff aims to please, so we scoured the interwebs, polled our friends, and asked that dude sitting near the window at the local cafe who was wearing a Lamar Jackson jersey for suggestions, and we compiled over 100 of ‘em, noting which NFL player inspired the moniker.

Choose wisely!

Oh, P.S. - I came up with a few of my own. I suspect that regular readers and my social circle will easily figure out which ones.

-A-

• Achane Reaction (De’Von Achane)

• Allen vs Predator (Josh Allen)

• All You Need is Loveland (Coleston Loveland)

• America’s Next Top Waddle (Jayden Waddle)

• Amon a Mission (Amon-Ra St. Brown)

• Another Brock In the Wall (Brock Bowers)

• Any Given Sun God (Amon-Ra St. Brown)

• April Showers Bring Zay Flowers (Zay Flowers)

• Ashton Powers (Ashton Jeanty)

-B-

• Baby Got Dak (Dak Prescott)

• Bed, Bath & Bijan (Bijan Robinson)

• Beg, Burrow & Steal (Joe Burrow)

• Better Call Pearsall (Ricky Pearsall)

• Bijan Impossible (Bijan Robinson)

• Bijanomics (Bijan Robinson)

• Bo Nix & Harmony (Bo Nix)

• Breece Lightning (Breece Hall)

• Brian Robinson Crusoe (Brian Robinson Jr.)

-C-

• Call of Jeudy (Jerry Jeudy)

• CeeDeez Nuts (CeeDee Lamb)

• Chase Brown Christmas (Chase Brown)

• Cobra Kyler (Kyler Murray)

• Cold, Goff & Flu Season (Jared Goff)

• Come at McCaffrey, Bro (Christian McCaffrey)

• Conner Among Thieves (James Conner)

• Cousins of Anarchy (Kirk Cousins)

• Crazy Rich Bijans (Bijan Robinson)

-D-

• Dak in a Box (Dak Prescott)

• Dak to the Future (Dak Prescott)

• Dakstreet Boys (Dak Prescott)

• Dalton Abbey (Dalton Kincaid)

• Django Achaned (De’Von Achane)

• Don’t Go Chasin’ Waddlefalls (Jayden Waddle)

• Drake London Calling (Drake London)

• Dude, Where’s Ja’Marr? (Ja’Marr Chase)

-E-

• Easy Bake Evans (Mike Evans)

-F-

• Fight Chubb (Nick Chubb)

• Finding Deebo (Deebo Samuel)

• For Kyren Out Loud (Kyren Williams)

-G-

• Geno 911 (Geno Smith)

• Good Fences Make Good Nabers (Malik Nabers)

-H-

• Have Amari Christmas (Amari Cooper)

• Hit Me With Your Prescott (Dak Prescott)

• Hot Chubb Time Machine (Nick Chubb)

• How I Metcalf Your Mother (DK Metcalf)

• Hurts Locker (Jalen Hurts)

-I-

• I Got 99 Problems but a Breece Ain’t One (Breece Hall)

• Iron Jayden (Jayden Daniels)

-J-

• Javonte’s Inferno (Javonte Williams)

• Je Ne Saquon (Saquon Barkley)

• Jordan Love, Actually (Jordan Love)

• Josh It Like It’s Hot (Josh Allen)

• Josh Jacobs Jingleheimer Schmidt (Josh Jacobs)

-K-

• Kamara Sutra (Alvin Kamara)

• Kelce Grammar (Travis Kelce)

• Kittle Miss Sunshine (George Kittle)

• Kmet the Frog (Cole Kmet)

• Kupp d’Etat (Cooper Kupp)

-L-

• LaPorta Potties (Sam LaPorta)

• Like a Good Nabers (Malik Nabers)

• London Breece is Halling Down (Breece Hall)

• Love Thy Nabers (Malik Nabers)

-M-

• Mahomes Alone (Patrick Mahomes)

• Mail Order McBride (Trey McBride)

• Mayfield of Dreams (Baker Mayfield)

• McConkey Kong (Ladd McConkey)

• Million Pollard Baby (Tony Pollard)

• Mixon Administration (Joe Mixon)

• Mixon Match (Joe Mixon)

• Mother Maye I (Drake Maye)

• My Kupp Runneth Over (Cooper Kupp)

-N-

• Najee By Nature (Najee Harris)

• Natural Born Kylers (Kyler Murray)

• Never Gonna Gibbs You Up (Jahmyr Gibbs)

• Nico De Gallo (Nico Collins)

-P-

• Pain In the Ashton (Ashton Jeanty)

• Pacheco Self Before You Wreck Yourself (Isaih Pacheco)

• Pitts ‘n’ Giggles (Kyle Pitts)

• Post Mahomes (Patrick Mahomes)

• Purdy Fly For a White Guy (Brock Purdy)

-R-

• Red Hot Chili Pukas (Puka Nacua)

• Reservoir Diggs (Stefon Diggs)

• Ridley Me This (Calvin Ridley)

• Rock You Like a Burrowcane (Joe Burrow)

-S-

• Saquon for the Team (Saquon Barkley)

• Say It Loud, I’m C.J and Stroud (C.J. Stroud)

• Shakir Your Moneymaker (Khalil Shakir)

• Sherlock Mahomes (Patrick Mahomes)

• Silence of the Lamb (CeeDee Lamb)

• Singletary and Ready to Mingletary (Devin Singletary)

• Smells Like Tee Spirit (Tee Higgins)

• Stafford Infection (Matthew Stafford)

• Stay Golden, MatthewBoy (Matthew Golden)

• Straight Outta Hampton (Omarion Hampton)

• Strawberry Justin Fields Forever (Justin Fields)

• Sutton On the Dock Of the Bay (Courtland Sutton)

-T-

• Tee Pain (Tee Higgins)

• Teenage Mutant Njigba Turtles (Jaxson Smith-Njigba)

• Tenacious Deebo (Deebo Samuel)

• The Art of Ward (Cam Ward)

• The Dude McBrides (Trey McBride)

• The Real Mahomeswives of Kansas City (Patrick Mahomes)

• The Waddle-ing Dead (Jaylen Waddle)

• Tua Fast Tua Furious (Tua Tagovailoa)

• Tua Infinity and Bijan (Tua Tagovailoa/Bijan Robinson)

• Tua Legit to Quit (Tua Tagovailoa)

• Tyler Warren the Creator (Tyler Warren)

-U-

• Uh-One, A-Tua, Three (Tua Tagovailoa)

-W-

• WaddleVision (Jaylen Waddle)

• We Built This Griddy (Justin Jefferson)

• Wu-Tang Lamb (CeeDee Lamb)

INSTEAD OF WRITING another long-winded Chicago Sports Stuff article hyping my non-Chicago Sports Stuff work, I’ll let the below press release do the hyping for me:

BOOGOO PRESS REISSUES TWO MUSIC-SOAKED ALAN GOLDSHER NOVELS

Cult zombie-Beatles sequel GIVE DEATH A CHANCE and Chicago record-store comedy THE RECORD HAÜS return to print

CHICAGO, August 24, 2026 — BooGoo Press is resurrecting two music-driven novels by author and musician Alan Goldsher: GIVE DEATH A CHANCE: THE BRITISH ZOMBIE INVASION 2 and THE RECORD HAÜS, a pair of titles that reflect Goldsher’s long career at the intersection of literature and music.

GIVE DEATH A CHANCE is the bloody sequel to PAUL IS UNDEAD: THE BRITISH ZOMBIE INVASION, an Amazon bestseller that earned a starred review Publishers Weekly. The novella follows a Chicago-based author coincidentally named Alan Goldsher after he’s taken hostage by the zombie Beatles following a post-reunion concert massacre. Forced to become the band’s unwilling roadie and “conduit to humanity,” Goldsher watches the zombified Fab Four’s star-studded American tour become more murderous and deranged by the day, while attempting to save the world…and his sanity.

THE RECORD HAÜS is a fast, profane comedy set inside a dysfunctional Chicago record store in July 2000. With the Haüs days away from closing its doors forever, we spend time with a staff that veers between enthusiastic and burnt-out, music-nerdy regular customers, a cockeyed workplace near-romance, a battalion of creepy pro-life protesters, and a gun-toting cop ready to throw down over a defective cassette — just another week at your local indie music emporium.

To schedule an interview with Alan or request artwork for GIVE DEATH A CHANCE or THE RECORD HAÜS, write BooGooPress@gmail.com.

DOWNLOAD GIVE DEATH A CHANCE AT AMAZON HERE

DOWNLOAD THE RECORD HAÜS AT AMAZON HERE

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THE YEAR IS 2001.

Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake go out on their first (and second, and third) date.

Veggie-loving scientists genetically modify a tomato that can grow and thrive in saltwater.

Fifteen-year-old sherpa Temba Tsheri becomes the youngest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

And a premium cable outlet by the name of Home Box Office drops arguably the most important, most beloved sports series in the history of television.

Premiering on August 1, 2001, HBO’s Hard Knocks was the first TV show to give NFL fans an in-depth insider look at the game. Set primarily at one chosen team’s training camp, it features revealing interviews, awkward player/coach interactions, accidental humor, and moments of surprising pathos. With hours of fantastic narration by gravitas-voiced actor Liev Schreiber, Hard Knocks captivated both critics and fans from the get-go.

Virtually every NFL team has been subjected to the Hard Knocks treatment — and we say subjected because not every player is super-psyched to have HBO’s cameras all up in their grill as they prep for the season, or, more poignantly, strive to earn a roster spot.

Now that the 2026 Seattle Seahawks’ Hard Knocks experience is nearing its end — an experience we’ll grade a B, B-plus, or B-minus, depending on the episode — it’s time to take a dive down the HK rabbit hole and answer the eternal question: Which NFL franchise delivered the best season of HBO’s acclaimed docudrama? Chiefs? Cowboys? Jets? Browns? Another team altogether?

And, most importantly, who’ll play Rex Ryan in Hard Knocks: The Movie?

10: Dallas Cowboys, Season 2, 2002

After eight playoff appearances in the previous 10 seasons, Dallas was a team in decline, so hundreds of thousands of non-Cowboy fans watched the 2002 iteration of HK with a tangible sense of schadenfreude. Maligned head coach Dave Campo was a dead man walking, stud running back Emmitt Smith lackluster’d his way through training camp, and the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders received far more camera time than they deserved — but it was either the Cheerleaders or iffy starting QB Quincy Carter, so you do the math.

9: Kansas City Chiefs, Season 3, 2007

Highlighted by a whole lot of backfield drama (Larry Johnson’s holdout, Priest Holmes’ attempt to resurrect his career) and a weird QB battle between the un-legendary Brodie Croyle and the even-less-legendary Damon Huard, this season was the series’ first back on the air after a five-year hiatus. The most memorable aspect of the show wasn’t what went down on the field, but rather the narration courtesy of hardcore Chiefs supporter, Paul Rudd.

8: Houston Texans, Season 10, 2015

Two seasons removed from a 2-14 record, the Texans were a team on the rise — and, as been made evident over the last 20-ish years, HBO has a healthy appreciation for teams on the rise. Naturally there was focus on an oddball quarterback clash (Brian Hoyer and Ryan Mallett…yikes), but the year was highlighted by the eternally telegenic J.J. Watt. On the heartwarming side of things, OT David Quessenberry’s fight to make it back into the league after his bout with lymphoma was spellbinding.

7: Cleveland Browns: Season 13, 2018

The 2017 Browns were 0-16, so the sadistic HBO decision-makers were probably like, “This franchise has been a Dumpster fire for the last ten years, so wouldn’t it be fun to make their preseason miserable?” Well, yeah, and what joyful misery it was. You’ve got Hue Jackson clinging on to his head coaching gig. You’ve got rookie Baker Mayfield attempting to figure out how to be an NFL quarterback. You’ve got oft-suspended receiver Josh Gordon trying to resurrect his career. And you’ve got legally-challenged rookie receiver Antonio Galloway fighting the law, and the law won. Fun, fun, fun!

6: New York Jets: Season 20, 2023

New York’s not-finest had zero interest in being put under the HK microscope, and they didn’t care who knew it, with head coach Robert Saleh kvetching during the offseason, “I know there are several teams that would love Hard Knocks to be in their building. We’re just not one of them.” (Note: It’s doubtful any team would love HK in their building. They might tolerate it. But love is seriously doubtful.) Despite the protests, Saleh et al were forced to deal with the HBO cameras, and what with the team’s collection of big personalities — Saleh, mouthy sophomore CB Sauce Gardiner, controversial QB Aaron Rodgers among them — we HK loyalists were all the better for it.

5: Baltimore Ravens: Season 1, 2001

An HK best-of list wouldn’t be complete without the OG. There’s a sense of electricity to the show’s debut year that became rarer as the series progressed, likely because the players learned that revealing too much about oneself could be, oh, let’s go with problematic. But with soon-to-be-retired vets like Shannon Sharpe, Rod Woodson, and Tony Siragusa doing Sharpe, Woodson, and Siragu-ian things, season one is a keeper.

4: Cincinnati Bengals: Season 8, 2013

Boasting a roster sprinkled with players of iffy character (we’re talking to you, Vontaze Burfect and Pacman Jones), this iteration of the Bengals was the team you loved to hate and/or hated to love. Thing is, the Bengals were coming off of a 10-6 record, and they were still damn good, thus HBO was unable to resist Cincy’s combination of controversy and talent, even though the Bengals has been given the HK treatment just four years prior. Turns out the programmers were very much on-point with their choice, as we were able to enjoy an aging James Harrison being less-than-nice, as well as what was likely the series’ oddest quarterback skirmish: Josh Johnson vs. John Skelton. (The Johnson/Skelton tussle made the Croyle/Huard tête-à-tête seem normal. Or normal-ish.)

3: Oakland Raiders: Season 14, 2019

Two entries ago, we noted that an HK best-of list wouldn’t be complete without the OG. To that end, an NFL behind-the-scenes series wouldn’t be complete without an appearance from the team ESPN’s Chris Berman calls, “The Rrrrrai-duhs.” A franchise that traditionally makes way too many questionable choices, the 2019 Oakland front office decided it would be a good idea to bring pot-stirring receiver Antonio Brown to camp, where, after recovering from some foot frostbite, he got into it with the NFL regarding his preferred helmet. [Insert eye roll emoji here.] The fact that the Raiders also brought bullying offensive guard Richie Incognito into the mix was another one of those aforementioned questionable choices, but bad choices make for good television, so here we are.

2: New York Jets: Season 6, 2010

The green-and-white delivered HK’s funniest season, thanks to the presence of one Rex Ashley Ryan. The J-E-T-S’ profane, quick-witted head coach was as hard-nosed as any HC in the league, but he was far more clever and wasn’t afraid to flash his boisterous sense of humor, dropping f-bombs as if there was nary an HBO microphone to be seen. (After revisiting season 6, we’ve decided that Rex should appear in of each season of HK, whether or not he has an affiliation with the featured team.) Tracking the progress of the charming, eager, somewhat clueless second-year QB Mark Sanchez was also a treat.

1: Dallas Cowboys: Season 4, 2008

To paraphrase Saturday Night Live’s Stefon, this season had everything. There was goofball rookie Martellus Bennett enduring the coaches’ (justifiable) verbal slings and arrows. There was Pacman Jones (again) doing Pacman Jones things. There was Tony Romo, flashing the kind of charm and knowledge that would help him become one of the NFL’s top TV analysts...until he wasn’t. And there was coach Wade Phillips being his usual cranky self. This, ladies and gentlemen, is your desert island Hard Knocks.

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BATSHIT bold predictions.

Freakish fake trades.

Hilarious hot and crazy cold takes.

And way too many mediocre jokes.

That, kids, is the Chicago Sports Stuff Substack page.

Virtually each weekday since early 2024, I’ve taken to my MacBook Pro and pounded out some words, sentences, and paragraphs about what’s happening — or what might (or might not) happen someday — in the world of Chicago sports.

With almost 800 columns in the bank, I figured it was time to compile some of them into…something.

This something is an ebook — three ebooks, actually: one for football, one for basketball, and one for everything else. And the amount of stuff in these stuff books is cuckoo.

We’re talking 439,000 words, and here’s where that absurd number sits in the world of real literature:

• Moby-Dick — Herman Melville: 209,000 words

• Lonesome Dove — Larry McMurtry: 365,712 words

• Gone with the Wind — Margaret Mitchell: 418,053 words

• A Dance with Dragons — George R. R. Martin: 422,000 word

• A Storm of Swords — George R. R. Martin: 424,000 words

• Chicago Sports Stuff (all three volumes) — This Guy: 439,000 words

• It — Stephen King: 445,134 words

• The Stand: Complete & Uncut — Stephen King: 471,485 words

• Infinite Jest — David Foster Wallace: 489,000 words

• Atlas Shrugged — Ayn Rand: 561,996 words

• War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy: 587,000 words

• The King James Bible — Various: 783,000 words

There’s me, sandwiched in between GRRM and Uncle Stevie. For some reason, that sounds about right.

Anyhoo, a few notes about a collection that, if we went physical rather than digital, would shake out to approximately a 1,000-page hardback:

• About half of these pieces are super-time-sensitive, and might not be even the teeniest bit relevant when you read them today, let alone next week, let alone next year. But I dig some of the mediocre jokes, so what the heck.

• Despite their relative irrelevance, I included a bunch of my bold predictions, mock trades, and fantasy prognostications because A) They’re sometimes kinda fun, and B) It’ll give you the opportunity to see where I went right (rarely) and where I went wrong (often).

• There isn’t a single Blackhawks article. You’re welcome.

• These three books collect 414 articles, just over half of the entire CSS Substack, so before you kvetch about the length, remember it could’ve been 900,000 words.

• At the end of the day, this is a bathroom book. You pick, you choose, you skip, you roll your eyes, you wipe, you flush.

But most importantly, you enjoy.

Click here to order all three at Amazon!

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IN MID-SEPTEMBER OF 2007, I scored free tix to a Chicago Bulls-Los Angeles Clippers preseason game at the United Center. The Bulls were coming off of a 41-41 campaign, while the Clips finished 2006 at 47-35.

A meaningless meeting of two slightly-above-average teams? Count me in!

It was just as boring as any other NBA preseason game — the starters, what little they were on the court, half-assed it, while the rookies were, well, rookies. The only two things I recall:

• I was sitting in the first balcony and had like six rows to myself.

• For the entirety of the evening, one of the few other first balcony residents screamed “You suck, kid!” at rookie Joakim Noah over and over and over again, and it was so quiet that Jo probably heard him.

So the NFL isn’t the only professional sports conglomerate whose preseason blows. It just blows a whole lot harder.

AS THE FINE FOLKS AT FORBES tell us, each NFL franchise turned a tidy profit in 2025:

• Dallas Cowboys — $629 million

• Los Angeles Rams — $244 million

• New England Patriots — $222 million

• New York Giants — $181 million

• New York Jets — $180 million

• Las Vegas Raiders — $179 million

• Houston Texans — $156 million

• Seattle Seahawks — $143 million

• Pittsburgh Steelers — $137 million

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers — $130 million

• Philadelphia Eagles — $117 million

• Washington Commanders — $116 million

• San Francisco 49ers — $115 million

• Baltimore Ravens — $115 million

• New Orleans Saints — $115 million

• Indianapolis Colts — $109 million

• Jacksonville Jaguars — $106 million

• Los Angeles Chargers — $105 million

• Buffalo Bills — $104 million

• Denver Broncos — $103 million

• Tennessee Titans — $93 million

• Cleveland Browns — $90 million

• Green Bay Packers — $83 million

• Chicago Bears — $80 million

• Minnesota Vikings — $70 million

• Kansas City Chiefs — $66 million

• Miami Dolphins — $63 million

• Arizona Cardinals — $62 million

• Cincinnati Bengals — $50 million

• Atlanta Falcons — $37 million

• Carolina Panthers — $36 million

• Detroit Lions — $21 million

So it’s not like the Jags or the Colts or whoever are hurting for cash.

Yet as Ticketmaster calculates, the average price of an NFL preseason ticket is $110.60, and as the Chicago Sports Stuff abacus calculates, the average capacity of an NFL stadium is 69,000, and as my counting figures calculate, each of the Shield’s franchises gross over $7.5 million for each of their preseason “contests,” making it just under $25 million that get thrown into the coffers for this three-week run.

And that’s beyond absurd. Because preseason NFL football is hot garbage.

BUT OF COURSE it’s hot garbage, because we’re watching players who, the following week, will either be on an NFL practice squad or playing for the Orlando Storm.

No slight to these young men — they probably rank in the top-2,000 of their profession, and I’m sure as hell not one of the top 2,000 writers in the world — but is it fair to make us shell out near-regular-season prices (in-season tix average $131.20) to watch messy pigskin?

Outside of your monthly health insurance premium, that’s the worst bang-for-your-buck product in the United States.

There’s virtually 0% chance you’ll see quality football in August, as there’s virtually 0% chance a high-end player will get any significant burn. For that matter, as PFF’s snap count numbers from the first week of 2026’s preseason games make clear, there’s virtually 0% chance a guaranteed-to-be-rostered player will get any significant burn.

Numerical proof? Welp, last Saturday and Sunday, projected starters averaged 14 snaps, roughly 9% of a normal game.

Hmm, 9%, eh? Time to pull out the abacus again.

If we’re getting only 9% worth of the product, shouldn’t we have to pay only 9% of the cost…which shakes out to around $9.95?

But would $9.95 even make sense? After all, in any given NFL game, a fan spends an average of $34.00 on concessions, which, if you’re with a family of four, means that even with the cheap ticket, you’ll still be dropping somewhere in the neighborhood of $175.00.

For this.

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HERE’S AN EMAIL that made me happy:

For those who don’t understand Matt-speak: My go-to baseball dude Matt Musico wrote an article about Pete Crow-Armstrong (PCA) for his Substack page, MLB Daily Dingers (MLBDD), and, out of the kindness of his heart, is allowing me to post it here on Chicago Sports Stuff (CSS).

I love sports acronyms.

Anyhoobs, three reasons why this is a beautiful thing:

• Matt is a baseball writing stud, and baseball writing studliness is something Chicago Sports Stuff seriously lacks.

• Cubs MVP candidate Pete Crow-Armstrong ranks super-high in Google Trends, and having his name in a headline could prove to be a massive SEO win.

• I get a day off.

So without further ado, take it away Matt.

CHICAGO CUBS OUTFIELDER Pete Crow-Armstrong enjoyed a breakout campaign in 2025. While he became the second player in franchise history to record a 30-30 season, his production tailed off following the All-Star Game.

His 2026 season got off to a similarly slow start (.669 OPS in March/April, .762 OPS in May), but the 24-year-old caught fire in June and literally hasn’t stopped since. He’s been so good that there’s legitimate talk about him potentially derailing Shohei Ohtani’s quest for a third straight National League MVP Award.

But before we find out if he can make that happen or not, he put together a truly memorable and historic performance at Wrigley Field against the Chicago White Sox on Monday.

It seemed like PCA did a little bit of everything at the dish on August 17. He went 4-for-5 with two home runs, one double, three RBI, two runs scored, a walk, a strikeout, and a stolen base.

Thanks to what he accomplished in 2025, he was already the first Cubs player not named Sammy Sosa to join the 30-30 club. However, this performance helped him become the first player in franchise history to join the club in consecutive seasons.

That’s quite noteworthy, but it’s not the kind of history that caught my eye. The timing of his homers is what made my bat signal go off.

He got things started for the Cubs in the bottom of the first inning with this leadoff home run:

And then in the bottom of the 10th, he got Wrigley rocking after slugging a walk-off homer:

That’s quite noteworthy, but it’s not the kind of history that caught my eye. The timing of his homers is what made my Bat Signal go off.

The timing is important because he’s just the sixth player in MLB history to lead a game off and end the same contest with a tater.

Who Else Is In This Exclusive Club?

THIS IS THE FIRST time we’ve seen someone join this club in nearly two decades. It was last done during the 2010 season.

• Vic Power, Kansas City Athletics: May 7, 1957 (That’s an elite baseball name, if we’re being honest)

• Darin Erstad, Anaheim Angels: June 25, 2000

• Reed Johnson, Toronto Blue Jays: June 15, 2003

• Ian Kinsler, Texas Rangers: July 19, 2009

• Chris Young, Arizona Diamondbacks: August 7, 2010

It’s worth noting that some will include Billy Hamilton in this group, who did it on May 17, 1893. However, this performance helped him become the first player in franchise history to join the club in consecutive seasons.

PCA Looking For a Different Ending in 2026

THROUGHOUT the first half of the 2025 season, PCA was seen as a legitimate NL MVP Award candidate. But then came the second-half swoon, and that chatter slowly evaporated.

Crow-Armstrong is looking to finish stronger in 2026, and he’s already putting himself in position to do just that. He’s currently on track to post his third straight month with a 1.000-plus OPS. Through 126 games played this season, PCA is slashing .281/.379/.550 with 30 homers, 25 doubles, 31 steals, 78 RBI, 89 runs scored, and a league-leading 7.7 bWAR.

We’ll see what new heights he can reach by the end of September, but he certainly appears primed to be a top NL MVP Award contender as the season starts winding down.

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LET’S TRAVEL BACK to July 30, 2026, when a notably handsome football pundit by the name of Alan Goldsher dropped the below knowledge in an article entitled, “Chicago Bears 2026 Bold Predictions, Training Camp Edition”:

“There’s always an overperforming surprise at training camp, and this year, it’ll be a day-three pick, so — wait for it, wait for it — welcome to the starting lineup, Jordan van den Berg.”

We don’t yet know if van den Berg, Chicago’s 2026 sixth-round pick (#213) out of Georgia Tech, will indeed take the field with Montez Sweat, Jaylon Johnson, and the rest of the Bears defensive first-teamers on September 13 at Bank of America Stadium in sunny Charlotte, North Carolina. But we do know that throughout training camp, he’s taken snaps with the first team. And we also know that this past Saturday, in his first NFL game, a preseason tussle against the Cleveland Browns, dude balled out.

Lest we forget, as noted in both this article’s subheader and its second paragraph, I boldly predicted the native of Johannesburg, South Africa would indeed crush…and my bold predictions are never right.

Admittedly, the man some call “Soul-Snatcher” crushed against the Browns’ backups (and their backups to their backups), and no pundit anywhere, handsome or not, will claim that Cleveland’s starters are particularly good, let alone their backups (or their backups to their backups).

But as Aristotle said, “Tape don’t lie.”

On the majority of his 27 snaps — a solid 41% of the Bears’ defensive plays — van den Berg proved he’s as violent as advertised, racking up a tackle, an assist, and a whopping three quarterback hits, causing a whole bunch of ruckus along the way.

A quick look at the Chicago Sports Stuff abacus tells us that means on 11.1% of his snaps, the rook gave the opposing quarterbacks a nice little love tap, which, as per PFSN, would’ve led the league in 2025 by a wide margin (Denver’s Zach Allen topped the NFL with 6.28%, and I defy you to find a Substack page that came up with a statistical comp this badass.)

This isn’t to say JVDB will be the greatest quarterback-killa in NFL history — small sample size, Browns’ backups to their backups, et cetera — but it should put in him the conversation for inclusion in the starting lineup.

As of August 17, the Bears’ official depth chart lists van den Berg as a third-stringer, behind Gervon Dexter Sr. and Kentavius Street, neither of whom have done anything in their respective careers to demonstrate they should be a shoo-in first-teamer. (Dexter’s had his moments, but considering the 2025 Bears’ lousy pass rush — they ranked 22nd in sacks, if you’ll recall — moments won’t suffice for a team with Super Bowl aspirations.)

Dayo Odeyingbo is listed as the other starter at the tackle position, but unless he shows out in the preseason — and he probably won’t have the opportunity to do so, as it appears coach Ben Johnson has zero interest in giving his starters any notable run, a logical decision — and if the rookie continues scaring the poop out of opposing field generals, what the heck, throw the kid in the deep end.

Worst case scenario, you hold your nose in Week 2 and start Dayo.

Best case scenario, Ben Johnson and D-coordinator Dennis Allen make the Bears’ scouting department look like geniuses for rocking it Kyle Monangai-style and hitting on a day-three pick for the second year in a row.

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EVER HAVE one of those albums you didn’t care for upon first listen, then six listens later, you kind of started digging it, then ten listens after that, you thought, “I was wrong, this record is ill,” then, three years later, it climbed into your top-50?

I did.

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer.

Tenor and soprano saxophonist Shorter, who killed it in Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and with Miles Davis, was among my first jazz heroes, as he was the centerpiece of my then-favorite band, the supergroup Weather Report. (Re: the centerpiece thing, sorry, Joe Zawinul and Jaco Pastorius, but you know I’m right.) I also worshipped Wayne with Blakey and Miles, so you’d think that I’d love every note he played.

You’d think wrong. Y’see, there was a period during the late-1960s when his solo albums, in a word, sucked.

• Super Nova sucked.

• Moto Grosso Feio sucked.

• And Odyssey of Iska sucked.

In 1971, a year-ish after this barrage of suck, he co-founded Weather Report with Zawinul, and the suckage came to a hard stop.

Over the next couple of years, Weather Report evolved into jazz’s hottest band, even enchanting a non-jazz audience, quite the feat in an era when non-jazz audiences were really non-jazz audiences.

Wanting to capitalize, Weather Report’s label, Columbia Records, gave Shorter a solo deal in 1974. Rather than lean into Weather Report’s avant-funk vibe, Wayne took a sharp left and decided to go Brazilian, this after never ever ever ever demonstrating any proclivity for the sounds of South America.

On January 18, 1975, Columbia sent Native Dancer into the ozone, an album of which DownBeat magazine wrote in their five-star review, “Shorter has created an entirely accessible, thoroughly satisfying LP that continuously discloses harmonious surprises and bursts of sweet wildness.”

The real star of the Native Dancer show was then-barely-known Milton Nascimento, a singer/composer from Rio de Janeiro with a crazy vocal range, an utterly original approach, and a charisma that jumped off the vinyl.

The first time I heard Native Dancer — I’d guess it was about ten years after it dropped — I gave it a mental three-star review, writing, “Meh.” The Brazilian thing didn’t really do it for me, I found Nascimento’s voice grating, there wasn’t enough Wayne, and it lacked energy.

That was then.

Over time, I came to love love love this album, realizing that Wayne’s subtle work on soprano was a gorgeous departure from his grittier Weather Report stuff, and Shorter’s and Nascimento’s compositions were straight-up magical, the most magical being mid-tempo sweetie, “Ponta de Areia.”

It’s a complex song — weird time signatures, tempo changes, a mid-song stylistic 180° — so I won’t nerd about about it. Just listen.

Despite its complexity, it’s a straight-up ear-worm — Earth Wind and Fire covered it, FFS — and a few weeks ago, it got exceptionally wormy, and I had to record it, so here we are.

On my first pass, I overdubbed two bass tracks — melody up high, bassline down low — then added some pretty keyboard chords on top…and it just didn’t work. But the melody on its own worked just fine, thusly, solo bass.

Here it is. Hope you dig it.

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“WE HAVE THE POTENTIAL to be really good. But we also have the potential to be really bad.”

So said Chicago newcomer Norman Powell, and thanks to that one no-bullshit take — the kind of thing you rarely hear from any professional athlete ever, let alone one who plays for a franchise known for its obfustication and delusion — the resurgent 33-year-old journeyman is now officially my favorite Bull.

We’re all well aware that Norm is 100% on point, so when the NBA schedule dropped last Thursday, Bulls Nation offered up a collective shrug. Because when you support a team that’s destined to finish at the top of the bottom, most of the 82 games on the schedule are equally meh.

This isn’t to say the 2026-27 Bulls won’t be worth a regular look.

• Bouncy rookie Caleb Williams should be good for a couple of “holy crap” plays each night.

• Josh Giddey is a triple-double in waiting, and with Russell Westbrook’s retirement, that’s barely a thing in today’s NBA.

• Matas Buzelis might be legit. The key word being might.

• Last season, my new favorite Bull was an All-Star, so let’s see if Norm’s career year was fluke.

• It’ll be interesting to follow how first-year coach Tiago Splitter handles the rebuild…and the mounting losses.

• Will VP of Basketball Ops Bryson Graham’s SLAP vision be realized? (Spoiler alert: If Rob Dillingham and Patrick Williams get significant minutes, probably not.)

Last season, I stopped regularly seeing red around January — this season, thanks to Wilson, I think I’ll make it to March. But here are six telecasts I’ll (almost) definitely check out, regardless of the day, week, or month.

(Editor’s note: This list was supposed to be ten games. Couldn’t get there.)

@ Toronto Raptors

October 21, 2026, 6:30 p.m. CT

You watch Opening Night. You just do. As of this writing, the biggest question is, will that shady Kawhi Leonard dude be wearing Raptor purple, or will he be in a federal prison?

vs. Washington Wizards

October 24, 2026, 7:00 p.m. CT

You watch the home opener. You just do. But this one would be worth a look regardless, as we’ll get to enjoy Caleb Wilson doing battle with fellow rookie AJ Dybantsa. Wilson, the fourth pick in the NBA Draft, firmly believes he’s way better than Dybantsa, the #1 selection. This’ll be a solid litmus test.

vs. New York Knicks

October 28, 2026, 7:00 p.m. CT

Three must-sees in one week? I know, shocking, but it’s the champs. Man, talk about a litmus test…

vs. New York Knicks

December 1, 2026, 7:00 p.m. CT

The Bulls’ second homer against the league’s best is one of their three nationally televised games. If you’re keeping score, that’s the second-fewest nationals in the league, behind the Nets, Bucks, Grizzlies, Pelicans, and Kings. Heady company.

@ San Antonio Spurs

December 18, 2026, 7:00 p.m. CT

Round two of the eagerly-anticipated center tussle between Victor Wembanyama and Nic Claxton.

vs. Philadelphia 76ers

January 23, 2027, 4:00 p.m. CT

I drag my daughter to one Bulls game a year. This one’s a Saturday afternoon clash against arguably the NBA’s sexiest team, thus it’ll be a tough ticket, but if my finances are in good shape, this might be the one.

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SOMETIME AT THE END of 2027, you’ll be able to spend some of your hard-earned cash-money on my book Workin’, Cookin’, Steamin’, Relaxin’: Decoding Miles Davis, which will be delivered by the up-and-coming Los Angeles-based imprint, Riot House Publishing.

Here’s the email I sent about a zillion editors that ultimately landed me the deal:

TO: Every Editor Ever

FROM: Alan Goldsher

RE: I’ve Been Arguing About Miles Davis for Forty Years. Here’s the Book.

I’ve spent the last forty-odd years arguing about Miles Davis with anyone who would listen — record store customers, bandmates, strangers at jazz clubs, and, on one memorable occasion, a musician who actually played with the man. I’ve won some, and I’ve lost some, but I don’t stop having ‘em.

That’s this book.

Workin’, Cookin’, Steamin’, Relaxin’: Decoding Miles Davis is a hybrid memoir and cultural history in the tradition of Rob Sheffield’s Dreaming the Beatles and Nick Hornby’s 31 Songs, a full-career examination of Miles Davis told through the ears, opinions, and occasionally embarrassing confessions of a writer who has been living with this music since he was a teenager in the suburbs wondering why everybody kept telling him to start with Bitches Brew.

This is why it’ll be a book unlike any of the numerous Miles titles on the shelves.

I’m not a neutral guide. As alluded to, I think Bitches Brew is vastly overrated. I think the Prestige quintet sessions, and not Kind of Blue are the real entry point. I think the second great quintet will rearrange your understanding of what a music can be. These opinions are not distractions from the history — they are history, filtered through a specific listener’s specific forty-year relationship with the music.

Which brought us to this, from the publishing industry’s go-to newsletter, Publishers Marketplace:

I’VE TOLD FRIENDS (and Publishers Marketplace, obvs) that the book is a hybrid biography/memoir, 60% about Miles and 40% about me. I’ll discuss how Davis’s musical journey informed my own, and what it is about his music that enchants and/or annoys me, and how his stylistic pivots impacted, well, everything.

I’m not going to attempt to create a full-blown biography — James Kaplan, Ian Carr, Jack Chambers, Ashley Kahn, and John Szwed, among others, already took care of that — but rather a love letter to the artist who helped make the musical version of me me.

More details as they become available. Stay tuned…

Editor’s Note: The hero graphic isn’t the actual cover, but rather a ChatGPT-generated placeholder. Believe you me, the second the real cover is approved, you’ll see it here.

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MY MUSIC COLLECTION is what we in the music industry refer to as a clusterfuck.

It’s weird, it’s pretentious, it’s cliched, it’s too hip for its own good, it’s corny af, it’s outdated, it’s redundant, and I love it.

Now I haven’t run the numbers, but I’d guesstimate that for you, my fellow music nerd, 38% of my clusterfuck falls into two categories:

1. Shit you haven’t heard of.

2. Shit you don’t want to hear.

And that’s fair. I probably don’t know or don’t care about 38% of your music, so we’re even.

But I’m a music nerd, and you’re a music nerd, and we music nerds badly want our fellow music nerds to care about our obscure, inaccessible records, whether or not they’re in your wheelhouse. Which is why I insist you care about Looking at Bird by Archie Shepp and Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, even though it’s nowhere near your wheelhouse.

Since you are a music nerd, you’ll probably insist on claiming that this 1980 session is in your wheelhouse, because that’s what we do. We front like we know and dig everything.

Hell, we front so hard that we pretend we’ve heard music that doesn’t even exist. Of course I’m hip to that 1971 Dylan bootleg thing he recorded in John Lennon’s basement, where he played 26 Woody Guthrie songs, then jammed on “Like a Rolling Stone” with Miles Davis, who was playing electric bugle through a bass amp. Seriously, dude, everybody knows that one. (Side note #1: I don’t give a shit about Dylan.)

For the sake of this discussion, don’t even go there. You. Don’t. Know. This. Record. Looking at Bird is a a saxophone/bass duo covering six Charlie Parker songs and a couple of jazz standards, and I’m the only nerd who wheelhouses bebop-boasting, Bird-busting bass/sax twosomes.

Sure, you might have an Archie Shepp track or two in your collection, I’ll give you that, and you might have even listened to them more than once. A tenor and soprano saxophonist who dabbled into both the inside (post-bop) and the outside (avant garde), Shepp has the cache of having co-led a recording session with John Coltrane — likely the primary reason you’re familiar with him.

(Side note #2: The douchebag who managed the jazz record store at which I used to work always referred to Shepp as “Archie Sheep Dip.”)

As for Pedersen, he was, is, and always will be one of my bass heroes. NHOP is a chops-meister, one of the — if not the — speediest upright bassists in jazz history. The lone time I spoke with Niels, at a horribly decorated jazz club in Chicago called Rick’s Cafe Americana, I asked him how he was able to play so damn fast. (Lame question, but in my defense, I was 15.) He just smiled sheepishly, raised his hands, wiggled his fingers, shrugged, then took a giant pull of his beer.

After that, I loved him even more.

It’s that modesty — the ability to realize that as a bassist, your most important job is to support rather than lead — that made him so in-demand as a sideman. He spent over a decade backing Oscar Peterson, but he also recorded with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Chet Baker, Count Basie…I could go on.

Looking at Bird was cut in 1980 and released in 1981 by the fine folks at the awesome Copenhagen-based Steeplechase Records. The session has looseness that might have one assuming the decision to make this thing was made about an hour before the engineer punched the record button. On the other hand, there are moments of tightness that make it sound as if Shepp and NHOP had been planning it for weeks.

“Blues For Alice” flaunts that dichotomy in under minutes. The first time through Parker’s relatively simple melody, Shepp’s soprano and Pedersen’s upright connect as one, a high treble and a low bass meld that effortlessly covers the top and the bottom of the musical spectrum.

The second time through the melody, Shepp biffs a bunch of notes and NHOP blows the tempo. So it goes.

But in between the good and bad melodies, the twosome demonstrate what makes this record so lovely. Shepp straddles the inside and outside — as is his wont —simultaneously paying Archie-centric homage to Parker and Coltrane, all coated with a healthy dose of growly blues. And Pedersen displays the chops that always melted my brain. It’s not just a bunch of pyrotechnics (can upright basses be pyrotechnical?), but a legit display of melodicism and dynamics proving my thesis that the dude is a stud.

In terms of the album’s arrangements, Looking At Bird ain’t exactly innovative. We’re talking melody/sax solo/bass solo/melody. They do go against the grain on “Billie’s Bounce,” rolling with melody/bass solo/sax solo/melody.

But the arrangements don’t matter. It’s the vibe. The love these two have for jazz, for making music, and for what’s happening at that very moment jumps out of the speakers.

I realize I’m not exactly selling this record, but on the surface, there isn’t much to sell, there aren’t many depths to plumb. It’s simple stuff: a batch of my favorite bebop tunes, over which two of my fave players deliver singable improvisations — at least singable to me — that I can still sing 30 years later.

So you don’t know this record, and you probably don’t care about this record, because, as noted, I’m the only dweeb in literally the entire world who’s way into this stuff. But if you give it a chance — even if you don’t give a two shits about jazz, sax/bass duos, or my opinions on music — you might start to care about it.

A lot.

ONCE UPON A TIME, in the magical year of 1986, there was this dorky high school bassist who decided it would be a good idea to attend a week-long summertime “jazz camp.” He figured that there, he might be able to meet like-minded dorky high school instrumentalists, he might be able to figure out how to navigate chord changes that weren’t of the 12-bar blues variety, and he might even get to kiss a girl.

What he didn’t expect was to befriend the coolest jazz guy he’d ever meet.

The dorky bassist was me — duh — and the cool jazz guy was a piano player by the name of James Williams.

James seemed both older and younger than his age of 35, older because during his 15-some-odd years as a professional pianist, he’d been there and done that, and you can’t hide that level of experience. And younger because his enthusiasm for music and people made him come across as unjaded, unaffected, and real. Like if you asked James a question, no matter how inane (and I asked him plenty of inane stuff), he listened, he absorbed, and he answered.

He was one of the higher profile clinicians at the camp, having spent four years as a member of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. We jazz dorks flocked to James — we jazz dorks adored the Jazz Messengers — pestering him for tidbits about his tenure with Blakey, and what it was like to share the Blakey bandstand with Wynton Marsalis, and, of course, how he got so damn good.

James’ damn goodness was highly evident on two 1981 Messengers releases, the live session Straight Ahead, and the studio recording Album of the Year. I’d put them among the greatest jazz albums of the 20th Century, in part because they’re fucking amazing, but, more importantly, in part because they caught me in my formative listening years.

That last part is crucial. We’ve all discovered music when we were 12, 13, 14, 15, etc., that touched us on a level we’d never been touched before…and we’ll never similarly be touched again. That pair of records hit me on a gut level — the individuality of the improvisers, the group’s loose tightness, the ease with which they navigated the various tempos and varying complexity of the chord changes.

They might not be game changers for a 2020 listener, but for this particular 1982 listener, it was game over.

If I had to pick one to take on a desert island, I’d give the slight — very slight — edge to Album of the Year, solely because the band managed to capture a live-club energy in a sterile studio in Paris. It’s a six-tune outing, four originals and two covers, and my highlight is James’ composition, “The Soulful Mr. Timmons.” Yeah, I’m biased, but the song is dope.

James is en fuego throughout the session, as are Marsalis, saxophonists Bobby Watson and Billy Pierce, and bassist Charles Fambrough. And Blakey is Blakey, dropping bass drum bombs that propel the soloists into…ah, screw the dork-centric analysis. Just download the damn thing.

James remained a part of my life for the rest of his life. When I was living in Chicago, he always made it a point to get in touch. When I moved to New York, he always put my on the guest list. Hearing him play was a treat — he was one of the more consistent pianists out there — but the hang was always the best.

As was the case back at jazz camp, he asked questions and listened to the answers. He remembered the last time we saw each other, my parents’ names, and details about my life. Remember, this is a man who toured the world for decades, during which time he encountered thousands of people, yet my information remained in his filing cabinet. J.W. was a class act.

James passed away in 2004, and his death from liver cancer seemed to come out of nowhere, and when I heard the news, I felt as if I’d lost a family member. I guarantee you there are hundreds of friends, admirers, and colleagues who felt the exact same way.

Now here we are, 16 years after we lost James, and almost 40 years after Album of the Year dropped, and both of those entities are still entrenched in my heart. And I’m lucky for it.

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PAUL CHAMBERS. Jaco Pastorius. Charles Mingus. Ron Carter. Dave Holland. Stanley Clarke. Buster Williams. Sam Jones. Scott LaFaro. Reggie Workman.

Those are among my jazz bass heroes, the guys whose recorded and live performances were miniature masterclasses in swing, melodicism, taste, chops, and overall coolness. But for me, the most heroic bassist of them all was one Raymond Matthews Brown.

The most heroic thing about Ray Brown was his accessibility. He could swing a rhythm section like a mutha without being intrusive, and that isn’t easy. In terms of his solos, he had ridiculous technique, but he used it sparingly, choosing beauty over speed. You want a demo of everything that made Ray Ray? Check this out.

I mean…

In 1985, Ray was on tour with his trio, and when he hit Chicago for a week-long stint at the Jazz Showcase, I was determined to get in some study time with him. Here’s how that post-performance conversation went down:

• ME: Hi, Mr. Brown. That an amazing set.

• RAY: Thanks, man.

• ME: I’ve been playing bass for about four years now, and I was wondering if, while you’re in town, I could take a lesson from…

• RAY: No problem. When?

• ME: Um, how about…

• RAY: How’s tomorrow at 1:00?

• ME: Um, that’s great. Should I bring my…

• RAY: Nah, you can use my bass.

• ME: Um, wow, cool. How much would it…

• RAY: How does fifty bucks sound?

• ME: Um, wow…

• RAY: Cool. I’m in room 515 at the Blackstone. See you then.

Okay, first of all, a mere $50 for a lesson with one of the five or so greatest upright bassists in the history of jazz, no, the history of music? Straight-up bonkers. And for context, $50 in 1985 money is equal to about $51.86 in 2020 money, so, ch’ching, bargain city.

Second of all, Ray Brown was going to let me use his bass. Ray’s axe was a custom-made Sylvestre, and it was a work of art, and I was going to play it for an hour! Seriously, who allows that? (Not me. I’ve never liked anybody touching my basses, and they were, at best, mediocre instruments. Also, I sure as shit wasn’t Ray Brown, so who was I to shoo somebody away from my crap bass?)

After arriving at the appointed hotel room at the appointed time, I knocked and Ray opened the door, wearing a worse-for-wear wife-beater t-shirt tucked into a pair of tan slacks that were pulled up way too high. He looked like a grandfather who’d just been roused from a nap — and I mean that in the most complementary way possible.

Ray sat down, pointed at the bass, and said, “Go for it.”

For the next hour-plus, I went for it, but in a manner that was far simpler than I expected. Over the first 15 minutes, Ray had me play slow C-major scales over and over again, repositioning my hands when he felt I veered off course. (Apparently I veered a whole bunch, because I played a shit-ton of C-major scales.) Next up, C-minor scales, same deal, after which I played major and minor scales in each key.

After about about 40 minutes, I got bored. Understandable — playing scales is boring. But this was Ray Brown, and if Ray Brown said play scales, I’d play scales.

With about ten minutes left, he asked me to drop a walking bass line. I opted to play a medium-tempo blues in F. After a couple of 12-bar cycles, Ray told me to do it again, but slower. Then again, and again slower. Repeat, repeat, repeat, slower, slower, slower.

In between choruses, he offered the kind of simple pointers about intonation, feel, and posture that you’d get from any quality upright bass teacher…but it was coming from Ray Brown, so it stuck.

When our hour was up, I asked Ray, “Can I play a song for you?” I wanted to let it rip, to demonstrate what I’d learned over my whopping four years of playing bass.

Ray shrugged. “Let it rip.”

I played the Charlie Parker tune “Billie’s Bounce” at a stupid-fast tempo, then improvised for three choruses, then took the melody out. During my solo, I pulled out all of my tricks: String growls, double stops, thumb position licks, what I thought of as bebop pyrotechnics, the works.

And it felt good. Real good.

Ray slowly nodded. “You remind me of me when I was young…”

What!!???!?! I am so the man! In, like, three years, I’m gonna be the greatest bass play in the world! I’ll be playing with Oscar Peterson in six months! My Blue Note record deal is less than a year away!

But he wasn’t done. “Yeah, just like me. All hot riffs, and improper technique.”

Insert sad trombone here.

Ray was right, of course. I was years, decades, centuries away from being legit. Truth be told, I never came close to mastering the upright bass. I was a B-minus player — on a really good night, I might hit B or B-plus — in part because I lacked upper body strength and my hands were too small, and in part because no matter how hard I worked, I was what I was. I hit my ceiling. And that was fine. Not everybody can be P.C., or Jaco, or Mingus. Some people are just Alan.

But for one brief second, in a tiny hotel room in Chicago, I was an A-plus musician, because Ray Brown told me I reminded him of him. Granted, an eyeblink later, I was downgraded to a D-plus, but my goodness, that one brief second was awesome.

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SINCE FOUNDING GOLD NOTE RECORDS in 2019, I’ve made a lot of music. Like, a lot.

Being that my art is an oddball mish-mash of jazz, funk, hip-hop, EDM, and the right hemisphere of my brain; and being that Mixmag tells us that there are 120,000 songs released each day; and being that the Gold Note marketing budget for the remainder of 2024 is $31.28, it’s tough to get much in the way of media love.

For instance, Pitchfork won’t be assigning anybody an article ranking each of my songs.

Now that’s a bummer for three reasons:

1. I could use the publicity.

2. Pitchfork’s ranking pieces are so pretentious and infuriating that I take great joy in hate-reading them.

3. I could use the publicity.

So since Pitchfork isn’t gonna do it — and since Lester Bangs isn’t around to do it for them — I’m taking it upon myself to discuss the quality (or lack thereof) of all 133 of my jams. Best of all, I’ll be writing it not from the perspective of Alan Goldsher, but rather as a sometimes pretentious, sometimes grouchy, sometimes overly effusive Pitchfork scribe.

So get ready to read some .50 modifiers and obscure musician references, and enjoy both the hate-read and the music.

133) Can’t Hold It Back

A clinker from his debut album featuring some shout/rapping (or rap/shouting), it’s difficult to discern whether Goldsher is attempting to channel Everlast, Darby Crash, Chester Bennington, or all of the above. Whatever he was shooting for, the vocal execution — as well as the less-than-subtle reference to the film Frozen — is simply silly.

132) Some Noisy Shit

A sophomoric homage to Gustav Holst, this overly-layered, meandering dash-off puts one in the mind of what happens when a jack-hammer is shooting sparks in one’s back alley.

131) 1992

Do we really need a homage to the dance music of 1992? Nobody’s clamoring to revisit the days of Rozalla, 2 Unlimited, or The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. Stick to 2024, Mr. Goldsher. Stick to 2024.

130) Jelly’s Jam

If you’re going to rip off a trip-hop artist, you may as well rip off the best, and Goldsher’s riff on Tricky’s Maxinquaye is a gallant, lengthy mess. Noble effort, less-than-noble rendering.

129) Auld Lang Syne

Clearly recorded to get some clicks around the holiday, this contempo-swing take on the paean to New Year’s Eve is cute. But that’s all. Just cute.

128) Jammie’s Gel

Title-wise, this appears to be a sequel to “Jelly’s Jam.” To Goldsher’s credit, he realized that he can’t do Tricky, so he aimed for Massive Attack. Unfortunately, the only thing massive about his keyboad solo is its length.

127) Daddy’s Girls

This comes from Goldsher’s EP Glue, which was recorded in the midst of the 2020 lockdown. Like all of us who were attempted to navigate our pandemic lives, the bassist’s life was a bundle of contridictions, as born out by this wildly inconsistent project. This track was one of the two stinkers.

126) Don’t Judge Me

An average ballad in search of a vocalist. Where’s Alicia Keys when you need her?

125) We Take Requests

The second uninspiring track from Glue starts out pianissimo and goes from there. I wish it has begun at tacet…and stayed there.

124) Digit5TripHop

Inspired by Jon Batiste’s quick-turnaround album We Are, Goldsher decided to cut an entire collection in a week. Said collection, called Digits, is, unsurprisingly, a mixed bag. Here, he dives back into the Tricky/Massive Attack bucket well with unsurprisingly mixed results.

123) La Poche Est De Retour

First off, why the French title? Second off, why couldn’t Goldsher have done more with a beat and bass line that Thundercat would appreciate? Third off, why the French title? Anyhow, this one gets dinged for unfulfilled potential.

122) Eric B. Is President

Goldsher’s heart was in the right place with his cover of the old-school classic that was meant as an anti-Trump protest song — unfortunately, his voice wasn’t in the right place. The vocal/bass duo takes you right back to an East Village poetry slam, circa 1989…a place nobody wants to be.

121) Disco Demolition

Do we need a mashup of a Bernard Edwards bass groove and a Wrigley Field ballpark organ? Meh.

120) Witch Hunt

One of the oddest , if not the oddest track in Goldsher’s discography, Goldsher steps out from behind the bass and repositions himself behind a microphone, where he drops some pseudo-autobiographical lyrics that are preceded and followed by an electro-bop rendering of Wayne Shorter’s sublime melody. Should’ve been two good songs instead of one okay song.

119) The Return of Vibez McGoo

A cheerful groove with a cheerful MIDI-generated vibraphone that’s simply too cheerful. Throw some Joel Ross/Bobby Hutcherson grit into the mix, and he might’ve had something.

118) Digit2Electro

Was he going for an Aphex Twin thing? Skrillex? Calvin Harris? Wherever he was aiming, he missed the mark. Not by much, granted. But still a miss.

117) It’s the Nineties

It’s clear Goldsher has listened to his fair share of Marley Marl tracks. So have we. And we’d rather ear-ball a legendary producer than a prolific one. Taken in a vacuum, it’s decent stuff, but that’s all.

116) After the Point After

One of Goldsher’s strengths is his ability to toe the line between Reuben Wilson-esque, 1973-era grooves and early-aughts Medeski Martin and Wood attitude. This one hits that sweet spot. If he’d taken the time to develop it further, it could’ve been special.

115) C Jam Blues

If only the quality of the piano solo was equal to that of the clever arrangement, Duke Ellington — the song’s composer — would’ve been thrilled. Goldsher’s use of the Ellington band’s classic “Caravan” as the bass line was fantastic. He keyboard noodling, not so much.

114) Digit3Funk

A nifty little groove that sounds just like what it is — a tune that was recorded in a day, but needed three weeks.

113) Bo Knows

Just what nobody was looking for — a revisit to the land of New Jack Swing. That said, Goldsher’s ability to replicate a Bell Biv DeVoe track is impressive enough. But again, does BBD really need replicating?

112) 1991

Nothing special. That’s all. Nothing else needs to be said.

111) The Point After

This one has “commerce” written all over it. It would be an ideal melody for the theme to a 1980s sitcom — but not an ideal melody for a playlist.

110) Firedance

Goldsher’s elastic, oh, let’s just go ahead and say “Goldsher-esque” bass lines can almost always salvage his periodic lack of focus — almost. Decent, but not particularly memorable.

109) Digit7Jam

One can guess Goldsher’s mood during the week-long Digits session via the quality of the tune. Here, it sounds like he could’ve used a little more sleep and a bigger breakfast.

108) Polly

All We Are, Goldsher’s collection of Nirvana covers, is, for the most part, a solid piece of work. But this style-shifting take on Kurt Cobain’s heartbreaking song is incongruous at best, and disrespectful at worst.

107) Sunny Bird (version one)

A tribute to saxophone great Sonny Rollins, Goldsher diminishes his pleasant bebop/funk melody by performing said melody on an overly-distorted bass. Good thing there’s a version two.

106) Pop of the Tops

A nice little beat that ends before it begins. Think The Beatnuts at the tail-end of a 12-hour session.

105) Digit6World

The cool horn melody is counteracted by the song’s slightness. The potential was there. The delivery wasn’t.

104) Cacao Nibs

As is the case with Goldsher’s more pedestrian material, this major-key swinger stays at one dynamic level. Some more up/down, stop/start contrast certainly would’ve helped.

103) The Hardest Working Man In Show Business

When you hear the phrase, “The hardest working man in show business,” you assume there’ll be some James Brown vibes. Here, the bass work recalls Bootsy Collins…to a point. A different title might’ given listeners — listeners like us — slightly different expectations, which might’ve given this tune a more advantageous spot on the list.

102) Mamba Mentality

This is a case of not enough. Clocking in at under a minute, this rock-tronica groove snippet should’ve been expanded. Give us more of this, Alan. Give us more!

101) Wash Away the Dust (version one)

As was the case with about 33% of the material from his double-album debut, this is the work of a work-in-progress. Good thing there’s a version two…

100) Heads

Goldsher has claimed this is an homage to Talking Heads, and we can see that. Kind of. That said, he probably didn’t have Jerry Harrison’s phone number, which would’ve helped.

99) Swunk

Here’s the two-minute Fletcher-Henderson-meets-Pete-Rock jam we’ve all been waiting for. Actually, few, if any of us have been waiting for a Fletcher-Henderson-meets-Pete-Rock jam, but if you were, you’ll probably be satisfied.

98) Friend Or Foe

We’ll give Goldsher this: He’s become a craftsman to the point here in 2024 that even his lesser material feels pretty good. Not much depth, but plenty of groove, and some nice upright bass splatterings.

97) Smells Like Teen Spirit

We’re divided on this one. Some think Goldsher nailed it, while other’s see it as a missed opportunity. That said, Cobain would probably appreciate this muddy, trap-ish take on his classic.

96) Strawberry Letter #44

Arguably the oddest selection in Goldsher’s catalog, this tribute to Barack Obama has two distinct sections: The nu-jazzy part one and the disco-ducky part two, both of which feature interspersed snippets of Obama’s Greatest Hits. Worth three or four listens. But not five. And definitely not 44.

95) Feels So Good

What can you say about a reggae-ish cover of a Chuck Mangione song? Seriously, what can you say? We can’t think of anything.

94) My Favorite Sport

We have a spot in our hearts for old-old-old-school hip-hop beats, thus we have a spot in our hearts for this Scott La Rock-inspired groover. But — say it with us, now — it lacks development.

93) Foe Or Friend

A deep dive into this companion piece to “Friend Or Foe” shows that Goldsher pulled the most electric eight bars from the other composition and remixed it into something fresh-ish. Not necessarily something notably better. But something fresh-ish.

92) So What

We suspect that had Goldsher recorded this in 2023 rather than 2020, it might’ve had more maturity and resonance. As it is, this jungle house version of the Miles Davis classic feels simultaneously incomplete and overblown. He does, however, get significant points for his electric bass work, which comes off as the love child of Tony Levin and Brian Bromberg.

91) Some 70s Shit

Sometimes Goldsher’s most memorable tunes are the simplest, which is the case here. That said, the simplicity might be a bit heavy-handed (or light-handed, as the case may be), making this a what-coulda-been kind of deal.

90) Eyes Agleam

Hand this one over to a killer mixing engineer (Bob Clearmountain? Chris Lord-Alge?), and you’d have something with some staying power. Its lack of deep bottom end, however, keeps it out of Goldsher’s top tier.

89) Wash Away the Dust (version two)

One of Goldsher’s best characteristics is that he rarely sounds exactly like any other artist. This tune, however, could have come off of a New Mastersounds record. A solid New Mastersounds ripoff, but a ripoff nonetheless.

88) My Sharona

Easily the funniest of Goldsher’s covers, this reimagining of the Knack’s classic rock classic is a tad too hyper for regular consumption. Not to play armchair quarterback, but had he slowed it down by about 15 BPM, this could’ve been a viral sensation…at least among classic rockers.

87) Dad Jokes

This thoughtful chill-out piece is propelled by Goldsher’s double-stop bass lines and a mood-setting vibraphone groove. It would be an ideal soundtrack for, say, a 1990s-era indie movie — but is that what we want on our playlist?

86) D-Minor: The Saddest of All Keys

Based on the title, one would expect some sort of aural nod to Spinal Tap. As it is, it’s literally a sad-sounding song in the key of D-minor. It has two distinct parts, both of which are quite enjoyable, but don’t necessarily mesh.

85) Way Back Home

This admittedly beauteous cover of a Crusaders jazz-soul fave is lacking…something. Maybe it’s a chorus or two of improvisation. Maybe it’s a second or third instrumental voice on the front line. Maybe it’s a guest apperance from an actual Crusader. But this is from his debut collection, and Goldsher was still finding his way.

84) Gorillas and Gorillaz

From his EP Live at the Lakeview Lounge, this piano/bass/drums jam comes across as if you threw some Bud Powell vinyl and a Chick Corea CD into a Kitchen Aid, then covered the entire thing with the burnt ashes of a Kendrick Lamar t-shirt.

83) Fat Mama/Quiet Storm

If you listen to the original version of both of these tunes — the former by Herbie Hancock and the latter by Smokey Robinson — you’ll realize that combining the two makes sense. Not peanut-butter-and-chocolate-level sense, but close enough.

82) Fables Of Faubus

We’re conflicted about this one. On one hand, it’s a perfectly enjoyable listen. On the other hand, we’re confident that the tune’s composer, the infamously irascible Charles Mingus, would despise it. We don’t want to get on Mingus’ bad side — he’s terrifying, even though he’s dead — so we’ll leave it at that.

81) Sunburst Synapse

Some of Goldsher’s early material feels like a bullet train veering off its tracks. And sometimes, that kinetic unpredictability is a good thing, as is the case on this banger.

80) Spanish Inquisition 2: Electric Boogaloo

Approximately 25% of Goldsher’s output is flat-out fun. It’s not groundbreaking. It’s not earth-shattering. It’s not Grammy material. But it gets you on your feet and gets you smiling. That’s the case here.

79) You Too

Cool song, but Goldsher’s bass is out of tune to the point that it’s distracting. There are certain musicians who can get away with this sort of sloppiness — Bob Dylan made a career out of crappy intonation — but not Goldsher.

78) Script Flipped

The chord changes remind us of John Coltrane’s “Syeeda’s Song Flute,” and the beat reminds us of East Coast hip-hop, circa 1995. A satisfying combo platter.

77) Grace the Place, Trace the Bass

Goldsher’s bass line was ripped from the obscure Minugs composition, “Hobo Ho.” The tiny batch of lyrics feel like they could’ve been kidnapped from a Fatboy Slim B-side. None of that is a bad thing.

76) The Accuweather Forecast

Drum-and-bass meets bebop bass. A rewarding dyad that would’ve been more interesting and successful in 1998. Enjoyable, sure, but derivative.

75) Una Noche Con Frances

Coulda, woulda, shoulda. The interpretation of Bud Powell’s tune? Check. The layered frontline harmonies? Check. The restrained beat? Check. But the choice to include Dexter Gordon sound clips rather than an improvised solo? Welcome to Misstep City, population: Alan.

74) Lithium

Nirvana + Dubstep = Interesting + Almost.

73) The Pocket (version one)

One of Goldsher’s slickest bass lines, it took him two albums to get this one just right. Version #2 prevails, but version #1 is plenty funky.

72) Back To You

Goldsher’s fan base cites this one among their go-tos, thus its realtively high rating. We don’t cit, only because the sum doesn’t quite equal the parts…and one of those parts sounds like the theme to the 11:00 news.

71) Grading

Goldsher’s predilection for smashing together two or three styles in the span of eight bars is a hit-or-miss proposition. It’s all fine and good to meld Scott Walker with Albert Ayler and a TR-808, but it can make things…challenging. In this instances, shifting between minimalist nu-jazz with fun and bouncy hip-hop kinda works.

70) Sky High

We’re already established that Charles Mingus might not be Alan Goldsher’s biggest fan. Donald Byrd, on the other hand, would get on board, as Goldsher’s ebullient rendering of the trumpeter’s 1973 soul-funk masterpiece hits the sweet spot between emulation and adoration.

69) Straight Life

A mid-tempo Fender Rhodes-driven jam that once again demonstrates Goldsher’s affinity for updating mid-1970s tunes composed by trumpet masters not named Miles Davis (see above). One can only hope he opens the songbooks of Blue Mitchell, Eddie Henderson, Nat Adderley, Hugh Masekela, Randy Brecker, and Don Ellis.

68) To Alhaji Bai Konte

Until we heard this song, our favorite Danish guitarists were Børge Ring (when he wasn’t directing films like Oh My Darling, of course), Jakob Bro, and Henrik Andersen. But this take on a gentle ballad composed by Pierre Dørge sent us down a Dørge rabbit hole, and we liked it down there. So we stayed.

67) Baby Bass

Mood music for when you’re not in the mood for mood music.

66) Take Five

It took us 17 listens and about two hours of research to figure out that the sampled voice at the beginning of the track belongs to one Frank Zappa. That’s almost as cool as the fact that Goldsher rebooted the Paul Desmond composition — originally played in a 5/4 time signature — as a 4/4 romp. Zappa would approve.

65) Breezin’

An author by trade, Goldsher must have taken extra special care with this one, as the tune was made famous by George Benson — a guitarist/vocalist whose memoir Goldsher ghostwrote. Does it love up to Benson’s rendering? Or Gabor Szabo’s? Or Hank Crawford’s? Or Masayoshi Takanaka’s? We’ll land it below Szabo and above Crawford.

64) Digit1Lounge

Truth in advertising. This is a lounge tune. And a good one. Not great. Just good. But good is good.

63) Thumb

Sometimes, Goldsher just lays it out there. No frills, no muss, no fuss, just pleasant grooves, melodic keyboard improvs, and, of course, stick-in-your-craw bass lines.

62) The Rumproller

We have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, this cover of the title cut from trumpeter Lee Morgan’s 1965 justifiably acclaimed Blue Note Records outing is practically twice the tempo of the original and, thusly, wildly out of control. On the other hand, you’d never know that the trumpet and tenor sax sounds heard here are MIDI-generated, so props on that.

61) Chameleon

One of the original electrified jazz/soul crossover tunes, this Herbie Hancock composition has been covered about 6,000,000 times, with varying degrees of success. Slot Goldsher’s reggae-fied rundown on the plus side of that equation.

60) Love and Peace

Among Goldsher’s most clever covers, this utterly original drum-and-bass throwdown of the deep-crate Quincy Jones composition could have come from the studio of Goldie, Netsky, or Dieselboy.

59) On A Plain

Of all the tunes on Goldsher’s Nirvana cover album, this four-on-the-floor Chicago house rave up is probably the one Cobain would hate the most. Which might explain why we like it.

58) CollectX

Like a percentage of Goldsher’s work, this one could be the theme song to a murder podcast. And we mean that in the most complimentary manner possible.

57) Excursions

Let’s get this out there right now: Alan Goldsher can’t rap. He tries. He tries hard. But he’s on the level of Young Black Teenagers and K-Fed. (Credit where credit is due, he’s better than Vanilla Ice.) But his weirdo hippy-dippy vocal work on this ATCQ cover — he sounds like he’s on ‘ludes and/or Dextromethorphan — is certainly compelling enough. And, also credit where credit is due, we suspect that Q-Tip would bite the bass line in a minute.

56) Still Sticky

Some of our favorites from the Alan Goldsher Songbook are the tunes that are actually tunes, you know, with chord changes and bridges and harmonies and the like. That’s the deal here.

55) Alt AF

Frenetic. Disjointed. Inscrutable. Entertaining.

54) Come As You Are

The most loyal rendering from his Nirvanawannabe set, this tune is, if nothing else, proof that Kurt Cobain could write the hell out of a melody. Kudos to Goldsher for recognizing and embracing the Aberdeen native’s nose for auditory hooks.

53) The Other Pocket

In interviews, Goldsher has expressed his interest in creating what he calls “build songs,” compositions that generally begin with a bass hook then crecendo to a provocative, near-rapturous sense of chaos. This could’ve used an edit — 30 seconds less on the fade seems right — but it’s one of the highlights of his early work.

52) One By One

Another Wayne Shorter cover, but unlike his take of “Witch Hunt,” Goldsher sticks forgoes rapping in favor of a drum-and-bass bed of beats. Wise, wise decision.

51) Memphis Underground

“Trading fours” is a form of conversational improvisation where musicians build a solo together by alternating four measures. Here, Goldsher trades fours with himself, offering splashes of funk-bop from a MIDI-generated flute, a MIDI-generated Wurlitzer keyboard, and a MIDI-generated Hammond B-3 organ. Good thing we don’t have issues with MIDI generation.

50) Red Clay

Before pivoting to a more improvisitional-based approach, Goldsher tended to lay down a song’s melody, then a few minutes of effective groove, then a revisit of the melody. This celebratory disco-fied rundown of the venerable Freddie Hubbard jam exemplifies that approach in an engaging, non-disposable manner.

49) Sticky

See: #56. Same song, same deal, basically.

48) Natty’s Other Idea

Goldsher’s second outing, 96 BPM, is a collections of tunes that each clock in at, you guessed it, 96 beats per minutes. He gets points for the diversity on the repetitive tempo, and this ballad is the most divergent tune the album has to offer.

47) Digit4AcidJazz

The best tune on his Digits album, and it’s not even close. (Frankly, most of that album comes off as phoned-in mediocrity.)

46) Sunny Bird (version two)

One of the bassist’s prettiest songs, this reboot is filled with delightful little touches that are discovered and appreciated after multiple listens on headphones in an empty apartment in a room with the shades halfway drawn.

45) I Like This Song, It’s Funky

We like this song. It’s funky. We don’t like the title. It’s simplistic.

44) Spiral Dance

A listener commented that Goldsher’s take on this Keith Jarrett deep cut meanders…but so does Jarrett’s original. We accept loyal meandering, and don’t abide by misguided listener comments.

43) Listen Here

If Goldsher had a Taylor Swift-level fan base, he’d single-handedly create interest in soul-jazz recorded between 1967 and 1975. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a Taylor Swift-level fan base — and he never will — so we’ll have to enjoy this Eddie Harris cover with Goldsher’s 72 other loyalists.

42) All Apologies

Another instrumentalized Nirvana cover that Kurt Cobain might or might not sign off on.

41) Health (Not Care)

To reiterate: Alan Goldsher can’t rap. But on this heartfelt, heartbreaking story of his battle with epilepsy and the country’s Byzantine healthcare system, he’s allowed.

40) Cissy Strut

Goldsher has a tendency to make his covers sound as little like the original as possible, without losing the orginal’s melody or spirit. Here, he remains completely loyal to the Meters, and we’re all better off for it.

39) The Written Word

If you’re ever asked, “What’s Alan Goldsher’s music about?” point them to this song, a jaunty Goldsher-esque (is that a word?) jam that would work on a dance floor, in a bar, or in your living room.

38) Everybody Loves the Sunshine

One suspects that given his druthers, Goldsher would record an album almost entirely consisting of bass solos. Based on this Roy Ayres exegesis, it just might work. (Or not. Because how much bass from somebody who isn’t Tony Levin can one listener take?)

37) Ruby Red

When he puts his mind to it, Goldsher can slap together an A+ ear worm. This childlike hop-skipper is as ear wormy as he’s ever gotten.

36) Mercy Mercy Mercy

Some might view the opening track of his most popular album Big Al Bassman Funks Up the Jazz Classic as a gimmicky, over-produced, onanistic trifle. But not us.

35) Where’s Dinner

If you get a kick out of MIDI trombones — and who doesn’t ?— you’ll be enchanted by this loping, limping, limber lullaby.

34) The Girl From Ipanema

When you look at the list of tunes Goldsher has covered — and it’s a list that seems to get longer each month — it feels inevitable that the Jobim would make it into the repertoire. But the inevitability is mitigated by the distinction.

33) On the Ginza

The part-time author wrote an entire book about Art Blakey, so one should expect him to include a whole lot of Jazz Messengers material in the Alan Goldsher songbook. This begs the question, is too much Art Blakey…too much? Taking this track into consideration, it’s all good. For now.

32) In Bloom

We LOL’d (in a good way) at this blasphemous downtempo Nirvana tribute…but is it a tribute? Or is it a diss? Goldsher seems like he works in a snark-free zone, so we’ll go with the former.

31) The Pocket (version two)

The first version of “The Pocket” is, at best, okay. The second version of “The Pocket” is more than okay. For that matter, it’s delightful, recalling David Axlerod, David Shire, David Newman, David Amram, and David Heymann.

20) About a Girl

The clinker factor on Goldsher’s Nirvana tribute is relatively low, and the highs are notably high. This jungle groove redux is notably high.

29) Z’s Jam

While it won’t ever be in the, “What’s the best side-one-cut-one in music history” conversation, the opening track of Goldsher’s debut is a satisfying rocker that would make for a phenomenal ringtone.

28) The Message

The B-side of his Meters cover tops the A-side. Sorry, A-side, but you know it’s true.

27) Moanin’

His finest Art Blakey homage, Goldsher’s deft use of rubato during the bridge improvisations are unpretentious, unassuming, unostentious, and unimposing.

26) Heart-Shaped Box

We’re curious as to how Dave Grohl would feel about this tune’s churning funk beat. For that matter, we’re curious as to how Dave Grohl would play a churning funk beat. We know it would be astounding. But we’re still curious.

25) One More Time

Goldsher demonstrates his adoration of 90s hip-hop with a choppy, ingratiating collection of bass lines ripped from the Beastie Boys, Black Sheep, and Dr. Dre, among others. It shouldn’t work. But it does.

24) Burning Man

This is Goldsher’s third-most streamed song, and while it’s not our favorite, the masses have spoken, and once in a rare while, we actually listen to the masses.

23) The Hive

If the improvisations matched the intensity, the grit, and the expansiveness of the beat, this could have cracked the top ten. So close. So damn close.

22) Fishing For Pets: The Rhodes Reboot

Goldsher’s penchant for re-recording his originals is a wobbly proposition. Sometimes it works (“Sunny Bird”), and sometimes it’s unnecessary (“Wash Away the Dust”). With this adorable second pass at his second-most streamed song, it makes sense.

21) Percolate

The last 48 seconds of the best track from his debut outing is among the best 48 seconds of Goldsher’s discography. Ballsy, ballistic, bombastic, and mere millimeters away from brilliance.

20) Natty’s Bakery

Throw Harry Belafonte, Jaco Pastorius, Luiz Bonfá, Charlie Byrd, and Boogsie Sharpe, and four cups of brown sugar into a blender, and you’ve got “Natty’s Bakery.”

19) Maiden Voyage

Putting it politely, Goldsher’s keyboard work is evolving. He’s nowhere near Chick Corea’s universe, but on this wild Herbie Hancock cover, he does a credible Corea impression, bashing the crap out of a crankily overdriven Rhodes.

18) Drain You

An instrumental Brazilian attack? On a depressing Nirvana track? With a two-minute percussion solo? Sounds absurd. But it’s not. At least for the most part.

17) Fishing For Pets (version one)

To reiterate, putting it politely, Goldsher’s keyboard work is evolving, but here — what with the lolloping tempo and winsome chord changes — it feels evolved. Relatively.

16) Birdland

On this everyting-but-the-kitchen-sink cover of the beloved Weather Report hit, there’s a sense of swirling, freak-out energy that gets it across the finish line.

15) I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)

Simplicity isn’t usually part of the Goldsher canon, but on this sumptuous soul salute, he pares it down in a manner that the former Stevland Hardaway Morris would appreciate.

14) Zoë Lost a Tooth

The leadoff cut from Goldsher’s COVID EP Glue, this sweet, silly tribute to his daughter is irresistibly endearing, worthy of inclusion in a “Hey, I need a cheer-up song” Spotify playlist.

13) Ayers It Out

With it’s complex melody, slick arrangement, and diverse instrumentation, this homage to Roy Ayres marked a turning-point in Goldsher’s approach, the moment when he shifted from dance-floor-filler to tunesmith.

12) She’s a Rainbow

When we were hipped to the fact that Goldsher was taking on the Rolling Stones, our stomachs fell. But when we heard it, out tummies went back to their proper perches. The upright walking bass doubled with the acoustic piano and the “background vocals”? Chef’s kiss.

11) The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

We’ve trashed Goldsher’s vocal abilities — such as they are — on numerous occasions, but here, he channels Gil Scott-Heron’s attitude with reverence and sincerity. Whether or not a white dude from the Chicago suburbs should be covering this protest song is a discussion for another column.

10) On the Q.T.

Like version two of “The Pocket,” this cinematic gem is an agile David Axlerod/David Shire/David Newman/David Amram/David Heymann melange.

9) It’s About That Time

We well aware that this take of Miles Davis’ 1969 seminal jazz-fusion composition was recorded entirely with MIDI, but man oh man, if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t know. Floaty, funky, and fun.

8) F = Funk

And speaking of floaty, funky, and fun, this one-chord wonder simultaneously recalls James Brown, Wynton Marsalis, Beethoven, and Jimmy Smith. (Okay, maybe not Beethoven. But maybe yes Beethoven!)

7) Aphrodite Shake/African Pop Session

Remember when Goldsher sent us down that Pierre Dørge rabbit hole? Well, he did it again, in this case with African sax great Manu Dibango. We pride ourselves on knowing every musician ever, and while we’re aware of Dibango, we weren’t aware aware. So thank you, Alan Goldsher. Thank you so very, very much.

6) Bullish and Bearish

It’s understandable why this effortless piano/bass/drums is Goldsher’s best-known track, as it’s easy on the brain but intense in the heart. And the key change at the bridge is an inspiring six seconds.

5) Jean-Pierre

In what could have gone terribly sideways, this cover of Miles Davis’ cutesy nursery rhyme — the second Miles cut in the top ten — is just right. On-point harmonies, on-point improvisation, on-point arrangement. If all of Goldsher’s covers were this on-point, he might have himself a career.

4) Uninvited

Charles Mingus wouldn’t be impressed with “Fables of Faubus.” Kurt Cobain wouldn’t be impressed with, well, any of Goldsher’s stuff. But Alanis Morissette would very likely be impressed with Goldsher’s veneration and earnestness on her Grammy-winning composition.

3) The Boogoo Reboot

Goldsher throws around the word “jazztronica” a whole bunch, and until we heard this propulsive funk-fest, we didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Now we do.

2) The Hungry Rainbow

Do we like disco? In this case, the answer is a resounding yes. What with the traditional disco chord changes — and yes, there are traditional disco chord changes — and memorable string arrangement, Giorgio Moroder would be proud.

1) What a Wonderful World

It all comes together here — and who’d have thought it would all come together on a Louis Armstrong tune? An opulent approach to the melody on a phase-soaked electric bass. A build-from-the-ground-up arrangement. A speaker-melting climax. This almost makes up for “Can’t Hold It Back.” Almost.

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BETWEEN 1992 AND 1994, I played upright bass with the rap/jazz group Digable Planets. (Hip-hop heads know the band’s backstory, while casual rap fans know them as the “cool like that” trio.) I was lucky enough to record on both of their studio albums, accompany them on a handful of TV appearances, and play dozens and dozens of concerts all over the world. But the highlight amongst the highlights of my tenure — and there were many highlights — came on March 1, 1994: The Grammy Awards at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

The band had garnered two Grammy nominations, Best New Artist and Best Rap Performance By a Duo or a Group. The show’s producers, bless their hearts, not only invited the Planets to perform, but they paired us with Clark Terry, a legendary trumpeter/flugelhornist who I legit worshipped.

The afternoon before the Grammy telecast, we had wonderfully surreal soundcheck at Radio City:

• As we sat in the audience seats waiting to take the stage, Dolly Parton — clad in a black catsuit and stilettos; go Dolly, go — fast-walked up the aisle, and I was smitten. At the time, she was 48, and I was 28, and I would’ve asked her to go steady in a heartbeat.

• I fell into a conversation with Chris Barron, lead singer of the Spin Doctors, who accidentally broke one the Radio City seats — maybe it was on purpose, who knows.

• I chatted with a sweet and modest Jodi Watley who, had Dolly not stolen my heart, might’ve been given the opportunity to become my paramour.

The 24 hours between the soundcheck the show were a blur — I remember buying the new Beck album at Sam Goody’s, but that’s pretty much it — and before I knew it we were walking down the red carpet, right behind Kenny G. and his magical locks.

We were herded backstage to the green room area, where we schmoozed with everybody from Michael Stipe (unbelievably nice) to the aforementioned Mr. G (totally rude). Next thing we knew, the DP’s won themselves the Best Rap Performance award.

Man, I loved the ‘90s.

Several minutes later, host Garry Shandling — a comedic genius, rest in power — introduced us by saying something along the lines of, “And now a band who mixes rap and jazz the way my comedy mixes jokes and dead spots, Digable Planets!” and then we took the stage.

My perfectly-tuned bass and properly-EQ’d amp were ready to roll, because when you’re a famous and fancy musician performing on a famous and fancy awards show, people do stuff for you. (When you’re not famous and fancy, you’re on your own.) Before our deejay King Britt dropped his needle on a custom piece of vinyl — right on the spot where the infamous snaps one-two-three-four’d us onto the three-minute roller coaster ride — I peered out into the crowd, and was treated to the sight of:

• Bruce Springsteen

• Whitney Houston

• Sting

• Neil Young

• Billy Joel

• Aaron Neville

As if I wasn’t already nervous enough.

Just off to the left, about three rows behind, was a man named Donald Trump.

Trump has been on my radar for several years, primarily because I was a massive fan of Spy magazine, whose editors and contributors had a predilection for shitting on the brash, controversial real estate magnate in most every issue. (It was the Spy team who gave Trump the nickname “short-fingered vulgarian,” a sobriquet that’s as appropriate now as it was then.) Trump wasn’t known as a music fan, but he was known as a guy who liked to get his face on the tube, and what better place to do so than in the third row at the Grammys?

Right after our song ended, viewers were treated to the sight of Trump and his reaction.

Not Bruce’s reaction. Not Whitney’s reaction. The Donald’s reaction.

An odd choice, no?

The expression on the future president’s face — which, thanks to my VCR recording, I watched about 2,000 times the following day — said What the fuck? And it wasn’t a regular what the fuck. It was a what the fuck of epic proportions. It was a what the fuck that put every other what the fuck in 1994 to shame. Even today, what the fucks across the world can only aspire to match the what the fuck that crossed Trump’s face.

The question is, Why the fuck the what the fuck?

Was Trump annoyed there were young black people rocking the Radio City stage? (Possibly.) Was he irked that a white boy — me — would be willing to share said stage with said young black people? (Maybe.) Or did he just think our music sucked? (Unquestionably.)

Sad.

Unfortunately, the videocassette that documented both the performance and Trump’s palpable dislike of said performance is long gone; equally unfortunate, nobody has ever posted the full clip on the YouTubes. (The only thing I can find is a nifty little HuffPo article from 2017.) So if somebody has the video featuring the performance and Trump’s baffled, annoyed, bored, confused expression, hit me up at ChicagoSportsStuff@gmail.com with a Dropbox link, or a Vimeo link, or a compressed MP4 file.

If I were a betting man, I’d wager that Donald’s post-song expression looked a little something like this…

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THINGS ARE GETTING real in the land of fantasy football.

• We’re seeing cheat sheet compilations.

• We’re seeing draft scheduling.

• We’re seeing team names getting locked down.

• We’re seeing your league-mates bitch about the buy-in.

Me, I’m seeing Chicago Bears rising and falling on fantasy boards all over the dang place. So what say we update last month’s look at which Midway Monster you should or shouldn’t target on your fantasy draft say, shall we?

All Average Draft Positions (ADP) courtesy of FantasyPros.

Caleb Williams: Quarterback

• July ADP: 70

• August ADP: 83 (-13)

• July Positional Rank: QB7

• August Positional Rank: QB7 (=)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: QB9

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: QB7 (+2)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: Caleb’s had an up-and-down training camp, but when he’s been up, he’s been really up. He kinda-sorta reshaped his body, he looks at least a little more accurate, and his leadership and confidence levels are off the charts. Yummy.

He’s currently being drafted ahead of proven fantasy beasts Dak Prescott, Brock Purdy, and Matthew Stafford, and that feels about right, but don’t be shocked if there’s a late-month surge that has him leapfrogging Jalen Hurts, Jayden Daniels, and Joe Burrow.

D’Andre Swift: Running Back

• July ADP: 51

• August ADP: 53 (-2)

• July Positional Rank: RB21

• August Positional Rank: RB25 (-4)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: RB24

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: RB30 (-6)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: The FantasyPros’ calculations haven’t yet caught up to what’s happening in some backfields across the training camp landscape:

• Bhayshul Tuten (RB24) is tearing it up in Jacksonville and is thisclose to bell cowing his way into your heart.

• Tennessee’s Tony Pollard (RB30) looks like he’s on his way to earning the vast majority of the Titans’ carries and making good on his $28 million contract.

• Meanwhile in Houston, workhorse David Montgomery (RB26) will “share” backfield duties with the wildly inconsistent Woody Marks.

Any or all of those backs should climb up the tote board and hop over Swift. And soon.

Kyle Monangai: Running Back

• July ADP: 93

• August ADP: 72 (+21)

• July Positional Rank: RB34

• August Positional Rank: RB31 (+3)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: RB31

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: RB31 (=)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: I’ve been on the Monangai train for months now, but a soft tissue injury has kept him out of most of training camp, so we don’t know how he actually looks, yet his ADP climb was one of the highest in the running back race.

I have him slotted one spot behind Swift, because as it looks and/or feels now, we’re going to see a dreaded 50/50 backfield in Chicago. But my gut tells me the bulldozing sophomore will see more goal line carries than Swift, so chances are awfully good that in Stock Watch 3.0, the Swift/Monangai script shall be flipped.

Luther Burden III: Wide Receiver

• July ADP: 42

• August ADP: 39 (+3)

• July Positional Rank: WR21

• August Positional Rank: WR20 (+1)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: WR11

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: WR7 (+4)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: My philosophy in terms of valuing fantasy receivers is: If you have the opportunity to grab a WR1 for a top-ten quarterback, you do it, and you do it early.

Based on his nutsy-cuckoo performance at camp, Burden is clearly Caleb’s favorite target — with Colston Loveland right behind — and if Ben Johnson gets all pass-happy this year (he will), Burden becomes a way better option than, say, Garrett Wilson (WR19), Zay Flowers (WR15), or Rashee Rice (WR11).

By late-September, there’ll be a whole bunch of fantasy managers kicking themselves for passing on a near-elite pass catcher.

Rome Odunze: Wide Receiver

• July ADP: 60

• August ADP: 56 (+4)

• July Positional Rank: WR30

• August Positional Rank: WR28 (+2)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: WR30

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: WR36 (-6)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: To quote me from last month, “As goes Burden, so not goes Odunze.” It stands to reason that if Burden gets more targets, then Odunze gets less, because, math.

Math being the case, I’m a bit hazy as to why the former Huskie is being drafted a scootch higher than he was in July. It doesn’t seem right, but I’ll be happy to be wrong.

Zavion Thomas: Wide Receiver

• July ADP: 244

• August ADP: N/R (x)

• July Positional Rank: WR102

• August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: WR88

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: N/R (x)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: Potential waiver wire wonder, the key word being potential. Let’s revisit after Week 1.

Kalif Raymond: Wide Receiver

• July ADP: 283

• August ADP: N/R (x)

• July Positional Rank: WR120

• August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: WR125

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: WR119 (+6)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: The former Lion has looked smashing at practice, where he and Williams seem to have developed a nifty connection. Could be a sneaky-good option in 12- and 14-man leagues.

Jahdae Walker: Wide Receiver

• July ADP: 348

• August ADP: N/R (x)

• July Positional Rank: WR152

• August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: WR140

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: N/R (x)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: See: Thomas, Zavion.

Colston Loveland: Tight End

• July ADP: 47

• August ADP: 48 (-1)

• July Positional Rank: TE3

• August Positional Rank: TE3 (=)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: TE3

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: TE2 (+1)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: Yes, I’d draft him before Brock Bowers (TE2), because Kirk Cousins is 841-years-old, and the Raiders will be relying on a first-year play caller in Andrew Janocko, both of which are good reasons to take a Williams-Loveland-Ben-Johnson triumvirate over Cousins-Bowers-Janocko, which I’ll do any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Actually, 17 times on Sunday. Sorry, Brock.

Cole Kmet: Tight End

• July ADP: 263

• August ADP: N/R (x)

• July Positional Rank: TE43

• August Positional Rank: N/R (x)

• Alan’s July Unscientific Positional Rank: TE32

• Alan’s August Unscientific Positional Rank: TE32 (=)

Alan’s Unscientific Reasoning: There are simply not 32 tight ends in the NFL with more talent and a better offensive situation than Kmet, hard stop. Granted, as long as Loveland is Loveland, Kmet shouldn’t be your TE1, but in large leagues or leagues that have a two-tight-end roster construction, he’s a late-round must-grab.

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