Cubby-Blue

Ron Turner: Stanford's new Developer of Luck.

 

I found a little tiny article on Chicago Breaking Sports News that ended with this sentence: "At Stanford, Turner will be entrusted with the development of sophomore quarterback Andrew Luck, who last year became the first freshman starter at the school since Chad Hutchinson."

Aren't you supposed to have to be smart to get into Stanford?

I guess not.

Apparently if you're Ron Turner, all you really need is... Luck.

That would be Andrew Luck, but this luck thing gets confusing.

See, once in awhile luck really IS what happens when preparation meets opportunity since Stanford's talented offensive coordinator David Shaw is apparently gonna go be the head coach at USC, which in turn becomes a lucky break for Turner as Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh just hired him to take Shaw's place.

How lucky is Ron?

Consider that in his college career he's responsible for for the 1997 and 2003 Fighting Illini teams which both won exactly zero Big Ten games. In fact they lost 11 games apiece - no other coach had pulled that feat off even once in Illinios' 100 plus year history and Ron did it twice. Then in 2005, after an Illinois career record of 35 wins and 57 losses (that's a .380 winning percentage), he got a call from Bears coach Dave Wannstedt to turn pro!

But I guess that's the luck of the draw, right?

In his two stints with the Bears ('93-'96, '05-'09) you can tally up all the QBs he was responsible for (their QB ratings) from the 93.5 of 1995's Eric Kramer to the 59.7 of 2005's Kyle Orton, and you get an average of 76.15. For perspective, some recent names in the 76 QB Rating Club would include Jay Cutler (26 Int in '09), Tyler Thigpen (2-14 with the '08 Chiefs) and Damon Huard (76.9 in '07, since released).

So unfortunately that means Luck's luck just ran out.

I mean... can you imagine being Luck?

And the guy "entrusted with the development" of Luck only has experience with luck because he's lucky to get a job. 

While as a Bears Fan I feel like a lucky dog since Turner is gone, all you can say to Andrew Luck is "good luck".

What else?

There's one last football game on today, then we can concentrate on the Hawks and - lucky us - get more serious about baseball. Gonna grill up some skirt steaks with Gary the Cop and watch.

I see there's an excess of starting pitching in Milwuakee with Randy Wolf, Dave Bush, Jeff Suppan, Manny Parra and Doug Davis. That may not bode well for the Cubs since the Brewer bats always do well unless you're unlucky enough to be Prince Fielder when Reed Johnson's in the outfield.

The Nats Strike! But probably not a lucky strike as they signed former (2003) Cub lefty Shawn Estes, who I thought retired years ago.

And lastly, lucky you can read about Rod Blagojevich and his love for the Cubs. Can that guy just shut up and go to prison already please?

I hope the Cubs didn't order the rueben.

 

It's amazing how sometimes I can look back at a specific moment and realize that I experienced a kind of planetary shift in my understanding the world.

Really quickly: in advertising, mostly you work in teams. You team up art directors and writers with the art guy responsible for what ideas looks like and the writer for the words and sound. It works loosely like that. Anyway, you work with lots of different people and if you're really lucky, you get a partner who's not only enormously talented, but someone you genuinely like as well.

For me, that would be David Oif.

We have a history that goes waaay back, and lots of that history kind of took place in a "Seinfeld" episode.

One time long ago - didn't really know each other that well, we were at an edit, and went across the way to grab lunch. It was one of those bigger diners that used to be downtown here - the kind with large older women waitresses with real uniforms and aprons with the name tag and everything. It was called the Carriage House on an East/West street between Michigan and the lake. I think it's a Friday's now. 

The menu had about a million things on it, and I'm just hungry. Not for anything in particular.

The waitress comes and Oif orders something and I order the reuben. 

The waitress walks away.

Oif looks at me, disgusted and bemused.

"You ordered the rueben." he says.

A statement.

I go, "Yeah?"

He goes, "You ordered the rueben?"

"What's wrong with a rueben?"

He said this next line like something smelled bad: "You don't order the rueben in a diner."

Then, he very patiently told me about the magical concept of the deli.

He's from here originally - just waaay more savvy about most things than me.

I grew up in the Air Force, then suddenly I was at college in Flagstaff Arizona. I thought "deli" was that counter in the grocery store with the guy in the white paper hat who sliced meat or gave you potato salad. I'd never actually been to a "deli" before in my life, or if I did I just thought it was a restaurant.

So after the Carriage House lunch, whenever somebody effed up, we would say they "ordered the rueben."

If you invested heavily in dot com companies, stepped in dog crap, or did something inappropriate at the Christmas party, you ordered the rueben.

Last year at this time we sort of knew it, but when Jim Hendry signed Milton Bradley he ordered the rueben.

As I look at everything that's happened this year - with the new ownership and how long that took and how long term contracts affect the team and pretty much everything, the one that stands out is letting Rich Harden go. He may have ordered the rueben there. I can understand not signing Reed, as much as I liked him. But the starting rotation, for so long a serious stronghold on Chicago's north side, it may be slipping this year. 

Your hope is that Randy Wells does at least 80% as well as last year. Dempster should be Dempster, but remember he's not that far removed from being the closer - his innings have mushroomed the last couple years. Big Z, well he's supposedly in great shape and wants to atone for last year. Terrible Ted will be Terrible Ted, only a little late. But Sean Marshall, Carlos Silva, Jeff Samardzija ... I don't know man. 

But since I know you're interested, I did graduate to the major leagues of deli's years ago on a shoot in New York when we went to Katz' Deli. You can go to the most expensive, hip or trendy restaurant in the city there and never have as good a meal. It's famous not just for the most amazing pastrami and corned beef, but it's also where they shot Meg Ryan's table "orgasm" scene for "When Harry Met Sally". I just played this You Tube movie and I'm sure that everyone down the hall thinks I was watching porn, so if you go to the link you might wanna turn it down.

A "Cubs offering Kevin Millar a contract?" semi-rant.

Ahhh, this illustration's too mean. Especially considering I don't really know Kevin Millar. 

He's...38 years old, bats righty, first baseman, last 3 seasons he's gone from .254 to .234 to .223, "similar batters" would include Jacque Jones. Somebody tell me an upside here. What kind of drawing am I supposed to do for this guy? Cub fans jumping up and down? Wooooo! Kevin Millar! 

Maybe they really are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Or maybe I'm just in a bad mood since I've had some kinda bug for the last week and our pal Reed Johnson's gonna go be a Dodger...

It sounds like Kevin's buddies with Ryan Dempster so maybe he's a good clubhouse guy, right? 

Maybe a couple days ago Lou looked at his bench and thought..."Hoffpauir, Blanco, Fontenot, Colvin, Fuld... I NEED SOME OLD GUYS!"

In 2003 when Dusty got 36 year old Eric Karros I wasn't too excited. Then old Eric became a pretty important part of that team (I'd kill to see the video he shot of that season). Especially when young stud-at-the-time Hee-Seop Choi went down with the permanent headache after running into Kerry Wood... Which of course makes me think back to Most Consistent Cub of '09, Derrek Lee. Last season he had to take some almost-serious neck spasm time off for getting a love tap on his helmet from Angel Guzman (or was it just a rough slide into second?). That neck of his make you guys nervous? 

Maybe Lou's just remembering when Aramis went down last year and he had to say out loud in front of everybody, "HEY MILES! Yeah you, tiny insignificant man with the toothpick-bat. GO PLAY THIRD." Not that Micah Hoffpauir is in Aaron's league, but maybe Lou doesn't want to find out the hard way... what if Micah's not the player up here he was in Iowa? (You won't find that out til Hof starts for... awhile.)

Ah whatever. It's just Hot Stove time, you never really know anything and the guy hasn't even signed a minor league contract. 

I did have fun making the drawing, even if I couldn't figure out how to make it happen inside the barrel where we'd all expect to find somebody "scraping".

Anyway, I'm having a cold one right now, and here is my toast:

Here's to Reed Johnson. I hope Manny gets caught buying more woman-drugs to correct his man-parts and they take him out for a season so you get to start in Dodger Stadium and show 'em how to Play. The. Game.