It's forgettable now, but in 1999, Bears offensive coordinator Gary Crowton created a Ben Johnson-level excitement about the Bears' offense. With Crowton's inventive, screen-heavy passing game, the Bears improved from 23rd to third in the NFL in passing yards, from 21st to eighth in total yards and from 23rd to sixth in passing touchdowns. The Bears were still 25th in points scored, but the excitement of those pass plays and the potential for the Bears to have an offense root

It wouldn't be a Bears preseason if there weren't an eve-of-training-camp issue to worry about. Slot cornerback Kyler Gordon being put on the PUP (physically unable to perform) list with another soft-tissue injury certainly merits the usual concern and skepticism. But it comes with a twist that defines the 2026 season: As long as Ben Johnson is on the sideline and Caleb Williams is healthy, the Bears still are in better shape than they've been in a long, long time. Even if Ky

Babe Ruth appropriately put an indelible stamp on the inaugural All-Star Game in 1933 at Comiskey Park by hitting the first home run in All-Star Game history — a two-run shot off the Cardinals' Wild Bill Hallahan in the third inning of a 4-2 victory for the American League. But it's lesser known that Cubs pitcher Lon Warneke hit the first triple in All-Star Game history — a hit to right field in the bottom of the sixth inning — and scored the first National League run in All-

Michael Jordan has been featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated's weekly issue 50 times — more than any athlete in the 72-year history of the magazine. But it actually took him awhile to get on the cover for the first time. Jordan should have been on the Nov. 30, 1981 cover with North Carolina teammates James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Jimmy Black and Matt Doherty as a ballyhooed freshman starter for the preseason No. 1-ranked Tar Heels. But coach Dean Smith did not allow fresh

The grandaddy of them all. You know a Monopoly game is vintage when the hotels and houses are made of wood! The classic 1960s/1970s version of Monopoly. All-Star Baseball was a classic board game of the 1960s — not only fun to play with the spinner and strategy, but it used Wrigley Field as it's background. Through the magic of baseball-reference.com, this background shot was taken on Aug. 21, 1968. That's Fergie Jenkins pitching to Braves left fielder Mike Page in the top of

The '69 Cubs have their own special place in baseball's Hall of Infamy — a team still beloved if not revered despite a horrific collapse that ruined the greatest summer of our lives. Do the 1964 Phillies or 1978 Red Sox get the same kind of love that the '69 Cubs get? Probably not. Despite the scars of that dreaded finish, the glory of the 1969 season can't be forgotten, or ignored. Why? Timing was everything. The Cubs had not won a pennant since 1945 and had not been in cont

Chicago was the pinball machine capital of the world in the 1940s-70s. Many of the leading pinball manufacturers — including Gottlieb, Williams, Chicago Coin, Bally and Stern — were based in Chicago in pinball's heyday. It was an ironic distinction, because pinball had been illegal in Chicago since the 1940s, as a gambling device that attracted organized crime. Pinball, in fact, was also illegal in many suburbs (Oak Park, Arlington Heights, Evanston, Des Plaines and others)

NFL draft savant Joel Buchsbaum was the nerd's nerd. He looked the part, sounded the part and played the part. He was as reclusive as he was brilliant, with an encyclopedic recall of NFL draft prospects — the only thing I ever heard him talk about. His cramped apartment in Brooklyn was part of his legend. When he first started writing for Pro Football Weekly, they say he submitted his copy in longhand — he did not have a computer — and I believe it. I first heard Buchsbaum on

Subscription issues are the ugly stepchild of magazine collecting. They're the heart and soul of almost any vintage Sports Illustrated collection. But with the advent of grading, pressing and a burgeoning investment-level market for sports magazines, newsstand issues are rightfully king. And not just because of supply (by most accounts, only about 3% of weekly issues of Sports Illustrated magazines were newsstand issues), but aesthetics. I've collected raw issues of SI since

From the White Sox' glorious 1977 season, when they were second in the American League with 192 home runs (Richie Zisk 31, Oscar Gamble 30, Eric Soderholm 25; Chet Lemon 19; Lamar Johnson/Jim Spencer combined for 36). The Sox faded in August and September to finish 90-72 — in third place, 12 games behind the Royals (following the lead of the Cubs, who were 47-22 on June 28 and finished 81-81 to land in fourth place, 20 games behind). I think I bought this knockoff t-shirt at

The Cubs overcame early season injuries to starters Justin Steele (season-ending elbow surgery) and Shota Imanaga (out seven weeks with a bum hamstring) to make the playoffs in 2025 and set themselves up to take a big step toward World Series contention in 2026. But already, their starting rotation injury issues are getting worse instead of better, leaving otherwise hopeful Cubs fans to wonder what's next. Starter Matthew Boyd, whose career-best season helped bail out the Cub

PSA's entry into magazine grading in 2025 predictably has added a spark to the growing graded-magazine hobby. With its name recognition and dominant presence in the sports card market, it's no surprise that PSA made an early inroad on CGC's hold on magazine grading, But its early impact has been significant enough to wonder if it has won the war already. Even in the early going in 2026, PSA-graded magazines are consistently (but not always) selling at a premium over similar i

The Bears were 5-5 in games in which they allowed 23 or more points in 2025 — arguably the most tangible evidence of "The Ben Johnson Effect." Prior to Johnson's arrival, the Bears were 0-25 when allowing 23 or more points over the previous three seasons, and 6-82 since 2014. So they nearly won as many games when allowing 23 or more points in Johnson's first season as they had in the previous 10 seasons. The Bears' 47-42 victory over the Bengals in Week 9 was the high end of

Just like New Mexico's Brian Urlacher was deemed too big to be an NFL safety in 2000, Oregon's Dillon Thieneman is too small to be an NFL linebacker in 2026. But there was a lot of safety in Urlacher's game and there figures to be a lot of linebacker in Thieneman's game. It's always risky to compare any rookie to a Hall of Famer, but Thieneman's intriguing combination of speed, physicality and versatility have earned him that distinction. Both players shared the "hybrid" desc

With Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams in place after a rebuild-validating 11-6 season that included a playoff victory over the Packers, the Bears are in better shape for a run of sustained success — three consecutive playoff or winning seasons by my standard — since the Ditka era. But as fate would have it at Halas Hall, the Bears have had a somewhat rocky offseason for a team with the wind at its back: Center Drew Dalman suddenly retired at the peak of his career at 27. Left t

The debate over whether Cubs red-hot left-handed hitting rookie Moises Ballesteros should bat against left-handed pitchers is being framed as nit-picking with the Cubs' offense fueling their four-game winning streak. Even after being limited to five hits in a 4-2 victory over the Mets on Saturday at Wrigley Field, the Cubs are hitting .338 with 15 extra-base hits and eight home runs in the four-game winning streak after Carson Kelly and Ian Happ homered Saturday. Kelly's thre

Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's all-time home run record with his 715th on April 8, 1974. I love history. And I love documenting history. So when I wasn't playing All-Star Baseball or Bas-ket when I was in high school, I was keeping crude scrapbooks from the sports pages of the Sun-Times. Just a bound book of construction paper, a pair of scissors and some double-sided tape and I was good to go. It's as much fun to look back on these 50 years later as it was to put them together

When I moved from the South Side to Lincolnwood at age 8 in 1967, one of my first friends at Rutledge Hall was the daughter of Jack Rosenberg, was the longtime sports editor of WGN. The Rosenbergs had a really cool basement, with all sorts of sports memorabilia. The highlight — for me anyway — was Jack's glass-topped office desk, which was covered with a collage of press passes he had accumulated through years of traveling while covering events for WGN Sports. The legendary a

For the record, former Bears wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad has said he was not the inventor of the notion that Chicago "is where receivers go to die," — in response to blowback after he made that comment to Sports Illustrated's Peter King in 2008 upon his return to the Panthers after three seasons in Chicago. Muhammad said he was just referencing the sentiment that someone else brought up when he signed with the Bears in 2005. Whatever the reality, the comment has stuck throu

Enigmatic players aren't usually as likable as DJ Moore. Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall and Martellus Bennett were productive players who couldn't hide their warts no matter how hard they tried (or didn't). Moore is everything you want in a player. He's a team guy. He's dependable — he's missed three games in eight seasons, none in the last five. He thrives in bad offenses — In his eight NFL seasons, Moore is sixth in receiving yards (8,213) despite never playing with a Pro Bow