I never noticed this until Mac pointed out how unprofessional is it, when Leery (he's public enemy number one, at least) refers to athletes by their first name.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Oh brother.

They were ginning up a bunch of lies and puffed up crap on the station after the "HUGE MELEE OF DEATH!!!!!!!!" happened. From the sounds of it I thought one player took out a knife and cut the other players head off and then jumped off the Sears Tower. I thought they would get HUGE VOICE GUY on to scream "HELLO BEARS FANS, A HUGE DEADLY MELEE HAS TAKEN PLACE AT BEARS CAMP, MANY PRESUMED DEAD, WE HAVE ALL LATEST DETAILS ON THE HOME OF THE BEARS....670 THE SCORE!!! STAY TUNED!!!"

BAD.

But referring to NBA superstars by first names or nicknames is pretty standard. No one talks about James going back to Cleveland, which is funny, because that does sound like a first name.

Why are you listening?

I think at some point a guy becomes so famous and has a first name unique enough that using it no longer echoes back to the era of slaves being called simply "Toby" or "Joe". I have no issue with the usage of LeBron or even Carmelo/Melo. "Derrick" doesn't quite fit that bill.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Agree to disagree, I suppose. I guess it's just a good thing they're not calling him Pooh Bear.

Like I had said a while ago, it's commonplace to be on a first-name basis with elite or hometown NBA players. However, the greater Derrick Rose narrative as recently codified in Leitch's GQ piece, wherein Derrick Rose is Chicago's very own pwecious widdle Pooh who has to be sheltered from the Big Scary World Out There so he can continue to entertain us by putting a ball in a ring, is starting to strike me as icky and paternalistic and just a little bit perverse. Sure, maybe this held water in his rookie year when he didn't know what food was and actually had to be taught how to slice an apple without committing Japanese ritual suicide, but it can't go on anymore. He's not this idiot-savant foster child of Bulls fandom and Chicago at large anymore. It's been four years. He's 23. Let's not drag this playground manchild thing out anymore.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Yes it is.

When this is all over, which is not going to be for a while, Trump will be re-elected President.

Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?

Danny talking about how important Manny was to teaching Baez the mental side of the game. I thought Dan wasn't big into the mental side of things and that stuff is overblown?

Yeah, well, I'm really cognizant of it from growing up in Evanston where you had a bunch of proud working class black men- I guess guys kids today might refer to as "old heads"- and you learned right away to call them "Mister __________". Not that I would have called a white adult by his or her first name, but I understood that doing so wasn't weighted with the same type of baggage that calling a black person would be. And even when I became an adult myself it would never have occurred to me to call those guys anything but Mister.

to be fair, Baez is on the 40 and Bryant is not, no?

Danny talking about how important Manny was to teaching Baez the mental side of the game. I thought Dan wasn't big into the mental side of things and that stuff is overblown?

the Brady Bunch episode where Greg wants to be grown up and starts calling the folks Mike and Carol was pretty jarring

Does Zaidman have experience being unexpectedly slapped in the face?

Does Zaidman have experience being unexpectedly slapped in the face?

I'm actually the expert in that field. It sucks.

Didn't Manny actually just show up about 3 weeks ago?

I'd say his influence was minimal.

Is your first inclination to pick that person up and body slam them to the ground?

and now there's a big difference between roger clemens and manny ramirez. some people just "use" steroids, you know?

If a caller had made that point, Bernstein would say it's impossible to measure, etc.

I'm sure he has a source saying that Manny was the best mentor that the Cubs could have hired.

Can't believe Dan isn't applauding Coach K for monetizing George's linguine leg.

Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?