You’ve probably heard of the “Doomsday Clock,” a symbolic but still frightening countdown to a potential nuclear disaster. The clock resides in Chicago, down in Hyde Park, which isn’t far from the very real catastrophe that is the 2024 Chicago White Sox.
With that in mind, I’ve come up with something similar but slightly less scary: the Bears Day Clock. This clock determines how close we are to ignoring the rest of a cursed baseball season and focusing solely on the Bears. (With maybe a little Chicago Sky action and Blackhawks and Bulls offseasons thrown in.)
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I’ve set the Bears Day Clock to one minute until midnight.
And unlike the Doomsday Clock, which portends a nuclear war, I think most people in Chicago would welcome this clock reaching 12. When it will happen? Any day now. It’s subjective, really. Whenever you’re ready to give up on the baseball season.
The Cubs and White Sox are so bad and frankly so boring that Chicago sports talk (in person, online and in media) is this close to being all Bears all the time, instead of the status quo of mostly Bears most of the time.
The Bears are off for five weeks after finishing up their offseason workouts with a rookie-only practice Wednesday. But given the state of our baseball teams, I think it’s perfectly fine to flood the zone with projections, prognostications and platitudes about the Bears until they report to Halas Hall for Caleb Williams Time, I mean training camp.
Hey, anyone want to predict storylines for “Hard Knocks”? How many yards do you think Williams will throw for in his rookie season? Can he throw it over that mountain?
As everyone knows, Bears season never really ends in Chicago. Typically, the end of the regular season goes into offseason firings, which is followed by free agency, the draft, offseason workouts and a quick summer break before training camp begins and the cycle starts again.
Occasionally, we get a gripping baseball season that takes precedence over football practice. That isn’t this year. Not likely, anyway.
The Bears’ first open practice in Lake Forest is July 26, nearly a week before the baseball trade deadline. They play their first preseason game Aug. 1 and the rest of the month will be devoted to breathless coverage of every Williams throw in camp. Hell, we could spend weeks debating about his comfort with snap counts.
It certainly beats watching the bullpens in town.
After a save by “Heart Attack” Hector Neris in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Wednesday night — one night after blowing one — the Cubs are 33-35 and one of seven National League teams realistically in play for the third wild-card spot. If “blah” were a team it would be the 2024 Cubs.
Flying the W in Tampa Bay! pic.twitter.com/yfTDKSmEkC
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) June 13, 2024
Out in Seattle, the 17-52 White Sox were hit with another walk-off loss Wednesday night. Their unrivaled success at losing (5-29 on the road!) makes it hard to look away. The trade deadline will create some drama with everyone on the team seemingly on the market, including star Luis Robert, who homered Wednesday to tie the score in the ninth. But once the Bears start practicing for real, Chicago can stop “Grifollowing” their misfortunes.
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The Sox haven’t won a series since taking three of four from the Guardians on May 9-12 (one series is still pending because of a postponement). If the Cubs win their second game in three tries against the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday, it would be their first series victory against a team not named the White Sox since that same weekend in early May.
Bad bullpens + soft offenses = Chicago baseball in 2024.
The South Siders have somehow managed to underperform 100-loss expectations, or I guess overperform them, depending on how you look at it. In a city of losing teams, the White Sox are king.
The Cubs? Well, it also depends on your perspective. They weren’t projected to be much more than a .500 team after a less-than-inspiring offseason and that’s about what they are now. In spring training, president Jed Hoyer said the team’s internal projections were a little higher, but he wasn’t exactly wowing me with his enthusiasm.
“We need to perform probably at or a little bit better than our projections in order to have a really successful season,” he told me in March. “The Atlanta Braves and the Dodgers, they have built a cushion where things can happen and they can undershoot their projections and win. We can’t do that. So we need to eke everything out of this group.”
Hoyer, at the time, must have known he was going to be popping Rolaids with these relievers. On one hand, you have to be flexible with your bullpen knowing that in-season turnover is inevitable. As we’ve seen time and time again in Chicago, spending big bucks on relievers in free agency is often foolish. On the other hand, no one is surprised the Cubs have a bullpen (which has also been ravaged by injuries) that is bottom-five in the NL in most categories. The CTA is more dependable.
Making matters worse, the Cubs aren’t good enough to hit their way into some breathing room at the end of games. Their best slugger, Christopher Morel, can’t be relied on to play third base at the end of close games. They have to play a rookie (Pete Crow-Armstrong) who can’t hit in center field. Their catchers can’t hit a lick. Dansby Swanson might be better known in town as Mallory’s husband.
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Without a dramatic series of additions in July — which I don’t foresee — I can’t picture this Cubs team being relevant after the Bears put their pads on. Another lost season will be on Hoyer and the players he’s actually paid.
And by the time the Cubs are finishing their 79-win season, Chicago will be laser-focused on Williams, the hope of a new Bears’ offense and the promise of a dominant defense returning the Bears atop their pedestal in Chicago, if not the NFC North.
Of course, we’ll probably have to carve out some time to recognize the White Sox, who could be in the process of setting a franchise record for losses in a season. Let’s hope that history doesn’t happen on a Sunday.
While the Sox are hopeless, the Cubs still have time to fix themselves. But let’s be honest, it’s the second week of June. We all know the clock is ticking on another disappointing baseball season in Chicago and it’s almost midnight.
(Top photo of Caleb Williams, center, and Bears teammates at a White Sox game on May 23: Jamie Sabau / Getty Images)