👋 Good morning!

The more I think about it, the more intrigued I am with the Bears’ draft class.

I understand if you’re hesitant to get excited about having a bunch of offensive weapons when that was supposed to be last year’s plan.

But last year’s Bears didn’t have Ben Johnson. In all of my post-draft thoughts, good or bad, I keep coming back to that.

As I said yesterday, I’ll reserve judgment until these guys suit up against a full squad of NFLers, but in the meantime, it’s best to just let Ben Johnson be Ben Johnson.

– Patrick Norton

City Connect 2.0

The White Sox have unveiled their second City Connect uniform: a collaboration with the Bulls.

• Debut: The White Sox will wear their “Red in Chicago” City Connect jerseys for the first time on the diamond this Friday against the Astros and will continue to wear them for Friday home games throughout the season.
   

• Not Only the Bulls: While the homage to the Bulls might seem obvious, there are certain subtleties and Easter eggs in the uniform’s design:
   
  The torso tag displays both the White Sox’s and Bulls’ logos with a baseball diamond overlayed on a basketball court. Additionally, the inside neckline includes the championship years for both franchises.
   

• If You Have Two Hats… You might notice in the picture above that the uniform includes two hat designs. Both include the “winged sock” look that was initially used by the 1950s White Sox.
   
  Both hats are considered “on-field” and will be interchangeable throughout the season.

It’s fine.

The neckline detail is a little odd. It might look better if it weren’t two championships from 100+ years ago, six from a different team, and then one from 20 years ago.

I understand it’s a collaboration, but I can’t imagine the Avalanche and Nuggets taking credit for each other’s accomplishments, despite both being owned by Stan Kroenke.

I don’t want to get on my soapbox about alternate uniforms in sports, but I can’t help but feel that the idea behind this collaboration was to serve as a distraction from what’s going on in White Sox land.

The problem with that is that the Bulls aren’t exactly in a great spot, either.

All in all, it’s going to sell well despite looking more like a free giveaway for the first 10,000+ fans. Mission accomplished, right?

I would’ve campaigned to bring back the red pinstripes on Sundays, or better yet, if Jerry wanted to pay homage to the Bulls, wear No. 45 Birmingham Barons uniforms the weekend of the draft lottery.

Quick Hits

Context is Key: Recently DFA’d and subsequently traded Rule-5 pick Gage Workman had a quote that made the rounds on social media yesterday:

The quote you saw: “I’m with the White Sox and I’m excited to be here and now I want to beat the Cubs.”

Full quote: “Grateful for my time with the Cubs and good people over there. But now I’m with the White Sox and I’m excited to be here, and now I want to beat the Cubs.”

Hey, it might not change much, but I think it’s important to note that Workman wasn’t just taking a random shot at the Cubs. Nothing to see here.

New No. 1? What’s the next best thing after David Carle? It might be Mike Sullivan. Sullivan and the Pittsburgh Penguins mutually parted ways (they fired him) on Monday.

In 10 seasons as the Penguins’ bench boss, Sullivan went 409-255-89 in the regular season, adding a 44-38 record in the postseason. He also won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in his first two seasons in Pittsburgh.

Keep Sullivan’s name in mind as the Blackhawks continue the search for their next head coach.

Also, just to note on David Carle: Dude, it’s an Original Six opportunity at a place with a budding superstar and a decent wealth of talented prospects. Who ya crappin’?

Shocker: Peck was right.

Today!

📺 CHGO Bears
12:00 on YouTube

📺 CHGO Fire
1:45 on YouTube

📺 CHGO Stars
2:30 on YouTube

📺 CHGO Blackhawks
2:00 on YouTube

📺 CHGO Bulls
4:00 on YouTube

⚾️ Cubs @ Pirates 
5:40 on Marquee

⚾️ White Sox vs. Brewers
6:40 on CHSN

📺 CHGO Cubs
POSTGAME on CHGO Cubs YT

Talk to you tomorrow!