This column is about the Cubs, Favre and Notre Dame!

Rick Morrissey | In the wake of the news

July 20, 2008

This column is about the Cubs!

Better yet, this column is about the Cubs and their fabulous minor-league pitcher, former Notre Dame receiver Jeff Samardzija.

You read it correctly: This column is about the Cubs and Notre Dame football!

The only way that you, the reader, could care any more about this particular column is if I tell you that Brett Favre is going to be Samardzija's pitching coach.

Brett Favre!

One of the more interesting phenomena of the evolving newspaper business is the way we have started keeping track publicly which on-line stories readers view the most. If you go to chicagosports.com, a Tribune sports Web site, you will see a list of the current most-popular stories, based on the number of times readers e-mailed them.

Almost invariably, three out of the five top stories are about the Cubs. Another is about the Bears, and the fifth is about what the Bears think about the Cubs.

Unless Favre says he's transferring to Notre Dame.

It's hard not to look at this without starting to view it like a scorecard. And we writers, being competitive people, have noticed. If we write about the Cubs, the Bears, Notre Dame or Favre, we know what it feels like to be best-selling author John Grisham.

So I just would like to say: Brian Urlacher. I have nothing to report about Brian Urlacher, but I just would like to mention him here. Brian Urlacher.

If we write about the White Sox and the Bulls, we're more like author Jane Smiley—meaningful and award-winning, perhaps, but not megaselling.

By the way, I'm told the Bulls' Joakim Noah is a huge fan of No. 54. That's Brian Urlacher. The Bulls are going to thank me for that mention.

When we sportswriters type articles about the Blackhawks, we know we're going to have to be content with the idea that only a small, rabid section of the readership will read our stuff.

It's why Hawks marketing guy John McDonough is doing everything to get the franchise noticed. One of McDonough's recent masterstrokes was scheduling an outdoor Hawks- Red Wings game at Wrigley Field for the upcoming season. I don't want to do McDonough's job for him, but if he's serious about ensuring a top-five spot on our Web site, he will make a creative adjustment that would result in this headline: "Naked Hawks to get goose bumps—everywhere—at Wrigley."

If we write about the Rush and the Fire, we know what it feels like to be the guy who pens the how-to book on inner-city tractor repairs.

When I picked up Friday's sports section, I knew instantly that Bears writer David Haugh had a winner on his hands. There, on the front page, was a photographic rendering of Favre wearing a Bears' jersey, with Haugh's accompanying story on why the team owed it to itself and its fans to make a run at the disgruntled Packers quarterback. Genius.

The story was featured prominently and was among the top e-mailed and viewed on chicagotribune.com. The only way it could have been more popular is if Favre had said Wrigley was a dump.

Hmmmm, could be a follow-up story there.

The Favre-Bears story will be among the most-popular stories on chicagosports.com for days. I know this because Tribune NFL reporter Dan Pompei and I each wrote Favre stories last week that threatened to have Beatles-like staying power on the charts.

Chicago people are mesmerized by Favre, and Packers fans are scared to death he will wind up in Chicago. Despite what Bears fans say, Wisconsin people read too. It's the perfect storm, numbers-wise, for chicagosports.com.

Sox fans probably aren't too happy with the story rankings because it's very, very difficult for their team to crack the top five. The team simply is going to have to try harder. I'm thinking in terms of a felony or two. And it's not just the Tribune that sees lower numbers for the first-place Sox. It's the same at the Sun-Times.

This is dangerous territory for us newspaper folks. A lot of good stories have nothing to do with the hottest teams or people. Do we turn into a Cubs-Bears-Notre Dame publication because stories involving those teams seem to get the most "hits?"

What about stories that are worthwhile for no other reason than they're interesting? Are hard news and opinion pieces the only things that matter? What about well-written feature stories that shed light on a topic or humanize a person behind a goalie's mask?

Are we going to be a butcher's shop that sells only meat or are we going to be a grocery store that lets shoppers pick and choose?

I vote for the grocery store.

In the meantime, I would like to point out that the Cubs stink. Please put that in a headline, editors. And work Favre in there too.

rmorrissey@tribune.com

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