The bright side of trading Justin Fields?

Plus: remembering Val Gray Ward & Joan Gray [View this email in your browser]( [READER Logo]( Daily Reader | March 19, 2024 To fully appreciate the schizophrenic nature of Chicago Bears fans, you’ve got to drag out that old warhorse of a vaudeville joke about a diner at a restaurant in the Catskills. Waiter: How was the meal, Madam? Diner: Terrible. And such small portions! In the case of Bears fans, they spent the last several months begging the Bears to keep Justin Fields. But no sooner had the Bears traded Fields to Pittsburgh for a sixth-round draft choice, the fans were like, “What, you couldn’t get anything better for him?” Okay, we also got a very funny and entertaining [column on the subject]( by Jon Greenberg for The Athletic. Apparently, Greenberg is a member of that subspecies of Chicago sportswriters who maintain a curious allegiance to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Joe Cowley of the Sun-Times is another member. As is—well, it may only be a subspecies of two. In his column about Fields, Greenberg urged Bears fans to look on the bright side, noting that a sixth-rounder is a better return than the Bears typically get when they dump their quarterbacks. “Usually, the Bears just let their starting QBs go into the wild, getting nothing back,” Greenberg wrote. “[Mitch] Trubisky, Jay Cutler, Rex Grossman, Jim Harbaugh. Chicago got nothing in return but memories.” So, Bears fans, you might say things are looking up. Now the main question regarding Fields is how his trade impacts the Bears’ ability to talk Mayor Johnson and Governor Pritzker into giving them hundreds of millions of dollars (which we know are desperately needed for far more important things) to pay for their stately lakefront pleasure dome. Answer: Fields' trade doesn’t have an impact. Not if you believe my dear friend and regular Wednesday guest, Monroe Anderson, who’s even more cynical than I am when it comes to politics (having worked as a press secretary for Mayor Sawyer). Monroe insists the Bears have no intentions of staying on the lakefront, no matter what they tell gullible reporters from the Sun-Times and Crain’s. Monroe says it’s all a ruse to muscle more money out of Arlington Heights. If you recall, the Bears move to Arlington looked like a done deal—what with the team buying and demolishing the old racetrack there. But then the school boards in and around Arlington Heights started playing hardball in property tax negotiations. The Bears wanted a hard cap on the property taxes they’d pay. The school boards said go [bleep] yourself. We need those property taxes for our schools! Imagine that, Chicagoans. A community that values its children more than it values rich guys. Hey, Bears, you don’t have to worry about that attitude in Chicago. In Chicago the prevailing attitude about school students is that 25 percent of them won’t amount to anything—so no need to waste money on them. As Mayor Rahm allegedly told the late great Karen Lewis back in 2011. Proving Chicago is even worse at electing mayors than it is at developing quarterbacks. So maybe the Bears will wind up with a lakefront stadium, after all. Folks like Jon Greenberg, who root for perennially good teams, may never understand this, but . . . with perennial losers like the Bears, almost all the interesting action takes place off the field. [Logo with text: The Ben Joravsky Show. Features man wearing a cap and headphones, and Chicago flag stars.]( 🎙 [Listen to The Ben Joravsky Show]( 🎙 ◈ Adam Mansbach’s latest novel [The Golem of Brooklyn](. More hilarious hijinks from the author of [Go the Fuck to Sleep](. ◈ [Deanna Isaacs]( on MSI’s “Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition” ◈ [Ben Joravsky]( (from 2016) on Chicago’s hateful attitude toward schools ◈ CTU president Stacy Davis Gates [on the media]( ◈ The Sun-Times’ Rummana Hussain on [Jonathan Glazer]( ◈ Alderperson Matt Martin on [TIFs and budgets]( [Review: Kung Fu Panda 4]( As the fourth installment of a franchise, Kung Fu Panda 4 is erratic but fun. by [Maxwell Rabb]( | [Read more]( → [Review: Imaginary]( I’d probably Never Ever recommend this predictable horror-thriller. by [Joey Shapiro]( | [Read more]( → [Remembering Val Gray Ward and Joan Gray]( The Chicago pioneers in theater and dance both died in early March; Lookingglass rebounds with new plans. by [Kerry Reid]( | [Read more]( → [Megan Capps aims to amuse]( There’s a lot more than bread at Cellar Door Provisions. by [Isa Giallorenzo]( | [Read more]( → [Power and passion]( The Lyric’s new production of Aida is sometimes static in staging, but the voices soar. by [Irene Hsiao]( | [Read more]( → We’ll see you at the zoo! 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