Bulls Won’t Stand on — or for — Ceremony vs. Heat

Random thoughts (or what passes for thinking around here) while waiting for the Chicago Bulls to open their season with a road game against the NBA champion Miami Heat on Tuesday:

Anyone expecting a photo of David Ortiz or any player probably is unfamiliar with this site.

* Speaking of the Bulls, they will be in the locker room rather than on the court when the Heat receives rings for winning last season’s championship. Which certainly is a reasonable action by the Bulls — even if that might be as close as they come to a ring ceremony as long as LeBron James is on another team.

* Speaking of attending events, attendance at the Seattle Seahawks-St. Louis Rams game Monday in St. Louis was listed at 55,966 (although there was an abundance of empty seats at the Edward Jones Dome). Attendance at the Boston Red Sox-St. Louis Cardinals World Series Game 5 at Busch Stadium was 47,436 (107.6 percent of regular-season capacity). Imagine the Bears playing a Monday night game against the Seahawks and — purely for the sake of fun (certainly nowhere near reality) — let’s imagine the Cubs simultaneously playing a World Series game at Wrigley. Something says the NFL would have to reschedule the game to accommodate such a historic event. OK, stop that snickering, White Sox fans.

* Speaking of the Sox, if there were a scenario involving the Bears on Monday Night Football and the Sox in the World Series playing on the same night, something says there would be a capacity crowd at U.S. Cellular Field — and at Soldier Field.

* This Cardinals-Red Sox series has to be painful for Cubs fans. Either their division rival will rally to capture the Fall Classic or the team with the second-oldest ballpark in the major leagues and whose former general manager is Theo Epstein, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations, prevails. But Cubs fans should take heart. One of those teams actually is going to lose. And that pain surely is worse than what Cubs loyalists felt during the 2013 season … and the 2012 season … and …

* Any resemblance between Game 5 starters Jon Lester (Boston) and Adam Wainwright (St. Louis) and anyone on the Cubs or White Sox pitching staffs surely is coincidental.

* If it’s any consolation to baseball-viewing fans (and the guess here is that it might be with a segment of that crowd), Fox television analyst Tim McCarver’s next game could be his last. Of course, if the Cardinals win Game 6, that would force a Game 7. Meaning that would be McCarver’s last. Because it takes four victories to win a best-of-seven series and Boston has three victories and St. Louis two. So the Red Sox need one to win, while the Cardinals need two. Yeah, that’s probably how McCarver — who is retiring (which means he won’t be doing any games after his last one) — would describe it. too.

* Speaking of McCarver, it may be belaboring the obvious (a McCarver trademark), but it is difficult — if not impossible — to be a national broadcaster and be beloved over the span of many years. Local broadcasters — Vin Scully, Harry Caray, Jack Brickhouse, Jack Buck to name a few — tended to fare better. Of course, there are exceptions; and as good as McCarver was, he does not to appear to have been one. All of which sets the stage for the 2014 World Series and critiquing McCarver’s successor and lamenting that McCarver no longer is in the booth. That’s showbiz.

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