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Sunday smorgasbord: The Chicago Bears are among eight NFL teams to start the season 2-0. Have you made your reservation for the Super Bowl yet? OK, it may be slightly premature. Maybe after the Bears play Sunday night (Sept. 22) at Pittsburgh against the Steelers. The folks at the NFL official publicity mill reported of the 114 teams that started 3-0 since 1990, 86 reached the postseason. That’s 75.4 percent. The very same folks also are optimistic about teams starting 1-1 or 0-2 (that should cover every team). Since 2002, 79 of 132 playoff teams (that’s 58.8 percent) started 0-2 or 1-1. Included in that group are the 2012 Baltimore Ravens, who won the Super Bowl.
The Bears play the Steelers on Sunday night. Ths is not Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. Yeah, you probably figured that out all by yourself.
* A victory by the Bears at Pittsburgh not only would leave the Bears 3-0 and still alone atop the NFC North, it would coa start the process of having coach Marc Trestman’s bust being sculpted for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Well, unless the team goes bust.
* Speaking of postseason possibilities, the WNBA Chicago Sky faces the reality of having its season end Sunday in Indianapolis. A loss to the Indiana Fever would eliminate the Eastern Conference champion Sky in a two-game sweep. Of course, if the WNBA is anything like the NBA, the best-of-three series will return to Chicago for Game 3 on Tuesday. And one of the benefits of the Bears playing a Sunday night game is that those of us so inclined will be able to watch the Sky on ESPN2 in the afternoon and not miss any Bears action.
* Speaking of the Sky-Fever series, Indiana’s Katie Douglas will miss the rest of the playoffs because of a lower-back injury. Not that the defending champion Fever seemed to need the veteran in its Game 1 victory over the Sky.
* There is a Chicago connection to the WNBA’s Coach of the Year. Mike Thibault, who guided the Washington Mystics to a 17=17 season and a spot in the playoffs, once was a Bulls assistant coach in the early Michael Jordan days.
* Speaking of postseason activity, the Cubs and White Sox don’t have to worry about a prolonged baseball campaign. But that doesn’t mean they can’t provided memorable moments — although something says blowing a nine-run, ninth-inning lead (as the Sox did in losing 7-6 to the Tigers on Saturday in Detroit) probably isn’t what Sox fans had in mind to tide them over until 2014.
* As close to the postseason as the Cubs can claim to be is they beat Atlanta 3-1 at Wrigley Field and delayed the Braves from clinching a postseason berth.
* The most compelling story line involving the Cubs: Will manager Dale Sveum sit second baseman Darwin Barney (.207 batting average after going 0-for-3 Saturday) so that Barney doesn’t end up hitting less than .200. On the bright (??) side, Barney is not in danger of batting as poorly as B.J. Upton of the Braves, who also went 0-for-3 and is hitting .186.
* OK, so maybe Addison Reed had insufficient time to warm up before relieving for the Sox. That explains walking four batters in one-third of an inning? If Reed could find the pitching mound, he should be able to find the strike zone.
* Back to baseball’s postseason, the fine folks at Bovada, (www.Bovada.lv, Twitter: @BovadaLV) have their latest World Series odds –15/4: Los Angeles Dodgers: 9-2: Boston Red Sox; 5-1: Detroit Tigers; 8-1: Atlanta Braves; 9-1: Oakland Athletics: 10-1: St. Louis Cardinals; 11/1: Pittsburgh Pirates; 14/1: Cincinnati Reds, 20/1: Cleveland Indians, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers; 28/1: Baltimore Orioles; 33/1, Washington Nationals; 40/1: 50/1: New York Yankees; 50/1: Kansas City Royals.
If this is not the greatest performance in the history of college marching bands at college football games, it certainly has to rank close to it:
And you never can go wrong with music from the Beatles:
The Bethune-Cookman marching band recently put on a quality show:
If you were expecting to see a daily dose of non-gratuitous video, have no fear because the editorial and video departments at elliottharris.com don’t know the meaning of taking a day off. Not to mention they don’t know the meaning of “gratuitous” as well as a bunch of other words:
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