Things I never wanted to have a vested interest in:

• Steelers tight end Heath Miller
• The Colts’ rushing game
• Philadelphia special teams
• Brent Celek’s continued improvement
• The Baltimore Ravens’ depth chart at wide receiver
• Frank Gore’s ankle
• Frank Gore’s backup
• Frank Gore
• Jeremy Shockey’s non-booze-related exploits

Things I have been forced to care about over the course of the past six weeks:

• Steelers tight end Heath Miller
• The Colts’ rushing game
• Philadelphia special teams
• Brent Celek’s continued improvement
• The Baltimore Ravens’ depth chart at wide receiver
• Frank Gore’s ankle
• Frank Gore’s backup
• Frank Gore
• Jeremy Shockey’s non-booze-related exploits

These conflicting realities cause me no end of mental anguish. You see, for reasons still not entirely known - possibly out of a love for sports; more likely out of a love for gambling on idiotic outcomes over which I have absolutely no control - I joined a fantasy football league this year. Understand that I have no intense like or dislike of football (save for passively cheering for the Bears, tangentially cheering for the Browns and quasi-ironically cheering for the Raiders), but it seemed like a good way to pass the time while bonding with friends over a shared interest. I would be the ghost of the league: draft, then disappear. What players would I get? How would they perform? Who cares? And I was happy with that.

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As reported yesterday, highly controversial and decreasingly useful wide receiver Terrell Owens may or may not be possibly headed to the Chicago Bears or some other team or actually not leaving the Buffalo Bills any time soon.

While the question of “Will they?” may not be answered for some time, it seems the question of “Should they?” weighs bigger on Chicago fans’ minds. How has this city treated outcast players in the past? Would an ego as famously large as Owens’ fly here? What will become of Devin Aromashodu? As with most sports hypotheticals, Chicago sports history has a wealth of precedents to share:

1995-1998: Dennis Rodman, Bulls forward
Ah, Rodman. With the possible exception of Bill Laimbeer, there was no Detroit Piston more hated around this city than “The Worm.” He was violent in the paint, he was brutal on the perimeter, he was a ridiculous spectacle off the court and had embarrassed the Bulls time and again in the playoffs. But worst of all? Rodman was good. Real good. Defensive Player of the Year good. League-best shooting percentage good. When the Bulls peeled him off the Spurs’ scrap heap, a lot of us were certain Rodman had come here to murder us all; three titles, one head-butted ref and a strategically-kicked photographer later, dude was nothing less than a legend.

2000: John Starks, Bulls shooting guard
The Bulls, you may recall, were terrible that year. Starks was only a Bull for four games of that miserable 17-65 campaign, but Starks was also still the guy who set up the most offensive call of my young sportswatching life in the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals. Starks also had earned a reputation as a hothead around the league, notably in two separate clashes with coach Don Nelson and slightly less notably in his Rodman-lite approach to defense. But still, by 2000, the Bulls and Starks had become complementary forms of useless. Four games. Zero starts. Eighty-two minutes. Terrible. That’s all you need to know about John Starks in Chicago. And hey, Ron Artest was on that team too! Although that was (mostly) before the (seriously) crazy; Indiana, obviously, made him lose it. But Indiana will do that to a man.

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We’re a little late to the party here, but by now we’ve all heard the super-secret whispers about Jim Thome wanting to return to Chicago:

“I’ll be honest, I would still love to come back,” Thome said, tightening the blue batting gloves on each hand. “I still care about the city. I mean, we’re going to live there. Chicago’s very fond in my heart. The time that I spent there, [chairman Jerry Reinsdorf] treated me great. I guess we’ll deal with that when this is all over with.”

This line of thinking, while certainly heartwarming, also runs the risk of being mutually poisonous - not just to an aging, one-dimensional power hitter who would in theory be returning to a team full of them, but to a fanbase at risk of pinning their hopes on sentimentality rather than practicality. The Sox already chose Scott Podsednik over Chone Figgins based solely on cost, so what would make them pony up for Thome’s single-purpose services when they effectively already have him on board in the form of just-barely-more-versatile Paul Konerko?

But beyond questions of what Thome can possibly do for the Sox, we have to ask just why some reporter would raise this question in the first place. To get someone’s hopes up? To quell the tears of every No. 25-clad fan? Because he hit some home runs? Because he’s Jim Thome? We may never know, and all things considered we probably shouldn’t bother trying to find out; there are teams that could make better use of Jim Thome, and there are players the White Sox would be better off pursuing this winter. Thome’s a good guy and has done some wonderful things in his career (and in this time with the Sox), but talk like this only serves to cheapen all of those things. Thome, of all people, doesn’t deserve that. And we know this. And so does Jim Thome. And so, one would hope, do the reporters asking the questions.

In a move sure to rock this winter’s baseball landscape, White Sox outfielder Dewayne Wise declared free agency today, thus making the 31-year-old career .216 hitter free to explore employment options outside the city of Chicago. Wise, as readers of this site will recall, has assembled a fine portfolio on the South Side, including one catch, one single and not giving a **** what you think of him.

So what, we ask, comes next for D-Wise, that most Tenacious of D’s?

Perhaps a free-spending glamour team, frustrated by their lack of subpar, reserve backup outfielders, will swoop in with the offer of a lifetime. Unphased by the discouraging economy around the game, these suitors will surely stop at NO COST to get their man.

Or perhaps a wayward ballclub, grown complacent after years of solid fielding, timely hitting and prodigious offensive output, will see in baseball’s newest unattached commodity a glimmer of hope that they too can bobble fly balls soaring on over their head and watch third strikes sail down the heart of the plate.

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So the Twins won last night’s garbagefest to become champions of the worst division of all time, which is probably good in some way for all those Kent Hrbek jersey-wearing 10,000 Lakers with their Minnesota Nice getting circled by Bert and all. But while some a few maybe two or three of us sat there last night thinking “Man, that should be the Sox playing for the right to get murdered by the Yankees,” another idea appeared to me like some kind of dream blooper past the flailing arms of Placido Polanco: the Twins did us all a huge favor because now, in a way, the ALDS ends in moral victory for the South Side faithful no matter what happens. Consider the outcomes:

Scenario A: Yankees crush the Twins. Easily the most logical and most likely, and watching someone humiliate the Twins on the national stage is as solid a form of sports-watching entertainment as I’ve ever heard of.

Scenario B: Yankees beat the Twins, but only in a conventional and competitive fashion, possibly involving getting more cheap bounces or fly balls caught in a jetstream caused by an air conditioner the Metrodome crew forgot to turn down when the Yankees came up to bat. Again, the Twins lose, with the added bonus of the Yankees suddenly weakened for the ALCS.

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With today’s not-all-that-surprising announcement that Chicago is not in any way fit to host a major world event, one city celebrates victoriously while another celebrates spitefully and righteously. But who, really, face any kind of consequence from all this Olympian hoopla? Let’s take a look.

WINNERS

Rio de Janeiro. Obviously.

People who like campy, ironic t-shirts. As I type this, Daley Plaza is littered with discarded and leftover Chicago 2016 apparel from this morning’s rally. Can you imagine how funny those shirts will be seven years from now? They’re comedic gold just waiting to happen, right up there with Dukakis ‘88 bumper stickers and 103.5 - The Blaze! keychains.

People who use the CTA. Red, Brown and Blue Line riders, I want you to think for a moment about riding the L during your line’s last major reconstruction (or, for those on the West Side, what’s going on now). Now imagine that’s happening to the entire system. At once. All the time. For seven years. Breathe a sigh of relief, people.

History buffs and outdoorsy types. Besides being a fantastic space in its own right, Washington Park is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Go check it out - because you still can. And you always could.

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Today’s Sun-Times posits Sox starter Jake Peavy has not just declared but also proven himself worthy of playing with the big kids in the American League. How has he done this? Guns blazing, that’s how:

Just in case one more statement needs to be made, Jake Peavy hopes to make it with his start Friday.

His wish is that the game still will mean something for the Detroit Tigers in the American League Central race. But even if it doesn’t, Peavy would like to end the perception that he originally turned down the trade from the San Diego Padres in May because he was worried about a skyrocketing ERA in the AL — just in case his 2-0 record and 2.25 ERA in his first two starts aren’t enough proof.

First things first: Peavy is a good pitcher, possibly even a great pitcher. Everyone knows this, and while the NL-to-AL adjustment has never been kind to even the best of talented arms, even a Peavy taken down a peg was (and is) reason for great hope on the South Side.

But to call a Cy Young winner shutting down the dregs of the American League as some kind of declaration of awesomeness is almost an insult to Peavy himself. Wait until he matches up against the Yankees, or the Red Sox, or any non-joke of a team because here’s another statement: the Royals and Tigers are garbage.

Peavy held the Royals to three runs? That’s great. So did Todd Wellemeyer, Trevor Cahill and Matt Albers.

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