Let’s talk a minute about wisdom. Collective wisdom. These days it comes in two varieties. There’s the new Wikipedia model, what we might call the wisdom of the tribe, in which each member adds his unique glimmer of understanding to a common pool. It’s a fine thing, if not as fine as some communards want us to think. Bees make honey, but solitary geniuses in dingy rented rooms make breakthroughs.
I was reviewing their performances, of course, because it’s the time of year when I announce the winner of the Golden BAT (Baseball Acumen Test), the coveted honor given by this column to the previous spring’s most successful forecaster. In the past I’ve always favored accuracy, but this year I’m searching for a formula–what the smart set calls an “algorithm”–that factors in originality as well. For what time has taught us is that the scriveners score high in years when the favorites prevail, and score low in years when they don’t. The maverick who leaves the herd without humiliating himself should get the credit he’s due.
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If anything skews the results here in Chicago, it’s the scribes’ touching inclination to favor the locals–which isn’t individualism, it’s wishful thinking. Yet their unanimous support last spring for the White Sox wasn’t sentimental–it was by the book. The Sox were the defending champs, after all. If they’d asked me, I’d have told them a team that can be counted on to win a championship every 90 years isn’t a good bet to repeat, but they didn’t ask me. And sure enough, the Sox finished the season out of the money, trailing Minnesota, which had the best record in the division, and Detroit, which wound up in the World Series. Not a single scrivener picked either team to reach the playoffs. So it goes.
“It’s the greatest day of my life,” Sullivan said when I notified him. “Oh happy, happy day. And here I was, thinking the highlight of my day would be writing about Wood and Prior going on the DL.”
So there’s our winner. The big story this year is the booby prize, the Whiffle BAT that’s been the bane of Sullivan’s existence. Normally it’s given to the local sportswriter who finished last in the Golden BAT competition, but Hot Type regulars Greg Novak and Eugene Dillenburg independently pointed out to me that last season saw a performance of such transcendent incompetence our rules should be redrawn to acknowledge it.
Canadian reporters in Chicago should take note: Conrad Black, aka Lord Black of Crossharbour, is nothing we haven’t seen before. Black’s blunder was to take his company public, putting his vast vanity and indulgences on a short leash held by stockholders. Sam Zell is buying the Tribune Company to take it private, where goofy media moguls can do what they please.
For instance, “James Brown was the opening act. The guests ignored him. They treated him like a Holiday Inn cover band. But we performers went apeshit.” Later, Aretha Franklin came on. Her closing number sticks in Bergmann’s memory because for about eight minutes its lyrics consisted of one word, “Jesus.” Then the 200-strong Soul Children of Chicago chorus appeared in the balcony singing:
