Any sports season now is over for me until September.
   Tax dollars funded the latest effort by YOUR Indiana Pacers to make yet another run at the NBA Finals. In 2000 the team finally made it to the Finals, only to be blown out by the Lakers. Maybe we shall have another stretch of five or six years before the Pacers lurch into the best-of-seven for the NBA Championship. By then the San Antonio Spurs will be so old, their starters will use walkers. The Pacers probably will loose four games to two. Our streets may go to hell, but YOUR Indiana Pacers will give us a glimmer of light at the end of a Simon Properties-owned tunnel.
   As a fan of the Chicago Cubs National League Baseball club, I am resigned to the Major League Baseball season for 2014 having ended, for my team and my hopes as a fan, with the first pitch. The Cubs suck. Unfortunately, new owners appear to be as hapless as former owners. The next few years will be the usual for fans of the Cubs.
   The National Football League season begins in September. I have misgivings about actively cheering for football, with the brain injuries players sustain. At least they have the owners of the NFL—yes, the NFL, that not-for-profit corporation that divvies up billions to the owners of the 32 teams and functions outside the strictures of antitrust laws—to protect the players’ interests. The Commissioner cracks down on players who engage in behavior that reflects badly on the League. For example, if a player for an NFL team were arrested for Operating a Vehicle While Impaired, in a vehicle with various prescription medications rolling around on the floorboards and a couple of duffel bags of cash in the tens of thousands on the back seat, the Commissioner no doubt would suspend that player for his own good.   
   As a taxpayer, I almost feel a duty to cheer for the Colts, because one would think if they win championships, somehow the team owner’s demand for cash will decrease. You know, they win money in professional sports. After the Colts won the Super Bowl® back in the day—it has been that long ago to qualify for that phrase—the Colts’ owner wanted more money.
   The Pacers are out. The Cubs lost another yesterday when their best starting pitcher got tagged for a bunch of runs. The Colts did not have a first-round draft pick this year—like for the two years after Bob Irsay traded two first-round picks for Fredd Young, that Hall of Fame middle linebacker whose history of play for the Colts has become the stuff of legend (or not).
   At least with the Cubs I know what to expect. Futility arrives at some point during the season. This season that point came far earlier. And because the Cubs play in Chicago, I do not have to pay taxes for their “welfare.” Come on, if any group of professional athletes or owners could be called “takers,” they would be the Cubs and Cubs’ owners. Let Chicago’s TIFs pay for them.
   Anyone want to play some cricket? Plastic tip or steel tip.