Ladies and gentlemen, let’s welcome a sports band who’s got no problems telling you about shit that pisses Emma or the dumb ass shit that he did. He’s not gonna waste a lot of your time he’s gonna get in and get out. He’ll hit it and quit it. Let’s put your hands together several thousand times in a row. It’s Chronicles of a Dumbass the Shawn Mackey show

All right, ladies and gentlemen that’s Wright season one episode 16 the Shawn Mackey show Chronicles of a dumbass sports fan

Trying some things a little bit differently this week look this is season one. This is a brand new show. We’ve been all over the place. We admit that to you. We’ve asked for some feedback. We haven’t really gotten much of it.

We really have no idea what direction we wanna take this show for you, but we have an idea of what direction we’re taking this show all right so I’m gonna continue to write The John Franklin. He who was Dead story. I’ve told you before on a podcast that I’ve written another novel. I’m still in the process of editing that one. I’m gonna continue to write this story: because, guess what, I fancy myself a little bit of a writer. 

I think I’ve mentioned it before that I used to write things like poetry that I thought would be great for songs used to keep it all documented you know and then I lost it. I’ve been doing that again lately. I was an English teacher so I fancy myself somewhat of a bard. Wordsmith if you will, if you don’t like it I don’t care cause I still enjoy riding the stories and my family will read them and that’s all the pats on the back that I need.

Again, we wanna provide transcripts so we’re actually if there’s slight pauses it’s cause we’re doing things a little differently so we got a system set up in place to record as we speak so that it types it all out and then we just need to go in and edit and then hopefully we’ll have a nice little transcript eventually on the website the Shawn Mackey show hopefully will be able to put the printed word up as a blog post or something like that again some people like to read some people like to watch videos some people just like to listen to things I learned that all while I was getting my degree in education and then spent 20 years as a teacher. 

Last week’s episode we kind of recap the Cubs series against oh I wanna say the Marlins and then we got into that first series of the Reds where I was having heart palpitations, and I was sitting on the edge of my seat and they ended up taking two out of three from the Reds, so that was good.

Then we got to the Colorado Rockies series and I mean come on this is a team that as you faced them, they hadn’t even won 10 games yet, and you managed to score 9 measly runs in three games against the Colorado Rockies. 

You picked up the victory and game won three to one you took game two 4 to 3 and you swept with game three 2 to 1, but over that stretch of games Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday you scored nine measly runs against the team that hadn’t won 10 games And good for you, Colorado, because you came out and held your own against a division leader, but you know what does that say about the Cubs at this point in the season?

 I’ve been sitting on edge all season long because I’m worried that we’re gonna get to that one series that’s gonna change the momentum for this team like it has in the past two or three years And then we’re gonna start to see that drop off and then have our heartbroken again by the time the season ends

You came out and you lost game one in the second series against the Reds you lost that game 6 to 2.

I don’t think there was much to write home about in that game but then you ended up taking the last two against the Reds. You won 2 to 1, or, I’m sorry, two to nothing and then you ended up taking the last game of that series 7 to 3 which at this point now the Cubs scored more than a couple of runs so that was good to see that you took two out of three versus the Reds and that you came back and started putting up more than 2 to 3 runs on the scoreboard

And now today that brings us into today’s game against the Washington nationals that’s getting ready to start out here in about 40 minutes or so central standard time because we are in the Midwest the heart of Illinois almost perfect middle maybe just a little south for those of you in Chicago you would consider this southern Illinois, but we’re actually central Illinois. There’s a whole other portion to go.

So we’ll have to see what the Cubs do against the Nationals. The Nationals not sucking 28 wins on the season so they’re doing all right by anyone’s standards I guess at this point in the season I say game but it’s not you know, you know what I mean so we’ll see what happens tonight against the Washington Nationals

Now, for the last couple episodes, we talked a lot about Caleb Williams and I wanted to get into this a little bit more.

 I did on last week‘s episode but excuse me I don’t fault this kid for nothing you know here’s a kid who I guess we could say those of us in the you know outside looking and he majored in sports, but if he graduates, he gets a degree does the classwork you know? Yes he was a football player and that’s gonna be his main income source for the foreseeable future hopefully for many many years.

I don’t fault the kid one bit. I don’t fault the dad. I mean OK dad may be a little bit crazy, most of us as parents are. 

We just want what’s best for our kids. You know, I look at it from a standpoint of me growing up I didn’t have Jack shit. OK I came from a mostly one income household. My mom was disabled. She collected benefits. She was also a very selfish self-centered person And any extra money she did end up getting she did not use to pay bills, or contribute to the household, she did her own thing. 

My dad worked his ass off. He was a blue-collar guy, a manager of the shipping and receiving department for a pretty big corporation that makes the steel strapping.

He was the main breadwinner. He paid all the bills even though my parents divorce you know mom got the court. The court said this is what you’re gonna get: a 100 bucks at the time, 1978  100 bucks per child per month so she would’ve gotten like 200 bucks a month, but dad didn’t pay that, but he still paid the mortgage. He still bought all the groceries. He still paid all the utility bills he gave the kids, my sister and I, money when we needed to eat out when mom decided she wasn’t cooking anymore for anyone. 

He was at our house all the time, but he did it all you know, and this kid Caleb Williams is gonna make a lot of money and this is his future and I can see the dad being you know a little bit crazy here cause like I said I wanted so much better for my kids based on how my dad and mom raised me and I’m sure that Carl Williams wants the same for Caleb. 

So, I don’t knock the kid at all cause can you imagine just thinking about it, athletes get drafted and then the rights are held. They can’t play the game yeah they’re gonna make a lot of money, but can you imagine if that’s how it was for all the other college graduates you know like my daughter just graduated with a teaching degree and she’s going out there and she’s applying for jobs and she can pick and choose where she wants to apply and who she wants to work for. 

That’s the same thing that Caleb Williams was hoping, or Carl Williams wanted to be able to do and it’s like we got this draft,  and then based on these rules that the people who are holding the draft put out it kind of sucks and he’s not gonna make the money that he maybe deserves.

And let’s face it the Bears have been shitty for the last 10 years, if not more, so who would wanna come and play for this team but can you imagine like my daughter if if it was like, 

“In this year‘s 2025 collegiate draft all the Chatham school district chooses, as a kindergarten teacher, the salutatorian from Blackburn College, Grace Mackey. “

She would have to go to work for that school. It wouldn’t  matter what their contract guidelines were, she got drafted. 

“In this year‘s draft, IBM we thought they’d take an IT specialist but looks like they went for human resources. Oh IBM must be having some trouble in the department and keeping control of their employees cause this year‘s draft looks like they drafted three human resource specialists and didn’t even go after anybody for IT.”

 What an uproar in the Community it’s like sports is the only industry where you know you don’t have control over who you’re gonna play for and who’s gonna pay you you know you busting your ass playing sports yes you’re getting the degree. You’re doing the coursework too, but you get a degree in journalism. You need to get a degree in communications or elementary education. You can pick and choose who you’re gonna go work for when you graduate.

And so I do not fault Caleb Williams at all for one not wanting to be a Chicago Bear two trying to find the best possible place for himself and his future and I actually applaud the kid for one listening to dad but then kind of telling dad now this is what we gotta do man you know what I mean and saying well shit Chicago sucked for the last 10 or 12 years. 

Maybe I can be the guy, maybe I can go to Chicago and help turn this franchise around because it wasn’t gonna help it wasn’t gonna turn around just from him.

 They got him and now because of him they’ve got a few other pieces in place that will help turn this franchise around and I cannot wait until the actual football season from preseason games on. 

I’m gonna do some play-by-play commentary and we’re gonna broadcast while the games are going on so every episode during the week during football season is just gonna be spot on right there very relevant and it’s not that I don’t talk about anything that’s not relevant cause I’m keeping you apprised of the sporting world. 

We are now the Shawn Mackey show Chronicles of a Dumbass Chicago Sports fan, so that’s where we’re going no feedback on the stories. I’m gonna continue to write them. You know shit that pisses me off and dumb ass shit I did as a kid a lot of that could be considered complaining, but unless we get specific feedback from our audience the small audience that we have we’re gonna keep doing our thing and our thing is I mean look at the videos on YouTube you can see all the man cave posts. 

I use little clips from the podcast to promote on social media so you can see and if you know me, you know I’m a big ass sportsman so I’m I’m all for Taylor Williams and what he he’s got and you know what

The Bears are gonna do something this year. I don’t know if we’re gonna get a full on deep run into the playoffs, but I think Bears fans are gonna be happier from September until February. I think we’re gonna have something to look forward to besides just the draft and so I think the sky is the limit for us as Bears fans and hopefully if the Cubs continue to do well this season and they don’t have that drop off we could be as football and baseball fans in our glory this season you know when the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 the Bears didn’t do shit so we didn’t have that going for us. 

You know we just kinda had the Cubs but that kind that took us through a couple years but then by 2018 and 2019 we started to go like oh shit here it goes again and I’ve talked about the reports that came out during that time between you know the shit going down and I still firmly believe Theo Epstein walked in the last year because he didn’t get the money. 

I think Ricketts said no bro the checkbook is  closed and Theo was like what the fuck you expect me to do, and Tom was like I don’t know. I don’t give a shit do whatever and Theo said fuck it, I’m out you know. 

Now as a disclaimer that was not the actual conversation that took place between Theo and Tom, but in this man’s mind that’s pretty much how the fuck it went you know what I mean so I think that we’ve got some good things coming here from the Cubs. We’ve got some great things coming here from the Bears.

 I like what I’m seeing and all we have to do is kick back and continue to enjoy this season and wait for it. Wait and see what happens you know I’ll continue to update y’all share the things that I’ve seen and my opinions and my takes on it all so I hope you continue to stick along for the rest of the ride.