It has been a rough couple of years for Chicago sports fans.

Since the Chicago Sky won the WNBA Championship in 2021, it has been doom and gloom for Chicago franchises.

The Sky are currently eighth in the league and fourth in the Western Conference with a dismal 11-16 mark.

The White Sox are the worst team in baseball with a 30-95 record (as of 2:38 p.m. Aug. 19, they do play at 8:45 p.m. against the San Francisco Giants, which should be No. 96). The Chicago Cubs started the season off hot but are 61-64 (as of the same time and date, with no game tonight) and trail both the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League, with the Cincinnati Reds a half-game behind the Cubs with a 60-64 record. Cubs are going nowhere unless they win out. Ha Ha.

Between injuries (seems like everyone), bad deals for older players toward the end of their career (we could start with Dwyane Wade and move forward), and bad draft picks (Patrick Williams, and more), the Chicago Bulls can’t make it past the playoff play-in tournament. This next season may be a total collapse as DeMar DeRozan and Alex Caruso are playing for different teams, while Zach LaVine and Lonzo Ball (I’m not holding my breath) are supposed to return from injury.

Even if they are 100 percent healthy and Coby White plays at the same level he did last season, the Bulls are no better than a sixth or seventh seed, yes even in the lackluster Eastern Conference, and are nowhere near a championship contender.

The Blackhawks have been awful and more awful since winning their sixth Stanley Cup in 2015 after Patrick Kane was traded and Jonathan Toews basically retired in 2023, although he is still listed as an unrestricted free agent. He is also 36 years old and looked old when last seen in Chicago.

The Bears haven’t won a Super Bowl since the NFL was still in the Xs (Super Bowl XX in January 1986) and have only returned to the last game of the season once since then, in 2006.

The last few years have seen great defensive players come and go, while the offense was led by quarterbacks such as Mitch Trubisky (a second overall pick in 2017) and Justin Fields (an 11th overall pick in 2021) would be outplayed by Keanu Reeves character Shane Falco in The Replacements.

Actually, can the Bears sign him?

The Chicago Fire won the MLS Championship in 1998, which was their first year in the league as an expansion franchise. And haven’t won again.

In other words, there are a lot of reasons for Chicago sports fans, like myself to scratch our heads or rip our hair out (you get the joke).

But we hold on. We have faith.

Because it always seems like one or a few of the franchises are right on the cusp of turning things around.

The Bulls are trading older players and adding younger, closer to their prime players via trade and free agent signings such as Josh Giddey and Jalen Smith, while drafting a 6-foot-9 Lithuanian in Matas Buzelis. Foreign exports are how the league is going as of late and was a good move for the Bulls.

The Bears used their No. 1 draft pick they received in a great trade with the Carolina Panthers before last season where they also acquired D.J. Moore (an awesome, talented wide receiver) and selected Caleb Williams.

Williams, a QB from USC, has wowed every Bears fan in the preseason and has everyone excited that the offensive unit may actually score some points and give the Bears a chance to win more than seven games for the first time since 2020 when they lost in a Wild Card game against the New Orleans Saints.

The Blackhawks have had No. 1 and No. 2 draft picks in each of the last two seasons adding a scoring center in Connor Bedard and a big, bully defender in Artyom Levshunov. There were also two more first round picks in 2024.

So, although the head scratching never seems to stop, there is always a reason to only use one or two fingers instead of the entire hand. Or both hands.

The life of a Chicago sports fan is never easy.