I was torn between two, what I felt were must see events, on Thursday, Aug. 1.

Locally, the Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp were hosting a Prospect League playoff baseball game to see if the Peru team could become the Northwest Division champions.

Nationwide, the first NFL preseason game, known as the Hall of Fame Game, was being played between the Chicago Bears, my favorite team, and the Houston Texans in Canton, Ohio, which includes introductions to this year’s HOF inductees.

Since I believe this is the best Pistol Shrimp team that has been compiled since arriving in Peru in 2021 (after forming in Lisle in 2019 and moving during COVID-19) and I recently had owner/manager John Jakiemiec and general manager June Keely on an episode of my podcast, Edge of Your Seat Podcast, I thought I should go to the baseball game and record the HOF game on my YouTube TV account.

I’m so glad we have the technology we have in 2024 where we can almost, figuratively and literally, be in two or more places at the same time when it comes to sports or TV viewing.

It was a great decision.

I got the opportunity to see the Shrimp defeat the Clinton (Iowa) Lumberkings to win their third division crown since 2019, which advanced them to the Western Conference Championship.

On Saturday, Aug. 3, while I was in Cleveland attending WWE Summer Slam, the Pistol Shrimp defeated the Thrillville Thrillbillies for Illinois Valley’s first conference championship after falling short in both 2019 and 2022 and its first appearance in the Prospect League Champsionship, kicking off today (Monday, Aug. 5) on Bob Warn Field at Sycamore Stadium in Terre Haute, Indiana.

I was glad I had the opportunity to be present for a fraction of the Illinois Valley Pistol Shrimp’s success and I hope it continues so I can see the crowning of the 2024 Prospect League Champion, which will take place at the Shrimp’s Schweickert Stadium.

It’ll be super awesome if the crowing at the Shrimp’s stadium is of the Shrimp. Let’s go.

Afterward, I was able to watch the Hall of Fame Game, the Bears (my favorite team, yes, purposely repeated) and to see the Class of 2024 walk across the Canton field or on the screen.

I was three months old when the Bears defeated the New England Patriots 46-10 at Super Bowl XX on January 26, 1986. In other words, I didn’t get to watch the game because I had naps I couldn’t miss.

Steve “Mongo” McMichael was on the Super Bowl team in part of his career lasting from 1980-1994 with the Patriots (1980), Bears (1981-1993) and the Green Bay Packers (1994).

I probably began watching sports serious in 1992 or 1993 because of Michael Jordan and it translated to all sports, not just basketball. However, I was too late for McMichael’s career.

Another however, I was not too late to see him in the media or to watch him wrestle as part of the 4-Horsemen with Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, and Curt Henning (guys came and went quickly during this time) on WCW TV in the mid-to-late 1990s.

I hated him.

I didn’t want to see him or any of them win.

But he was entertaining. Every time I saw a long, Burnette ponytail rocked by a gentlemen, I either thought it was “Mongo” McMichael or thought they wanted to be him. He never backed down from anyone, which I’ll always respect.

Eventually, as technology and YouTube came about, I was able to see footage of him during his NFL days. I saw his tenacity, his dedication, his brotherhood for all of the other Bears in the same manner as the 4-Horsemen and began to love the dude.

When I was working at the NewsTribune in LaSalle, Mongo came to the Mendota QB Club Golf Outing. I was more than upset that I wasn’t able to cover the event for a story because of a family gathering. I missed the opportunity to meet a Bears legend for a bunch of people I didn’t know then and haven’t seen since.

When I heard he was being enshrined as one of the gridiron immortals, I knew I had to tune in. I also viewed when his HOF bust was unveiled to McMichael. Although laying in a hospital bed with what seems a hundred cords and tubes hooked up to monitors and lifesaving equipment due to his battle with ALS, I shared the same smile the rest of the football world had on their faces.

Fast forward from watching WCW on a 1980s bubble TV in the 90s to working at Steak’n Shake in Carbondale during my junior year at Southern Illinois University.

I couldn’t get out of my shift. I contacted all the other white apron wearing financially struggling college students who were trained to make shakes, cook burgers, and/or wash dishes. They all turned me down…because they wanted to watch the game.

My uniform was put on and my car started, maybe by themselves because I had no interest in getting paid on a day, I wanted to do nothing more than spend money on all the best football food and beverage and hang out with my friends.

Thankfully, the manager was cool on February 4, 2007, he usually wasn’t, and he brought in a TV to replace the broken one hanging on the wall in the break room so we could watch the game.

With a fry in my chocolate shake, I stood in the middle of the break room and screamed “Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” at the top of my lungs when Devin Hester began the second of the two Bears’ Super Bowl appearances with a 92-yard opening kickoff return touchdown.

As we all know, the Bears lost to the Colts 29-17, but we all remember, and love Hester for what he did during his years with the Bears (2006-13).

Call him a niche player or a specialist as a returner if you choose, but no one did it better and no one installed more fear in special team’s units than him…before, during, or after his career.

I don’t have any special moments which remind me of Julius Peppers except he was an animal and a player I was glad left the Carolina Panthers to join the Bears.

The Bears don’t win a Super Bowl every year or more than one in almost 40 years, but the fans are loyal because of talent like Mongo, Hester, and Peppers.