Stealin' Chicago

 Somewhere today George Halas is running laps in his grave, or perhaps he's making Nagurski do it. Dick Butkus is fixin' to clothesline someone. Sayers, Sweetness, Sid Luckman, Douglas John Buffone: They're all madder than steroid-packin' hornets.

Why, the very idea of their beloved Chicago Bears making Indiana their home base. Indi-freaking-ana.

This upon the news that the Bears have resumed exploring fresh options to relocate -- including, yes, northwest Indiana. The Hammond, In., Bears. The Gary, In., Bears. The East Chicago Bears, the Griffith Bears, the Hobart Bears, the Merrillville Bears.

Or how about this gem from my sharp-witted friend Jim Saturday, who grew up in northwest Indiana: The Munsters of the Midway.

Half of Chicago just ralphed up its Lou Malnati's, hearing that.

Now, right here is the part where we admit that none of the above might actually happen, or even is likely to. This may just be another power play by the Bears to squeeze the city of Chicago for even fancier digs than the city of Chicago already proposed. It is, however, either horrifying to think about (if you live and work in the Windy City), or pretty damn hilarious (if you live in Indiana or anywhere else).

Me, I'm thinking of that time the Bears played the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl, and Colts coach Tony Dungy joked that maybe they just split the difference and play the game in Fort Wayne. This got folks in my hometown inordinately excited, to the extent that Steve Rushin wrote a whole column in Sports Illustrated chronicling the reaction of such Fort Wayne luminaries as pro football HOFer Rod Woodson and Eric Wedge, then the manager of the Cleveland Indians.

I imagine the good citizens of the Region, which is what we call the northwest part of the state here in Indiana, are similarly excited. Or maybe not, considering Region inhabitants tend to be made of sterner, less-giddy stuff.

At any rate, moving the Bears to Indiana would not be unprecedented, no matter how much the thought of it surely would drive Bears old-schoolers -- people who remember guys like Jack Concannon and Ralph Kurek and Ronnie Bull -- to imbibe mass quantities of Old Style.  The Dallas Cowboys, after all, don't play in Dallas but in Arlington, a suburb. Neither do the Miami Dolphins, whose home base, Hard Rock Stadium, is almost closer to Fort Lauderdale than Miami.

And of then there are those New York teams, the Jets and Giants, who don't play in New York, either. They play in New Jersey, on top of Jimmy Hoffa's grave (or so some people say). And New Jersey is just Indiana with better pizza and more wise guys.

Also fewer Hoosiers, whatever you think a Hoosier is. It's not like we can tell you.

Anyway ...

Anyway, so, yeah. Bring on the Munsters of the Midway. Put 'em in brand new, state-of-the-art Lily/Cargill/Pete's Pride Pork Fritters Stadium. And rev up an old Indiana promotional slogan -- because, yes, there is more than corn in Indiana.

There are Colts. There are Bears. There are the restless ghosts of Halas and Butkus and Luckman and Sweetness and all the rest, wondering how the hell their football team got mixed up with a bunch of Indiana hilljacks.

Oh, the stompin' and cussin', out there in the celestial expanse. The stompin' and cussin'.