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Bliss is where you find it. If you can find it — or perhaps more accurately, if it can find you. There definitely was some to be found Friday (March 22) at the Chicago Sun-Times Sports Collectibles Convention. As in the Chicago Bliss. And otherwise.
Margie Di Silvestro (left) and Kimberly Anderson are set for the LFL season.
The weekend event at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Ill., did have members of the Legends Football League (formerly the Lingerie Football League) signing autographs, posing for photographs and speading the word about the team’s April 19 season opener at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates.
So in the never-ending quest for truth, justice and the American way (or maybe it merely was an opportunity to chat with Kimberly Anderson and Margie Di Silvestro of the Bliss), your humble correspondent was able to spend some quality time with the ladies who were gracious enough to take time away from their duties at the Bliss booth to schmooze.
Kimberly Anderson with the 2011 Chicago Bliss.
The league changed its name while it was taking a year off from playing in the United States to expand elsewhere in its quest for world domination. Or something like that. Anyway, the last time the Bliss was playing, the team’s games were outside at Toyota Park in Bridgeview. Now they will be back at the Sears Centre where the team played its first two seasons.
Some of the players — such as quarterback Heather Furr — will be familiar to Bliss boosters, while newcomers have been added to the roster as coach Keith Hac attempts to field a team with larger players who will stack up (if you’ll pardon the wording) against other teams’ players.
Bliss of another nature was on display as well.
Your humble correspondent attended the convention with a good friend and his two young sons who are becoming card collectors. The lads are learning the art of negotiation and do it quite well.
The younger boy happened across a John Vanbiesbrouck card and asked the woman working the booth what the price for the card was. She didn’t know and turned to somene else who also didn’t know. They consulted a third person at the booth. He said the card was $15. Some chit-chat preceded and followed the price check.
Hearing the price of the card, the youngster consulted with his father. We all thanked the woman for the information and her cordiality shown someone so young. We then walked down the rest of the aisle, turned down another aisle and then another.
We would stop occasionally to check out some Goudey cards — one of the dad’s longtime interests — and other merchandise. As we were paused at a booth with some Goudeys and other captivating cards, the woman from the booth we had left approached.
Margie Di Silvestro with the 2011 Bliss.
She bent over to be able to converse with the youngster who was surprised to see her so soon. More than words, she had something else for him: the Vanbiesbrouck card. It was his — for free.
Wow! In an industry littered with stories of unscrupulous characters behaving badly, here was this princess-like figure doing good. Very impressive.
And then she vanished into the evening. But only after receiving profuse, profound expressions of gratitude from the youngster, his father and your humble correspondent.
Oh, and you should have seen the boy’s face after he got over the initial disbelief of such a kind-hearted offer. No one in the building was smiling any broader and feeling any more blissful than he.
No one, that is, with the possible exceptions of his dad and me.
Friday was considerably less blissful around Comcast SportsNet Chicago. Chicago Bulls analyst Kendall Gill was suspended for the rest of the season. He and Tim Boyle of the Big Ten Network had an altercation in the CSN newsroom after they appeared on Tuesday’s “Sports Talk Live.”
“We have made a decision to not have Kendall Gill appear on our air for the remainder of the Bulls season,” CSN Chicago news director Kevin Cross said in a statement. “We will re-evaluate our current position on this matter during the off-season.”
Crain’s Chicago Business blogger Danny Ecker, who also was on the show and reported seeing the altercation, said Gill confronted Doyle after Doyle had criticized Gill’s analysis of a basket interference call against Joakim Noah that could have give the Bulls a victory against the Denver Nuggets on Monday.
Gill — who played in the NBA for 15 seasons — will have more time to watch his former college team, Illinois, in the NCAA tournament. Well, for as long as the Illini remain alive in the tourney. And maybe he can resume his boxing career — in the ring rather than in an office setting.
Speculation is Gill is down for the count and will not return to CSN for next season. Tough decision, but one that Gill apparently earned.
The interview with Kim Anderson and Margie Di Silvestro:
OK, and some non-gratuitous video (because the editorial and visual-arts staffs at elliottharris.com have an extremely broad definition of “gratuitous”):
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