Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Which Chicago athlete should be the next to have their jersey retired?

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

Marshall Harris, Mark Grote and Russell Dorsey of Yahoo Sports discussed which Chicago athlete should be the next one to have his jersey retired.

Rahimi Harrison Grody, midday's 10 a.m. to 2 on Chicago Sports Radio 670 the score. Who from the Bulls deserves that honor, in your opinion? To be totally honest with you, I don't know. I was surprised that I was up next. I was completely honest with you. I saw no champion, no, no rapists, no banner, no nothing. So for me to go up there, I can only imagine who's next. Mm-hmm.

Brahimi Harrison Grotie. That is Derek Rose on the Mully and Haw Show. Yeah, I mean, that's tough because it would have to be, if they're going to retire another jersey, you would probably have to be another player from the 90s, another championship player you already have. Derek Rose, Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen, and then going back farther, Jerry Sloan, and Bob Love

are among those that are already in. And we've been Marshall. We've been threatening to do this topic all week during our pre-show meetings, and finally it felt really good to do it on Friday. In the name of Derek Rose, having his jersey number retired at the United Center, who is which Chicago athlete will be the next to have their jersey retired? Should be or will be? That's a good, interesting distinction.

Can we do both? Wow. That's whatever you want, I guess. My answer is someone who I don't think he's going to get his jersey retired, but he should. Try us. By the way, Russell Dorsey is here. Oh, yeah. Russell Dorsey, yeah.

Thanks for playing our little games here, Russ. Of course. Yahoo National Major League Baseball Insider. You can catch him on various platforms and whatnot because he's always working. It's all good stuff. It's all on Apple TV. It is good stuff, Russ. So my answer is Mike Singletary.

But the Bears aren't out here retiring numbers. So you see what I'm saying? Singletary is that dude. Well, defensive players here many, many, many, many time first team all pro. Like, Hall of Famer. So, like, can we explain for people at home the reason the bears are a tough one? Like, they have like a hundred numbers retired. And I'm being facetious when I say that, but they have like a lot of numbers.

I think more than any team in the NFL. And they might have to transition to Ring of Honor. Well, I think that's kind of what they're doing. And essentially not retiring jerseys anymore, that's kind of what they're. It's been, what, two decades or so? Who's the last bear to get their number of retired? It's a good question, and I'm struggling a bit. But you're right.

50 Mike Singletary should be. If we're going to do that, if we're going to do should be, then you have to go to Dan Hampton, number 99 for the Chicago Bears. His needs to be retired. Lickety splits if we're going to do. do the backlog. Here's the guy, though, that when I thought about this, and it is with the bears, and I almost feel like, and there is recency bias, because I get, look, I watched Hampton, I loved Hampton, he's great, he's a Hall of Famer, he should be one of the greatest bears of all

time. But maybe, you know, 34 is probably the most popular jersey you still see out there in the name of Walter Payton, but 54, Brian Erlacher will give Walter Payton a run for his money right now. The Erlacker, when he came, because he was such a revelation as a player and a linebacker who played the position way differently than we were used to seeing, and all that is Erlacker, everybody had, has a 54. So Erlacker is the guy that I would probably push to the front of the line right now. And it's more modern, and that would obviously stimulate the fan base more than I think any bear right now. So you're doing a little fan service a la Derek Rose with that pick?

I guess so. You're just trying to please the people? Is that what you mean? Like what the people think it should be? I think I think Brian's as deserving as anybody when it comes to, you know, what he did on the field, what he did for the franchise. You know, and Gordy talked about changing the way we looked at the position. Yeah. Like, there was like a, we'll call it, a five to seven year stretch.

It was him and Ray Lewis as the best middle linebackers in the NFL. I believe that as a defensive player, the year award in there. Like, that was the centerpiece of that cover two defense with Lovie Smith, 100%. The guy that I'm going to pick out of production, but also as a salute to the fan base, 33. Charles Peanut Tillman. I know there's a lot of conversation about him being deserving to go to the pro football Hall of Fame, which he does when you consider the peanut punch is a staple in how to teach defensive players how to knock the ball loose.

But that guy did everything you would want as a player, as a representative of a franchise, what he means to the city even now, and he hasn't played for the Bears. And it's over a decade at this point because he had that stint in Carolina with the Panthers. I think that would be a guy if the Bears didn't have the issue of all the numbers retired. That I would put on the list. I think the clarification here is for this sport specifically, and because of the backlog we talked about, I don't think you should be jumping line until you are a pro football hall family. And I think he will get in.

I think he will get in eventually. But we're dealing with that this week. I understand the rigors of getting into the pro football Hall of Fame. Nobody wants to be in this Hall of Fame. It's nasty. It's nasty work, diabolical, getting in, not getting in, however you want to put it. But I know Mike Dicca was the last guy for the Bears to get his jersey retired. It was 2013.

So more recent than I even thought. But that's still been 14 years. Yeah. Or 13 years. There's three guys that I think are going to get their number retired. I think one is already retired and the other two are actually retired. and the other two are active. The two that are active are Kane and Taves.

Okay. We have to. Absolutely. The guy who is most recently retired and will have his number retired one day is Anthony Riloh on the north side. I think 44 gets retired. I hadn't thought about that. Wow. But yeah.

He is. I think when you think of the gravity of what he was for that franchise, I think Anthony Rizzo is going to be in consideration. And I know they have the Cubs Hall of Fame too, and I think that helps for guys that you're on that, should we retire the number, shouldn't we? But that's another guy I think of them, like, man, when you talk about a guy that did everything the franchise was looking for at that time, the impact that he had on the World Series championship team, I think 44. I agree.

Like he was, not only was he all those things, he was the face of the 2016 Cubs in a team which had a lot of lot of people who you could line up as potential candidates, but I covered every second of that era. I know that Anthony Rizzo was the face of all that. It wasn't necessarily the best player. Pretty close, though. I mean, you could argue that Chris Bryant in that span made a, he did. He made a bigger impact offensively and defensively did Chris Bryant. But, and think about it, too. Like if we are talking about the popularity part of it, and you can't avoid that part, it is in the equation. You know, Rizzo is immensely popular, and he's going to get more popular because he is an ambassador for the Cubs. Like, he's back in the organization.

There was no friction. He walked right back in. Getting that TV money. And he's doing a real TV gig. Like, he is going to be out. We're going to get more Rizzo. And by the way, oh my God, Rizzo and Votto together. With Kershaw.

That is, like, those two, just watching those two have conversations through the years at first base, that'll be fun. But I love it. I didn't have Rizzo on the mind, but he'd probably be, and we can do a whole topic on who should be the first Cove to get their Jersey retired. But I'm down with Rizzo. What did you guys think of the conversation,

which they said there was not going to be a statue, but something else honoring all the members of that World Series team? Well, I think there will be. I think that's fair. I think it's fair. Because, like, who are you going to single out? Right.

There are a guy. You could probably come up your top five most impactful guys and do like a I don't even know it's fair like a white talk thing because I think the hard part is I'm not bad um none of those guys are going to the Hall of Fame

right so it's not like they had the career where it's like that guy is deserving of a statue and even in Cubs history like look at the guys who have statues you're talking about Hall of Famers yes yes Ferguson Jenkins Ryano Billy Williams you know I mean like Gary and they're trying to do something maybe commemorate the moment

I know you see in Philly, they've got the Bradledge, Carlos Rees, like celebrating the final out of the World Series from 2008. And is it going to be a mural? Is it going to be a plaque? It's going to be like a memorial style. I'm assuming it's going to be probably similar to, you know, the one of the white talks I have out in front of the ballpark? I think it's going to be something like that to commemorate the whole thing. It is wild to think that on that team there might be one Hall of Famer of consequence. Lester, right?

No, I was going to say Schwerber. Yeah, Swarber's my guy. Oh, yeah. Shwerber's my guy. But Lester, for sure, is, like, going to be in that big conversation. Yes. Yeah. Chwarber's going to have. . . . I like it.

, so Kyle Schwerber has three. I was talking about this with my family yesterday. He has 340 homers as we currently sit. Just signed a five-year deal in Philly. If he plays at the level that he's played at in Philly and averages just 40 homers a year over the duration of that contract, he's going to finish with 540 homers. He really is, babe. freaking Ruth. Never late. Never wrong, just early. Listen, he... Best thing to ever happen to that man was this. I know this is going to... They left him.

It's a different level of what he's doing, but who he reminds me of, it's going to rub people the wrong way because of his time here, but during his era, not appreciated for what he was doing. Jim told me? Adam done. Like, I hit home runs,

I walk, or I strike out. And guess what? When I hit home runs and I walk, and I walk. It affects winning baseball. It's just... We saw the bad Adam Dunn here. You saw the worst version of it. Like, there was a stretch of like four or five years where Adam Dunn was one hell of a player. Walloper.

Like Cincinnati Adam Dunn and maybe even that one year in Arizona, he was like a 950 OPS guy. He really did make a ballpark look small. Just with his stature. You felt like he was going to hit the ball. That was massive. Yes. Put Schwabberman. Like, 540, if he gets to 515, not even 540, he gets to 515, that guy's going into the Hall of Fame.

And it's crazy how we talk about the front half of a guy's career getting him in the hall. For Kyle Schwerber, if he gets in, it's going to be the back half to get to them. It's definitely going to be the back half. Which is crazy the thing. Always been Schwerber. It's always like, you go through these guys because if we did this exercise while it was in progress, we'd be like, Chris Bryant, he's going to walk into the hall. Javier Baez with how spectacular this guy is absolutely. he's going to be Anthony Rizzo, maybe even at one point.

It's always been Schwaber all along throughout that whole process, all the prospects. It's Swarber has been the constant. And I will say when they did non-tender him, I was okay with it because he was having a bad time of it. He was not getting the contact that he usually had. It felt like it was time to move on, but boy, was that wrong in so many different ways. Yeah, hindsight is 2020 there. I think I remember that season.

after and he was just like, hey man, they gave me every opportunity. And so when a guy says that, like, you got to take him in his worry like, hey, maybe because I don't believe he would be the same player had he stayed. Because the ballpark, the ballpark that he's been playing at is conducive for big-time power from left-handed hitters. And Wrigley Field isn't. Like, there's a reason no player beyond Billy Williams has hit 40 home runs there in season. It's amazing.

I think, all right, ready? the answer to the question, and I know that we wonderfully took it in a slightly different direction. No, I love it. That's beautiful for a segment like this. Yeah, no, absolutely. Who is going to be the person to have? I think after this entire discussion that we've just had, how about Jonathan Taves? Because if they, to your point, and we talked about this during the break, if they're putting married Hosa, like they did retire.

And Hosa was great. I'm not even saying it doesn't deserve it. But if you put Hosa in, the second Taves calls it and quits and he's done and retires, which could happen. Like, I feel like any season now, Taves is done, gone, gone, retired. Yeah, no one's arguing that. It's just a matter of time. Like, really, when is he going to be eligible to them? Right.

And then Cain and Keith and all those guys, because they're all as good as Zbrook. You could pick 100 dudes off the thing. Like, boy, that is a complicated scenario. Corey Crawford. Corey Crawford, yeah, you got to give the goalie love. Pretty amazing. We've got one more segment. Is that right? Is that where we are in life? We're at 140 right now. It's our final segment. Oh, Honorable Mention. Candice Parker. Candice Parker? I think that's one you should probably hear about. She got her jersey retired. Did she? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. I'm good. I'm glad. I'm glad. We're glad. We're

Dorsey. We don't have anything planned here. Is there anything that you are hot for? You want to talk bears? Oh, we do have something planned here. Oh, we do have something planned here. Oh, we do have something. Yeah, and it was on the Take the North podcast. Oh, I forgot about that. We're continuing on. You know what? I want Russ's thoughts on this too. Okay. Okay. So something from the Bears podcast, Take the North. It's a long time, a longtime Bears writer disagrees with a stance that Marshall has had on the show this week about Caleb Williams. It's a disagreement. and we need Marshall's thoughts. We need Russ's thoughts. Grody, we need your reaction.

It happened on the Take of the North podcast. I'm going to sit back and listen in the next segment. That is what's going to happen. It's Rahimi, Harris, and Grody with Russell Dorsey on the score.