O'Donnell: Boo Ricketts, pity frosted Bears season-ticket holders – December Ins and Outs

WAY UP NORTH where the air gets cold or way down south where Willy B. Hills currently rolls, a postcard Sunday for the December edition of Ins and Outs.So, the sometimes cheery, sometimes weary Yuletide scroll:• In — Hoping Tom Ricketts is booed off the stage at the 2023 Cubs convention in January — It’d be good for his soul. … A public downspouting might also force the team chairman to face the reality that the slide from the magic of 2016 to the current mirth-free Nowheresville is downright insulting. … Right now, the Ricketts family would probably struggle to run a cattle-friendly amusement park in the minds of Omaha.• Out — Watching off-season programming on the Marquee Sports Network — If this is the Cubs flagship TV operation, the fleet is down to nothing but paddleboards and leaky pontoons. … It’s awful. … Hauling Len Kasper back to call “The Week’s Best LASIK Eye Surgeries” would be an upgrade. … What a waste of strong-armed cable fees.• In — Feeling bad for Bears season-ticket holders — Sort of … Consumers make all sorts of poor purchasing decisions in modern America and there’s no crying in the checkout line. … But in a metro market of more than 8M people, George McCaskey and fleece hounds need a mere 60,000 or so dupes to keep their brittle shell game going. … People who are financially committed to show at Soldier Field as this lost season plays out are the woeful wanderers of South Lake Shore Drive.• Out — Heralding Sunday’s nooner as some kind of possible QB classic between Jalen Hurts and Justin Fields — Oh Sid Luckman in the sky … Hurts is quite likely headed for Super Bowl 57 with one of the NFL’s great new-brute ensembles. … Fields once again is the burnt orange-and-blue center ring on the dartboard of another week’s Rushin’ Roulette. … A Bears victory is a loss. … Did anyone tell Lake Zurich-based Jack Sanborn that there’d be days like this?• In — Sending nothing but positive vibrations to Dr. Celine Gounder and the spirit of Grant Wahl — Wahl was the 49-year-old global-class soccer journalist who died in Qatar last week while covering the FIFA World Cup. … Dr. Gounder is now his NYC-based widow. … She has been a profile in grace, courage and dignity in the wake of his sad passing. … Dr. Gounder’s segment with Gayle King on “CBS Mornings” Wednesday was profoundly poised, pained and celestial.• Out — Any excessive sympathy for Brittney Griner — No thanks … An adult professional purportedly with enough intelligence and sophistication to pursue international gold showed reckless disregard for the laws of a hostile sovereign power. … And got caught and then got lucky. … In the end, all that Griner proved was that basketball talent ain’t brains.• In — Saluting The Boston Globe’s decision to name the late Bill Russell “Bostonian of the Year” — The transcendent No. 6 of the Celtics remains the greatest championship player in the history of basketball — bar none. … More importantly, he forced people so capable to think about much more family-of-man matters and, ideally, expand their sensitivities. … He shall forever be an American for all seasons.• Out — The NBA’s decision to name a flood of annual award trophies for players past — Shortsighted and pandering. … Just as Russell was a radiant new alpha for his time, so too was Michael Jordan. … It was a random blessing to cover him in his prime. … But it is also an ongoing wish that newer fresh heirs take the game and its theatrics even higher. … What’s left to name for them?