ChicagoSportsBlogs : Non Compete

I like to point out that I totally dropped the ball this year on our mock draft.
That sucks, and I'm pissed about it. I won't make excuses. I just couldn't get my act together in time to send out the invites. So for all our former bloggers-in-crime, I apologize.
Now on to business....

The invitation came from CDub:
As some of you know, this Saturday is one of the most important days of the year.  It's the day where we get to watch Jerry Angelo make decisions that baffle the pundits, experts and ourselves.  It's the day that everyone in the NFC North improves, except the Bears.  It's the day that the Bears single handedly give schools like Abilene Christian and University of Louisiana - Lafayette new "famous" alumni.  In other words, it's the NFL Draft bitches.  Here's the very short of it.  I'm hosting.  It's a pot luck.  Bring something to grill and some malted hops.  NFL Draft starts at noon.  Women are welcome, and god help them if they voluntarily subject themselves to this.

How can you pass on an offer like that? You just can't. The same way you can't expect the Bears and Jerry Angelo to trade up tomorrow. There are rumors this morning on the news wire which have the Bears and the Redskins talking about trading Briggs again. I don't buy it for a second. I can't see the Bears actually trading up that high in the draft only to shell out a huge amount of cash for some rookie.We are a tight-wad team. We're not going to give $15 million dollar bonuses to a rookie running back (Peterson anyone?) when we wouldn't sign Briggs.

Tomorrow is going to be a frustrating day. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the Bears are not trading the 31st pick this year. They will use it to draft the kid out of Miami - Greg Olsen. If he is there. If he isn't the Bears will draft someone like Gonzalez - the good character wideout from Ohio State. I think Gonzalez is an early 2nd round pick, so technically what's the difference if he ends up in Chicago with the 31st. Right?

BEAR DOWN

I think I posted a list of things I have always wanted to experience in person at a
sporting event a few months back. I missed my chance at checking another item off that
list last night when Mark Buehrle pitched a no hitter against the Rangers at the Cell.

I was in class when I realized something special was going on. My cell phone
was blowing up constantly. The first message came from my brother:
    "You watching this? No Hitter! Mark!"
Then I got another from my buddy Dan:
    "Buehrle No HITTER"
Then Sara (the resident die hard and only season ticket holder I know who isn't President
of some large corporation):
    "HELL YEA"
The messages kept flowing in one after another: "JD Grand Slam!", "He GOT IT!". I got that last one while in the cab on the way home. The driver was looking at me in this strange way that led me to believe he wasn't a Sox fan. The cab's radio was tuned to the Bulls game. The Bulls just dropped the final game of the season, and this guy wasn't too happy about it.
I tried to comfort him with the good news I had: Buehrle threw a no-no!
He wasn't impressed. I'm guessing baseball wasn't this man's game. Cricket was probably more to his liking.

I ran home to tune into the post game. I was lucky enough to catch Mark's remarks about
his knocking knees in the 9th inning, and the lift the fans gave him at the end of the 7th.
The Miller Lite Shower was icing on the cake. It looked like a great night to be a Sox fan again.

The euphoric feeling we all had during the World Series serves as a base when it comes to
White Sox successes. Buerhle was asked over and over to compare the two highlights of his career. He answered in only the way I would expect; The Series was better. This was good, but the Series is he pinnacle. I wanted to test his theory. Where the chills I felt watching these no-hit replays the same as the ones I got when we won it all in 05?

I dropped the championship DVD into the player and jumped to the last out.
Que the chills. I'd say Mark was right, but last night's game was pretty damn close.

Congrats to Buehrle for doing something not even Maddux or Clemens have done in my lifetime.

GO WHITE SOX

The NFL released its 2007 schedule yesterday. It was like a mini holiday. People were printing the schedule off and tacking it to their lovely gray carpeted cube walls. If there was ever a question on which team rules the Chicago roost, that should have settled it for you. I say, why not? It is freakin cold out here. The Cubs were snowed out against the Astros, and I'm still wearing my winter coat. We still have football weather here! I feel like I should be writing about the Cowboys' visit to Soldier Field and their obvious struggles running the ball in this weather! They are a dome team after all! (half dome? What do you call a stadium that has a hole in the roof? Answer: The Skydome?) I could go on and about the Chicago weather, but I'll spare you. Besides, just turn on a radio or an idiot box here locally and sit back in amazement as the lead story on every news broadcast is about how it still snows in April. Let me throw in my 2 cents on the Bears 2007 Schedule (MJ's take was here):

I expected much worse. The last few weeks there have been articles on the web about how most Superbowl teams (ahem-losing Superbowl teams) struggle to 10-6. I don't think the Bears will have this problem. The NFC Central is still one of the weakest divisions in the league. So here goes:

 

Week 1 - Sep 9 - At San Diego --> Loss (0-1)

Week 2 - Sep 16 - Kansas City--> Win(1-1)

Week 3 - Sep 23 - Dallas --> Win (2-1)

Week 4 - Sep 30 - at Detroit --> Win (3-1)

Week 5 - Oct 7 - at Green Bay --> Win (4-1)

Week 6 - Oct 14 - at Minn --> Win (5-1)

Week 7 - Oct 21 - at Philly --> Loss(5-2)

Week 8 - Oct 28 Detroit --> Win (6-2)

Week 9 - Take a break!

Week 10 - Nov 11 at Oakland--> Win (7-2)

Week 11 - Nov 18 at Seattle --> Loss (7-3)

Week 12 - Nov 25 at Denver --> Loss (7-4)

Week 13 - Dec 2 at Giants --> Loss (7-5)

Week 14 - Dec 6 at Washington --> Win (8-5)

Week 15 Dec 17 at Minnesota --> Win (9-5)

Week 16 Dec 23 at Green Bay --> Win (10-5)

Week 17 Dec 30 at New Orleans --> Win (11-5)

There you have it. After overcoming a tough second have, with 3 straight losses, I expect the beloved Bear to roar to a finish of 11-5. That should get us the division and probably a decent opponent in our first playoff game. Time to go back to work...

I'll break this down further as I watch both of our baseball teams slip into 3rd or 4th place in late summer...

BEAR DOWN!

I know a lot of you have been wondering what the hell has been going on around here. I haven't changed the site in months. Hell, it probably has been years. I think it is time to expand. Here is what I mean:

• In the next few weeks I will be upgrading our system to the latest version of Community Server. There are a ton of new features that will show up as a result. I'm hoping to have this done soon. (it is in progress behind the scenes)
• RSS features will be improved. Sometimes, during the Bears' season especially, MJ and I are posting stuff that should be aggregated on a single RSS feed. A Bears feed! Why not? I'll be working to make this happen.
• We'll be launching a redesign too. I'm interviewing designers and templates right now. Shoot me an email if you want in on this action. Be warned, I may just do this myself....but if you've got ideas let's hear them.
• The NFL Draft. I'm wondering if there is still interest in pulling off the live NFL Blogger Draft like we did last year. I've been so busy with real life I'm not sure I have time to manage it again this year. IF you are interested in drafting for your team (and you own an NFL Team blog - email us) I'll get back to guys on the NFL Draft in the coming days. (I know we're almost out of time)
• I'm also hopeful that I'll be adding more writers soon too. It's time for a fresh perspective. I realize that after 4+ years of doing this site, that new voices are good. The problem is - I don't know many guys who have the time to write.

 

That's it. I wanted to say thanks to the few loyal readers we have out there. Stick it out, I'm going to make one massive push this year to improve things.

I love late night baseball. The wife has gone to bed, and I'm basically sitting here with my thoughts, a tall cool Gatorade, and the White Sox game. The Sox are out west visiting the As tonight after splitting a weather shortened series against the Twins at the Cell. I'm wondering if we'll ever beat Santana this year...(I'll leave that for another post and for when the Sox play the Twins again)

Contreras started this game and was recently pulled for MacDougal in the 7th. MacDougal did a fine job to get out of the 7th inning. 3 up, and 3 down. The 2-1 lead we currently have is probably not going to be enough. I've seen more of our bullpen that I would like which is a nice segway into the few things I have actually noticed about the Sox so far in this young season:

• Pods looks fast. Case in point: he turns on a fast ball earlier in this game and sends it to deep center field. If you have ever been to the pathetic excuse for a stadium in Oakland you'll know that the walls are high in center. Pods thought the ball was going to bounce against the wall, and as a result he took off like there was no tomorrow. I'm telling you, Pods seems to have his legs back. That can only help us.
• Our starting pitching has been shaky. Ok, this isn't obvious to anyone by now. In fact, I may be a little late on this point because they have been settling down. Contreras came out of this game giving up only 1 run and 4 hits. Ok,ok,ok...he gave up 4 walks too. What the hell, he struck out 4 guys and that nasty breaking ball he throws looked to be spot on tonight.
• My wife thinks Kiko Calero's name is funny. That's all. I just wanted to throw that out there.
• JD is in a horrible slump. You don't believe me? What? You may want to look at his 1.00 batting average. I guess I jinxed him when I took that bet with MJ...(you don't want to know) You could also just visit WhiteSox.com and read it for yourself here.

 

Sox are up 4-1 at this point in my post. JD just popped out to score Pauly. I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch, but I would hope this is a good enough lead for Bobby Jenks and company to get us the win.

I'm heading to bed. I wouldn't want to show up to work all tired, now would I?

Oops - Thome just got caught off of third base for out number 3. That's not good times. Better hit the sack before they come back from this commercial break. I don't want any nightmares.

I took a quick lunch today in anticipation of heading downstairs to watch the game at the bar. I want that half hour of my life back. Contreras looked like CRAP. He kept the ball high and couldn't get anyone out. His line looks like this: 1 inning pitched, 7 hits, 8 runs, 8 Earned, 1 strike out, and 1 home run. It was a lead off home run. by Sizemore.

BRUTAL.

This isn't the start I expected from Contreras. It is a long season and I'm expecting this to be an aboration in his overall performance. Hopefully he can get his act together for his next start.

The only positive I can state so far is that Erstad went yard, and AJ looks great behind the plate. (defensively, not so sure about the pitch calling)

There is a lot of baseball left in this one, but I'm not too sure we can come back from a 9-2 deficit.

What an opening day buzzkill.

Today should be a holiday. The weather is going to be a perfect 65 degrees and I'm going to be stuck at work. I should be at the Cell enjoying the White Sox home opener against the Indians, but instead the MLB continues to let everyone down by sticking opening day on a Monday. I'm not the only one not happy about this...

I'll try to sneak some updates as the day goes on. Plus, I have my prediction for the AL Central, a quick rant on why I (and you) will miss Freddy Garcia, and who the White Sox will trade for mid-season.

It is spring again! Let's play ball!

GO WHITE SOX