ChicagoSportsBlogs : Non Compete

I went to the Cubs/Dodgers game yesterday. It must have been one of the coldest games I've ever attended.   Of course when I bought these tickets I never thought it was going to be 35 degrees in late May, even if it is Chicago. But there I was, sitting with my freezing wife watching Sean Gallagher pitch a pretty good game. It was actually entertaining. The Cubs were down 1-0 for the majority of the game until they broke through in the 7th on a ground ball from Fontenot.This game reminded me of a lot of White Sox games this year. Take the faltering veteran, Jim Edmonds as an example. He can't get a hit to save his life. The Sox have 2 crafty, yet faltering veterans at the plate too; Thome and Konerko. The pitching also reminded me a lot of recent Sox games. The starter goes deep, gives up a cheap run and ends up with ZERO support. As for Hollywood Jim, he  hit a couple of deep fly balls in this game that should have landed out on Waveland if not for the brisk wind blowing in. Tough break for Edmonds. I don't see him staying with the North-siders for much longer. This is especially true with Reed Johnson doing so well.

As for last night's game, the Cubs eventually pulled it off thanks to Aramis Ramirez and the new superstar Fukudome's clutch hitting. I stayed for the entire game and was pleasantly surprised to see Kerry Wood get the save. Our seats where close enough to actually gauge the pure heat Wood still throws. He gave up a pretty good single in the 9th on a straight fast ball and then proceeded to throw offspeed stuff to the next batter. I'm not sure why. Just because a guy catches up to your "good stuff" doesn't necessarily mean you go away from it. Especially with the heater Wood still has. He eventually figured this out (probably with Soto's help) and went back to the fastball to close out the victory.

This was the only game I was able to get tickets for at Wrigley, and I was disappointed that my awesome seats were wasted on a super-cold night. The good pitching from Gallagher kept most of the Cubs fans in check and by working quickly, I was able to actually dash out of there before the Go-Cubs-Go sing-a-long stopped. Overall, not a bad day at the ballpark.

[Note: The Cubs are in first place, and so are the Sox. And the Trib is already salivating here]

The Bulls fortunes might be changing. Yes, this team is a mess. They are in my opinion one of the biggest dissapointments in the NBA this year. You can't deny that there were a TON of predictions that had the Bulls going to at least the Eastern Conference Finals. My favorite is from ESPN, here. The positive words used to describe how young and talented the Bulls were is enough to give me diabetes. What went wrong? Honestly, I could care less. I've slowly lost my interest in basketball on the professional level. I just can't be bothered. I only went to a single Bulls game this year and it was against the Celtics. It looked like a warm up for the Celtics. They stepped on the gas only when they felt it absolutely necessary. It was pathetic. The ony thing these pre-season predictions got right was the fact we had a young team. Deng, Gordon, Noah, Heinrich, Wallace (at the time), it was supposed to be good times on the West Side. Bad times might be coming to a quick end after tonight's events.

The Chicago Bulls just won the first pick in this year's NBA Draft. The lottery was held tonight and I have to tell you, I didn't expect the Bulls to get anything more than what was predicted (by the odds): the 9th pick overall. That all changed tonight when the Bulls and their 1.7 % chance at getting the first pick were the final ones to the podium. This is a significant turn of events. Early mock drafts have the number one pick in the draft either Michael Beasley or Chicago's own Derrick Rose.

My phone rang the instant the Bulls got the first pick. CDub did me the favor and interrupted a shouting match between me and my old man. It was over his Ebay habit, which is out of control. Not Charles Barkley out of control, but I digress. CDub has me all excited that the Bulls get to pick either Rose or Beasley. He would take Beasley, and just as he says his name the other line rings. It's the Dr. Bill. The conversation goes like this:

Me: Hello?

Bill: I have 2 words for you. Derrick. Rose.

And there it is ladies and gentlemen. The debate begins. The pleading with the Bulls front office to sign a competent coach starts NOW. The snide comments and the middle finger go to D'Antoni for taking that offer from the Knicks before even hearing our offer.  What do you think now coach? Want to be a Bull? Both of these young men are special players. We're going to be hearing a lot about how the Bears passed on a local kid (Mendenhall) in their draft. Do the Bulls dare to do the same and pass on Rose?

I've been wrapping some stuff up these past few days and as a result my posting has lagged. Typical. But I had to come out of the woodwork for this story. No, it's not about Brian Urlacher holding out, nor is it about how the White Sox can't buy a hit, or how the Cubs are playing inspiring baseball. I want to focus this post on the recent Spygate events.  Matt Walsh, former video assistant for the all-powerful New England Patriots, was finally cornered in a room and asked to elaborate on exactly what he was taping. I think it is funny to watch everyone freak out about this form of cheating. It's amazing how no one wants to talk about steroid use in the NFL, but illegal video taping is the topic de jour. Burn them at the stake! 

Chief amongst all the freaking-outers is none other than Senator Arlen Spector. I found a nice write up on this blog about how ridiculous the Senator's reaction was to the NFL's recent video conspiracy. I have to agree with almost all the points in this blog post. Spector is a nut job. If his main concern is to investigate the NFL for a video-taping rules violation it can only mean one of two things:

1. Spector lost a shit-load of money these past two years betting against the Patriots. You have to wonder, how much cash does a Senator have to lose gambling for him to publicly admonish the guy acting like the playground monitor for the NFL (Roger, I'm looking at you)

2. Spector is an enraged, totally insane sports fan. Isn't he pissed about the Patriots win over the Eagles a few years back? Isn't this guy an Eagles fan? What happened? Did he run out of batteries to throw at his fellow Congressmen?

I have a huge problem with my tax dollars being spent on frivolous crap in this country. Spending millions of dollars on an NFL investigation is at the top of this list of crap. We are about to run into a very tough economic trend that has me spending more and more of my check on gas and food. I can't drive by my local BP without the price of gas increasing by 10 cents (AT LEAST)

The fine Senator from PA is off his rocker if he thinks spending our hard earned cash to investigate a football league is going to fly with his constituents. But what do I know? I'm actually shocked that we don't have ANY of the candidates running for Pres-o-dent chime in on this issue. I guess it doesn't garner enough interest? I mean who cares right? I can hear this idiot now.."We have to protect the integrity of the game!"

Slow down sparky! Wouldn't the market just correct itself? If fans knew that illegal taping of games was running rampant, couldn't they vote with their wallets and stop attending games or stop watching them on TV? I don't think Congress wants to talk about the NFL. Christ, there is a WAR going on across the pond. Shouldn't these "educated" Congressmem focus on that? Is football really that important? (ducking the tomatoes)  Did Spector lose his fantasy pool as a result of this??

What is the big deal? Sports is entertainment. It isn't healthcare, food supply, energy, or economics. The Congress would do right by us by ignoring this crackpot and loaning him $5 to pay his debt.  Someone stop this insanity before I Iose all my faith in mankind.

Sox tied 1-1 in the 6th, in LA/Anaheim. Maybe Congress should hold a hearing to investigate why Paul Konerko can't hit water if he fell out of a boat. Wait. We need a better closing metaphor. Aaahhh just forget it. We're in a recession. I'll just reuse that old cliche.

What kind of blogger would I be if I didn't end the night with a quick few words on our starting running back, Cedric Benson. You see, Ced was out getting his drink on this weekend in Austin, Texas. This dude is living large on a 37 foot yacht. That's not a boat mofo! That's a YACHT.

You'd think that Cedric would be in the gym working on getting ready for the fight of his life after the Bears drafted Matt Forte in the second round of this year's draft. If that wasn't enough, Jerry Angelo might actually be giving up on Benson. His comments after drafting Forte were not favorable to Benson and his role on this coming Bears team. But for now, let's focus on how Cedric is disputing the charges. Is it really that far fetched that a couple of cops in Austin were over zealous in their handling of Benson? MJ and I were talking about it and he brought up a good point. The cops don't know Benson as well as we do in Chicago. He speaks slow, but it ain't because he is high or drunk. That's just Cedric. Never in a hurry. What's that you say? His eyes aren't open all the way? Well, that explains a lot. No wonder he can't hit the hole. He can't see it. I mean come on! You really think that Cedric was operating his 37ft yacht while drunk?

Actually, yes. I do. I'm going to put it to you like this. I've never been on a boat in Texas, but I'm sure there is a difference between being a drunk white guy on a boat and a drunk black guy who is ripped, inked, and shouting at you behind the wheel of a yacht. I'm just saying! Hell, I'll take it even further. Texas has strict laws about BWI because there are a lot of unfortunate accidents that happen on the water down there. My opinion of most people who enjoy boating is that they also enjoy drinking. Boating and drinking go hand in hand. Don't believe me? Go up to Fox Lake. The only thing that out paces the mullet count in Illinois' waterways is the number of PBR cans in that cooler by your feet.

The bottom line is that this isn't going to be great news for Benson. He might be telling the truth. He may not have had to be sprayed in the face with pepper spray. He may have passed the 2 sobriety tests on the boat. He also may have been singled out because of who he was. In either case, the Bears have some serious soul searching to do, and they better do it before the NFL's new sheriff does it for them.

I hope I don't have to print "Free Cedric Benson" T-shirts in a few weeks.

Bear Down. (on an AA meeting)

The White Sox are on a 6 game losing streak. We just the series to the Blue Jays in Toronto. I watched the majority of this game tonight and I am astonished to see how pathetic our hitters are. I can't even begin to explain it. It's not always because they aren't taking enough pitches. They just aren't hitting the ball well. They aren't seeing it and they are wasting their starter's great pitching as a result. Vazquez got 9 strikeouts tonight, only walking one batter. He gave up an unfortunate home run to Matt Stairs in the 7th, but other than that slip up the guy looked great. I'd be pissed if I was Coop and the pitching staff. We know Ozzie is pissed already.

What can Ozzie do? Well, he could go on a foul-mouthed tirade. Oh wait. He already did that. This was a classic Ozzie move. He couldn't take it out on his veteran ball club because they simply won't stand for it. Can you imagine Jim Thome in the clubhouse listening to that? I can't. I've heard that Ozzie's bench interviews are pretty similar to yesterday's tirade, but somehow I don't think he typically says horseshit as much.

Crede missed the game because of a migraine. As a result the line-up was mixed up heavily. Ozzie moved Swisher down to the 6th spot. I guess he was trying to get the guy some RBIs. The problem is that everyone ahead of Swisher had a total of 2 hits all night. Pathetic.

So maybe it's time to start finding solutions instead of talking about the problems. (this is an old team, we are slow, can't hit, defense is suspect in spots) I thought I had a solution, but someone has already emailed WhiteSox.com with my idea. Jerry Owens should get the call. The point they make is that Jerry won't start. And this is my problem. I'm not saying panic should set in...yet, but I think we're starting to really show our age. I think that our outfield would be much better if Owens was out there. I understand he won't take Quentin's spot because he is currently our strongest hitter, but JD is technically still hurt. Either that or age has finally caught up to the big man. He can't run down fly balls as well as he used to and frankly, I never thought extending him was a good idea. But this isn't a solution as the writer points out on the Sox website. There just isn't enough room for Owens without either moving JD or putting him on the DL. I love JD and I think he can still hit a ton, but I'm afraid if he doesn't start doing it now, we're going to be left holding the 70 loss bag. At least.

Jerry Owens has speed and he would fit great as a lead off man. He can't possibly feel the pressure when he comes up because the offense is sputtering anyway. Ramirez should be moved to triple-A to make room. We can't let this season slip away. Ozzie, make it happen.

Maybe all we need is home cooking. Twins come to town tomorrow.

Lets get some hits, and eventually some runs!

Go Go White Sox!