By Thomas Chambers

Checking the horse racing crawl, as often happens, it’s much more than just a great horse returning to the track. We see good, bad, sad and suspicious.
I know it’s the Sabbath for a lot of people, but set your DVR to 4 p.m. Sunday, NBC, as our newly minted Triple Crown winner American Pharoah faces seven challenged challengers in the William Hill Haskell Invitational Stakes (Grade 1, 9 furlongs, and more on the $1.75 million purse later) from beautiful Monmouth Park, hard by Springsteen’s Asbury Park promised land. You’ll see the term “invitational” in the quiz later.

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Posted on July 31, 2015

By AP

“No blaming or booing the umpire for a questionable called third strike at a Northern California independent league. A computer will call balls and strikes as the home plate umpire handles all of his other regular duties.”

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Posted on July 30, 2015

By Dan O’Shea

It’s an exciting week in the fantasy baseball world, as the looming trade deadline means that several players are changing their uniforms and possibly their fantasy fortunes.
However, it’s also a critical week for fantasy football, with a handful of NFL training camps already open and the rest set to start in the next couple of days.
For those of you who want to hear about how much more fantasy value SP Johnny Cueto has after leaving Cincinnati, please skip to the end of this column. If you’re more interested in Matt Forte’s fantasy value, let’s begin:

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Posted on July 29, 2015

In the wake of the first player from Major League Baseball’s three development centers in China signing with a Major League team, young players from MLB China look to impress scouts. Nathan Frandino reports.

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Posted on July 28, 2015

By Roger Wallenstein

At 3 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, this silliness known as the Trade Deadline will be behind us. It can’t come too soon.
Not that there is a problem with players being dealt to new clubs. That practice has been part of Organized Baseball since the beginning.
Granted, until 40 years ago with the ascension of the Players Association, the athletes were completely at the mercy of the owners in terms of where they would be performing. Nowadays free-agents-to-be like Jeff Samardzija simply need to be patient and pitch where they are told until they can entertain offers from anyone.
What is redundant and bothersome is all the blather about buyers or sellers, who is going where, who are the best prospects, and which rent-a-player is most likely to make a difference. I have a lot of company from those who much prefer the action on the field to all the rumors and conjecture.

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Posted on July 27, 2015

By Marty Gangler

Today’s Cub Factor is all about loss. And not just losing on the field, because the Cubs sure did a lot of in the last week. It’s about the biggest loss on the roster in some time. Yes friends, I’m talking about the loss of Edwin Jackson.
The Cubs parted ways with E-Jax since our last installment of the Cub Factor and boy, was he missed. He could have easily got to pitch in at least three games in the last week in his “eat innings in mop-up duty in games they have little chance of winning” role.
Just so weird that the Cubs had so few of these games they had little chance of winning up until the point when they DFA’d E-Jax; then they got three in a week.
And what is the whole “DFA” thing about? Technically it means “designated for assignment,” but I always thought that was odd. Like you are assigning them a project or homework or something. So, with this in mind we here at the Cub Factor have decided to create a list of assignments that should be given to our newest ex-cub, Edwin Jackson.

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Posted on July 27, 2015

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

Seasonal baseball disorder in reverse. Plus: The Same Old New Jay Cutler; The Chicago Fire Did Something This Week; Chicago Sky Still Rolling; and Duck, North Carolina.

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Posted on July 24, 2015

By Dan O’Shea

Late July is when the portion of the brain that has been entirely devoted to fantasy baseball since April starts to yield some space to a few inklings, thoughts and prognostications regarding fantasy football. I’m not ready to unveil my top pre-draft position rankings just yet, but here are a few points I’m mulling over as I prepare my list:
Does Adrian Peterson, RB, MIN, deserve to be the No. 1 fantasy draft pick this year, with his contract issues settled? I’ve read some observations that a restructured contract was the only thing standing between A.P. and a massive season to come. I don’t know about that. He’s 30 years old and has to shake off some rust, though he’s also in “ridiculously good shape.” He also returns to an offense, headed by second-year QB Teddy Bridgewater, that is likely to lean more than ever on him as a rusher and give him more work as a receiver. I’ll tell you right now he’s one of my top two fantasy players overall.

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Posted on July 23, 2015

Let It Ride On Babe The 50-Year-Old Filly

“An elephant race through Chicago in 1935 is among one million minutes of archive footage being uploaded to YouTube.”

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Posted on July 22, 2015

On The Streets Of Chicago, With No Time For Taylor Swift

1. BMX Day in Chicago.
From BMX Union:

Saturday, July 18th was international BMX day. Monster Energy threw a massive 5 event day with Street Series jams going down in Riga, Latvia, Glasgow, Scotland, Nagoya, Japan, Chicago, Illinois and San Francisco, California. BMX Union is excited to present to you a video from the Monster Energy Street Series stop in Chicago! Despite being incredibly hot with temps in the 90’s, there was a massive turn out of riders. This video features riding from Timmy Theus, Dan Kruk, Trent McDaniel, Joe Jarvis, Dylan Gold, Alex Duleba, Mike Stahl, Austin Auginbaugh, Julias Carrasquillo, Dylan McCauley, Mike Strong and Carlo Hoffmann! Filmed and edited by Andrew Brady.

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Posted on July 21, 2015