By Marty Gangler

As I look at this 2016 incarnation of the Cubs, it’s hard for me not to think about my shoulder.
Sure, that sounds a bit odd, but I just had shoulder surgery. So I can’t think of much of anything right now without thinking about my shoulder.
For a little background, I initially hurt my shoulder 20-some years ago playing inline street hockey on a tennis court. I wiped out and my shoulder popped out of its socket. It would continue to do this over the years and I’d have to pop it back in myself. This got to be a bit too much to deal with and I had surgery to tighten up the joint. But now the issue has become too much to deal with again and I needed a clean-out. Weird thing these days is they give you a DVD of the surgery as the doc goes in with a camera himself to work his magic. Turns out I had a ton of scar tissue, loose debris, bone chips, even an old license plate from Louisiana in there.

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Posted on April 18, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

You can point to any number of factors leading to the early season success of the new, improved Chicago White Sox.
Robin Ventura’s club, as yet, hasn’t shown noticeably more punch than a year ago, scoring three or fewer runs in seven of the team’s first 12 games. What is different is that the Sox have won three of those games because Sox pitchers have a 2.49 ERA, tops in the American League and third in all of baseball.

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Posted on April 18, 2016

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

Ready to party on the Lido Deck. Plus: Same Old Sox!; Shhh! The Blackhawks Are In The Playoffs!; Chicago BullsShit; Big Trade In Draft Town: Chicago Racing Loses A Gem; and The Everton Minute.

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Posted on April 15, 2016

By Thomas Chambers

With the Wood Memorial (Aqueduct), Blue Grass Stakes (Keeneland) and Santa Anita Derby all Grade Is going off this weekend, you would think we’d have gotten more of a handle on at least three of the shooters who will run around in a circle on May 7th trying to win a blanket of roses and other prizes at Churchill Downs.
But after Saturday’s mudfest, all I can say is we don’t know much of nuthin’.
If you’re making your Kentucky Derby pick today, that’s a problem. But we’ll wait for the post parade and relax for now

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Posted on April 15, 2016

By Dan O’Shea

Every baseball season has its share of surprising, fantasy-relevant performers in the early going, but they always come tagged with the difficult question, “Is this guy for real?”
Here are a few of this season’s surprising early risers:

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Posted on April 14, 2016

Another Beachwood Special Report

The media is gushing about the Cubs’ new clubhouse, but are you really getting the full story? No! You’re only getting the sanitized version of the tour!

Not allowed to shoot thatRT @bbajema2000: @ESPNChiCubs did you get a picture or video of the party room? … https://t.co/s0m8BK04ZX

— Jesse Rogers (@ESPNChiCubs) April 12, 2016

It turns out there are plenty of parts to the clubhouse the media wasn’t allowed to see – but we did! Here’s what we can exclusively report:

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Posted on April 13, 2016

By Jim Coffman

I give up. It’s time to just be a fan for a while.
I’ve had massive reservations about the way this Cub team has been built. And I’ve gone on and on about them. Tanking three seasons was not OK with me, especially given ownership’s unwillingness to throw fans the tiniest of bones. (Would it have killed ya to knock a buck off the price of a ticket when the team was losing on purpose? We know the billionaire Ricketts family would have somehow survived the financial hit.)
When people yammered at me about Theo Epstein’s glorious “Plan,” I always pointed out that a big part of it was Ricky Renteria.
But I was a tiny minority, a fraction of a single percent. During the season after friends and I gave up our season tickets, the season the Cubs declined to compete for a third year in a row, attendance actually increased. That was also the season the team celebrated 100 years of losing by dubbing it a “Century at Wrigley.” The lemmings also known as cutesy Cubbie fans wouldn’t stop buying tickets.

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Posted on April 12, 2016

By Steve Rhodes

When we last left you, it was with limericks.
Let’s start the season the same way:
There once was a fielder named Schwarber
his parents wanted him to be a lawber
But he played ball instead
Rocks in his head
And then he ran into Dexter Fowler and ruined the season.

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Posted on April 11, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

I picked the right Opening Day.
Was it because I simply couldn’t wait four days to see the retooled White Sox? Did I have a premonition that the Sox and Cleveland would play in near-blizzard conditions at The Cell on Friday? Or as the featured match-up between Chris Sale and the A’s Sonny Gray was too intriguing to pass up. (Gray got the stomach flu, possibly the first sign that luck just might be on the Sox side this season.)
No, I just happened to be a lot closer to Oakland than Chicago last week, and I’d never seen a White Sox road opener. Nor had I ever visited the, ah, Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. I mean, the O.co Coliseum. Correction: the Oakland Coliseum. Possibly Overstock.com didn’t pay its bills. Hence the new moniker for the decrepit stadium, built in 1966 for football.
Whatever they call it – since the A’s moved to Oakland in 1968, the place also has been the Network Associates Coliseum and the McAfee Coliseum, a salute to nearby Silicon Valley – this is not the place where baseball should be played. You might even declare the venue off limits to children 12 and under.

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Posted on April 11, 2016

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

Brizzo on the basepaths. Plus: Latos To The Party; Blackhawks Blues; Bulls Go Out With A Whimpering Screech; Mock Draft Mockery 2.0; Iverson, Shaq and Swoopes!; and The Everton Minute: Nani!

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Posted on April 8, 2016