By Roger Wallenstein

One of the many stories Bill Veeck would tell about his daddy, who was president of the Cubs in the 1930s, was this one: One afternoon he was in his father’s office where the stacks of cash from that day’s game receipts were resting on the old man’s desk.
“Can you tell where this money came from?” Veeck Sr. asked the puzzled young Bill. The lesson? A dollar has the same value regardless of whence it came – be it from the wealthy or the poor, from white, brown, or black folks, or from immigrants or native-born Americans. All paying patrons were welcome at Veeck’s ballpark.
And yet, baseball still faces great challenges attracting dollars from across the spectrum. I thought about this while reading The South Side, the new book from WBEZ’s Natalie Moore, during the same week as Cinco De Mayo, when the Sox entertained the Red Sox in the finale of a three-game series while the Nationals invaded Wrigley Field for the first of a four-game set.

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Posted on May 9, 2016

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

Cubs can pick any eight players and put ’em at any position and they’ll win. Plus: Crane Kenney, Still Employed By Cubs, Strikes Again; Rahm Emanuel Is The Crane Kenney Of Mayors; Dusty Cannot Be Trustied; Rogers!; Ding Dong Danks; Leicester vs. Lester, and much, much more!

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Posted on May 6, 2016

By Thomas Chambers

“If the Super Bowl is the ultimate game, how come there is another one next year?” – Duane Thomas, 1972
So here we are, wiseguys, civilians, hot chicks donning architectural and pretty hats. Party people do it all over, I know. And it certainly beats by a long way Tom Brady jerseys on the naugahyde sectional.
A few famous beauties who surprise you (I’ve learned don’t be surprised by the ladies vis a vis the horses) and back up their picks with élan. Good whiskey, great jockeys and the best three-year-old Thoroughbred race horses America has to offer.
Even Lani, shipping in from his home in Japan. Remember, he was bred in Old Kentucky, but he’s not a crumb over here: son of Tapit, grandson of Sunday Silence.

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Posted on May 6, 2016

By Dan O’Shea

Last week, I pitched a few ideas for waiver wire pick-ups to improve your starting rotation. This week, let’s shop for sluggers.
HRs is one of the easiest stat categories to draft for – look at who had 35 or more dingers last year, and it’s a pretty good bet those guys will be swatting more HRs this year. The list of HR leaders doesn’t vary all that much from year to year. It comes as no surprise, for example, to see Nolan Arenado MLB with 11 HRs after he hit 42 last year. Same goes for Josh Donaldson and Bryce Harper, who both have nine HRs after one month of play, and notched 41 and 42, respectively, in 2015. These guys are doing exactly what we thought they would do.
It’s a little more of a surprise to see Trevor Story or Neil Walker at nine HRs. Both exploded out of the gate the first couple weeks of the season, and are pretty much unavailable now unless you want to trade for them.
Fortunately, if your squad is suffering from a power outage, you still have waiver-wire options:

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Posted on May 5, 2016

By Colin Hyde/The Conversation

It would be surprising if you had not been caught up in the fever surrounding Leicester City’s fairy tale triumph in the English Premier League, defying odds of 5,000-1 to win the country’s most prestigious football competition.
But beyond the fact that the city has scored a sporting success, what else do you know about Leicester? You may have read that historians found the grave of the deposed King Richard III under a Leicester car park in 2012. But you’d still just be scratching the surface. Here are five things you need to know about Leicester.

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Posted on May 4, 2016

By Justin Madden/Reuters

The National Wrestling Hall of Fame on Monday revoked all awards bestowed upon former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert after he admitted in court to sexually abusing students years ago when he was a high school wrestling coach.
The organization’s board of governors unanimously voted for the revocation after an ethics committee found Hastert’s actions to be “detrimental to the ideals and objectives” of the Wrestling Hall of Fame, according to a statement on its website.
Lee Roy Smith, the body’s executive director, said in the statement the board wanted to wait until Hastert’s criminal case was over before making a decision.

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Posted on May 3, 2016

By AP

“The first concussion study of its kind found youth football players are more likely to return to play less than a day after injury than those in high school and college.”

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Posted on May 3, 2016

By Marty Gangler

I would consider myself a baseball fan. Sure, I’m a Cub fan first, but I play fantasy baseball and keep up with other teams, watch the highlight shows, yadda yadda. But I have to say, who are these guys? Not the Cub guys; I know those guys. I’m talking about the Brewers and Braves, Twins and Padres, Reds, etc. It’s like you woke up one day and looked around and everything changed while you sleeping. But you were not even sleeping, it was while you were awake and still kind of paying attention.
And just no way you can’t blame the Cubs for this. It’s all their fault. Maybe partial blame on the Astros, but so far that’s not working out this season. Tanking has officially taken over baseball. Which I guess is good for no-longer-tanking teams like the Cubs, but it’s just super weird. What happened to finding lightning in a bottle for that one season? Or having like three guys on your team all have career years to vault your team into contention that one time? Or the blind and idiotic optimism of a franchise that thinks it could put together a 2007 Colorado Rockies-like 14-game or so win streak to make it into the playoffs? It’s all gone.

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Posted on May 1, 2016

By Roger Wallenstein

I’ve always had a soft spot for ballplayers who – I’d like to be kind here – appear to be far from tip-top condition. You wonder how they could possibly show up every day prepared to face the arduous 162-game grind. They’re anywhere from a touch overweight to borderline obese, like, say, Bartolo Colon.
In no other sport would these athletes be able to race up and down the court or field. How many fat hockey players do you see? Rafa Nadal must have negative body fat. Sure, there are some pot-bellied football linemen, but they also have biceps the size of redwoods, and they run 40 yards in well under five seconds.
Baseball is in a class of its own. The man who propelled the sport into the national consciousness was a gluttonous drinker whose idea of a training meal was a couple of steaks, a mountain of fries and a six-pack. Almost 100 years later, the legend of Babe Ruth arguably is even larger than the reality of his 714 home runs and .342 lifetime average, while current players work out relentlessly and eat kale.
So it is that two anti-Adonises have played important roles so far in this surprising season for the White Sox, who are 18-8 after winning five of seven in Toronto and Baltimore over the past week.

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Posted on May 1, 2016

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

L-I-V-I-N. Plus: Leonard “Pink” Floyd; Johnny Oduya, MVP: No Danks You; Cubs Have Owies; Jake Arrieta vs. Dee Gordon; and The Everton Minute.

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Posted on April 29, 2016