By Marty Gangler

Finally! September baseball that is completely meaningless.
With the Pirates pretty much icing up the home field wild-card game, we are back to not really caring what happens during the last week of the season. So let’s all take this week to relax, maybe step away for the team for a few games and enjoy life a little.
Because that game on Wednesday, October 7, is going to be a real doozy. The ghosts of playoff pasts may not haunt these happy-go-lucky Cubs, or this manager, or this management staff, but they haunt the fans. They haunt the fans a lot.

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Posted on September 28, 2015

By Roger Wallenstein

The Yogiisms and the lovable gnome of a man are not what I remember most. No, the havoc Lawrence Peter Berra, who died last week at the age of 90, wreaked on a consistently talented White Sox team in the 1950s is what I recall most clearly.
As the current sorry edition of White Sox players – most of whom no doubt recognize Berra solely from AFLAC ads – gazed from their dugout at Yankee Stadium prior to last Thursday’s game as New York manager Joe Girardi, a former Yankee catcher for four seasons in the ’90s, along with three present Yankee catchers laid a flowered wreath in the shape of Yogi’s number 8 in the catcher’s box at home plate. No doubt nostalgia hung from every rafter of The Bronx shrine, but aging Sox fans could be excused for recalling the manner in which Berra extinguished hopes and dreams.

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Posted on September 28, 2015

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

An opportunity for heroism missed. Plus: The Score’s Finest Hour; The Psychology Of Bases & Fandom; The Devil’s Manager; Seahawks Game-Planning A Slaughter; ‘Night, Sky; Chicago Fire Fired; and The Chicago White Sox Are Still Playing For Some Reason.

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Posted on September 26, 2015

By Carl Mohrbacher

Ouch . . . My Hamstring
In a game that felt like the Arizona Cardinals won 51-17, the Arizona Cardinals won 48-23. A demoralizing afternoon in which the Bears not only lost the contest, but their number one receiver (prior to) and their number one quarterback (during) the game.
And that one really would have hurt if Arizona offensive coordinator Harold Goodwin hadn’t called (effective) passing plays well into the last two minutes of the game despite an insurmountable lead . . .
Oh.
At this point I’m confident in saying that Bruce Arians was having a little fun at the expense of this franchise after losing out on the Bears head coaching job to Marc Trestman in 2013.

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Posted on September 23, 2015

By Dan O’Shea

Almost without argument, the most disappointing fantasy football performer of the first two weeks has been the Colts’ Andrew Luck.
In the preseason, Luck was considered the top fantasy QB by a clear, if not wide, margin. After a season of more than 4,700 passing yards and 40 pass TDs last year, you were not in the minority if you thought he could and would do better this year.
Yet, through two games, he has 493 passing yards and three TDs against five INTs. The yardage is not bad at all, but he has only accomplished it playing from behind and chasing his own mistakes

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Posted on September 23, 2015

By Steve Rhodes

Anonymous sources, reckless rumors and uninformed speculation. Plus: My Only Japonais Story; United Airlines Has Finally Gone Too Far; Steve Reads The New York Post; and Steve Looks At Tinder.

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Posted on September 22, 2015

1,500-Meter Swim In Lake Michigan, 40-Kilometer Bike Ride And 10-Kilometer Run

“Gwen Jorgensen won the ITU World Triathlon Series’ Grand Final [in Chicago] on Friday for her second straight season championship,” KSTP-TV reports.
“Jorgensen, from St. Paul, Minnesota, has won 12 straight events. She finished the 1,500-meter swim in Lake Michigan, 40-kilometer bike ride and 10-kilometer run in 1 hour, 55 minutes, 36 seconds.”
Highlights:

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Posted on September 22, 2015

By Jim Coffman

Can’t I just write about the Cubs this week?
I mean, despite the tough loss yesterday, the local baseball team that was the inspiration for the name of the local football team (I still wish Mr. Halas had stuck with “Staleys,” but that name was awfully connected to Decatur), has more than a few things going for it. The Bears on the other hand? Zip, zilch, zero, donut.
For one thing, I’m pretty sure all the Cubs understand the rules, as opposed to, say, the Bears cornerbacks.

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Posted on September 21, 2015

By Marty Gangler

After another week of baseball magic, it’s pretty certain the Cubs will make the playoffs. With this as a fact, the next issue is not who the Cubs will be playing. Nope. That is irrelevant to what we will be discussing here. The issue here is where do you watch the playoffs. Because this isn’t a “We’ll see how the series goes” type deal. This is a one-game, team-defining, possibly season-ending game. The Cubs haven’t played a game of this type in like forever. It’s like Instant Cup-O-Game Seven. So where do you watch the game? What are the pros and cons of each location?

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Posted on September 21, 2015

By Roger Wallenstein

Sitting in the September warmth last Thursday as one of the announced crowd of 12,406 at the miserably named U.S. Cellular Field, I couldn’t help but think that my beloved team is rapidly becoming irrelevant.
This was even before heralded closer David Robertson was tagged for a ninth-inning, three-run homer off the bat of Billy Butler, giving the Oakland A’s a 4-2 win and a split of the four-game series.
I can understand if most observers realized long ago the irrelevancy of this team and its franchise, but there is this emotion called loyalty which gets in the way for many of us. Some might call it stupidity.
However, last week ghosts from across the street might have been stirring. Not White Sox ghosts from the old ball park called Comiskey which, of course, resided exactly where we had parked our car last Thursday. Cardinal ghosts.

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Posted on September 20, 2015