By Roger Wallenstein

Last Wednesday’s White Sox 3-0 loss to Boston wasn’t a total defeat. No, it was a near-perfect opportunity to sum up this exasperating, forgettable season.
For openers, Chris Sale was on the mound, opposed by Rick Porcello. The Red Sox starter hadn’t pitched since July 29 when the White Sox pummeled him for 10 hits and five earned runs before Porcello departed after three batters in the top of the third inning. Adam Eaton led off that game at Fenway Park by hitting one into the right-field seats, and Alexei Ramirez started the third inning with another four-bagger.
After that game, Porcello was placed on the disabled list with what was termed a “right triceps strain,” not a good situation since he’s right-handed.
Despite Porcello’s recent hiatus, apparently he has been healthy for much of the season since he’s made 21 starts, but the results haven’t been good. The guy was 5-11 with an ERA of 5.81 going into Wednesday’s contest.

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Posted on August 31, 2015

By Thomas Chambers

As if a man just off a bender, an apt analogy really, American Pharoah’s owner roller-coasted the full range of emotions.
“I have a huge responsibility,” owner Ahmed Zayat said after ‘Pharoah’s second-place finish in The Travers Stakes on Saturday. “I haven’t spoken to my family, and (trainer) Bob (Baffert), but you start questioning yourself. Have I pushed the envelope too much? He was happy and he’s special and he is the Triple Crown winner. Then you have to ask yourself, ‘Is the show over? Is it time?'”
After ‘Pharoah’s loss, at legendary Saratoga, nicknamed the Graveyard of Champions for just the kind of thing that happened this weekend, the first thing I thought is that Zayat is going to feel terrible. He’ll say whatever is on his mind, including my gasping fear: retirement for the first Triple Crown winner in 37 years.

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Posted on August 30, 2015

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

The entitled Derrick Rose. Plus: UniCubs and Lollipops; Insane Clown Bullpen; The Team Without Jade; The Quality Fifth Start; 0-16; The White Sox Have A Core Four!; The Chicago Fire Did Something This Week; So Did The Chicago Sky.

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Posted on August 28, 2015

The tight end position is not one where you typically find a lot of fantasy depth, but this season features a long list of pretty bankable TEs whose careers are either just peaking or about to peak. I can say for the first time in years that I feel pretty confident identifying at least the first eight guys on this list as picks that will help you win draft day.
Even as deep as No. 18 on this list you can find one of the most reliable TEs of the previous season. This is way different than last year, when the back half of my TE rankings consisted mostly of speculation on how what the increase in tandem-TE offensive schemes could mean for certain players’ fantasy values.
This year, there is enough depth at TE that I’m offering up a Fantasy Fix first for this position – three sleeper candidates.

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Posted on August 27, 2015

By Jim Coffman

It cannot be helped. A team plays well and a little optimism creeps in no matter how lousy its overall prospects. And so it goes that a fan starts to hope that maybe just maybe the Bears won’t be the worst team in the NFL this year.
We’re not losing our minds here. The extent of this budding optimism is that this team might finish 4-12 instead of 3-13 after the Bears wrapped up the latest week of the preseason on Sunday. It was a week that featured practices and then an exhibition game against a good Indianapolis Colts team on Saturday that resulted in an 11-9 loss.
What’s that you say? The Bears won 23-11! People, the score at the half is what matters.

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Posted on August 24, 2015

By Marty Gangler

Isn’t this fun?
I think as a fan I could get used to this whole “winning” thing.
And even the guys that I kind of don’t care too much for have been playing great. I mean, sure, Dexter Fowler is still batting .257 for the season, but his OBP in August is .427. He’s turned his season around since the All-Star break.
And I still don’t like Chris Coghlan so much, but there is a big difference having a questionable guy playing second base opposed to left field. Second base is where questionable guys belong.

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Posted on August 24, 2015

By Roger Wallenstein

What is it that Sox fans really dislike about manager Robin Ventura?
In this fourth season of Ventura’s tenure, the typical fan’s patience for losing has been sorely tested, and the result is not pleasant. Cries of “It’s not the manager’s fault” are rarely heard. Most observers are quick to point their finger at Ventura and his staff because of lack of execution. We groan at the inability to hit the cutoff man or when one of our athletes tries to go from second to third on a grounder to short. The assumption is that the team hasn’t been schooled in the fundamentals that successful clubs master and execute.
However, we have little or no access to what goes on behind the scenes. We are not privy to clubhouse protocols and procedures on the part of the manager and coaches. The media provide little or no information about the day-to-day preparation. Transparency doesn’t exist so that it is difficult to assess Ventura’s managerial qualities.

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Posted on August 24, 2015

By Roger Wallenstein

After reading Michael Sneed’s ridiculous column this week about Michael Jordan’s dinner at what she calls “the city’s new and hip seafood eatery,” C Chicago, my insight into today’s boorish behavior of so many of our athletes again is reaffirmed.
Set the bar low enough, and the simple, polite, civil actions – those which many of us perform daily – become celebrated. Furthermore, there’s a direct relationship between the stature of an idol like MJ and the height of the bar which descends lower and lower as the star power rises.

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Posted on August 22, 2015

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

Maddon for Mayor. Plus: Babe “Bam Bam” Schwarber, Ace Arrieta & Cogsy; The Chicago White Sox Did Something This Week; Chasing David Haugh; The Chicago Fire Did Something This Week; Vic Fangio Does Not Walk On Water; Two-Minute Mess; and The Erik Kramer Story Once Again Raises The Question: Should You Let Your Kids Play Football?

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Posted on August 21, 2015

By David Epstein/ProPublica and Michael J. Joyner, Special to ProPublica

Earlier this month, London’s Sunday Times and German broadcaster ARD published a joint investigation on doping in track and field that included an analysis of 12,000 leaked blood tests from 5,000 athletes between 2001 and 2012. The tests had been carried out by the IAAF, track and field’s international governing body. Two respected experts in doping methods said blood tests of 800 of the athletes were “highly suggestive of doping or at the very least abnormal.” Ten runners who won medals in endurance events at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London had suspicious test results. And a startling 80 percent of Russian medalists recorded tests that showed likely doping. The vast majority of athletes with suspicious tests were never sanctioned.
On Saturday, the 2015 track and field world championships kick off and, of course, some athletes who are doping will vie for medals. Most will not be caught; only 1 to 2 percent of tests in international Olympic sports result in sanctions each year. If doping is so rife in track and field, why are athletes penalized so rarely? It’s partly because many suspicious tests don’t quite reach the high evidence bar to be considered officially positive. But it’s also because doping athletes tend to employ methods that make drug testing extremely difficult. As Paul Scott, head of Scott Analytics, which provides testing services in multiple sports has put it: “Drug testing has a public reputation that far exceeds its capabilities.”
Here’s a look at why drug tests will never snare every cheater.

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Posted on August 20, 2015