By Roger Wallenstein

If the White Sox were a Chicago public school, they very well might find themselves on the list of 54 schools slated for closing because of low achievement and an empty building.
The Sox rank 26th – out of 30 major league teams – in runs scored, 28th in batting average, and dead last in on-base percentage. After Sunday’s 8-3 loss to Tampa Bay, they had outdrawn only three other franchises at home (and they are the league’s worst draw on the road).
However, things are not as bleak as they might appear.

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Posted on April 29, 2013

Curated by Steve Rhodes

Surprise first-round pick only started four more games in college than I did. Twitter reacts . . .
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Did anyone else reply “Kyle who?” when the Bears drafted Kyle Long? cbsloc.al/10EcXmZ

— KHitsChicago (@KHitsChicago) April 26, 2013

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Hub Arkush reacts after the Kyle Long selection: ‘Phil Emery just blew that pick.’ Listen to it here: cbsloc.al/12sKspb #Bears

— 670 The Score (@670TheScore) April 26, 2013

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Posted on April 26, 2013

By Dan O’Shea

Avid readers of Fantasy Fix may have noticed that I skipped ranking catchers earlier this spring in my pre-season fantasy baseball draft guide. Aside from RP, the big C is my least favorite fantasy position. After the top two or three or gone from the board, you might as well wait until the last few rounds to pick up a catcher.
After the season starts, you can also keep an eye on the waiver wire to see which catchers are starting the season strong, and if you’re quick enough you might just be able to pick up the best fantasy performer at the position.
That’s how the Mets’ John Buck has become one of the hottest waiver wire pick-ups overall in the early going.

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Posted on April 23, 2013

By Jim Coffman

Time to crank up the time machine – we have a hockey team in town that really needs to travel a week into the future.
Nothing good can happen for the Blackhawks in the next six days. Sure, they can clinch the President’s Trophy (awarded to the NHL team with the most regular-season points) with one more win, but even that has a dark side.
Two more points in their final four games ensures the Hawks, who have already clinched division and conference crowns, will finish ahead of Eastern Conference leader Pittsburgh. It would be the Hawks’ second President’s Trophy and their first in more than two decades.
The problem is that teams that win the Trophy often don’t win the Cup.

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Posted on April 22, 2013

By Steve Rhodes

“In less than seven months of regular-season baseball since Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and Sveum took over, the Cubs have gone from 101-game losers to simply laughable,” Gordon Wittenmyer writes in the Sun-Times
“Certainly, there’s lots of time left. But whether that’s a good thing is in serious doubt the way the team has looked, especially considering that the 5-1 loss to the Brewers, which included three more errors and four unearned runs, was played in maybe the best playing conditions of the season.
“No blaming the cold or the rain or the wind or the facilities at Wrigley or baseball gods, bogeymen or gremlins.”
As if those were ever acceptable excuses.

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Posted on April 22, 2013

By Roger Wallenstein

“The hardest single thing to do in sport is to hit a baseball,” Ted Williams once famously wrote in Sports Illustrated, which, coming from someone who was exceptionally proficient at the act, either was the truth or simply a proclamation that fed his ego. Probably both.
While not all of us agree with Teddy Ballgame, we can concur that hitting a sphere moving 90 miles an hour – often dipping, spinning, or curving- with a round club while standing 60-feet, 6-inches away is a specialized skill mastered by a minuscule percentage of our citizenry.
So doesn’t it make sense that a stationary round stick in the hands of a batter who simply is trying to make contact would have a much greater likelihood of success with that elusive orb than lumber in motion?
Yes, folks, we’re talking bunting here, something the White Sox, along with many other clubs, disdain and ignore. This from a team that swings at most anything – the Sox have drawn just 31 walks in this young season, the fewest in the American League – and frequently comes up empty, as evidenced by its 7.5 strikeouts a game.

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Posted on April 21, 2013

By Dan O’Shea

April has always seemed to me a great month to be a pitcher. In a lot of MLB cities, it’s still pretty darn cold outside. Position players in the field, wearing ear coverings and dancing in place, looking as if they would rather be anywhere else, while hitters, dressed like they’re going outside to build snowmen, act like they’re still working on their swing timing and afraid of getting a stinger if they actually connect with the ball.
In the middle of all this is the often bare-armed pitcher, generating so much heat from the torque of his motion that it looks like he’s actually very comfortable. Part of what’s making him feel that way is probably the thought that his arm will never feel for the rest of the season as good, as strong, and as un-sore as it feels in April.
Here’s a quick look at a few of the best arms of April 2013:

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Posted on April 16, 2013

By Steve Rhodes

It’s not even fun to watch out of spite anymore.
Not when you’re being fed Brent Lillibridge and Alberto Gonzalez and – still – Alfonso Soriano and Scott Feldman.
Not when a minor-league catcher starts at third and ends up on the DL because he swung too hard in the game’s final play.

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Posted on April 15, 2013

By Jim Coffman

You didn’t think it was possible, did you? You didn’t think this Cub season could be even worse than you projected.
Behold! They lost on Sunday at the end of a game featuring a new sort of trifecta – the opponent scored on a passed ball, a wild pitch and a balk. The wild pitch was one of five in one inning uncorked by Cubs pitchers Edwin Jackson and Michael Bowden. A new Major League record!

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Posted on April 15, 2013

By Roger Wallenstein

As kids, we watched a lot of Westerns on television. Not infrequently our father would pass through the room, gaze at the TV where the cowboys and Indians were going at it, and say, “Those Indians are so mad, they’re mad from another movie.”
Apparently former Sox outfielder Carlos Quentin is mad from another league.
The Indians had every reason to be angry, both in those outlandish films and obviously in real life. I’m not so sure about Quentin.

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Posted on April 15, 2013