By Marty Gangler

Every Monday (or close to) we here at The Cub Factor try to figure out what we learned from the previous week. A lot of times we learn nothing; we can even forget things on occasion. But this week I want to discuss something that made me more confused than anything. I’d like to discuss rooftops.
I was fortunate enough to get on a rooftop for the Cubs-Dodgers game on Saturday night. And even though I’ve been on a rooftop in the past – one other time – some new questions arose this time.

Read More

Posted on May 7, 2012

By Jim Coffman

The Sixers played poorly on Sunday and still defeated the Bulls 89-82 for a 3-1 lead in the teams’ first-round playoff series. In case Derrick Rose’s injury wasn’t enough, Joakim Noah suffered a brutal sprained ankle in the previous game and was forced to sit out. I would say the local basketball season is on its last legs except the Bulls at this point don’t even have a leading leg to stand on.
And while the Cubs have played better these past two weeks, all it has amounted to is that they are now only a game behind Pittsburgh for second-to-last in the NL Central. Their season was over before it began. As for the other team in town, well, I don’t wish the White Sox ill but I ain’t a fan.
So what’s a local sports supporter in my position to do? I’ll do what all Chicago fans do when there is a lull in spring and summer seasons. I’ll obsess about the Bears.

Read More

Posted on May 7, 2012

By Roger Wallenstein

“Chris is gonna be fine.”
The words rolled out of pitching coach Don Cooper’s mouth as though he was saying, “Looks like we’re in for a stretch of good weather,” just as the temperature was dropping last week and hail stones began to fall.
Any time I hear that someone is going to be “fine,” I cringe. Check that. On occasion I get tremors. The implication is that the person in question isn’t “fine” in the present. Ahh, but don’t worry about the future because things are going to be “fine.”
In this case, we’re talking about Chris Sale. He’s not fine? Even with a 3-1 record, a 2.81 ERA in 32 innings having allowed just 24 hits while striking out 29 and walking a mere five batters? Opponents are hitting .205 against him. He’s reduced entire lineups to nine Brent Morels. But he’s not fine?

Read More

Posted on May 7, 2012

By Dan O’Shea

It happens every season: A handful of traditionally reliable fantasy baseball stars begin the season as utter failures. In the first couple weeks of April you are not too worried about them, but if they are still mired in misery by the first week of May, you start getting nervous.
Should you bench them until further notice or keep playing them in hopes they will turn things around any day now? Should you trade them? Should you dump them? Well, you probably shouldn’t just dump them.
Here’s a few bona fide stars off to terrible starts this year, and what you should consider doing about it:

Read More

Posted on May 2, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Hey, Jim Kirk, here’s your first crisis: What do you do with a sportswriter who wonders if he should be worried because the plane he’s on his piloted by a woman and who advises one of his female Twitter followers to “hottie up” her pic?
Apparently you delete his Twitter account but you keep him on the job. Backwards!
Instead, you should fire Cowley and hire this guy to replace him. He deserves it.

Read More

Posted on May 1, 2012

By Jim Coffman

I wasn’t even tuned in the moment Chicago sports died.
I had bowed out of watching the Bulls knock off the 76ers a little earlier (when the game was in hand, of course) to prepare for the youth baseball game I was coaching later Saturday afternoon. (I know that as a sports commentator I shouldn’t have done that – but it was for the kids!) And so I didn’t see the play when Derrick Rose’s knee gave out on him.
But I’ve seen the video and I know exactly what Kendall Gill was talking about right after the game when he said he was just about sure that Rose had torn his ACL. (It wasn’t long thereafter that sources with the team confirmed it). There is a certain kind of jump stop, one I watched a long ago Glenbrook South High School point guard execute from only a few rows up, where when they subsequently go down clutching their knee you just know it’s the ACL.
And just like that Chicago’s best sporting hopes and dreams went up in flames. And they are probably gone forever. Because even if Rose can come back and be a star again – and let’s hear it for modern sports medicine giving us legitimate hopes – Rose won’t be the same kind of star.

Read More

Posted on April 30, 2012

By Roger Wallenstein

Maybe this game is less complicated than we thought.
Case in point: The Sox were one of the most inept teams in 2011 when it came to throwing out would-be base stealers. In fact, 135 would-bes morphed into real-bes. Only San Diego (141) and the Red Sox (156) allowed more stolen bases than the White Sox.
The Major League average for cutting down theft last season was 29 percent. The Sox’s 22 percent was 25th out of 30 teams.
But after 22 games this April a mere three of 11 runners have managed to steal a base against the Sox. While the team is .500, none of the other 29 teams comes close to cutting down base stealers with greater precision than our White Sox.

Read More

Posted on April 30, 2012

By Marty Gangler

Phew. That was a close one. I thought these guys were going to be like really really bad. It’s looking like they are only going to be bad, not intergalactically bad. And really, it’s kind of okay. Why is being bad okay? Well, it’s because they are just bad, not stupid. And being bad and stupid is the worst.
Just look at last year. I’ve been a Cub fan my whole life and I hated that bad stupid team. These guys I actually like. I can root for a Joe Mather. I can pull for a Bryan LaHair. I can scream “Go!” every time Tony Campana gets on base. I like this team! And that is saying something.

Read More

Posted on April 30, 2012

By Eric Roth

The ballpark now known as U.S. Cellular Field has seen some real special baseball history over its relatively short time as the home of the Chicago White Sox. The 2005 World Series championship and Mark Buehrle’s perfecto immediately come to mind for most White Sox fans. But the rarest baseball event to take place at The Cell took place before any of those remarkable achievements. And its 10-year anniversary is right around the corner.
On Thursday, May 2, 2002, the White Sox took on the Mariners at the new Comiskey Park (as a lot of people still referred to it back then). According to Baseball-Reference.com, 12,891 people were there. But it was an especially cold and disgusting night, and there were far less than that number in attendance by midway through the game (being conservative: not more than 7,000 or so by the end).
My friend Phil and I were among them; we started the game in seats down the left-field line, close to where the Sox had recently done construction, moving the seats closer in toward fair territory. James Baldwin, the former White Sox pitcher, was on the bump for the Mariners. The Sox started the young and promisingly large Jon Rauch. What happened in the top of the first was a unique occurrence in Major League Baseball history.

Read More

Posted on April 27, 2012

By Dan O’Shea

A perfect game has a way of putting you on the fantasy baseball map, as Phil Humber is finding out this week. Numerous fantasy blogs are now recommending him has a pick-up, and though his ownership in Yahoo! leagues was still just 44% as of Tuesday, that was up from 22% before Saturday’s masterpiece.
Humber actually may have rated as a waiver wire sleeper even before the perfect game, with seven strikeouts in 5.1 innings in his first outing of the season, a game he was in line to win until the bullpen blew it.
As it turns out, he is not the only Chicago player who rates right now as an interesting waiver wire pick-up. The Sox have opened strong, putting several players who were not likely drafted into fantasy play. The Cubs, well, let’s just say the talk of 100 losses is not surprising anyone anymore, though they still may produce a few fantasy bench players.
Here’s who I see right now as Chicago’s very own waiver wire darlings (maximum Yahoo! ownership of 75%):

Read More

Posted on April 25, 2012