By Roger Wallenstein

Let’s assume, for a moment, that Paul Konerko leads a long and healthy life. Imagine also that he reaches a ripe old age when his reflexes and awareness aren’t what they used to be. His adult children begin to worry about his driving skills.
This is not an uncommon experience for folks whose parents get to a point where operating a motor vehicle poses a risk to themselves and other motorists. At least in the eyes of the Baby Boomer “kids.”
In Paulie’s case, he might confront this situation with something like, “Hey, I’m not going to drive at night. If I take the highway, I’ll stay in the right lane. I never exceed the speed limit. And you would never catch me texting or talking on the phone when I’m behind the wheel.”
The point of this is that Konerko knows how to adjust and adapt. He’s a wonderful fastball hitter, who can pull the ball into the left field seats or line a double into the left field corner with regularity.

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Posted on September 12, 2011

By Emory Hunt/The Czar of the Playbook

I don’t trust these Bears wide receivers. I’m going with the Falcons.

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Posted on September 9, 2011

By Carl Mohrbacher

Is Carlos Marmol still a good closer?
-Rick, Springfield IL
The Law of Diminishing Returns:
“The tendency for a continuing application of effort or skill toward a particular project or goal to decline in effectiveness after a certain level of result has been achieved.”
Example:
After you started hanging out with that hot chick from the community college a couple times a week, she stopped looking so hot.

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Posted on September 8, 2011

By Dan O’Shea

The NFL season is about to kick off and already we find lingering injuries and injury rumors to be a factor in our Week 1 plans – and perhaps longer.
The most notable boo-boo belongs to Peyton Manning, who is not recovering from neck surgery as expected. In the span of a couple weeks, Manning has gone from being questionable for Week 1 to being likely to start to now being formally listed as doubtful.
His sub, Kerry Collins, is not a viable fantasy play. Alternative plays still more than 50% available in Yahoo! leagues: Donovan McNabb and Ryan Fitzpatrick, or if you really want to gamble, Colt McCoy and Cam Newton.

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Posted on September 7, 2011

By Jim Coffman

The tightly packed thin gray waves of clouds marched across the sky over Wrigley Field all Labor Day afternoon, blown along by a persistent chilly wind out of the north. It is easy to overdo the weather metaphors but this one was too insistent. Summer was on its way out. Or should we say the summer sport. We’ve had a couple weeks of high school football and a weekend of collegiate gridiron action but the transition to football really begins this Sunday.
The Tribune’s Paul Sullivan notes that Monday marked the last day of the “summer tourist season” at the North Side ballpark. Before it went, new Cub first baseman Bryan LaHair provided one final memorable highlight. The 28-year-old first baseman, who had 38 homers in Triple A this year but is not considered a top prospect (?!), stepped into the lefty batter’s box in the eighth inning against the Reds’ Aroldis Chapman, a left-handed flame-thrower. Welcome to the big leagues, kid.
Except LaHair promptly zeroed in on Chapman’s 97-mile-an-hour heater and launched a double down the right-field line. Sure Geo Soto, who had reached on an error, was then thrown out at home as LaHair advanced to third, but that didn’t diminish the promise embodied by LaHair’s hit against the guy who is probably the hardest thrower in the league. Later, Chapman hit 100 on the radar gun as he struck out a pinch-hitting Darwin Barney.
And that’s enough about baseball.

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Posted on September 6, 2011

By Marty Gangler

After attending the game at Wrigley on Saturday, I am more confused now about the state of the Cubs than I was last week, when I wrote about the difficult adjustment to no longer having Jim Hendry to blame..
This time, it’s Cub fans themselves who have me bewildered. And I’m a lifelong Cubs fan.
Who are these people, and what do they want now?

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Posted on September 6, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

T.S. Eliot got it wrong. April is not the cruelest month. September is.
If there was any doubt, it was erased when Miguel Cabrera’s long ninth-inning drive settled well up into the left-field stands at a drenched Comerica Park on Saturday evening.
How could this possibly happen? The Sox held an 8-1 lead after the Tigers and the umpires helped our athletes score five times in the fourth inning – three coming on Alexi Ramirez’ home run – and twice more on back-to-back homers by Alejandro De Aza and Brent Morel in the fifth.

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Posted on September 5, 2011

By Mike Luce

Before we kick off the 2011 season, we want to bring you up to speed on some headlines and errata:
* Update: ESPN made it official on Wednesday – integrity has been routed by shameless money-grubbing. The Worldwide Leader debuted the 2011 version of the weekly “Top 25 Preview” page including one odd outlier: The Texas Longhorns (unranked in the AP Poll) vs. The Rice Owls. When Awful Announcing took a screenshot and publicly called out ESPN, the game quickly disappeared.
Why all the hubbub?
ESPN uses the AP Poll when listing the weekly matchups – and Texas isn’t ranked in the AP. The network conveniently forgot and used the Coaches Poll rank instead – but only for the Texas game. Earlier this week, we trashed ESPN for reporting bias in favor of the major football powers, but we didn’t think it would get this bad.

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Posted on September 1, 2011

By Carl Mohrbacher

Is the first name of the Braves third baseman really Chipper?
-Mallory, Archertown NJ
It is not.
He got the nickname during a short stint as the voice of Theodore the Chipmunk in 1990.
Does Vegas accept bets on the Sausage Race at Miller Park?
-Randy, Elgin IL
Probably. I’d put my money on the chorizo. That guy is muy rapido.
As a trivia side note, Put My Money On The Chorizo was the last movie Joey Silvera appeared in before retiring from the adult film industry.

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Posted on September 1, 2011

By Dan O’Shea

As Antonio Gates was en route to becoming a superstar tight end, much was made of his experience as a basketball player at Kent State. During his best years, his height, athleticism and long arms have not disappointed, and this year, a second-year TE with a hoops pedigree and similar dimensions is much-hyped fantasy candidate.
At 6’6″, 260 lbs, the Saints’ Jimmy Graham is actually two inches taller than Gates at the same weight. He played basketball at Miami University through his junior year (where he was listed at 6’8″, but we all know Miami can’t be trusted), then joined the football team and got just enough experience to get drafted in 2010 by New Orleans. Last year, he was something of a late-season surprise, catching five TDs, including four in the last three games.
Now, Graham is looking like the second coming of Gates, or Jason Witten or Dallas Clark. He is looking like what Jermichael Finley was supposed to be last year – a TE who can be a No. 1 receiver.
Here’s my top 20 TEs:

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Posted on August 31, 2011