By Carl Mohrbacher

How would you sum up this week’s action in a catchy marketing phrase?
-Crane, Chicago IL
It’s not the heat . . . it’s the futility.
With Marmol struggling, do you think the Cubs are going to use anybody other than Sean Marshall at closer?
-Pat, Boone IA
Paul Weaver, the Cubs’ international director of scouting, is currently working with Seal Team Six to conduct covert negotiations with former Marlins closer Ugueth Urbina inside of a Venezuelan prison.

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Posted on July 20, 2011

By Jim Coffman

The members of the U.S. women’s soccer team blew an opportunity on Sunday. Some will focus on the fact that they could have struck a blow for soccer in general and others will note the marketing possibilities that were lost.
But the main thing was, the American players could have been true international champions (as opposed to, say, the winners of the “World Series”) and they came up short.
Plenty of words will be written about what Sunday’s Women’s World Cup final “really meant.” Analysts will break down the larger implications of the event. Folks on ESPN even jumped the gun during the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of the tournament, promoting the idea that the U.S. team’s 1999 championship had represented Title IX coming to fruition in the U.S. and that 2011 was Title IX having an impact on world women’s sport.
Whatever it was on a larger scale – and nine times out of ten big “sports in society” declarations turn out to be vapid generalizations with little to no value – this was a great tournament capped off by a great game . . . a great game in which the U.S. choked oh so much at the very end.

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Posted on July 18, 2011

By Marty Gangler

Whew. Thank goodness for that. The last thing we needed was for the Cubs to use the All-Star break as a “recharge” period.
Sure, they had a couple days off, but they picked up back exactly where they left off. Which was horrible.
Any kind of glimmer of hope could really put the kibosh on trading away a few of these bums. And yes, we could get other bums in return – we probably will – but at least they’ll be different bums and at this point of the season different is kind of okay. Or at least better than what we see every day.
After all, when your team worships Jeff Baker, it pretty much means you stinks.

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Posted on July 17, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

Former first baseman Keith Hernandez, who played 17 seasons and had a lifetime .296 batting average, wrote a book (with baseball writer Mike Bryan) 17 years ago called Pure Baseball. All Hernandez did was analyze each and every pitch of two major league games from the 1993 season – Braves vs. Phillies and Yankees vs. Tigers – one in each league taking into account the use of a DH.
The “battle of wits and balance of talent between the pitcher and the hitter is baseball,” states Hernandez at the outset. “Everything else is secondary.”

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Posted on July 17, 2011

By Carl Mohrbacher

If the Cubs were a band, who would they be?
-Ricky, Los Angeles CA
Jefferson Starship.
There was a point just a few years before their current incarnation formed when they were really good and had some classic performances. A couple of bad days in crunch time and a third of the lineup was revamped. Now we’re stuck with a handful of meaningless hits and an anthem.

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Posted on July 14, 2011

By Dan O’Shea

The second half of the baseball season, starting Thursday, may yield some great under-the-radar waiver wire pick-ups while your fantasy baseball mates are obsessing about trade deadline moves.
There are a number of players, widely available in most leagues, who would be good for a long bet if you have the roster space to spare. In some cases, they have been on the DL so long they were forgotten. In other cases, they had disappointing first halves and are primed to bloom late.
Here are a few ideas:

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Posted on July 13, 2011

Uploaded to YouTube by yogaelectronica

“World Championship Promotions Game of the Week!!!! Only in Chicago baby!!! Expert US Cup Champions!!!! Frank and Steve Vs. Kelley and Mark.”

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Posted on July 12, 2011

By Jim Coffman

The women’s soccer World Cup didn’t just entertain over the weekend. It electrified. The U.S. team conjured up a win for the ages on Sunday in Dresden, Germany, to cap off a weekend that also saw huge underdog Japan record a thrilling overtime victory over the utterly overconfident host team the day before.
It was all great sporting fun and it was a wonderful respite from the grim slog through the totally disappointing local baseball season. Say what you will about soccer – and I’ve said plenty condemning the MLS’s (it is ridiculous that the league’s official name is “Major League Soccer”) brutal inability to deliver aggressive, exciting soccer – but the weekend’s women’s matches delivered the goods and then some.

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Posted on July 11, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

It was one of those period pieces, a plastic maroon Motorola radio about the size of a small shoe box; say, size 5.
Two knobs dominated the front: the left one controlled on-off and volume, and the right tuned in the ballgame. No FM dial and certainly nothing to adjust the tone or quality of sound.
Sox games even then were carried on AM 1000, but it was WCFL, not ESPN. “CFL” stood for Chicago Federation of Labor. If that doesn’t tell you how times were different, then consider there were few McDonald’s and no Starbucks.

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Posted on July 11, 2011

By Marty Gangler

So this was the week when the Cubs got healthy and got their team back, right?
When the “just injuries” excuse was put to the test.
When the Cubs had all guns blazing – went all in, if you will – to show the rest of the baseball world that they weren’t a complete and utter failure.
Sure, Big Z lost a start when he went on the DL with lower back tightness – joined a few days later by Marcos Mateo and his inflamed right wing – but really, Mike Quade had as many cards in his deck as could be expected. The Cubs were back in business.
The business of being really bad.

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Posted on July 11, 2011