By Steve Rhodes

“Depending on how fast reliever Kerry Wood and outfielder Marlon Byrd can
return from the disabled list, the Cubs might be able to put most of their Opening Day roster together for the first time in more than two months by the All-Star break,” the Sun-Times reports.
“That’s what general manager Jim Hendry said he wants to see before he decides what moves he’ll try to make before the July 31 trade deadline.”
You know what? Every year the Cubs hope to field their Opening Day lineup by the All-Star break. You know why? Teams suffer injuries. Every last one of ’em. Only the Cubs seem to use that fact of modern baseball as an excuse year in and year out as an explanation for why the grand plans of geniuses such as Jim Hendry don’t pan out. After blaming the weather, of course.
O Lord, how long?

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Posted on June 27, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

I kept rewriting this week’s report because things got weirder and weirder at The Cell over the weekend. Of course, I’m referring primarily to Adam Dunn, who is in an indescribable funk. Rehashing here what already has been covered elsewhere doesn’t make sense. However, the South Side has never been witness to this kind of phenomenon, making it difficult to ignore.
Sure, there was Dave Nicholson, who struck out 175 times for the Sox in 1963. Nicholson was part of a trade with Baltimore that sent Luis Aparicio to the Orioles. Dave had signed a bonus contract with Baltimore which proved to be a waste of money, and they gave up on him at age 22. He had a reputation for hitting gigantic home runs so the Sox took a chance.
Is this relevant to Dunn? Well, sort of. For one, Nicholson’s 175 whiffs have remained unmatched for the past 48 years in Sox annals. But the mark clearly is in jeopardy now that Dunn has fanned 100 times – with seven strikeouts in eight at-bats over the weekend.

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Posted on June 27, 2011

By Thomas Chambers

There’s a war on here. Did you hear about it?
It’s between the financial/legal/political/religious establishment and the little guy – you hesitate to say middle class anymore.
In the Land of Lincoln, they’re not only going after the rank-and-file types (pretty easy for a well-backed soldier of fortune such as Jean-Claude Brizard, right?), but they’ve just given up in any effort to improve the way of life or society in Illinois. They’ve given up. America is just so over, so let’s get ours now, hell if we contribute to the decay.
You know who they are, but how must these people feel to be utterly bereft of any single moral, social, charitable or intellectual instinct or asset, choosing instead to plunder their very own people? Trouble is, they don’t feel it and if you believe in hell, these people will land in its worst corner.

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Posted on June 24, 2011

By Carl Mohrbacher

After watching the Sox broadcast of the Crosstown for portions of the game, I’ve concluded that Hawk Harrelson makes a lot of obscure references. What’s the strangest one you’ve heard?
-Steve, Glendale AZ
I tell you what Stone Pony, there’s no reason to stop at just one Hawk-ism.
* You know who owned the best splitter I ever saw? Jose DeLeon. That’s why I traded him straight up for Bobby Bonilla in 1986.
* I don’t need to tell anyone that watched the ’67 A’s that the greatest outfielder of all time at playing balls off a single hop while moving to his left was Roger Repoz.
* [Following a muffled debate with a member of the WGN production team off mic] Doesn’t matter if it’s made of pure hormones. If it’s called “Yaz,” I’m assuming it’s got something to do with Carl Yastrzemski, so I’m eating it.

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Posted on June 23, 2011

By Dan O’Shea

This week’s Crosstown Classic series offers a chance for me to look back at one of my pre-season predictions – that Carlos Pena would hit more home runs this season than Adam Dunn.
As it stands after Tuesday night’s Cubs-Sox battle at the Cell, Pena was leading Dunn 13-7.
I would like to spend a few paragraphs gloating about being right, at least at the almost halfway point of the season, but we all know this supposed contest mostly has been a battle of the duds. Pena was mostly useless for the first two months of the season, though he has made a strong charge recently. Dunn has been stuck in a deep hole all year, occasionally peeking above ground for a home run or a walk.

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Posted on June 22, 2011

By Jim Coffman

The primary highlight of last night’s Crosstown Classic opener for this Cubs fan was Geo Soto’s big smile after Ozzie Guillen gave his mask the boot in the sixth. Soto had made a great play after Alexi Ramirez topped one that landed about a foot-and-a-half in fair territory and then spun backward on is way back past home plate. Soto snagged it a fraction of a second before it arrived in foul territory; all he had to do was tag Ramirez for the out.
Then the fireworks began. Guillen, seizing on an opportunity to give his team a wake-up call, raced out of the dugout, threw Ramirez out of the way and started furiously pointing to the ground right behind home plate. He obviously was contending that the ball actually reached the dirt back there before Soto picked it up.
It wasn’t absolutely clear from even the best replay (the one the broadcast producers found and aired after a commercial break), but if a person had to make a call based on the playback from the camera located to the right of the plate as one looks out at the diamond, he would have said the ball didn’t quite make it past the dish. In other words, the ump was right.

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Posted on June 21, 2011

By Marty Gangler

As a dad, every once in awhile I am reminded of something I should remember by my young son. My little guy is just over three-years-old and at that age they tend to lack “political correctness.” They really just call it as they see it and they let the chips fall where they may. Which means they can say the sweetest and most hurtful things in back-to-back sentences.
What I will remember about Father’s Day 2011 is my son telling me, “No baseball, daddy.” I tried to get him into the game but the answer was always “No baseball, daddy.”
And it turned out he was right. I was better off not watching that debacle unfold on Sunday night, with the Cubs throwing away the game with so many “un-error errors.” You know, those plays that don’t show up as an error in the box score but are as detrimental to winning baseball as a lazy grounder going right under your glove.
I’m not sure that an “un-error error” is the correct term for outfielders giving up on catchable flyballs, but I do know that that was “No baseball, daddy.” The smartest person in the room was the three-year-old.

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Posted on June 20, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

Rick Telander’s column about Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban in the Sun-Times last week stirred up memories of former White Sox owner Bill Veeck. The teaser on the back page of the print edition claimed that “Cuban might have been better suited to change Cubs’ fortunes than Ricketts family is, but baseball didn’t want him.”
According to Telander, the commissioner and owners (he named Jerry Reinsdorf as being a mover and shaker) didn’t approve of Cuban. Too unpredictable; a loose cannon; not to be trusted. And ya think Reinsdorf wanted the likes of Mark Cuban only 70 blocks away via the Red Line?!?
The owners didn’t want Bill Veeck either. When he put together a syndicate to purchase the Sox in the mid-’70s, the lords were similarly unimpressed. Even though (or should I say because?) Bill had owned and operated the Cleveland Indians (1946-49), St. Louis Browns (1951-53), and the White Sox (1959-61), he was an outsider for some of the same reasons as Cuban.

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Posted on June 20, 2011

By Beachwood Labs

So it seems Major League Baseball is considering realigning the divisions – or doing away with the divisions altogether and just admitting the top teams to the playoffs.
Realignment is something Beachwood Labs has studied for years. Here are our proposals.
* Eliminate divisions but keep two leagues: Felonies and Misdemeanors. Owners would remain in a white-collar criminal class of their own.
* Eliminate divisions but keep two leagues: Steroids and Not. A whole new market for extra large helmets.

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Posted on June 17, 2011

By Carl Mohrbacher

Looks like the Cubs are going to be sellers at the trading deadline. Who’s on the block?
-Brock, Rockford IL
Who isn’t?
But the main move in the works is a classic “too little, too late” trade between the Cubs and Giants aimed at pacifying an angry fan base: Whoever the Giants want in return for Mark DeRosa.
Seriously, Cubs . . .
-@tomnation2323, via Twitter
As an insurance measure due in part to a recent string of robberies of time and money, Cubs customers are now requiring the Ricketts family to issue a $1.50 rebate check for every ticket transaction in 2011.

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Posted on June 16, 2011