By Dan O’Shea

Being a fantasy baseball fanatic, I traffic in trends, predictions, rumors, obscure statistics and conspiracy theories, among other things, but almost never in common sense.
A lot of what’s fun about fantasy sports is the intense analysis that goes into it as you look to prove that you know the players and their abilities better than any other manager in your league – maybe better than the players do themselves.
But such hubris is likely to bite you in the ass once in a while, or perhaps often. Your in-depth research and your desire to wow your opponents with unexpected moves during the draft will turn up a few gems for you, but you may also pass up the biggest diamonds of all. In the course of over-thinking, I underestimated several players who have gone on to be fantasy stars this season.
In the interest of self-flagellation, here’s my All-Underestimated Team so far this season:

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Posted on May 25, 2011

By Dmitry Samarov

I hate interleague play. It still seems like a gimmick to lure back disgruntled fans after the ’94 strike to me. It’s let’s-pretend time, like imagining how your favorite superheroes would do if they fought (see Alien vs. Predator). The World Series is no longer as special because there’s now always a possibility that the two finalists have already met in the regular season.
Here in Chicago, we’re subjected to the Crosstown Classic, where fair-weather fans of the Cubs and Sox overpay to watch six games of an imaginary rivalry. When they played an exhibition game for bragging rights, if your team won you could gloat for a day or two, then forget about it. Now these games actually count, but instead of being matched against the A’s or the Orioles, we get to face the Pirates and Diamondbacks, for reasons only marketers might find compelling.

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Posted on May 24, 2011

By Steve Rhodes

Mike Quade took the reins of a team late last August that had thus far posted a 51-74 record under Lou Piniella’s gasping leadership and turned around its fortunes with a 24-13 stretch in the last leg of the season by basically doing the opposite of what Sweet Lou had done.
That meant, among other things, pulling Alfonso Soriano after a bonehead play; sitting down Starlin Castro after the same; finding playing time for Tyler Colvin while scotching the idea of turning him into a first baseman; rewarding productivity without regard to star power or doghouses; letting the pitching staff relax instead of keeping them on tenterhooks; respecting defense – and his players – by not constantly playing people out of position; and even informing players of the starting lineup well before game time so they could actually prepare for their days’ work.
Where oh where has that Mike Quade gone?

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Posted on May 23, 2011

By Jim Coffman

It makes a Bulls fan gravely ill of course, and heck, it makes most sports fans sick – the thought of Miami’s preening peacocks pushing through and winning the Eastern Conference. It is too infuriating to contemplate for too long.
But it wasn’t the Heat who engaged in the most objectionable behavior in Game 3, a furious battle in which Miami never, ever faltered on its way to a 96-85 triumph.
In fact, a fan had to be impressed with the way the Heat responded when the Bulls tried voicing a little trash in both halves.

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Posted on May 23, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

Step right up, Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls. See ringmaster Ozzie Guillen and drum major Don Cooper present the Greatest Show on the South Side. Oz and Coop have six – you heard me right, not five, but six! – starting pitchers, and this is no freak show. It may be the real thing!
Jake Peavy’s spectacular return has forced Ozzie’s hand. Simply spelling latissimus dorsi is a challenge. Coming back less than a year after detaching the big L.D. is off the charts. Yet there was Jake in total command last Wednesday with a complete-game shutout against the hard-hitting Indians.
The other five – Danks, Buehrle, Floyd, Jackson, and newcomer Phil Humber – all have looked sharp at times this season, so our ringmaster didn’t pull the trigger and send Humber to Charlotte or designate anyone for a relief role.
Assuming this arrangement will be with us for a while, what are the ramifications?

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Posted on May 23, 2011

Can’t Even Do Curse Right

“Say it ain’t so. The Chicago White Sox players who tanked the 1919 World Series for money got the idea from the Chicago Cubs, who threw the Series a year earlier and got away with it,” the Tribune opines.
“‘The ball players were talking about somebody trying to fix the National League ball players or something like that in the World Series of 1918,’ said pitcher Eddie Cicotte, the first of the infamous Black Sox to confess, in a 1920 deposition recently posted on the Chicago History Museum’s website. ‘There was talk that somebody offered this player $10,000 or anyway the bunch of players were offered $10,000 to throw this series.’
“That sounded pretty good to the Sox players, who eventually struck a deal for themselves – and ended up banned from baseball. But the Cubs apparently got a pass. Nobody really dug into that business about somebody offering something to somebody until Sean Deveney’s 2009 book, The Original Curse.
“Deveney and others offer plenty of reasons the Cubs players might have been motivated to throw the Series to the Boston Red Sox and scant evidence that they actually did, but, hey, all the witnesses are dead. Play along here.”

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Posted on May 20, 2011

Lesson Relearned

Well that sucked.
“By late Wednesday evening, the Heat had reclaimed its identity and claimed a huge victory, rolling over the Chicago Bulls, 85-75, at the United Center to steal home-court advantage,” Howard Beck writes for the New York Times.
“The night was defined by defense, mostly Miami’s, which throttled Derrick Rose, flustered Luol Deng and turned Carlos Boozer into a footnote. The Heat held the Bulls to 34 percent shooting and secured the win in a plodding, grinding, grisly fourth quarter, which Miami won, 14-10.”

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Posted on May 19, 2011

By Carl Mohrbacher

What . . . the . . . hell . . . was . . . that?
-Esteban, Peotone IL
I see you watched Tuesday’s game against the Reds.
Yes, all seven runs were unearned. Hoo-ray Beer!
In an effort to cheer you up, allow me to recount some other notable baseball occurrences that were harder to stomach than the 7-5 loss in Cincinnati.

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Posted on May 19, 2011

By Don Best TV

For entertainment purposes only, including gambling.
1. Just look at the numbers.

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Posted on May 18, 2011

By Dmitry Samarov

Just when I was about to give up on the season and tell Steve there was no point in my continuing to write this column (aside from causing myself stomach ulcers), the Sox go out West and win three series in a row. Go figure.
*
Monday night a middle-aged couple hailed me for a ride in Lincoln Park, going downtown. Hearing the ballgame on the radio, the gent inquired, “What game is it?” Sox-Mariners, I answered. “So you’re a Sox fan?” he asked, sounding relieved. Him and the wife were in from St. Louis for the Cubs-Cards series. It was a pleasant conversation the rest of the way. I pointed out that their team had the Sox former manager, which made the man chuckle. He told me he’d met LaRussa several times and liked the man. His wife piped up with a joke too: “What does the World Series and a sterile bear have in common? No Cubs!”

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Posted on May 17, 2011