By Jim Coffman

So I just couldn’t watch another Cubs monstrosity in Los Angeles Sunday night and fortunately I switched over to ESPN2 in time to find a rebroadcast of the World Cup Final already in progress. I arrived there in time to see all of the extra time (I had watched the regulation 90 minutes live but had to leave to coach my son’s youth baseball playoff game).
It was a gritty, gutty game in which Holland had a man sent off in overtime after it was very fortunate it didn’t have a different one sent off earlier, in the second half. In the end, surely no one was disappointed when Andres Iniesta knocked in a goal with only a little time left to give Spain the win and, most importantly, to save us the ridiculousness of the biggest soccer game on Earth being decided by penalty kicks.

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Posted on July 12, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

“First place Chicago White Sox.” What were the odds?
So we close the first leg of the 2010 season with the Chicago White Sox – the White Sox! – riding high as baseball’s hottest team, compiling a 27-10 record since June 1 and obliterating every team in their path. How is that even possible? When did John Danks become the best pitcher in baseball? How is Carlos Quentin driving in 11 runs in the span of a mere week? Why in the world is Omar Vizquel playing with the energy of someone half his age?
I don’t know; I suspect you (and they) don’t either, outside of idiotic platitudes about how this team never gives up and was built to win, so we’ll leave that one unanswered for now. However, what we do know is that, thanks to an improbably fantastic past six weeks, we suddenly have a season.

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Posted on July 12, 2010

By Marty Gangler

It’s been a good week in my book. It really has.
Sure, the Cubs did nothing more than tread a little water in the standings, but still, a pretty good week.
Why?
Because the Cubs proved they are bad enough to force a change in direction. If some of the swirling trade rumors are true, then management has finally realized what most Cub fans have been saying for two years now: This team sucks.
And they’ve finally sucked enough for something to be done about it.
Thank God for their suckiness.

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Posted on July 12, 2010

By Thomas Chambers

Three chords and the truth.
* Churchill Downs Inc. thinks it has The $99,000 Answer as it forges ahead with casinos at Fair Grounds and Calder Race Course, all the while threatening Illinois politicians through our own Arlington Park. They’re trying their best out at AP with tribute bands and horse-frightening fireworks and Idol idols.
* Out West, Canadian magnate, racing lord and weird duck Frank Stronach appears ready to fall off the Left Coast with Patrick Henry-esque cries for free enterprise (i.e. all the racing dates go to him), a solemn promise to change out the disastrous synthetic track surface at Santa Anita (to another synthetic!), and an eviction notice for the Oak Tree Association, a benevolent group that has run the fall Santa Anita meet for 41 years.
* Whether or not you agree with slots at the track, New York State approved them about 10 years ago and, with the same sloth and corruption we’re used to around here, can’t line up three cherries to save its souls.
Unless you’re a hard-bitten gambling type cursing the first leg of the double or endlessly incubating your Pick 4 dream, it comes down to the horses. The game needs horses with star power like hoops needs the Buckeye King.

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Posted on July 9, 2010

By Dan O’Shea

With the All-Star break approaching, we’ll take a couple weeks off from recognizing fantasy finds, studs and duds, and instead look this week at some must-trade busts, and next week at potential second-half stars.
The end of the first half of the baseball season is a good time to finally let go of the dead weight that’s been dragging down your fantasy team. Everyone has a few players they hold onto well into summer despite all the writing on the wall advising them against it. It’s time to let go, which in some cases means trading them to any Gullible Gus in your league who still believes in them.
Here’s a quick list of players to move, one way or another, before your fantasy league trading deadline:

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Posted on July 7, 2010

By Jim Coffman

After a few weeks of soccer, the primary pastime demands attention and this space is ready to give it up (this space also touted the prospect of South America dominating the World Cup, a prospect that blew up like an M80 during last week’s quarterfinals – another reason to switch sports).
Baseball is still the only big-time summer game in this country after all. I see little kids running around at soccer camps in Chicago in the June-July heat and I want to grab an organizer and shake him. I don’t care that Major League Soccer (still such a misnomer) rolls through most of its season in the summer. In the places where futbol matters most – Europe, primarily – the professional teams start their seasons in the fall, play all through the winter and finally wrap things up in the spring. The only time they take an extended break is during the dog days.
This isn’t complicated – when the weather is scorching, does a game featuring athletes running hither-and-yon for 90 minutes make the most sense? Or is it baseball, with its unique combination of standing around in the field for a while followed by sitting around in the dugout, that works best in these conditions?

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Posted on July 6, 2010

By Marty Gangler

As the Cubs continue to suck, we here at The Cub Factor can only wonder why Uncle Lou hasn’t been canned yet. How many more embarrassing losses do fans have to suffer through before someone is shown the accountability door?
Sure, firing the manager isn’t going to solve anything, but it will make at least us feel better. And we are the customers. Making us feel better is worth something.
But no; the Ricketts’ are sitting on their hands. We theorize as to why:

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Posted on July 6, 2010

By Andrew Reilly

Paul Konerko, about whom you may have read in this space before, is currently getting trounced in the fan vote for the last spot on the American League roster at next week’s All-Star Game.
Plenty of folks will get up in arms about this, railing against the perceived injustices of the whole contest and the countless flaws of a system that allows Chase Utley, who is on the disabled list, to be voted in as the National League’s starting second baseman.
Paulie, they will say, is having as great a season as anyone else (note: even as Justin Morneau and Miguel Cabrera make him not even the best first baseman in the division) and deserves recognition for what he means to a proud franchise (note: the Sox are so great that they had to win every day for three weeks to get back to .500). But let me go on record as saying: ignore those people, for they know not of what they speak.

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Posted on July 6, 2010

By Thomas Chambers

Now I’m really confused.
Are synthetic racing surfaces safer than dirt? Or not?
Since about 2006, anybody associated with the Thoroughbred game has wondered the same. The various formulas of carpet fibers, sand, wax, silicon and cut-up telephone wire were touted as salvation for horses. They’d vastly reduce the number of fatal racing injuries.
After years of protestations that there just wasn’t enough data, we now have two studies – one of which admits there’s not enough data available – that provide no real illumination on the topic.

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Posted on July 2, 2010

LeBron to the Bulls.
Bosh to the Bulls.
This could be a bunch of Bull.
So what is Plan B or Plan C?
What if there is no LeBron or Bosh? Then what?
Carlos Boozer? Rudy Gay? David Lee? Amare Stoudemire? Mark Miller?
I know this: If LeBron and Bosh do not surface in Miami with Dwyane Wade, Stephen A. Smith should resign as a sports whatever-he-is and become a spokesman for Roto-Rooter.

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Posted on July 2, 2010