By George Ofman
Numbers don’t lie. Ben Gordon is averaging 24 points in five games for the Pistons and he’s shooting 51 percent from the field. John Salmons is averaging 11 points in five games for the Bulls and is shooting 29 percent. That’s 29 percent! Where do I get my refund?

SportsFriday: The Blue & Orange Kool-Aid Report TrackNotes Dr. Dude’s College Football Report

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Wow is Lovie Smith getting torched by the media. Some are calling him boring, others a liar. Fans think he has no passion. Is this the same boring and passionless Lovie that got the Bears to the Super Bowl? I’m just asking.
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The Sox traded or were close to sending Chris Getz and Josh fields to the Royals for Mark Teahen. Fields was done here. Getz stole 25 bases in 27 attempts last season. If Teahen is here to play right field that would mean Scott Podsednik will be looking for a new home. That would also mean the Sox would have lost 57 stolen bases. If Teahen plays third, then Gordon Beckham is going to second.
Here’s the word I got on Teahen; very inconsistent, not very good with men in scoring position and doesn’t take advantage of hitters’ counts. This was a guy who, in 2006, hit .290 with 18 homers and 69 RBI in just 393 at-bats. Since then he’s had more than 520 at-bats in each season and hasn’t come close to those totals. Last year he hit only .271 and mustered only 12 homers and 50 RBI. Let’s call this a minor deal and move on, shall we.

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Posted on November 6, 2009

By Mike Luce
I’m proud to announce another first here at the College Football Report. The same folks who brought you The Brown Shoe Award now present . . . the ShamNow Trophy. And the inaugural winner is . . . the NCAA’s “Committee on Sportsmanship and Ethical Conduct”! According to its webpage, the Committee exists to develop “a positive sporting environment for intercollegiate athletics.” The Committee consists of 11 members who meet twice a year, issue an annual report, and – “if necessary” – hold one conference call. (I think CFR may need to hand out an award for bureaucratic efficiency as well. In my experience, comparably sized committees in the workplace can’t decide between Jimmy John’s and Potbelly’s for lunch without a conference call.)
To help spread the sportsmanship message, the CSEC provides an Online Toolkit. Let’s take a look at the Toolkit’s contents:

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Posted on November 6, 2009

By Thomas Chambers

Seems like we’ve been down this road before. Or have we?
For the second straight year, the Breeders’ Cup World Championships come to us Friday and Saturday from the Oak Tree Meet at Santa Anita in lovely Arcadia, California.
The pervasive issue once again will be the track’s Pro-Ride artificial racing surface. In an America where Thoroughbred racing evolved for generations on dirt surfaces, we again have the added monkey wrench of handicapping some of the best horses in the world on a surface engineered to assuage the guilt of the human species.

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Posted on November 6, 2009

By Eric Emery
Last Sunday, the stars aligned perfectly. My son and wife went elsewhere and the Steelers enjoyed their bye week. Add both together and you get the coveted Power Bye Week Nap. The problem: I slept through most of the Bears game. Luckily, my subconscious picked up the slack and followed the game in my dreams:
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Dream: Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner sat quietly in a cage.
Meaning: Bears could not make right choices to convert red zone visits into TDs.
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Dream: Lovie Smith failed an easy math quiz.
Meaning: When you have the elite #6, you should have at least that many wins by this point.

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Posted on November 6, 2009

By Eric Emery
The health care debate continues in our worthless legislative branch. One version of the bill sticks most of the cost with those who make over $1 million. Most NFL players loved the idea, until they realized that a good number of them make over $1 million. As a result, some players have resorted to the following to help stop this:

PLUS: Ofman: Batting Leadoff

* Players write congressman to use the Sally Struthers model: Each player will sponsor a child at the same cost of one cup of coffee a day.
* Brian Urlacher argues on Facebook that socialized medicine isn’t that helpful. For instance, his team doctors failed to help his wrist and now all he is living on his Aflac insurance.
* Tank Johnson writes Op-Ed piece bemoaning that he can no longer afford bullets for his guns.

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Posted on November 5, 2009

By George Ofman
The World Series is over, another one minus our local heroes. It’s been four years since the Sox won it all. It’s been . . . it’s not worth mentioning. You know where this was headed. Now comes the resurrection period, the one in which both the North and South Sides reconnoiter their teams.
And they need reconnoitering.
And the top of the order remains an issue.
Will the White Sox continue to employ Scott Podsednik?
Will the Cubs go back to a healthy Alfonso Soriano and take yet another step backwards?
Wasn’t the leadoff problem the same one haunting both teams last year?

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Posted on November 5, 2009

By George Ofman
Jay Cutler swallowed blood. And you want his offensive coordinator to swallow some hemlock.
Watching the Bears is very tough for anyone to swallow, particularly, the brain trust whose brains can’t be trusted.

PLUS: Dr. Dude’s College Football Report

Jerry Angelo pulled off one of the most important transactions in Chicago Sports History by obtaining Cutler but soon, there will be three letters after his the quarterback’s name: R.I.P.
The man is a cinch for concussion. Cutler was pounded to the ground so often he saw more turf than fertilizer.
Fertilizer, stench, and the Bears; it’s very hard to separate with a blender.
Angelo, Lovie and Turner: it’s very hard to blend a winning team with.
Therein lays the problem.

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Posted on November 3, 2009

By Mike Luce
Week Nine: the Nerfing of America continues.
Nearly every year since 1933, the Florida-Georgia game has been played in Jacksonville, FL. Along with the epic tailgating along the nearby St. Johns River, the party continues during the game. Rather than drink from the usual smuggled flasks present at most games, fans can buy drinks in the stadium due to a loophole in NCAA regulations that prevent the sale of alcohol in college venues but don’t prevent on-premise sales for games held in pro stadiums. All this boozing earned the game the well-earned nickname of “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.”
The No-Fun Committee decided during the off-season, however, that the nickname condoned excessive drinking, irresponsible behavior, and other shenanigans. So the student government associations for Florida and Georgia got together, supported by an anonymous donor (although his initials were rumored to be N.C.A.A.), found a 1,000-year-old cypress tree on the state border, and carved it into a 12-foot trophy. As the inaugural winner, Florida will take home and proudly display the “Okefenokee Oar.” That’s right, one of the oldest traditions in the SEC can now be described as “The Battle for the Big Freaking Paddle.” Good times.

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Posted on November 3, 2009

By Jim Coffman
Will the fact that Jay Cutler occasionally causes opponents to absolutely lose their minds – cue the tape of Cleveland Brown defensive coordinator Rob Ryan screaming “Fuck you! Fuck you!” at the quarterback on Sunday, help him win a championship? Because that’s all that matters – we really don’t care if he is a delightful chap to have around, we just care if he puts up victories. Cutler is who he is and he may change a little as he goes along, but he won’t undergo any sort of startling transformation.
Cutler plays the part of the infuriating adolescent so well it sometimes drives foes to absolute distraction (he must have been a joy to parent during that last stage when kids are still communicating regularly with mom and dad but the tone is changing and they revel in things like catching them in contradictions). And we all know guys who never really got out of that stage, they just transferred their scorn from parents to peers. Last season saw opposing quarterback Phil Rivers (San Diego) professing his hatred for his rival and other opposing players have labeled him a punk in comments scrubbed clean for public consumption. And of course there was Bobby Wade yammering about Brian Urlacher thinking Cutler was “a pussy” early on during training camp. Urlacher denied it (after all, Cutler was his teammate now).

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Posted on November 2, 2009

By George Ofman
High energy, second chances points, scoring in the paint, smart lineups, all the starters in double figures, good defense . . . wait. Stop! This can’t be the Bulls? It is! How about that? In beating the Spurs on opening night, the Bulls resembled a half-decent NBA team. Yeah, they clanked some outside shots but they beat San Antonio inside. Now that’s a little more like it.

PLUS: Dr. Dude’s College Football Report

Four of the Bulls next six games are @Boston, @Miami, @Cleveland and Denver. And on November 17th, they begin their annual circus trip including games against the Lakers, Portland, Utah and Denver again. The early portion of the Bulls schedule has been a disaster since Michael Jordan left. Save for the strike shortened ’98-’99, they have managed to produce a winning record only once by the time the silly circus trip ended. Last year they were 8-9. Now that’s progress. Overall, the Bulls record through the circus trip since the ’99-’00 season is 32-103. OY!

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Posted on October 30, 2009