By Andrew Reilly
We’ve come to that time of the season, the time that separates the Die Hards from the Johnny Come Four Years Ago And Probably Left By Nows: the time for pathetic, self-directed spite.
Lest anyone discredit the Sox’ inexplicable wins this past week or think getting rid of Jim Thome and Jose Contreras was the answer, think again. Thome, in his old, slow, one-dimensional manner, was too representative of the past ten years of White Sox baseball to ever be expendable, and Contreras’ struggles were really nothing new. But the exit of those two is not what went on to (and will again) fuel the Sox’ dismantling of hated teams. No, the Sox’ best hope is to forget about the season and think about how to ruin a superior, more glamorous team’s day. Double-substitutions against the Twins? Yes. Laughing at the destroyed arm of Jason Varitek? Absolutely. Ruining the Cubs in their home urinal? Oh, baby!

Beachwood Baseball: The Cub Factor

But what we’re really left with now is the angry, bitter part of the year in which the crotchety among us start comparing 2009 to other disappointing years in recent memory. Are we staring down another 2003, in which the Sox were just a few good wins away from the post-season? Or is this 2006 again, where the Twins will backdoor their way into October, but with 80 wins becoming the new 90 wins?

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Posted on September 8, 2009

By Marty Gangler
Maybe the Cubs just took a cue from the weather this season. Yeah, it was the weather’s fault. Summer in Chicago wasn’t really summer this year – it was like summer pretended to be spring, and even sometimes fall. But summer just wasn’t summer. Just like the Cubs. They are really just a .500 team that was pretending to be the two-time defending Central Division champions. They did a pretty good job of pretending, though. They kept the charade up all the way until now. Now the mask is finally off for good and they can’t even try to pretend. With this in mind, we here at The Cub Factor would like to talk about a few individual players and who they pretended to be this season.
Alfonso Soriano: Pretended to be the franchise bat in a potent lineup but was actually vying for Comeback Player of the Year 2010.
Milton Bradley: Pretended to be the answer from the left side of the plate but was actually an escaped mental patient.
Geo Soto: Pretended to be the reigning NL Rookie of the Year but was actually Jeff Spiccoli with a lifetime supply of burgers from All-American burger.

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Posted on September 7, 2009

By George Ofman
The day couldn’t have been more splendid. The sun sparkled on a September afternoon in which the Sox and Cubs had to play a make-up game at Wrigley Field.
It was supposed to be a game which counted for both teams.
Playoff fever and bragging rights all rolled into one marvelous day in the sun-splashed shrine at Clark and Addison.
Instead, we found out warts get sunburn.

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Posted on September 3, 2009

By George Ofman
I’m praying for rain.
Does anyone know whether Hurricane Jimena is the neighborhood?
Didn’t Tom Skilling hint at snow?
It has been unseasonably chilly if you haven’t noticed. Maybe a meteor shower hits the North Side devastating the playing surface at Wrigley Field.
Does this game really have to be played?

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Posted on September 2, 2009

By George Ofman
Forgive me, hardcore football fans.
And those of you who worship at the shrine of the almighty baseball diamond, please understand.
Basketball and hockey fans . . . just cut me some slack.
Gluttons for golf, have some patience.
I enjoy all of these sports.
But I must profess I’m hopefully in love with tennis and specifically, the U.S.Open, which just got underway in the fabulous environs of Flushing.
Okay, so Flushing isn’t fabulous. I also happen to be in love with alliteration.
But there are no two weeks on my sports calendar more alluring, invigorating, and so thoroughly entertaining as the ones spent glued to my TV watching matches most people couldn’t care less about.
Come to think of it, most people couldn’t care less about tennis in general, but these people are stuck in a major sports abyss. You’re missing something here, folks.

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Posted on September 1, 2009

By Jim Coffman
It has to be called McDaniels’ Folly doesn’t it?
In the end, that’s how the Broncos’ ever-more-unfathomable trade of quarterback (the most important and difficult single position in all of team sports) Jay Cutler to the Bears will be remembered. You could hear it in announcers Al Michaels’ and Chris Collinsworth’s voices right from the get-go last night during the broadcast of the Bears’ pre-season contest at Denver.

Beachwood Baseball: The White Sox Report The Cub FactorPLUS: Ofman: Devin Hester, MVP

When they referred to Denver rookie head coach Josh McDaniels, the one whose inability to establish rapport with his team’s 25-year-old Pro Bowl quarterback led to the transaction, they didn’t come right out and say, “He seems like such a bright young man, how could he have been such an idiot?”
But the insinuation could not have been clearer and they kept it up all night long. In the end (a long, fourth-quarter interview) we found out former super-safety and new NBC studio analyst Rodney Harrison – local guy, former Western Illinois standout who won two Super Bowls during his six-year run with the Patriots after nine years with the Chargers – capped it all off by saying that yes, he thinks McDaniels is an idiot too.

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Posted on August 31, 2009

By George Ofman
The Argument by the water cooler, watering hole or Lake Michigan could sound like this: Jay Cutler is the Bears most valuable player. No, Devin Hester is.
They both could be.
Hester’s case is clear as punt return for a touchdown. He came very close to one in last night’s pre-season tilt in Denver. Aptly using blocks as he darted past would-be tacklers, Hester flew 54 yards to the 4-yard line to set up the Bears’ first touchdown. It was shades of his first two years when he electrified the city and the entire NFL with 11 kickoff and punt returns for touchdowns. The decision to move Hester to wide receiver last year produced a profound effect: no returns for touchdowns.

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Posted on August 31, 2009

By Andrew Reilly
Let’s get one thing straight: the Sox, mathematically, are not out of it. The Tigers are bad enough to collapse, the Twins are probably not for real and the Sox, as we have seen, are capable of some weird baseball outcomes.
That said, the literal crushing the Sox received from the big kids this week should have shown us once and for all that it’s over. They won’t go 0-for-the rest of the season, but there are probably no more significant games left. It might sound negative to write them off in August, but can any among us really see this team making some kind of push towards glory? Of course not.

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Posted on August 31, 2009

By Marty Gangler:
Another lost Cubs season, another poorly constructed team. What was Jim Hendry thinking? We here at The Cub Factor drove out to Hendry’s palatial estate to find out. Hendry wasn’t there, but the source of the problem became clear as we nosed around the grounds.
Hendry’s Home: Sources told The Cub Factor that for a long time the front door led right into the basement. Then that door was replaced with a bunch of other front doors but you really just need one, so it got kind of confusing. And while some doors led to an upstairs bedroom and others led to someone else’s house, they all eventually lead to fourth place.
Hendry’s Rowboat: We found it in the garage, up on blocks. The boat itself is made out of really expensive wood, but the paddles are missing the “paddle” part. So they are like just long sticks with holes in them, and when you row you don’t go anywhere. Plus, Hendry insisted they be left-handed, even though that doesn’t make them any better.

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Posted on August 31, 2009

By Thomas Chambers

Peace of mind. I’ve got it.
I chuckle because I don’t care about Milton Bradley, Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano, and Jay Cutler. The names alone send chills, and not the good kind. I’ll never feel the embarrassment of having a closet full of Favre or Urlacher or Cutler jerseys, because I will invest nothing of my soul to these guys. And I will never reach for a ball or throw beer on a player, first reason being that I won’t even be there.
I gravitate towards the greatest game, Thoroughbred horse racing. The great ones, like Cigar, or John Henry, or Secretariat, or Affirmed come only once a generation. The beautiful thing is that you usually don’t invest your soul or crushable emotion into an individual horse. You love the game. That’s because if a horse gets beat – and even the magnificent Man o’ War and Secretariat both got beat – he either got beat by a better horse, or a better horse on that day. Upset and Onion ran just as hard as those two legends. These are truly noble, honest animals. This, we horseplayers know.

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Posted on August 28, 2009