By Andrew Reilly
It’s sad, in a way, that the White Sox won the series against the Brewers. Wholly awesome, but still sad in that wins over the Brewers, in the scheme of things, mean absolutely nothing.
Yes, the Sox move to within a supposedly decent 4.5 games of the Tigers, and yes, Kansas City and Cleveland are still pretty lousy teams, but those two things were both true this time last week, when the Sox were 4.5 games out and the Royals and Indians had long since established their respective stinkfests.
Still, there will come a lot of misguided optimism about this. Folks will say things to the effect of “If the Sox can beat a first-place team, they can beat anyone.” And this would normally be true except the Sox have proven, time and again, that they actually can’t beat anyone – especially not first-place teams, i.e., the Tigers who whooped on the Sox before the Good Guys went off to school the soon-to-be-dismissed class of the NL Central.

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Posted on June 14, 2009

By Thomas Chambers

As anticipated, Belmont Stakes Day from Elmont, New York, lived up to its potential and turned into a great day of racing capped off by an exciting main event.
Summer Bird, he of the same Birdstone/Grindstone sire side as rival Mine That Bird, turned on an electric finish to clear by nearly three lengths in front of the gallant Dunkirk, who led the race much of the way. Mine That Bird finished third. Charitable Man made an effort to sprint home, but was only good enough for fourth. In the aftermath, it was announced Dunkirk suffered a non-displaced fracture in his right rear leg, but he is expected to be back racing this year.
As I had hoped, Kent Desormeaux saved a great amount of ground and tucked in Summer Bird ($25.80, 9.30, 4.70) fifth or sixth on the rail much of the way in a race eerily reminiscent of his sire’s victory in 2004, when Birdstone snatched the Triple Crown from Smarty Jones.

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Posted on June 12, 2009

By Dan O’Shea

The NFL and NBA rookie drafts are always worth watching for ardent participants of football and basketball fantasy leagues. In both cases, there are any number of first-year players poised to make an impact in the following season. That isn’t usually the case with the MLB draft, for mostly obvious reasons: The baseball draft contains a broad mix of high school and college players of various eligibility levels; baseball teams have vast farm systems and rely more on experienced starters to get the majority of playing time; college players with eligibility remaining who don’t like their draft position or their signing bonus often return to school to wait until next year’s draft; and it can take at least a year of seasoning for even the most experienced four-year college star to develop some of the further skills that will allow them to tread water in the majors, let alone excel. It’s not out of the ordinary for pitchers who have dominated college and summer league hitters to be ordered to develop a new pitch or re-learn their mechanics – though in recent times, more pitchers like Rick Porcello and Tommy Hanson have earned a fast-track to The Show, if not an immediate call.
All that could change with Stephen Strasburg.

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Posted on June 10, 2009

By Jim Coffman
It will take a Herculean effort for Orlando to win the NBA Finals now. After dropping a dramatic Game 2 in overtime Sunday in Los Angeles, the Magic will have to win four of five games (the first three of which will be played in Orlando this week) to pull out the best-of-seven series. I’m dispensing with the ‘if necessary’ codicil at the end of a reference to the third of those three games (game 5) because Orlando will win at least one off the first two games to at least force that contest. But the Lakers are looking very good to wrap this up in five or at the most six games.

Beachwood Baseball: The Cub Factor The White Sox Report

Then again, ‘almost eligible for Mr. Universe’ Dwight Howard is about as close to a modern day Hercules as a mortal man could be. So perhaps we shouldn’t completely count the Magic out just yet. The Magic’s young center struggled on Sunday at times . . . specifically the times when he forgot that when the Lakers double-team him, he must immediately propel the ball back beyond the arc.

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Posted on June 8, 2009

By Marty Gangler
As I was sitting in my living room watching the Cubs play extra innings for the fourth time this week (in only five games) I wondered to myself, what’s worse than watching good pitching get wasted by horrendous hitting? And then it dawned on me: watching multiple extra-inning games of good pitching getting wasted by horrendous hitting.
The silver lining is that the Cubs won three of those games. And that got us thinking here at The Cub Factor. Here are a few other silver linings to a few of the issues facing the Cubs of 2009.
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Problem: Lou Piniella’s gut seems to grow larger with every loss.
Silver Lining: His painfully slow waddle to the mound gives relievers more time to warm up.
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Problem: Sammy Sosa’s bid for the Hall of Fame brings back steroid rumors and corked-bat memories.
Silver Lining: Jim Hendry finally remembers Sammy’s secret hiding place in the locker room for steroids and corked bats. Team poised for a good run.
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Problem: Carlos Zambrano says he doesn’t want to play anymore and will retire at the end of his contract.
Silver Lining: Cubs can stop buying extra large adult diapers sooner than they thought.

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Posted on June 8, 2009

By Andrew Reilly
There was a time, oh, last week or so, when things were looking not quite up, but at least away. The Sox had won some games, the two teams ahead of them started to slip a little and in Charlotte they had both a recovering pitcher and the most loudly heralded prospect the club has seen in quite some time, both ready to arrive on the big stage and solve every crisis facing Soxland. It was as though the team had finally started moving in the right direction.
Instead, of course, we see now the team might not have been hitting their stride, but actually hitting their peak, as though sometime this October as we watch anyone else square off in the playoffs, we’ll all be reduced to saying things like “Remember that one week in May where the Sox won a few games? That was awesome.”

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Posted on June 8, 2009

By Thomas Chambers

You’ve seen it here, and I won’t deny it. The Triple Crown puts some of us into a real tizzy. But now that we know once again that there will be no Triple Crown winner, things have settled down and we ease into the joys of summer Thoroughbred horse racing.
Not to say there aren’t some highly compelling stories this week as 10 will go postward in the 141st Belmont Stakes, the 12-furlong Test of Champions. (ESPN,11 a.m.-4 p.m.; ABC, 4 p.m.-6 p.m.)
Can Calvin Borel win his own human Triple Crown? He’s back aboard Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird after winning the Preakness Stakes on the filly Rachel Alexandra. Can Mine That Bird win the race his sire, Birdstone, commandeered to thwart Smarty Jones (Stewart Elliott up) of his legitimate Triple Crown bid?
Will Chocolate Candy, Dunkirk, Mr. Hot Stuff, Summer Bird or Flying Private be able to put less-than-enjoyable trips in the Derby behind them? Flying Private and Mine That Bird are the only two in this race to have run the other two legs of the Triple Crown.
Either I think this race is wide open, or I don’t know what to think. All the wiseguys are saying that should Mine That Bird understandably falter after a trying Crown trail, Charitable Man will be the horse to beat. They’re also figuring Brave Victory and Miner’s Escape will have something to say about the pace. Pace is everything in this race, and just when you think you’ve got it made, you’ve got four more furlongs to go! If you’ve got plenty of horse, don’t use him up on the backstretch; I’m talkin’ to you, Elliott. Lull them to sleep, and a slow front runner can wire this race, ala Da’ Tara last year.
So here they are, in post-position order. Draw your own conclusions.

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Posted on June 5, 2009

By Dan O’Shea

This seems to be a year of fallen idols in the fantasy baseball world – and we aren’t talking about the two superstars who have been linked to performance-enhancers. When you take a quick look at the pre-season top 10 fantasy players from Yahoo!, only one – Albert Pujols – is performing up to expectations.

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Posted on June 3, 2009

Third in an occasional series.

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Posted on June 2, 2009

By Jim Coffman
When Sean Marshall chose Sunday night for the worst start of his career (and what has been a very successful Dodger lineup even without Manny Ramirez finally busted out against the Cubs after scoring three runs in the three previous games), how many viewers even thought of switching to NBC for the Stanley Cup finals? I did, but only because my older daughter, still a little ways short of big-time sports fan status but occasionally hyper-aware of current sporting events, reminded me. I think her brother may have been the one who reminded her but he wasn’t around when we switched from the Cubs to the Cup.

Beachwood Baseball: The Cub Factor The White Sox Report

The NHL in general still isn’t on my radar. Of course the Blackhawks were, but I didn’t watch a whole lot of the playoffs other than their games, and I watched even less non-Blackhawk hockey during the regular season. That was despite the fact that oftentimes during the winter sports months, I’m willing to watch just about anything to avoid the latest lame basketball doubleheader offered up by ES “We’ve made about as much money as we can off unpaid college athletes – now we’re turning more and more of our attention to high school kids” PN.

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Posted on June 1, 2009