By Dan O’Shea

The admission that he used steroids earlier this decade couldn’t stop A-Rod from still being rated as a top 5 pick, and neither could lingering questions about whether he has been on steroids more recently. But it now appears that a cyst is his hip will do just that and more.
Alex Rodriguez still looked like a No. 3 or No. 4 pick to me, possibly even No. 2 because the Yankees line-up looks like such a promising run-scoring machine. But A-Rod had minor surgery on his right hip just days ago, and now will likely be out for at least the first month of the regular season. He’s also already scheduled to have a follow-up surgery after this season, and though the medical reports are casting his odds as pretty strong to have an otherwise healthy year, too much doubt has begun to stir.
Just the other day, I looked at the Yahoo! Player Ranker, which allows Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball members to vote on player rankings, and was not surprised to see A-Rod with an average draft position of about No. 22. Some people might be surprised it isn’t lower, but it’s probable A-Rod stock value has not yet hit bottom.

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Posted on March 11, 2009

Editor’s Note: Last week we offered what we thought was a much better version of the Sun-Times’ Chicago Sports Fan Survey and asked for yours. Spencer Maus answered the call.
–
1. Who is your favorite Chicago athlete?
A) Derrick Rose
B) Carlos Zambrano
C) Mark Buehrle
D) Brian Urlacher
E) Patrick Kane
F) Other
My Choice: Jake Peavy – come on do the trade already

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Posted on March 10, 2009

By Jim Coffman

Paging Jerry Angelo . . . Paging Jerry Angelo . . . Please pick up a white courtesy telephone, give us a call and tell us why on God’s green (soon) earth you aren’t signing anyone? Please?
I’m not one of those guys who torches you every time a big-name free agent signs with someone else. Does anyone who really follows pro football think that T.O. would be the answer to anything that ails the Bears? Come on. And we realize that while no NFL team has figured out a way to win big through free agency, several have determined how to lose (the Redskins spring to mind, as do the Cowboys of the last few years and even the Raiders, though they barely, barely matter). And that way is to overpay past-their-prime stiffs who don’t fit into your system.
But Jerry, you need to sign at least a warm body or two who have, I don’t know, maybe started in the NFL at some point in their careers. You have some big stinkin’ holes in your team and you won’t be able to fill them all with draft picks.

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Posted on March 9, 2009

By Thomas Chambers

Joe Tala-Who? Joe Talamo. That’s who.
On this week’s Jockeys, we get a full dose of The Kid. The ups, the downs, the Jockeys version of an intervention, the hope for the future. This episode seems the most staged, the most manipulated, the most heavily edited. Things out of order or left out completely. I’ll inject (RSA) – for Reality Show Alert – when I think the reality has been manipulated in some way.
Young Joe is in a slump and in the first three races today, he’ll try to break out.
Race 1: Right out of the gate, Talamo and his two-year-old maiden, the No. 2 horse, do an exit, stage right, and then veer severely left in corrective mode. Clipping heels with the No. 1, it’s a miracle there wasn’t a spill. Hall of Famer Mike Smith and veteran Jon Court shake their heads. To illustrate, Smith narrates a clip of a sloppy 1998 race that put him into the hedge face first, resulting in a severely broken back. Talamo’s name goes up on the stewards’ board. He’ll be meeting with the law tomorrow morning.
Race 2: We get only a no-depth-perception head-on replay of the stretch run (RSA) as it appears to this observer that Talamo goes for a hole that won’t be open when he gets there – if he can get there. His horse sticks his head between two others, and in natural weaving by the other two, all three of them almost go down. The two leaders pinch him back out. No objection or inquiry is posted, but once again Talamo’s on the chalkboard. Joe makes like he’s in deep shit, but he also looks like he knows he’ll avoid a suspension. (RSA) “These young guys are getting more and more aggressive,” says Court, shaking his head once again.
Race 3: Crazy Joe is speeding eastbound on the Eisenhower at Des Plaines Avenue with his right blinker on. All’s well as he sees the sign alerting him to the Harlem Avenue exit just ahead. There’s the exit. But it’s on THE LEFT SIDE! Uh oh. Joe darts across every lane of traffic, just making it up the ramp. Or so it seemed as Talamo pulled just such a maneuver to get to the rail and clear sailing as he wins his race three. Martin Garcia files an objection, which is denied, and the win stands.

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Posted on March 7, 2009

By Dan O’Shea

There’s a lot to talk about this week, even football, if you can believe it, as a week of trades and free agent chatter is starting to re-shape some of our expectations for next year’s fantasy football draft. But, we’ll get to that a little later.
First, with most fantasy basketball leagues encountering their trading deadlines this week, there may be one last deal you should make: Get Shaq. What do Shaquille O’Neal and the Dow have in common? They are both posting 1997-like numbers.

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Posted on March 7, 2009

By Steve Rhodes

The Sun-Times is running a Chicago Sports Fan Survey, so I thought I’d make my choices known here.
1. Who is your favorite Chicago athlete?
A) Derrick Rose
B) Carlos Zambrano
C) Mark Buehrle
D) Brian Urlacher
E) Patrick Kane
F) Other
My Choice: Mike Fontenot. The M-Dog. Mighty Mike. Mini-Mike. Ryan Theriot is a close second.

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Posted on March 3, 2009

By Jim Coffman

Taking in the state of the Bulls, Hawks, Sherron Collins and his Jayhawks, plus a few words about sportswriting, including Rick Morrissey, Rick Reilly and Bill Simmons.
That was quite a comeback for the Bulls on Saturday. Down 17 with 5:51 to go, they eventually beat Houston 105-102. And so they saved themselves from what would have been, even for this team, an unbelievably galling collapse after they started the week with one of their best wins of the season. That convincing Tuesday triumph over the very good Orlando Magic was followed by lousy efforts against the not-so-hot New Jersey Nets the next night and the woeful Washington Wizards on Friday. When the Bulls fell behind early against the Rockets, and then couldn’t seem too muster any kind of difference-making defense as the deficit stretched out early in the fourth quarter, a three-game losing streak loomed. But then Brad Miller found a way to consistently front Yao Ming in the final half-dozen minutes at one end, throwing a wrench into the Houston offense, and Derrick Rose and Ben Gordon heated up at the other.
As for the big picture, well, one is reminded again that there is clearly a very good chance the Bulls will let Gordon walk as a free agent at the end of the season. Before they do we sure would appreciate someone filling in fans on who will score the clutch points besides Rose. John Salmons has proven he can score but he certainly hasn’t proven he can score in the clutch. When Gordon scores, this Bulls team has a real good chance to win. When he doesn’t, it doesn’t.

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Posted on March 2, 2009

By Thomas Chambers

The old adage that before OTBs you had to go to the track to get a bet down on a horse has a huge qualifier attached: legally, that is. Of course, at least for most of the history of horse racing as we know it, it’s always been possible to place bets through a bookie, outside the purview of the track.
Betting off-track has taken two huge leaps in the last 40 years. The first was in the late 1960s when satellite television of racing pictures could be and was beamed to simulcast centers both on- and off-track. In fact, way back in 1968, entrepreneur Merv Griffin had the genius to purchase Teleview Patrol, the nascent satellite service then developing its business of providing racing transmissions to Las Vegas and to the new Off-Track Betting industry. The Griffin Group still owned the service at the time of his death in August 2007.
The second was, you guessed it, the Internet. And especially mass access to broadband Internet speeds. While porn on the internet irritated the people it always irritates, tenets of free speech and expression were basically in place. In the case of gambling, everyone from the state and federal governments to the racing industry itself were befuddled by the capabilities of this new technology.

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Posted on February 27, 2009

By Dan O’Shea

NBA teams kept trading right up until the last minute before the trading deadline last week – or at least three of them did: our hometown Bulls, the Sacramento Kings and the New York Knicks. What those trades yielded for the Bulls is a debate only just getting started, but a few fantasy effects have since become clear.
To recap, the Bulls traded Andres Nocioni, Drew Gooden and some baggage to Sacramento for Brad Miller and John Salmons. They also traded the inactive Larry Hughes to the Knicks for Tim Thomas. So, who are the fantasy winners and losers?

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Posted on February 25, 2009

By Jim Coffman

Hey people, can we get something straight about Milt Bradley right now? Just because he’s edgy doesn’t mean he’s effective. I’m officially fed up with reading misguided missives about how the free agent right fielder who actually played much more designated hitter than anything else last year will make a difference for this Cub team because he’ll light a fire under more laconic teammates. What exactly has he won that leads people to this conclusion?

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Posted on February 23, 2009