By Marty Gangler

The Cardinals and Brewers face off in a big NL Central series this week, so we here at The Cub Factor thought this would be a good time to take a closer look at the Cubs’ biggest division rivals.
*
CARDS: Named after a bird.
BREWERS: Named after the people who make beer.
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CARDS: Team color is red, like wine.
BREWERS: Team color is blue, like beer.
*
CARDS: Part of the Budweiser family, which brought you Spuds MacKenzie and Cindy McCain.
BREWERS: Part of the Miller family, which brought you Man Law and “ingredients not normally found in beer.”

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Posted on July 21, 2008

By Steve Rhodes

Alfonso Soriano is targeting July 24 as his return date from the disabled list, and Cubs manager Lou Piniella is planning to return Soriano to the leadoff spot, with Kosuke Fukudome batting second. Piniella has earned the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve had it up to here with those who say it doesn’t really matter who bats leadoff.
For example, on April 25, Sun-Times Cubs writer Gordon Wittenmyer wrote:
“Sure, Alfonso Soriano should hit deeper in the order when he returns from the disabled list next week. But as long as Kosuke Fukudome keeps producing the way he is in the No. 5 spot and the guys right behind him continue to reach base the way they are, then Soriano essentially becomes a middle-of-the-order hitter in the leadoff hole after the first inning anyway.”
Nonsense!
Players also aren’t immune to this failed line of thinking. On June 10, Orlando Cabrera said: “You basically lead off only time a game, so it’s just one at-bat.”
Baloney!
Here’s where they and their ilk are wrong.

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Posted on July 17, 2008

By Jim Coffman

Ludicrously enough, we have to scramble at this point to think of ways to upgrade Chicago’s baseball banner-carriers. But scramble we must, if for no other reason than to prop up competitive conversation in this town.
Simultaneously in first place at the All-Star break for the second time in 70-plus years of All-Star breaks, these teams are killing local sports talk (over-the-air and online) franchises. There has been a precipitous drop in submissions to these forums, what with so few “the coach/manager is an idiot” assertions in the air (fortunately Bears training camp is only a month away and they sucked last year, right? Why does Lovie still have a job?). There is even a distinct lack of “of course they should trade the bum” choruses (although there are plenty of loud, individual voices).
Fortunately, we’ve had a little extra time this week to come up with a comprehensive list of sort-of solutions for what almost ails the Cubs and Sox.

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Posted on July 15, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

Well that was a fun little first half, am I right people? The White Sox have been about as competent as anyone could have hoped for before the All-Star Game. Ozzie hasn’t been banished to a second round of sensitivity training, Juan Uribe hasn’t killed anyone, and – hey – the Sox are in first place at the break. It has been a successful start by any measure. As an added bonus, Jose Contreras is still alive. What an upset.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the first half’s signature stories.

Beachwood Baseball: The Cub Factor SportsMonday will appear on Tuesday this week.

Strangest story: Nothing that happens this baseball season will be as odd as the blow-up doll fiasco in May. While the entire episode was just weird, its bizarreness was nearly topped in the media coverage. One paper had the story on the front page (of the actual paper, not just the sports section), while the other had only a few sentences tucked away inside a game story. We get that these two papers are different, but you would think they’d be able to put some gauge on the newsworthiness of a story like that.
Best Ozzie rant: This one may just be our favorite ever, for obvious reasons:
”We won it a couple years ago, and we’re horse[bleep]. The Cubs haven’t won in 120 years, and they’re the [bleep]ing best. [Bleep] it, we’re good. [Bleep] everybody. We’re horse[bleep], and we’re going to be horse[bleep] the rest of our lives, no matter how many World Series we win. We are the bitch of Chicago. We’re the Chicago bitch. We have the worst owner – the guy’s got seven [bleep]ing rings, and he’s the [bleep]ing horse[bleep] owner.”

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Posted on July 14, 2008

By Marty Gangler

When we compared this year’s edition of the Cubs to the classic characters from Happy Days a couple of weeks ago, we didn’t anticipate the addition of a new cast member to shore up the ratings. But will Rich Harden turn out to be a savvy selection like Frasier Crane who makes everyone around him better or will he turn out to be a clubhouse jinx like Cousin Oliver? We think he’ll likely turn out more like one of these additions to M*A*S*H.
* Charles Emerson Winchester: He’s great at what he does but accumulates such high pitch-counts that he has to turn to speed to make it through the year.
* B.J. Hunnicutt. Nice guy, consummate professional, doesn’t provide too many laughs and ultimately winds up back on the West Coast.
* Sherman T. Potter. On the tail end of his career and prone to tendinitis.
* The new version of Margaret Houlihan. Less hot, less strident, and in not quite as good shape.
* The new version of Klinger. He’s no Radar O’Maddux, but he eventually adjusts to his new assignment and loses the dresses.
* That Swedish nurse that one episode. A dream come true. And then he’s gone.

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Posted on July 14, 2008

By Jim Coffman

Was there ever a better illustration of the baseball adage “momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher” than Sunday’s game in St. Louis? The previous Cubs-Cards clash was a potentially devastating loss for the boys in blue, the kind that seemed certain to kick off a losing streak.
Starting with Jim Edmonds dogging it on a potential eighth-inning sacrifice fly (if Cub fans want to boo him his first time up against the Reds this week, that will be OK with me) and getting himself thrown out at the plate and ending with Kerry Wood starting the ninth with a pair of walks and going downhill from there, it was plain ugly.

Beachwood Baseball: The White Sox Report The Cub Factor

But then Sean Marshall pitches six masterful innings the next day and the Cubs match the Cardinals’ only glimmer of hope, Ryan Ludwick’s sixth-inning solo home run to pull within two (3-1), with a run of their own in the seventh (on Derrek Lee’s large two-out double). And that’s that (that was especially that when the Cubs scored three more before they were through). The losing streak ended before it started.
Breaking news: The Brewers are going to finalize a trade for C.C. Sabathia on Monday. That’s a problem, but it’s not a huge problem.

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Posted on July 7, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

Alexei Ramirez wasn’t one of two White Sox players chosen for the All-Star team, but he’s still getting plenty of attention this week, including columns in both the Tribune and Sun-Times. Here’s how they stack up.

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Posted on July 7, 2008

By Marty Gangler

“In a 35-day stretch that ended Sunday on a steamy afternoon at Busch Stadium, the Cubs survived two West Coast trips, two City Series, a day trip from Toronto to Cooperstown to Tampa Bay, manager Lou Piniella’s Tropicana Field homecoming and injuries to their ace, their leadoff man and their center fielder,” Paul Sullivan writes in the Tribune today. “The only thing Piniella could do after the long, grueling stretch ended was lean back in his chair with a cold one and be thankful it was over.”
Tell us about it! We’re exhausted!
Just when it looked like the Cubs were world-beaters, that same old Cubbiness started to show. It reminded us here at The Cub Factor about the way the Cubs are like life’s little activities.

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Posted on July 7, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

I never understood why baseball teams have such trouble playing on the road. It’s one thing in football, where crowd noise can affect communication at the line of scrimmage. But in baseball, the crowd cheers at the same time anyways, right? Just pretend they’re rooting you on!
Whatever. As was evident this past week, both stellar baseball teams in this city can’t seem to figure out this road thing just yet. The Cubs and White Sox are both juggernauts at home; back-to-back sweeps really aren’t all that surprising.
I was in attendance for Game 3 on Sunday, so here are some observations from sky high in the upper deck.
* The best moment of the game, and possibly my life: I don’t remember which player was up to bat or even what inning it was (let’s say around the third), but a Cubs batter hit a rocket, the type of shot Hawk Harrelson would have described as “right size, wrong shape”. That is to say, the ball had home run distance but was clearly foul. So the crowd does a collective “sigh/whew” but two Cubs fans in front of my start going crazy, celebrating the home run. They’re cheering, jumping up and down, slapping hands, the whole bit.
Naturally this caused an uproar of laughter from the White Sox contingent in my section for at least a minute. As soon as it died down and things got real quiet, someone said “If that’s they do after a foul ball, I hope they don’t start making out after a hit!” Good times.

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Posted on July 1, 2008

By Jim Coffman

One thing is certain as we bid adieu to the latest interleague interlude, one that was lopsided just about everywhere but here (the American League was much the superior combatant for the fourth year in a row): Neither the Cubs nor the White Sox will run away and hide with their divisions in the next month or two. We haven’t seen much of it in Chicago, but in other places teams have been known to build decent leads early on, maintain them and then stretch them out as July turns into August. That won’t happen around here because . . .
Despite departing the weekend with a three-game lead (in the loss column) over the Cardinals, the Cubs’ schedule is just starting to toughen up (after an early season stretch that featured a disproportionate number of home games). The forecast is not great for re-starting any long win streaks any time soon. And while the Cardinals haven’t been setting the world on fire of late (5-5 in their last 10), they also have officially avoided a June swoon. And here come the Brewers (seven games over .500 heading into this week).

Beachwood Baseball: The White Sox Report The Cub Factor

Still, Zambrano is due back this week, Soriano isn’t far behind and everything still feels reasonably solid. I hated to see Carlos Marmol take the loss on Saturday (that was the game to win wasn’t it? You just knew Mark Buehrle would put it all together on Sunday). But Marmol threw strikes. And so did Sean Marshall on Sunday.
The White Sox have a different problem, namely that they had a highly successful week and the Twinkies not only don’t go anywhere, they make up a little ground. At some point Minnesota’s ridiculous run will end (Sunday’s win over the Brewers was their 11th in their last 12 games); in fact, it should at least slow way down this week. That’s when Minnesota, which went 14-4 in interleague play this summer, goes back to playing real competition from the American League.

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Posted on June 30, 2008