By Marty Gangler

Over the course of any person’s particular fandom there comes a point where you say to yourself, why am I fan of this team? Sometimes this correlates with your favorite team trading away a great player, falling on hard times for a stretch, or possibly not winning a world championship in 100 years. This week I asked myself why I am a Cub Fan.

More Beachwood Baseball: The White Sox Report

Why, you ask? The Cubs are off to a nice start so far and there is room for optimism, so why would someone take a hard long look at why they are a Cub Fan this week?
Well, this week my wife and I had a son, our first. For the record she had the kid and I just tried to make things go as smoothly as possible. But a weird thing happened as we went to the hospital Wednesday morning to begin the delivery proceedings (she was being induced). I said to my wife, Jenny, “Zambrano is pitching today. Wouldn’t it be cool if he threw a no-hitter?”

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Posted on April 21, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

This portion of the festivities was dangerously close to being dedicated to the maturation and subsequent greatness of the young John Danks. But if there’s one thing Chicago baseball fans should know, it’s never go too crazy drawing conclusions from small sample sizes early in the season. Call it the Tuffy Rhodes rule.
Still, Danks has been lights-out so far, picking up two wins this week and pitching more like Mark Buehrle than Mark Buehrle has thus far in 2008. Success in baseball, however, often comes as easily as it goes, especially for 23-year old pitchers. To be a sure thing, it takes consistency. As of now, it’s too early to say Danks has found it.

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Posted on April 21, 2008

By Jim Coffman

No matter what obstacles you may be facing on this frightfully frigid April Monday morning in Chicago, no matter what difficulties stand in your way, take heart from one fact in particular: At least you aren’t a Tigers fan (and if you are, well, what the heck are you doing in here anyway? Go read Detroit sports stuff. I’m sure somewhere there’s a breakdown of how Rasheed Wallace really, really, really will control himself this time around – he promises – and lead the Pistons back to the NBA Finals).

Beachwood Baseball: The White Sox Report The Cub Factor

But back to the Tigers, I mean, are you kidding me? They got beat 18-0 by the White Sox on Saturday and Sunday. They gave up two grand slams in one game to wrap up another disastrous series. Their payroll is the second- or third-highest in the majors, they are 2-10, and they could be out of it by the end of April at this rate.

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Posted on April 14, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

Few Sox players over the years have drawn more admiration from broadcaster Hawk Harrelson than Joe Crede. “Mike Schmidt, Brooks Robinson, those guys are great,” Hawk (probably) once said. “But I’ll tell you what, gimme Joe Crede at third base any day of the week”.
Remember, Harrelson is also the guy who, as Sox general manager, traded Sammy Sosa to the Cubs for George Bell [It was Ron Schueler, not Harrelson. Sorry.]. But Harrelson isn’t the only one who appreciates Crede work at third base. He’s also one of the Sox’s true fan favorites. Crede’s play in October 2005 might have something to do with that.

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Posted on April 14, 2008

By Marty Gangler

Another week in the books and more proof that the Cubs manufacture runs like, well, like a thing that doesn’t manufacture things very good. Sure they got a few wins, but it took them forever. Three extra-inning victories this week prove little to show this team is ready to contend for the World Series. But a few things have happened so far this season that are really surprising. Like being able to count on Ryan Dempster. Yeah, Dempster has been lights out through two outings. But should we count on that continuing for the rest of the season? I don’t really think so. With this in mind, we here at the Cub Factor would like to list a few other things that you shouldn’t count on either.
* The war in Iraq ever ending.
* Kerry Wood’s right arm. Or left toe. Whatever.
* Todd Stroger growing a brain.
* Aramis Ramirez running the bases as hard as he swings the bat.
* K-Fed, Madonna or Heather Mills saving Britney Spears.
* The (non-)situational hitting of Alfonso Soriano.
* Pete Wentz unpressing his hair.
* Felix Pie being at least the next Corey Patterson.

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Posted on April 14, 2008

By Eric Pytel

The 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs are about to kick off and the theme this season is “redemption.” Both conferences feature players and teams searching for the kind of pressure cooker performances that ultimately will lead to hockey immortality and an engraving on North America’s oldest trophy in professional sports.
It’s also time to sit back and enjoy a tasty beverage while firing off one-liners at the TV screen for every shot that hits a goalpost or every bad penalty call made by the zebras “policing” the ice. This is also the time of year when players bury their razor blades in the far recesses of their bathroom cabinets as the “playoff beard” is born.
Let’s just jump right in and look at the matchups.

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Posted on April 9, 2008

By The News And Experts Publicity Service

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Multi-Million Dollar Purse Winner Exposes Horse Racing’s Dirty Secret: Jockey Eating Disorders
Coteau, LA – Superstar jockey Shane Sellers seemed to have it all: turning pro in the sport – horse racing – he loved so much as kid, winning more than 4,000 races and $122 million in purses and finding a soulmate in his wife Kelli.
But as candidly revealed in his “rags to riches to rags” autobiography, Freedom’s Rein, Sellers’ demons from an abusive childhood haunted his personal and professional life to the point of a near overdose death and a brief banishment from the sport.
As documented by author Tricia Psarreas, Sellers used “The Sport of Kings” to escape the grasp of an alcoholic father and quickly found another family in his fellow jockeys, who showed him the ropes and passed down extreme tips to make outdated weight requirements.
“We would starve, eat, heave, sweat and then try to control an animal that weighs ten times what we did,” Sellers recalls.

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Posted on April 8, 2008

By Jim Coffman

Anyone who was surprised by North Carolina and UCLA’s demise Saturday hasn’t been paying close enough attention. Memphis simply has more talent than any other team in this year’s tournament (and that will usually do the trick if the coach can avoid screwing it up). And it had a legitimate chip on its shoulder going in against a UCLA team that was getting a lot of attention during the week prior. UCLA was the storied program that has almost restored its faded grandeur, for goodness sake. The Bruins were returning to the Final Four for a third consecutive year and they would prove they were finally, truly living up to the legacy established by the . . . oh, enough already. UCLA won a bunch of championships in the 60s and 70s, one more in 1995 and the Bruins thought they were on their way to another one. Small problem: Memphis was clearly the better team.

Beachwood Baseball: The White Sox Report The Cub Factor

In the other semifinal, a Kansas team best described as the deepest in Bracketland was ready to let it all hang out against North Carolina. The Jayhawks had cleared a huge psychological hurdle by barely knocking off Davidson in a regional final to finally give coach Bill Self his first trip to the Final Four. The pressure was off and Kansas blitzed the Tar Heels, stumbled a bit in the first half of the second half, and then held on down the stretch.

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Posted on April 7, 2008

By Marty Gangler

It’s been a week and what have we learned about the 2008 incarnation of the Chicago Cubs that we didn’t know already? Well, the team ended last season without a real leadoff hitter and issues manufacturing runs but the pitching was solid. And through six games of the 2008 season it looks like the team has trouble manufacturing runs without a legit leadoff hitter but the pitching has been solid. So, will this change? Unless they make a move, I’d say no. Because until they get a real leadoff hitter they are going to have an issue manufacturing runs. Or maybe the issue is just with Alfonso Soriano, the Michael Vick of baseball. And I’m not talking about dog fighting.
I mean, he really is like Michael Vick. We all know that both players can be electric to watch and can make incredible plays at times. The numbers speak for themselves – if you look purely at numbers. I found a scouting report on Michael Vick coming out of college and the “negatives” in this scouting report sound very similar to those Soriano – well, if you change some of the verbage for the different sports. Take a look, my Soriano comments in italics:

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Posted on April 7, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

During Sunday night’s 13-2 beat down of the Tigers, ESPN’s venerable Peter Gammons fawned over new White Sox masher Nick Swisher, calling him a gamer and a grinder. While the two adjectives have become dirty words for stat-crunching, Fire Joe Morgan-reading baseball fans everywhere, Gammons is spot-on in his appraisal of Swisher.
Swisher is the White Sox’s best player, a fact that seems relatively clear to everyone, even if he’s only been on the team for one week. For Sox fans who have grown tired of watching Juan Uribe swing out of his shoes at chin-high fastballs the last three years, Swisher’s approach to hitting is refreshing, to say the least. If Swisher isn’t thrown a strike, he won’t swing at it. It’s that philosophy that has helped jump start the Sox offense the first week of the year.

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Posted on April 7, 2008