By Jim Coffman

I busted out my “W” flag t-shirt Sunday after it had sat in the closet throughout the baseball offseason. I thought the Cubs’ signing of Yu Darvish warranted a little celebration. Plus pitchers and catchers report tomorrow and that is always a great day.
But the Darvish signing wasn’t all good news for the North Siders. It was another reminder, in an offseason full of them, of management’s failure, more than six years into its tenure, to successfully draft and develop pitchers of any note.

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Posted on February 12, 2018

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

But even Shani Davis can’t make all his dreams come true. Plus: Coach Coffman’s Epic Super Bowl Wrap-Up; The Mirotic Trade Looks Even Better After Seeing The Rest Of The League’s Deadline Deals This Week; Derrick Rose Not Welcome In Minnesota; The Blackhawks Are So Sad We Don’t Even Want To Talk About Them; PECOTA PESCHMOTA; and Help Us, Loyola, You’re Our Only Hope.

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Posted on February 10, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

This has happened before. Maybe not quite like today, but the White Sox found themselves scrambling to find a radio outlet during the winter 47 years ago too, which is exactly what’s going on right now.
It appears that the Sox likely will be broadcast over the Cubs’ once-sacred airwaves of WGN after one season on WLS, whose parent company Cumulus Media has filed for bankruptcy, negating the last five years of its contract to carry Sox games.
While a stable of promising young players provide lots of optimism for the future, back in the winter of 1970-71 no self-respecting radio outlet had the least bit of interest in airing the exploits of the South Side team. The Sox were coming off their worst year in franchise history having lost 106 games, just the third and last time that Sox losses exceeded the century mark. Just a few more than 6,000 fans per game witnessed the carnage at Comiskey Park.

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Posted on February 9, 2018

By Jim Coffman

How is it possibly possible?
How can it be that backup quarterback Nick Foles – the guy who was absolutely rejected as a possible starting signal-caller by all 32 teams in free agency last year – is the Super Bowl MVP?
First guess? The NFL has no clue what it is doing.

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Posted on February 5, 2018

It’s Always Funny Until The Rioting Starts

The best non-football part of the game – better than the ads and the halftime show – starring MVP MLK.
I mean, this is just too perfect, to get us started:

OMG someone overlayed that ridiculous Dodge/MLK ad with what King actually said about capitalism and car commercials pic.twitter.com/9IB528mCyt

— Astead (@AsteadWesley) February 5, 2018

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Posted on February 5, 2018

By Kyle Emich/The Conversation

The New England Patriots lost their best wide receiver to an ACL tear before the season started. Two months later, Patriots defensive captain and Pro Bowl linebacker Dont’a Hightower tore his pectoral muscle, ending his season.
In early December, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz – in the midst of a breakout season – tore his ACL.
Each team experienced enough upheaval to have derailed their seasons. Yet, each will be playing for the Vince Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl LII.
While many NFL analysts deal with easily observable factors – individual performance, weather, play-calling and match-ups – it’s often what can’t be seen that determines a team’s success.
Inside and outside of sports, I’ve studied what makes some teams thrive and what makes others falter. Because talent goes only so far, it’s important to evaluate a team’s structure and mindset to determine its true strength.

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Posted on February 4, 2018

By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes

Zip lines, fedoras and Justin Timberlake. Plus: The Mirotic Miracle; Sad Saad; Oscar Gamble Was More Than Just The Game’s Greatest Afro; Willson Contreras To Catch Every Game; Being Mark Appel; Foxy Friend Rips Ryan; Ramble Off; and Testify!

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Posted on February 2, 2018

By Natasha Julius

Super Bowl halftime acts are announced in October, meaning that this year is truly the first halftime of the Trump era. And, much like everything related to the Molester-in-Chief, the choice is so on-the-nose it hurts. What better way to vanquish the sublime memory of last year’s Lady Gaga tour-de-force than with the weaselly little fucker who ripped off Janet Jackson’s bra cup? Time’s up, #MeToo! We need a cis-het white guy corrective.
Look, you can argue that Justin Timberlake has the requisite career arc for a Super Bowl halftime act. He’s been around an inexplicably long time, he’s accumulated a back catalog of moderately notable hits, he had a somewhat successful year in 201– no, fuck this, I’m sorry. Justin Timberlake? Are you kidding me with this shit? Nipplegate aside, this is a guy who has made a career gleefully squawking about creeping up on unsuspecting women and forcing them to gyrate with him. Don’t believe me? Please allow me to quote from last year’s Oscar-nominated opus, “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”:

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Posted on February 2, 2018

By Roger Wallenstein

The hat never quite fit so it was a good thing that Oscar Gamble, who died Wednesday at 68, most often wore a batting helmet in his role as designated hitter for the 1977 South Side Hitmen.
Gamble’s ample, expertly coiffed Afro already has been prominently mentioned in the announcements of his passing, but it wasn’t the hair that Sox fans remember from that magical season. The guy could flat out hit.

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Posted on February 1, 2018

By Andrea Germanos/Common Dreams

News on Monday that the racist Chief Wahoo logo will finally no longer appear on the Cleveland Indians’ uniforms starting next year prompted calls for other sports teams to follow suit, and for the Midwest team to go further if there’s to be a real shift towards justice.
“Over the past year,” Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement, “we encouraged dialogue with the Indians organization about the club’s use of the Chief Wahoo logo. During our constructive conversations, [Cleveland Indians owner] Paul Dolan made clear that there are fans who have a longstanding attachment to the logo and its place in the history of the team. Nonetheless, the club ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball, and I appreciate Mr. Dolan’s acknowledgement that removing it from the on-field uniform by the start of the 2019 season is the right course.”
The statement implies that previous decades of use of the caricature were “appropriate for on-field use.”

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Posted on January 30, 2018