By Ricky O’Donnell

When President George W. Bush threw out the first pitch of the season in Washington, one thing was eminently clear: this was a guy who loved baseball. Maybe that should have been obvious all along – after all, he did own the Texas Rangers (and traded Sammy Sosa to the White Sox ) – but hearing Bush talk informatively about baseball from the broadcast booth, one couldn’t help but notice his passion for the game.
As Deadspin’s Will Leitch wrote at the time, Bush was never more engaging or likable as he was that night. Those are hardly two adjectives Bush is synonymous with anymore, and maybe it’s even more astonishing that our president was actually able to tolerate speaking with Joe Morgan.
Even so, it was a little surprising to read of Bush’s affection for Sox pitcher John Danks. After all, it would seem like the South Side of Chicago couldn’t be more different from Bush’s White House surroundings.

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Posted on July 29, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

Losing two out of three to the lowly Royals is hardly the way the White Sox wanted to open up the second half of their season. Luckily the Sox still have nine more games against Kansas City before the season ends, games that will go a long way in deciding if the Sox have what it takes to win the AL Central. With that roller coaster of a first half now behind us, let’s make some predictions of what to expect from the Sox in the second half.
* We will continue to see more ridiculously biased White Sox columns from Jay Mariotti. Yeah Jay, we get it: the manager threw a derogatory word at you two seasons ago. Time hasn’t healed any wounds for Jay though, as he continues to pile on the organization every chance he gets. “Is anyone out there remotely comfortable with a half-game lead? You shouldn’t be,” he writes in his latest. “Think the Blizzard of Oz still will be in first place Aug. 1? I don’t. . . . The Twins are that good.”
Are the Twins really that good?

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Posted on July 21, 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 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 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 Ricky O’Donnell

So before things got underway on Friday, I asked a bunch of my friends to write why they hated the Cubs, and I posted it on my site. As one would expect from a bunch of college kids, each response was more immature than the last. But all of them made one thing clear: even though these were only three games in the middle of June, this weekend mattered to Sox fans. I’m sure Cubs fans felt the same way.
That’s why writing this column now is pretty hard. The Sox just got pounded into the dirt. What else is there to really say? It doesn’t mean the season is over, or that the Sox still can’t win the division and make the playoffs. Really, nothing was decided but a few barroom arguments. Still, those games felt like something more, and the Sox blew it. I really thought a decisive six-game series win over the Cubbies could have propelled the Sox to big things this year. Now all they can hope for is to tie up the season series at home, something that is clearly easier said than done.

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Posted on June 23, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

At least for a young fan like me, everything before 2005 feels like forever ago in White Sox World. There are so many vivid images from that season that will forever be burned in any fan’s mind. I think that’s part of the reason the earlier portion of the decade seems like such a blur. Carlos Lee and Magglio Ordonez played for the Sox in 2004? Really? My memory starts after Torii Hunter plowed Jamie Burke.
But then something crazy happened. The Sox signed Esteban Loaiza.
In 2003, Loaiza possibly put together the best regular season of any White Sox starter ever. Yeah, 2003. That wasn’t really that long ago. But when Loaiza trotted out of the bullpen against the Twins last week, it was clear this wasn’t the same guy who won 21 games one season. The dude could barely crack 80 on the radar gun. Jordan faxing in “I’m back” this was not.

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Posted on June 16, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

We all know Orlando Cabrera has his faults. This has been discussed over, and over, and over. Well we’ve got a new one this week, and it’s his most egregious yet: Orlando Cabrera likes Nickelback.
Cabrera: “I like Nickelback. Really. I love Nickelback.
He sounds convincing, right? I mean, we already know he likes to party. What’s better than drinking tequila and listening to “How You Remind Me”? Nothing I tell you. Nothing at all.
While Cabrera listens to the worst music of any Sox player (I believe it’s a scientific fact that you cannot do worse than Nickelback), the rest of the guys have their faults, too. I always thought one of the coolest parts of being a professional baseball player would be getting to choose your at-bat song; apparently the White Sox hitters disagree. They suck at liking good music. So here is some advice, Sox hitters, to make you guys look a little cooler before coming to the plate.

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Posted on June 9, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

If this is how things are when they’re winning, I don’t even want to imagine what would happen if these White Sox lose their footing. Just look at this week’s Orlando Cabrera fiasco.
We suspected Cabrera may become a problem a few weeks ago In an attempt to get a couple errors off his record, Cabrera started a firestorm. Suddenly his manager didn’t have is back, he had cut off a newspaper, and he was no longer deemed a leader. Overnight, Orlando Cabrera became an idiot. All this while the White Sox still sit atop the AL Central.

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Posted on June 2, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

I think it’s totally rad that the city’s two biggest newspapers have put an emphasis on blogging. After all, people, this is the future.
Writing a blog, obviously, isn’t like straight reporting: you’re supposed to have interesting opinions and give keen observations. Basically, a sports blogger is supposed to write like a fan watching a game at the local tavern would talk.
With that said, Steve Rosenbloom, top blogger for the Trib, went overboard this week.

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Posted on May 27, 2008