By Jim Coffman

Whatever you do, don’t cheer. The kid has two strikes on him with two outs and runners on second and third. We are clinging to a small lead and if he strikes out, we have a real good chance to turn that lead into a win, our first of the season. But nobody is truly happy when coaches strike out the kids on their teams at this level. It is so much better when they hit it and we make a play on defense. So coach, don’t cheer. In fact, don’t move a muscle as the umpire cries out “Strike three!” But don’t be too tough on yourself for feeling so relieved. It can’t be helped.
Deciding just how much your T-Ball/coach-pitch team plays to win is one of the biggest challenges facing a coach at this level. It infuses every part of my son Noah’s junior division games. Of course I’m not trying to win at all costs (Congratulations coach, your team just won the T-Ball championship! Thank you, thank you very much. I’m so pleased to accept this honor because it so clearly validates my entire life . . . I’d like to thank the grounds crews, the umpires, the bottled water distributors . . . ). But the “Can’t we all just rise above this petty competition stuff?” approach doesn’t work either.

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Posted on May 31, 2007

By Marty Gangler

Lou Piniella has reached the stage of Ultimate Cubs Flummoxation in record time. It took Dusty Baker, for example, three years before he was really so beside himself that he started mumbling incoherently. Don Baylor before him got a couple years in before acquiring that thousand-yard Cubs stare. Jim Riggleman was the stalwart: He lasted five seasons and appeared to leave the job with his sanity intact.
Truth to tell, Uncle Lou came into the job already a little unbalanced. But he’s gone from angry to resigned in record speed, uttering the phrase last week “What’re you gunna do?” three times after yet another heartbreaking loss and getting a sympathy quote from Cliff Floyd, who assured reporters that Piniella “doesn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him.”
Jay Mariotti suggested one thing Piniella could do: “How about bailing while you still have your health and mind?”
The Cub Factor has some additional answers to Lou’s query.

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Posted on May 28, 2007

By Eric Pytel

This would be the best thing to happen to the NHL in a long time – a recognizable star leading his team to a championship – one that we’d be reflecting on rather than waiting to start. The season, like many of the players’ names, is too long. Hello, it’s almost time for All-Star ballots!
Nonetheless, the Beachwood offers the following Stanley Cup Preview for your viewing enjoyment.

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Posted on May 28, 2007

By Jim Coffman

This spring and summer my kindergarten-going daughter Alana has embarked on the happy little slice of Americana that is a first season of T-Ball. She plays for the Rookie League Red Sox at a North Side park a little less than a mile from our house. And her brother Noah, 8, is playing his last year in the Junior Division. At that level, the first three innings are T-Ball and the last four are coach-pitch. That’s when the head coach, in this case me, tries to groove pitches for his own players to hit. We’ll have more on that excruciating task later.
So this is the only season in which my two oldest kids are both utilizing the traditional youth baseball starter kit. And I’m cautiously optimistic we’ll all make it through at least reasonably unscathed. Then again, one realizes early on in the process of coaching this sport to kids this age that there are a great deal of things that can go wrong.

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Posted on May 24, 2007

By Marty Gangler

The Crosstown Classic should be renamed The Six Regular Season Games Against Another Team Classic. Sure, that isn’t interesting or fun, but neither are the games. Okay, they are as interesting as any typical weekend series at Wrigley Field, or The Cell for that matter, but they certainly aren’t any fun. The Cubs-Sox rivalry stopped being fun a while ago; now it’s just annoying.

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Posted on May 21, 2007

By Marty Gangler

Remember when the Cubs were building a team around Corey Patterson, Bobby Hill, and Hee-Seop Choi? It wasn’t long ago that these were the saviors of the franchise. But when it comes to the Cubs, the word “prospect” has just as often meant “pipe dream.” Where have you gone, Brooks Kieschnick? A lonely Cubs Nation turns its eyes to you.
That’s what makes the budding stardom of Ryan Theriot so fascinating. He’s an un-hyped, un-heralded, un-hoped for, un-Cub described this week as “Almost Left For Dead.” He’s the best position player to come out of the Cubs organization in a long time. And yet, even after hitting .328 in 53 games last season, Cubs scouts didn’t believe. Now Lou Piniella has to move heaven, three outfielders, and two infielders to get Theriot into the lineup every day.
Leave it to the Cubs to screw up in reverse. If the Cubs farm system were really an actual functioning farm, they’d be milking chickens, looking for eggs from cows and, of course, beating dead horses.

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Posted on May 14, 2007

By Marty Gangler

If the Cubs could only play the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington Generals, er, Nationals, every week they would make their $300 million off-season investment stand up. These teams suck. And the worst team in the league last year – the Cubs – just beat them silly. Well, beat them ugly, in some cases, but beat them just the same, five of six games in all. The Cubs may be on a roll, relatively speaking, but you almost have to feel sorry for their poor, pathetic victims.

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Posted on May 7, 2007

By Jeff Ruby

Barry Bonds is innocent.
No, I don’t like him either. No one likes him, except maybe his mom and a couple of amped-up geeks kayaking around McCovey Cove with fishing nets. But Bonds is on the precipice of becoming baseball’s all-time home run king, and not only does nobody care, most fans seem to wish he never happened.

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Posted on May 2, 2007