By Dan O’Shea

It’s one of those times of year when fantasy sports enthusiasts have a lot on their plates: Fantasy basketball drafts are underway, the football season is nearing its halfway point, and the baseball postseason is giving us a few things to ponder as we make some mental notes for next year. I will try to touch ’em all in this week’s entry.
Basketball
Whether you believe the Bulls’ Carlos Boozer, PF/C, injured himself by tripping over a gym bag while answering the door, what’s done is done, and you can’t count on any fantasy production out of him until at least the end of November.
Yet, if you were already planning on drafting Boozer for your fantasy team, it was because you know he’s injury prone and you’re willing to accept that. Fantasy managers who can’t handle that tend to stay away from him altogether. Like Troy Murphy, another injury prone PF/C, he is still a borderline top 50 player. Given the injury, you might want to wait until the sixth-round, rather than picking him in the fifth, but leaving him on the board any longer than that makes him a bargain. He still averages a double-double when healthy, and he improved his stats in almost every fantasy category last year.

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Posted on October 20, 2010

By Andrew Golden and Carl Mohrbacher

Blue: As the writer of the Blue side of the Kool Aid report, I am obligated to pull the positives from each and every Chicago Bears game. Let’s be honest, the Bears got their collective asses beat on offense and defense (go special teams!) in Sunday’s 23-20 thrashing at the hands of the ever dangerous Seattle Seahawks. Therefore finding positives from that morass might seem a task akin to throwing a football accurately while facing impending pain from onrushing 300-pound defensive lineman. But if Jay Cutler has to face this for the next 10 games, who am I to disappoint this column’s eight fans? Granted, my 87 year-old grandfather is one of those fans, so it’s not that tough a crowd (for the record I’m KICKING HIS ASS in fantasy football). But here’s a few positives I came up with:

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Posted on October 19, 2010

By Jim Coffman

Anybody have a clue what is going on in the National Football Conference?
The leading contenders have emerged in the AFC, what with the Steelers, Colts and Jets winning again on Sunday and the Patriots eking out an overtime win over the otherwise-impressive-so-far Ravens. It isn’t hard to project those five teams into the playoffs already, along with whatever lame team wins the AFC West (I suppose the Chiefs are still the favorite despite having lost two in a row).
As for the other conference, the one the Bears are fortunate to call home, well, it was screenwriter William Goldman who memorably said: “Nobody knows nothing” about which movies will be successful and which will tank. And that assessment certainly applies to a group of divisions in which everybody has at least two losses and no one has mustered any sort of sustained excellence.
In other words, the rest of the conference appears to be just as shaky as the Bears. There’s some hope in that . . . isn’t there?
As for yesterday’s game . . .

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Posted on October 18, 2010

By Mike Luce

Here’s an oddity about college football you won’t see in the pros.
Pretend for a moment you don’t know the identity of either team involved in the following situation. Both teams enter the game ranked, with the #1 team playing on the road against #19. The visiting squad attempts a comeback in the second half after trailing by 12 points at halftime.
After an interception, the visitors take over in great field position early in the fourth quarter down by only a touchdown. The offense sputters, however, and the visitors face fourth- and-long on the home 25-yard line. The kicker for the visitors is a freshman yet he has booted through two of three field goal attempts of 40 yards or more on the season. As the visiting coach, what would you do?

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Posted on October 15, 2010

By Thomas Chambers

Third and last in a series.
I’m a lucky guy.
Being single, I’ve never had to go Kremlin on any kids in order to censor, block, shun or protect them from all things Disney. Which I would do with every fiber of my being. That annual parade on Michigan Avenue gives me the willies.
This loathing has protected me, I think, from the insidious tentacles of Disney’s intellectually bankrupt crusades over the years to shape culture for its own social and commercial gain.
Secretariat: The Impossible True Story is a new, prime example of a fine story cranked through the Disney meat grinder, under the direction of Randall Wallace, a movie guy with a big Christian street rep. Screenplay by Mike Rich.

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Posted on October 15, 2010

By Dan O’Shea

Miami may have the “Three Kings,” but none of them will be the king of this year’s fantasy basketball draft. Without further delay, here’s my fantasy hoops top 10:
1. Kevin Durant, SF, Oklahoma City.
Surprisingly little argument here for LeBron James or anyone else to be No. 1. Durant is still growing as a shooter, a scary thought for a guy who led the league in scoring last year. He’s an impeccable free throw shooter, and plays enough defense to balance his stat sheet.
2. LeBron James, SF, Miami.
A strong case can be made to drop him to No. 3. He’s still the all-around best player by a large margin, but the consensus is that going to Miami will not be as good for his fantasy production as it will be for his chance to win a title.

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Posted on October 13, 2010

By Jim Coffman

On the first play in the red zone at the end of the first drive of the day Sunday, the entire Bear offensive line broke to the right as quarterback Todd Collins turned to make the handoff. Except Collins held onto the ball and then made his best pass/pitch of the day to Matt Forte as he sprinted back against the grain toward the left side. Forte was far too speedy for the defensive end who was responsible for containing him and soon he was busting through to the end zone.
Shortly thereafter, Forte again broke into the open, this time thanks to a crisp cutback and an awesome block from tight end Brandon Manumaleuna. There was no catching him on his way to the 68-yard touchdown that put the Bears in command for the rest of the day. Thanks to a very stingy defense and a banged-up and struggling Panther offense, the Bears’ foes would never again pull closer than 11 points on the way to a 23-6 decision. Now let’s talk about that awesome first touchdown a bit more.

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Posted on October 11, 2010

By Steve Rhodes

Seeing Joe Girardi in the New York Yankees dugout chasing his second straight world championship is a reminder that Cubs general manager Jim Hendry has not only saddled his franchise with some of the worst contracts in baseball history, but that his choices for manager have been as bad as his choices for players to invest in.
If Hendry had hired Girardi four years ago, he’d likely still be in the Cubs dugout. Instead, Hendry went after a manager who let it be known that he would be working on his last contract, ensuring continuing instability instead of finally growing a real baseball organization.

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Posted on October 11, 2010

By Mike Luce

After five weeks of college football action, the season is beginning to shape up. Apart from the usual suspects (Alabama, Ohio State, Boise and now Oregon) some interesting shifts have taken place in the polls. In some cases, unheralded teams have fought their way into the national picture while others have climbed the ranks into the Top 10.
The Season So Far: An Overview of BCS Contenders with a Minimal Number of Ladder-Climbing or Mountain-Scaling Metaphors
Without looking at the Associated Press poll for Week Five, guess what the following teams have in common: Arizona, Michigan State, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma State and Missouri. That’s right, all six teams began the 2010-11 season unranked in the Week One poll. Five weeks later, each have emerged as contenders ranking between #6 (Oklahoma) and #24 (Missouri). Each has yet to lose a game, and at least two will remain unbeaten next week. (Michigan State travels to the Big House to face Michigan while Nevada hosts San Jose State. Sorry, SJSU, we don’t see it happening.)
From the list, the Mizzou Tigers seem the most suspect. Missouri has yet to play on the road and will face #6 Oklahoma and #7 Nebraska in back-to-back weeks later this month.
Let’s check back with the Tigers and the rest of this list on November 1 to see if they still remain in the rankings.

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Posted on October 8, 2010

By Thomas Chambers

The second of three parts.
–
“All was of a piece, in proportion (Charles) Hatton (of the Daily Racing Form) thought. Secretariat had depth of barrel, with well-sprung ribs for heart and lung room, and he was not too wide in the front fork, nor too close together, and he came packaged with tremendous hindquarters. It was as straight a hindleg as Hatton had ever seen and would serve as a source of great propulsive power.”
– “Secretariat: The Making of a Champion” by William Nack.
Secretariat had been regally bred, the son of the great sire Bold Ruler, out of the Princequillo mare Somethingroyal.
The earliest notes on him, before he even had a name, pretty much said “he’s real good lookin’, and a nice kid, too.” He really didn’t need breaking, at least not the bronco kind you see on TV westerns, but he did have a learning curve. As with any great athlete, his mind had to catch up with his body, and then his body had to catch up with his mind.

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Posted on October 8, 2010