By Roger Wallenstein

I received some nice feedback and response to the season’s first White Sox Report. It was encouraging to know that other people aside from my immediate family read the report. Apparently I am not the only Sox aficionado with time on my hands.
One such e-mail came from an old friend who has been following the South Siders even longer than I. He asked, “Do the Sox get a fair shake from the media?” and why are the “White Sox continually a second-class citizen in their home town?” I couldn’t suppress a long, anxiety-reducing sigh. However, he redeemed himself with the tag, “Is that even important?”

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Posted on April 11, 2011

By The Beachwood MVP Affairs Desk

1. From the NBA itself:
“Check out Derrick Rose as he goes for 30 points and continues his MVP campaign, leading the Bulls to a huge win over the Celtics in Chicago.”

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Posted on April 8, 2011

By Dmitry Samarov

I moved to Chicago to go to art school in 1990. I’d been a Red Sox fan ever since a school trip to Fenway Park sometime around 1980. It was one of Carl Yastrzemski’s last years and I didn’t know a damn thing about baseball. Having only arrived from the USSR recently, the thought of signing me up for Little League wouldn’t have crossed my parents’ minds. I played stickball with my best friend, Dan, against the wall of the elementary school. We also played Strat-O-Matic, keeping stats on curling sheets of lined paper, playing out countless seasons as the ’57 Brooklyn Dodgers or the ’27 Yankees or some crazy amalgam All-Star squad spanning decades. Being a Red Sox fan, you needed to embrace disappointment, so when I got to Chicago and looked around for a local club to follow, the Cubs weren’t an option. I already had a lost cause and didn’t need another. The White Sox were another story.

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Posted on April 5, 2011

By Jim Coffman

If this is winning hockey, the rest of the NHL can have it.
And that is starting to look almost likely. The defending Stanley Cup champs are teetering on the edge of missing the playoffs heading into the final week of the regular season.
Tampa Bay pulled out Sunday’s game against the short-handed Hawks 2-0 thanks primarily due to their stultifying neutral zone trap. And while some fans may admire the work that goes into playing that style effectively, most don’t enjoy the choppy hockey that results.
Analyst Steve Konroyd and the producers of the Blackhawk broadcast on WGN-TV carefully showed how the Lightning consistently arrayed as many as four skaters across the middle of the ice just outside their own blue line, making it very difficult for the home team to get any sort of a rush going.

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Posted on April 4, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

Hope doesn’t necessarily spring eternal at the start of the baseball season. Curiosity maybe. Can Konerko match last year’s numbers? Can Beckham bounce back? Will Peavy be able to perform? Does Ozzie really have a closer? Can Pierzynski make any friends? Will Adam Dunn strike out 200 times?
And there is surprise. One day the Sox are playing a bunch of minor-leaguers in Arizona, and then, presto, they’re in Cleveland, and the game actually counts. It happens very quickly.
So did my entry into the blogging world. It appears that 60 years of following the White Sox – including seven vending beer at Comiskey when I worked virtually every game – qualifies me to comment on this latest edition of the team along with relating past events. So here goes:

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Posted on April 4, 2011

By Carl Mohrbacher

Who will be starting at second for the season opener?
-Rutager, Alsip IL
There has been a strong push within the organization to give the job to Darwin Barney, but there is an outside chance that he will be named starting Small Town Deputy Sheriff in Sevierville, Tennessee; home to the Cubs AA affiliate. Many feel his name lends itself to the job. [Editors Note: Shortly after going to print, Darwin Barney was named the opening day second baseman and the Small Town Deputy Sheriff job was awarded to pitcher Trey McNutt]
What’s up with the Orioles? Former Cubs Kevin Gregg, Jake Fox, Cesar Izturis, Derrek Lee and Felix Pie are on their major league roster. Corey Patterson, Will Ohman, Rocky Cherry, Scott Moore, Mike Fontenot and Lou Montanez were all on the team last year. Rich Hill and even Sammy Sosa were sent to Baltimore at one point. Is this the equivalent of Andy MacPhail rummaging through an ex’s trash for loose clumps of hair in an attempt to make some sort of wicker-Cub?
-Rick, Crystal Lake IL

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Posted on April 1, 2011