By Carl Mohrbacher

It seems like when Randy Wells is off his game he gives up a lot of hits in a row. Is there a baseball term for allowing a certain number of guys to reach base consecutively?
-Mendoza, Line Store AR
That does seem to happen with Wells now and again, including Sunday when he let six consecutive Royals reach base.
Three in a row is a Turkey, borrowed from bowling vernacular.
Four in a row is a Sh*t Quatro, like the brand name razor.
Five in a row is a Pentaturd; the geometry majors in our reader base can figure that out.
Six in a row is an Alfonseca. Just Google “Alfonseca” and “six.”
Everything after that is just called a “Shower Ticket.”

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Posted on June 30, 2011

By Steve Rhodes

First it’s the cold weather. Then it’s the day games. Then it’s Wrigley Field. Finally it’s injuries. The Cubs use the same excuses every year to explain their woeful performance except the obvious one staring everyone in the face: Management sucks.
Tom Ricketts hasn’t proven to be any more competent at running a baseball organization than the Tribune Company or the Wrigleys. When he said “Nothing’s wrong, just injuries” earlier this month, his delusion or disingenuousness was showing.
Worse, it’s part and parcel of the Cubs’ annual mantra, as if each year they would be a World Series contender if not for a key injury or unusual rash of injuries that mars an otherwise perfect plan put together by geniuses like Jim Hendry.
Even Mike Quade has gotten into the act, stating that in all his years in baseball,”I don’t ever remember a situation like this [with injuries].”
Really? Because I remember “situations like this” occurring every year, to nearly every team. This year is no exception. Consider what the rest of the major league baseball is facing.

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Posted on June 29, 2011

Presidents, Pierogis, Condiments Join The Chase

Let’s take a look.
1. Presidents.

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Posted on June 28, 2011

By Jim Coffman

Every time a Major League Soccer game ends in a scoreless tie, someone should be fired.
Do these people want fans to attend the games or not? It just isn’t that difficult to send lots of players forward to ensure exciting attacking – and counter-attacking – soccer will be played.
Take, for example, the United States team’s 4-2 loss to Mexico in the Gold Cup final on Saturday evening. Surely the game was notable for the circumstances – arch-rivals facing off in the final of a big event in front of a huge crowd (about 93,000 people filled the Rose Bowl). But all those goals made it great, even if it was a wee bit disappointing that the Yanks blew a 2-0 lead.
Meanwhile, the Fire stumbled to a 0-0 draw in the middle of the week against Real Salt Lake.

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Posted on June 27, 2011

By Steve Rhodes

“Depending on how fast reliever Kerry Wood and outfielder Marlon Byrd can
return from the disabled list, the Cubs might be able to put most of their Opening Day roster together for the first time in more than two months by the All-Star break,” the Sun-Times reports.
“That’s what general manager Jim Hendry said he wants to see before he decides what moves he’ll try to make before the July 31 trade deadline.”
You know what? Every year the Cubs hope to field their Opening Day lineup by the All-Star break. You know why? Teams suffer injuries. Every last one of ’em. Only the Cubs seem to use that fact of modern baseball as an excuse year in and year out as an explanation for why the grand plans of geniuses such as Jim Hendry don’t pan out. After blaming the weather, of course.
O Lord, how long?

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Posted on June 27, 2011

By Roger Wallenstein

I kept rewriting this week’s report because things got weirder and weirder at The Cell over the weekend. Of course, I’m referring primarily to Adam Dunn, who is in an indescribable funk. Rehashing here what already has been covered elsewhere doesn’t make sense. However, the South Side has never been witness to this kind of phenomenon, making it difficult to ignore.
Sure, there was Dave Nicholson, who struck out 175 times for the Sox in 1963. Nicholson was part of a trade with Baltimore that sent Luis Aparicio to the Orioles. Dave had signed a bonus contract with Baltimore which proved to be a waste of money, and they gave up on him at age 22. He had a reputation for hitting gigantic home runs so the Sox took a chance.
Is this relevant to Dunn? Well, sort of. For one, Nicholson’s 175 whiffs have remained unmatched for the past 48 years in Sox annals. But the mark clearly is in jeopardy now that Dunn has fanned 100 times – with seven strikeouts in eight at-bats over the weekend.

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Posted on June 27, 2011

By Thomas Chambers

There’s a war on here. Did you hear about it?
It’s between the financial/legal/political/religious establishment and the little guy – you hesitate to say middle class anymore.
In the Land of Lincoln, they’re not only going after the rank-and-file types (pretty easy for a well-backed soldier of fortune such as Jean-Claude Brizard, right?), but they’ve just given up in any effort to improve the way of life or society in Illinois. They’ve given up. America is just so over, so let’s get ours now, hell if we contribute to the decay.
You know who they are, but how must these people feel to be utterly bereft of any single moral, social, charitable or intellectual instinct or asset, choosing instead to plunder their very own people? Trouble is, they don’t feel it and if you believe in hell, these people will land in its worst corner.

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Posted on June 24, 2011

By Carl Mohrbacher

After watching the Sox broadcast of the Crosstown for portions of the game, I’ve concluded that Hawk Harrelson makes a lot of obscure references. What’s the strangest one you’ve heard?
-Steve, Glendale AZ
I tell you what Stone Pony, there’s no reason to stop at just one Hawk-ism.
* You know who owned the best splitter I ever saw? Jose DeLeon. That’s why I traded him straight up for Bobby Bonilla in 1986.
* I don’t need to tell anyone that watched the ’67 A’s that the greatest outfielder of all time at playing balls off a single hop while moving to his left was Roger Repoz.
* [Following a muffled debate with a member of the WGN production team off mic] Doesn’t matter if it’s made of pure hormones. If it’s called “Yaz,” I’m assuming it’s got something to do with Carl Yastrzemski, so I’m eating it.

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Posted on June 23, 2011

By Dan O’Shea

This week’s Crosstown Classic series offers a chance for me to look back at one of my pre-season predictions – that Carlos Pena would hit more home runs this season than Adam Dunn.
As it stands after Tuesday night’s Cubs-Sox battle at the Cell, Pena was leading Dunn 13-7.
I would like to spend a few paragraphs gloating about being right, at least at the almost halfway point of the season, but we all know this supposed contest mostly has been a battle of the duds. Pena was mostly useless for the first two months of the season, though he has made a strong charge recently. Dunn has been stuck in a deep hole all year, occasionally peeking above ground for a home run or a walk.

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Posted on June 22, 2011

By Jim Coffman

The primary highlight of last night’s Crosstown Classic opener for this Cubs fan was Geo Soto’s big smile after Ozzie Guillen gave his mask the boot in the sixth. Soto had made a great play after Alexi Ramirez topped one that landed about a foot-and-a-half in fair territory and then spun backward on is way back past home plate. Soto snagged it a fraction of a second before it arrived in foul territory; all he had to do was tag Ramirez for the out.
Then the fireworks began. Guillen, seizing on an opportunity to give his team a wake-up call, raced out of the dugout, threw Ramirez out of the way and started furiously pointing to the ground right behind home plate. He obviously was contending that the ball actually reached the dirt back there before Soto picked it up.
It wasn’t absolutely clear from even the best replay (the one the broadcast producers found and aired after a commercial break), but if a person had to make a call based on the playback from the camera located to the right of the plate as one looks out at the diamond, he would have said the ball didn’t quite make it past the dish. In other words, the ump was right.

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Posted on June 21, 2011