Chicago -
By Phillip Novoa/Finn Partners
The Conrad Chicago – set to open this summer – will offer a block of rooms designed for professional and collegiate sports teams visiting Chicago, including 96-inch extra-large king beds and 65-inch flat-screen TVs (among the largest of any hotel in the city, perfect for reviewing game tapes).
Posted on May 13, 2016
By Graham Kendall/The Conversation
If there’s one thing everybody knows about gambling it’s that the house always wins.
And while it is true that casinos always make a profit, there are a number of ways to cheat the system – some of which are actually perfectly legal.
Posted on May 11, 2016
By Dan O’Shea
When Dee Gordon was recently suspended for 80 games, fantasy owners who drafted him with the prospect that he could win them the stolen bases category every week were suddenly left trying to rebuild their strategy with waiver wire spare parts.
Gordon led all of MLB last year with 58 SBs, so finding a replacement that productive is unlikely, but there are a handful of widely available players off to unexpectedly strong starts in the SB category:
Posted on May 10, 2016
By Sarah White with photos by Sergio Perez/Reuters
MADRID – Mementos from the soccer world that brought Syrian refugee Osama Abdul Mohsen to Spain are strewn around the flat he shares with two of his sons, including a ball signed by Real Madrid’s star players and a banner for the local team, Getafe.
But reminders of the makeshift nature of his new life are also everywhere, seven months after a Spanish sports academy offered Mohsen a home and help in finding a job when they heard he used to coach a first division team in Syria.
The apartment that well-wishers have housed him in is adorned with someone else’s trinkets, including rows of encyclopedias in Spanish, a language Mohsen still struggles to speak. And half his family is missing.
Mohsen’s story went viral after he was filmed being tripped up by a camera woman as he fled police near the Hungarian border with Serbia last September. He was carrying his youngest son Zaid, then 7, in his arms at the time, and the two fell sprawling on the ground.
Posted on May 10, 2016
By Jim Coffman
Joe Maddon is on such a roll it’s starting to get creepy.
Heading into the bottom of the seventh in Sunday’s 4-3, 13-inning victory that gave the Cubs a four-game sweep of the Nationals, the manager looked ahead and knew he wanted pitcher Trevor Cahill to pitch at least a third inning in relief (he had already tossed two shutout innings after Jake Arrieta went five) in the eighth.
Posted on May 9, 2016
By Marty Gangler
One of the more interesting – or maybe more correctly – infuriating things that happened last week was that former Cubs manager Dusty Baker came to town. And of course Dusty can’t not open his yap and spew complete and utter BS.
I mean, he should ride in this thing because he’s so full of bologna.
Granted, it’s grasping at straws these days to find anything to make you angry about the Cubs, but hand it to Dusty to light that old fire.
Posted on May 9, 2016
By Roger Wallenstein
One of the many stories Bill Veeck would tell about his daddy, who was president of the Cubs in the 1930s, was this one: One afternoon he was in his father’s office where the stacks of cash from that day’s game receipts were resting on the old man’s desk.
“Can you tell where this money came from?” Veeck Sr. asked the puzzled young Bill. The lesson? A dollar has the same value regardless of whence it came – be it from the wealthy or the poor, from white, brown, or black folks, or from immigrants or native-born Americans. All paying patrons were welcome at Veeck’s ballpark.
And yet, baseball still faces great challenges attracting dollars from across the spectrum. I thought about this while reading The South Side, the new book from WBEZ’s Natalie Moore, during the same week as Cinco De Mayo, when the Sox entertained the Red Sox in the finale of a three-game series while the Nationals invaded Wrigley Field for the first of a four-game set.
Posted on May 9, 2016
By Jim Coffman and Steve Rhodes
Cubs can pick any eight players and put ’em at any position and they’ll win. Plus: Crane Kenney, Still Employed By Cubs, Strikes Again; Rahm Emanuel Is The Crane Kenney Of Mayors; Dusty Cannot Be Trustied; Rogers!; Ding Dong Danks; Leicester vs. Lester, and much, much more!
Posted on May 6, 2016
By Thomas Chambers
“If the Super Bowl is the ultimate game, how come there is another one next year?” – Duane Thomas, 1972
So here we are, wiseguys, civilians, hot chicks donning architectural and pretty hats. Party people do it all over, I know. And it certainly beats by a long way Tom Brady jerseys on the naugahyde sectional.
A few famous beauties who surprise you (I’ve learned don’t be surprised by the ladies vis a vis the horses) and back up their picks with élan. Good whiskey, great jockeys and the best three-year-old Thoroughbred race horses America has to offer.
Even Lani, shipping in from his home in Japan. Remember, he was bred in Old Kentucky, but he’s not a crumb over here: son of Tapit, grandson of Sunday Silence.
Posted on May 6, 2016
By Dan O’Shea
Last week, I pitched a few ideas for waiver wire pick-ups to improve your starting rotation. This week, let’s shop for sluggers.
HRs is one of the easiest stat categories to draft for – look at who had 35 or more dingers last year, and it’s a pretty good bet those guys will be swatting more HRs this year. The list of HR leaders doesn’t vary all that much from year to year. It comes as no surprise, for example, to see Nolan Arenado MLB with 11 HRs after he hit 42 last year. Same goes for Josh Donaldson and Bryce Harper, who both have nine HRs after one month of play, and notched 41 and 42, respectively, in 2015. These guys are doing exactly what we thought they would do.
It’s a little more of a surprise to see Trevor Story or Neil Walker at nine HRs. Both exploded out of the gate the first couple weeks of the season, and are pretty much unavailable now unless you want to trade for them.
Fortunately, if your squad is suffering from a power outage, you still have waiver-wire options:
Posted on May 5, 2016
