By Eric Emery

Yes, I know what you are thinking: The Bears have the winning formula – a proven QB, an original Offensive Coordinator, two solid RBs, a top ten defense, and a coach that specializes in discipline and defense. In fact, Ken, Dave, and some guy I met in Wrigleyville believe the Bears will go 13-3.
I know your non-Bear fan friends tell you that you are wrong. Packer fans disagree because they have too many thoughts of Brett Favre running through their head. John Madden disagrees because he has too many thoughts of Brett Favre running through his head. Minnesota fans disagree because they have the Love Boat theme running through their head. Allow me to disagree while five Lombardi trophies run through my head.

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Posted on August 21, 2006

By Eric Emery

For the next 22 weeks, Over/Under will be your constant reminder that it is Football Season. Like the fat man on ESPN says, you cannot stop the hype. You can only hope to contain it. Along with the national highlights, we will comment on the hype close to home in a feature we call The Blue and Orange Kool-Aid Report.
Not to start a religious war, but have you noticed that, very much like Christmas, the football season is creeping into the national conscience earlier every year? I guess we can’t help it. We’re Americans. If Pat Robertson said, “Let’s start Christmas shopping on Labor Day,” we’d shrug and go along with the program. Because that’s who we are. Let’s face it, we Americans need help when it comes to how we allocate our time – whether it be fantasy football, Christmas shopping, Sunday afternoons, or that BSing we do with Frank in Accounting every Monday morning.
But who are we to ignore the trends of the day? We’re jumping right in. It’s never too early to gauge the hype. So here are the most Over/Under hyped teams so far.

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Posted on August 21, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

“I don’t think you have to blow this thing up and start all over again.”
– Dusty Baker
“To be successful next year, a blowup’s not in order.”
– Jim Hendry
“We’ve got a good group of players. We’ve just got to make a few adjustments.”
– Aramis Ramirez
Please. Blow it up. Now.
It may not seem like the Cubs have much to offer on the trade market, but they actually do. Several of their players are worth more now than they will ever be. The value of Michael Barrett, a lousy defensive catcher having a career year at the plate, will never be higher. Trade him. The value of Jacque Jones, having a strong year at the plate but a lousy defensive player, will never be higher. Trade him. Aramis Ramirez, having a relatively mediocre year at the plate and a lousy defensive player, isn’t at his highest value, but could be worth something in a trade. So trade him. Greg Maddux will never be worth more for the remainder of his career. Trade him. Juan Pierre will be a free agent at the end of the year. Trade him unless he is the centerfielder of the future. In which case, trade Felix Pie. Dump Neifi Perez and Todd Walker. Stock the team with young prospects in return. Sign a couple free agents in the off-season. That’s how you get back to contending.

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Posted on July 26, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

It’s only gotten worse since this was first posted more than a week ago. Cubs broadcaster Bob Brenly the other night praised the Minnesota Twins organization for instilling the philosophy of its style of play from the lowest minor leagues and up, in just one of many recent comments indicating the Cubs problems run far deeper than Dusty Baker. We think they run far higher – right into the executive suite.
The Cubs almost blew it two weeks ago when they took the first two games of a three-game series from the Cardinals. A sweep would have been a disaster. Going 6-4 on their road trip before rolling into Houston this week was dicey enough. Thank God the Astros completed a three-game sweep Thursday and sent the Cubs home to Chicago pretty much in the same sorry shape they were in when they left.
Because the worst thing that could happen to the Cubs is to go on a little winning streak. It would feed the illusion that this team is simply a healthy Derrek Lee and Kerry Wood and Mark Prior away from contending. With Dusty Baker at the helm.
That way lies madness.

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Posted on July 2, 2006

By Natasha Julius

The Stanley Cup was finally awarded Monday night after a spectacular championship series that took the full complement of seven games. The finals featured salty veterans, unlikely heroes, the first-ever short-handed overtime goal, and one team’s stirring rally from a key injury. And guess what? Nobody watched.
That’s because the National Hockey League has gone out of its way to make itself unlovable. From the lemonade of a growing nationwide fan base, they have extracted the lemons of a rancorous labor dispute and a canceled season. It’s not just the NHL, though. There seems to be a gene in the DNA of the sports world that triggers self-inflicted injury to reputation among some of our most prominent leagues, franchises, and athletes. Here is our list of the 13 most impressive jock implosions.

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Posted on June 21, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

Ever since the Tribune Company bought the Chicago Cubs in 1981, the company’s newspaper subsidiary, the Chicago Tribune, has lived under a huge shadow of suspicion about its coverage of the team amidst a conflict-of-interest (and arguably a violation of the company’s and paper’s own ethics policies) as big as Sammy Sosa’s ego in its prime.
I’ve written many times that I’ve never seen or heard evidence of the Tribune sports section favoring the Cubs because the players and sportswriters work for the same company. But I’ve also argued – as have Tribune writers themselves – that the paper will never overcome the perception that its Cubs coverage is biased. Nor, as unfair as it seems, should they be allowed to, because readers can never know for sure what goes on behind the curtain.
That curtain lifted briefly last week when The Score‘s Mike North interviewed the Tribune‘s Cubs beat writer Paul Sullivan about a recent meeting he had with team officials about his coverage. North’s interview was prompted by an item in Chicago Sun-Times gossip writer Michael Sneed‘s column last Thursday that said “top Chicago Cubs executives Andy McPhail and Jim Hendry berated Chicago Tribune sports editor Dan McGrath and Cubs beat writer Paul Sullivan over what they felt was the paper’s unfairly critical coverage of the team. The expletive-laced tongue-lashing supposedly took place last week at Wrigley Field, according to a source.”
On Friday morning, Sullivan told North on the air that the Cubs seems to believe the Tribune should be the team’s “house organ” – and that positive Cubs coverage in the Sun-Times is “part of the problem.”

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Posted on June 2, 2006

By Steve Rhodes

1. The Onion was right.
2. Baker stinks.
3. In its Dusty Baker entry, Wikipedia includes these frequent criticisms of the embattled Cubs manager:
* Overuse of starting pitchers, possibly leading to short-term and chronic injury (see: Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Russ Ortiz).
* Handling rookie players poorly, putting them in positions to fail or unfairly passing them over in favor of older players.
* Ignoring statistics when filling out the lineups. For example, in a good portion of 2005 he put Corey Patterson and Neifi Perez in the top of the batting order, despite having two of the worst on base percentages on the team.
* Lacking focus
* Earning the nickname “double switch dusty” Baker often overlooks that a pinch hitter doesn’t need to be placed in the field.
* Baker almost never comes out of the dugout to back up a ballplayer on a disputed call.
4. Dusty Baker is apparently still hawking a “You Can Teach Hitting” product line. The site still has video of one of his more successful students, Corey Patterson, on it.
5. Dusty Baker likened to former FEMA director.

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Posted on May 15, 2006

By Jay Wagner

The rain fell like big wads of spit on Saturday, the day Joe Hicks returned to Des Moines to be honored for his hitting prowess two decades ago. Hicks got used to waiting in the late 1980s, when his record-setting performance as an Iowa Cub failed to stir the interest of the front office in Chicago, who already had an offensive-minded player named Leon Durham playing first base.
So maybe it was fitting that Hicks never got a chance to throw out the first pitch or to sign autographs for the few hundred fans between games of a doubleheader on Joe Hicks Day. Hicks’ career was all about waiting.
When he barreled into the press room on Saturday with his wife, Karla, and kids Michael and Jodi, nobody took much notice. The beat reporter from the Des Moines Register was watching the pro football draft on ESPN and most of the employees seeking refuge from the rain were more interested in the big tins of pasta the organization had set out than they were in Hicks.
Still, it’s one of those mysteries of baseball that Hicks never even got a whiff of The Show. Hell, the I-Cub record book wouldn’t be the same without him. He hit more home runs and collected more RBIs than any player in franchise history; collected the third-most hits (1661); the fifth-most doubles (85); and the fourth-most runs scored (244) in the 25-year history of the club.

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Posted on May 4, 2006

Our Guide to the NCAAs/By Natasha Julius

THE SIXTH ROUND: Otherwise known as The NCAA Championship Game, Which Is Already Anti-Climactic Both Because Most Pool Winners Have Already Been Determined And Because It’s Not Nearly As Much Fun Watching A Single College Basketball Game As Tracking A Bracketful Of Picks.
UCLA vs. Florida
Both teams have been in imperious form since the Elite Eight, knocking out the top seeds in their respective brackets and posting double-digits wins in the Final Four. Going by seeding alone, UCLA has had the more impressive run, dispatching #3 and #4 teams to Florida’s two #11s. Of course, if we went by seeding alone Duke would be facing UConn right now.
Bruin Notes: UCLA played superb defense against Final Four opponent LSU, although they were helped by extremely poor free-throw shooting on the part of the Tigers. Luc Richard Mbah a Moute gave the team an explosive scoring ability that had been conspicuously absent in earlier rounds. The Bruins are hurting, however. Comically humongous senior Ryan Hollins, a major presence on the boards, is nursing a thigh bruise and logged only 17 minutes in the last game.
Gator Notes: Their Final Four tilt with over-matched George Mason was not so much a win as an outpatient surgery. Florida denied the Patriots their bread-and-butter three-point shots and dominated the offensive glass, frequently getting third and fourth looks at the basket. This team is composed entirely of gangly freaks with Dsungaripterus wingspans. Al Horford could probably slap me upside the head all the way from Indianapolis if he didn’t like my bracket picks.
The Match-Up: This final boasts many of the major themes of the tournament. Strict defense versus explosive offense, size versus grit, veteran leadership versus youthful bravado. It’s going to come down to the intangibles. Billy Donovan’s hair versus Ben Howland’s Zoom whitening; Jordan Farmar’s ears versus Joakim Noah’s pornstache.

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Posted on April 2, 2006

By Don Jacobson

As a Minnesotan, a lifelong Twins fan, and a former sportswriter who had the great privilege of covering the Twins in their 1991 World Championship season, I can tell you one thing: We may never see another Kirby Puckett in our lifetimes. Not in baseball or in any other sport.
He lived life hard–so hard it was like he was operating at a different level than anyone else. The energy just flew off him. Your eyes were drawn to him even in a crowded, noisy locker room. But it was a positive energy, unlike so many other intense pro athletes I have encountered. Kirby Puckett was an elite super-athlete who had a special something that enabled him to never succumb to the immense pressure of stardom and turn into an asshole. And I loved him for that.

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Posted on March 9, 2006