Snobs vs. Slobs

The All-Star starters will be revealed on Sunday. With that in mind, Ross and I got together on teh Interwebz to discuss who we’ve got on our ballots. (more…)

When Ozzie Guillen called Jay Mariotti a “fucking fag” last week, I kind of hoped it would go away. It hasn’t. Kenny Williams was quoted that “we;ve seen this movie before,” Mariotti has written about 100 columns about it and even John Rocker is now in Ozzie’s corner. (more…)

This afternoon, Peter Gammons was taken to a hospital because of a brain aneurysm. He had done the Sunday night Yankees/Marlins game and was resting at his home in Cape Cod. He was airlifted to the hospital, went through surgery and is currently resting in the ICU. The initial reports said he will be in the hospital for 10-12 days.

Taft and I saw Peter Gammons’ induction into the baseball Hall of Fame. While most of us were there for Cubs legend Ryne Sandberg, I was largely there for Gammons. He’s clearly the most progressive person—even at 61, the oldest on the Baseball Tonight set at any time—as he’s the only guy talking about things like OPS, OBP, etc. He’s probably the most-connected guy in the game; At trade time, he is indispensable. He currently writes a blog for ESPN.com, though I miss his columns.

I love Gammons. While he can be repetitive and is nearly never critical of any organization or player (except Barry Bonds and Raffy Palmeiro), he is certainly the greatest baseball writer I’ve ever read. He’s good on TV.

His HOF speech was very moving, and it included one of my favorite segments about the game, patriotism and the way we see ourselves, as Americans:

It’s about celebrating that baseball, more than any sport, is who we are. It is reflected in our immigration patterns, our history because we’re all immigrants. We should want the world to see us not for our politics, not for our business, but for baseball as our metamorphic soul, inclusive, not exclusive, diverse, not divisive, fraternal, not fractionalized.

Let’s all hope he’s OK and back on TV (and writing) ASAP.

This week: 2-4
Overall: 28-46 (5th in NL Central, 14 Games Behind St. Louis)

The American League continued to beat up on the National League throughout interleague play this week, and the Cubs were no exception. After getting beaten within and inch of their lives by the Tigers, the Cubs managed their first series victory against Cleveland since taking 3 out of 4 from the Reds early this month. They then proceeded to Minneapolis, where the Twins swept them, outscoring the Cubs 18-3 in the series. The Cubs are now a season-low (it seems like I write a new one of these every week) 18 games under .500, and their winning percentage has dropped to .378. As my brother pointed out to me yesterday, they are on pace to go 61-101, which, difficult as it may be to believe, would be the Cubs’ first 100 loss season in 40 years (1966, 59-103). (more…)

Yes, the Cardinals didn’t have Albert Pujols. Yes, the Sox didn’t have to have Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter. Yes, Mark Mulder was likely hurt.

Still, this week’s sweep of the first-place Cardinals was a pretty clear message: Don’t mess with the Chicago White Sox. St. Louis is still a first-place team, and the Sox made the Cardinals look silly. (more…)

Just as a disclaimer: This particular post is going to have some salty language. I don’t normally need to do disclaimers, but I feel like these particular terms may offend some. That is not my intent.

Ozzie Guillen needs to apologize like he means it. Greg Couch has called for it, though I imagine some of it has to do with him defending his colleague. (more…)

The Sox start a series tonight against the St. Louis Cardinals, the first place team in the National League Central. The Sox have had a rough schedule (this is their second first-place opponents in three series. (more…)

Record this Week: 0-6
Record Overall: 26-42 (5th place, NL Central)

So much for the Friendly Confines, eh?

The Cubs went 0-6 on a six-game homestand, with little going right against the Astros and the Tigers pushing around the Cubs like they had the best record in baseball and the Cubs were a team full of overrated veterans and borderline prospects.

Oh, right. (more…)

While I wasn’t rooting for the Cubs to win this past weekend, I suspect there are probably some Sox fans out there that rooted for the more popular Chicago team to beat the Kitties Friday-Sunday over at Wrigley. This didn’t happen, but the Sox did take care of their business down in Ohio. (more…)

I don’t do game logs very often, but in a season in which Cubs fans don’t have much to be excited about, the return of the guy who was supposed to be the franchise pitcher is big news. So this blog will focus on Prior’s start. Prior is on a 90-95 pitch limit, so hopefully he’ll be able to give the Cubs 5-ish innings. (more…)