By: Melissa S. Wollering

 
Doth my ears hear correctly?  Exsqueeze me?  Bacon powder? On Wednesday, the Brewers broke .500 for the first time this season. After a horrible start to April, that’s like beating the same odds Ben Linus has of becoming Chief of Staff to Jimmy Carter after getting off the island post-
Dharma Initiative.

 
Your Milwaukee Brewers have won seven out of their last eight to achieve that monumental task. Note 15 wins in a row against Pittsburgh and 18 in a row at Miller Park. Playing the Pirates every other series wouldn’t be so terrible, eh?  Strange enough, many of them have been close games and the Brewers always pull it out. Why can we only win close games against the Pirates?

AAAARRRRRRR, matey. The fans of those losing scoundrels are angry that the Brewers untuck their jerseys after a win. If you haven’t heard by now, the tradition is in honor of Mike Cameron’s father who used to untuck his shirt after a tough day’s work. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette blogs are chock full of dissenters. Really? One guy wrote that he wanted the Brewers’ Gatorade cooler tainted with swine flu because he’s so mad. Really?

Meantime, Yovani Gallardo went to bed Tuesday and woke up an ace pitcher 12 hours later. Put this into your TI-84’s and crunch it: 8 innings, 2 hits, 1 BB, 0 runs, 11 K’s. Perfect game through two outs into the 5th inning. Then he [More …]

By Rikki Greenberg

There’s always been something mystical and alluring about the Chicago Cubs. Whether it’s the players (Ernie Banks, Ryne Sandberg), the broadcasters (Harry Caray, Jack Brickhouse) Cubs fans consistently pack the house every baseball season.
One would think that after the huge letdown of last season’s NLDS and the already skeptical start to the 2009 season (Milton Bradley’s suspension and groin injury, Aramis Ramirez’s possible trip to the DL and the team’s mediocre start, enthusiasm for another “Lovable Losers” season would begin to fade, like the blue dye on a really old Cubs t-shirt.

The repetitive disappointments of almost-but-not-quite-there season finishes have truly begun to take their toll on the Cubbie faithful.

“I know that I am [bitter], said Paul Schmidt, sports writer and TSB contributor. “I felt as though the moves they made were classic overreactions to problems they had last season.”
Other Cub fans try to remain true to their optimistic nature, but concerns over habitual negative patterns create a conflicting mix of emotions.

“I feel like as a true fan, you should ALWAYS be optimistic about an upcoming season,” said Danny Jay, a lifelong Cubs fan living in California. “On the other hand though, what is it going to take for them to stop messing it up? Who knows? It’s hard to have faith for over a century.”

Other concerns over player troubles and performances complicate the path to World Series greatness and leave some fans shaking in their Cubbie boots. [More …]

By Paul M. Banks

In their 54th all-time Stanley Cup Playoff appearance, the Chicago Blackhawks advanced to the Western Conference Semifinals 4-2 where they’ll meet the 3rd seeded Vancouver Canucks. If that 54 sounds super-high, remember that the Hawks are one of the NHL’s original six franchises. This series will be the third all-time Stanley Cup Playoff meeting between the Blackhawks and Canucks, with each club taking one series. The Blackhawks swept the Canucks 4-0 in the 1995 Western Conference Semifinals. Vancouver earned a 4-1 triumph over Chicago in the 1982 Campbell Conference (Younger readers may not remember the old names NHL divisions and conferences once had) Finals.

The Blackhawks have ruled Canada like Prime Minister Stephen Harper this season, owning a 15-5 record (including playoffs) versus Canadian teams this season. But this round will provide a much bigger challenge than Calgary did in the first round. Chicago and Vancouver split the four game regular-season series. The Blackhawks won the first two meetings (Oct. 19 at United Center, Dec. 20 at General Motors Place), before dropping the final two match-ups (Feb. 7 at GM Place and March 29 at the UC).

When Canucks opponents visit General Motors Place, they often find their offensive game plans to be as valuable as GM stock. That’s because the 26-12-5 at home Canucks feature Roberto Luongo, one of the hottest goalies in the game. Loungo posted a 4-0 record in Round One [More …]

By Soxman and Paul M. Banks

For the 2nd straight week, Soxman is once again in the driver’s seat at the Sportsbank, and plays host as Paul M. Banks pulls up a chair to talk 2nd place, 2nd thoughts on Brian Anderson, and a 2nd injury to Chris Getz.  We also move forward with the 2nd week of Maybe or Mirage, the Sportsbank’s White Sox version of ESPN’s 30-second drill.

SM: Well we are almost one month into the 2009 season and the standings say we are just an average team at 9-9.  I’m thinking of writing a book called A Tale of Two Teams to describe our Sox this season.  Want proof?  The Toronto Series.  We have seen some spectacular defense, such as the amazing diving catches by Brent Lillibridge and Jerry Owens, offensive execution and timely hitting in Saturday’s game, and then sloppy defense by Alexei Ramirez and Brian Anderson with offense that was just plain offensive in Friday’s 14-0 embarrassment.   Which performance do you think is reflective of the real team?

(PMB) Like on Sesame Street, “this week’s Sox Exchange is brought to you by the number 2.” I think this “two-faced” team is on pace for a 83 to 85 win season. I think you’re right about the roller-coaster. Expect a lot of results on this team (and in the AL Central overall) to not make a whole lot of sense. Ozzie told the media right before the season started that this [More …]

“Does your playoff beard itch yet?”

By Paul M. Banks

-From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “A playoff beard is the superstitious practice of a National Hockey League player not shaving his beard during the Stanley Cup playoffs. The player stops shaving when his team enters the playoffs and does not shave until his team is eliminated or wins the Stanley Cup. It is believed that the tradition was started in the 1980s by the New York Islanders The tradition is also practiced by nearly all North American hockey leagues, to include high school leagues and the NCAA hockey teams, as well as minor league affiliates.The tradition has also spread to hockey leagues in Europe.”

-You’ll see it in the other sports now too. And even in academia.

-What I learned from chatting with other sports journalists this week

No one cares about spring college football even though coverage of it has grown exponentially this week, and Chicago is ten times more interested in the Blackhawks playoff run than they are in the Bulls postseason. People just don’t seem to care too much about the Bulls here. Oh and we realistically may not have a newspaper here in ten years. A more detailed explanation on all these things in the next edition of Week in Review

-The Chicago Tribune’s Shannon Ryan was at all 7 of the games/press conferences that I attended these past couple weeks. So maybe her job isn’t as fun and glamorous as you [More …]

By Paul M. Banks and Rikki Greenberg

These days, anyone who follows Chicago sports is well aware of how Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, with the help of Vice President John McDonough, re-branded the Blackhawks from obscure afterthought into main event of the Second City. Northwestern Athletic Director Jim Phillips could likely be the next executive to accomplish such a feat. Anyone who had a pulse in Chicago around New Year’s heard all about Wrigley Field’s hosting of the 2009 NHL Winter Classic. And the huge success of that event inspired Northwestern’s AD into thinking about using the legendary ballpark for an event of his own.

Phillips is aggressively pursuing the idea of joining forces with the Cubbie faithful for a football duel between Northwestern and the University of Illinois in 2010 or beyond. The plans for Wildcat football at Wrigley Field are still in the beginning stages, but Phillips has had talks with Chicago Cubs Chairman Crane Kenny regarding the potential game and other future initiatives. He’s also been hanging with out with Brooks Boyer, the White Sox V.P. or marketing and John McDonough, the man who holds the same position with the Blackhawks as well as Bulls brass. When he sees them he picks their brain to get more ideas.

Like Rocky Wirtz, he’s a man of the people: greeting everybody he can, getting involved in the community, talking in depth with fans and media alike. He gets to know the journalists covering his team because basically, [More …]

 
By: Melissa Wollering

 
When half your team is playing really well and the other half can’t stop itself from imploding, the losses are disgusting, the wins are both shocking and satisfying and the word consistency is foreign.

 
In this week’s “Good, Bad & Ugly,” Coffey is my favorite beverage, Looper my favorite pitcher and Bush my Most Improved.  In his last outing, Bush gave up 4 hits, 3 BB and 3 runs in the 1st inning alone. However, on Thursday, Bush had a no-hitter against Philly going into the 8th. Former Brewer Matt Stairs eventually ended that with a homer that hit the right field foul pole.

Looper continued his winning streak Wednesday pitching six scoreless innings. Word is he may move ahead of Manny Parra in the rotation. Coffey did give up his first run as a Brewer on Wednesday, but should be thanked for a gutsy two-and-two-thirds-inning save earlier in the week.  In that game, Coffey forced a double play with the bases loaded in the 7th, got out of a jam in the 8th AND plopped down a perfect sac bunt in the 9th to move Kendall to second.  That transformed into an insurance run. Sicko good.

Coffey is also drawing comparisons to Brewers 2003-2004 closer Dan Kolb. Kolb hadn’t made many waves before the Brewers picked him up in his late 20’s.  Same for Coffey. Both showcase mid-90’s sinking fastballs.

Also in this category: Mike Cameron.  [More …]

By Paul M. Banks

White Sox centerfielders are like Bulls post-players or Bears QBs prior to the Jay Cutler signing. There’s nothing close to a blue chip stock in the portfolio, so all you can do is take the collection of junk bonds you have, and try to maximize your return.

31 year old DeWayne Wise was a career minor leaguer for a reason, there’s no reason to expect his game will significantly improve when he returns in 6-8 weeks. He earned the job coming out of spring simply because as the Dave Matthews Band once put it “we’ll make the best of what’s around.” Of course, the criticism Wise received from White Sox Nation this April was grossly unfair because he never possessed the talent and potential of the guy who’s now stepped into his place.anderson1

Brian Anderson, the Sox first round draft choice in 2003, is on perhaps his 17th or 18th chance to be the guy the Sox front office expected him to be. His reputation makes him notorious for enjoying the Chicago nightlife on a truly heroic level- like Mark Grace or Kyle Farnworth level partying. Perhaps he’s matured and ready to focus on developing his natural talent into making himself a true Major League hitter. He’s always been great defensively, but his career batting average (.222) and on-base percentage (.282) are LAUGHABLY bad. He’ll have to continue showing increased patience at the plate.

When Wise went down, Jerry Owens was recalled from AAA [More …]

By Paul M. Banks

The last time the Chicago Blackhawks won a playoff series in 1996, it was a first round triumph over the Calgary Flames. If history repeats itself in 2009, the series MVP could likely be Hawks Center Jonathan Toews, who was 8 years old back then. He was born the same year the Flames’ home arena, the Pengrowth Saddledome hosted Winter Olympic hockey in 1988. With 5 points (2 goals, 3 assists) team captain Toews is leading the Hawks in scoring this postseason.

When Flames Coach Mike Keenan prepares for the next playoff game versus Chicago, his game plan obviously centers around stopping the young all-star. He could tell his players “Don’t Toews me, bro,” paraphrasing one of pop culture’s most famous quotes of 2007. “As a team we feel that if we do things the right way, the chips will fall our way and things will happen for us, so we don’t need to get too worked up,” Toews said regarding his team’s outlook on the series.

Toews, the second overall pick in 2006 and Patrick Kane (last year’s Rookie of the Year and 2007 overall number one draft choice) are the dual faces of the rejuvenated franchise. However, Toews has a few things on Kane that make him the team’s true signature player: his captaincy status and the added responsibilities of increased media and community visibility that come with it. With the postseason’s added spotlight, he’s out-playing Kane, who has one point in [More …]

by Peter Christian

thecallouts@gmail.com

The Call-Outs are a weekly list comprised of entities in the sports and pop culture realm whose actions and behaviors deserve to be pointed out and ridiculed. I didn’t ask for the gig, it was presented to me as a gift by the Greek God Apollo. OK, I made that up, but it makes for a good story. I also include a list of things I enjoyed so that I don’t seem like a complete “Negative Ned”

This week I enjoyed: Bruce Pearl’s Rap, John Madden’s retirement, NHL Play-offs, Marc-Andre Fleury’s game 2 save on Jeff Carter, NBA Play-offs, Derrick Rose’s first NBA play-off game, Andre Iguodala’s dagger, Boston vs. Chicago game 2, 4 days until the NFL DRAFT!!!

“Premonition”

If you have seen the movie (starring Sandra Bullock and Julian McMahon), I’m sorry. I decided to watch the flick because it was on Showtime (which I now get for free) and I remembered thinking, “That could be OK,” when it was initially released in 2007. Boy, was I wrong. I couldn’t have been more wrong. By the thirty minute mark of the movie I was regretting even starting it, but I plugged along in the event that it got better (which by the way, NEVER HAPPENS IN SANDRA BULLOCK MOVIES). The film is about a housewife who learns of her husband’s death and then begins to [More …]