Cubs look to buck the trend

The Crosstown classic begins tonight, and continues through until Thursday. The teams appear to be on different arcs, with the Cubs playoff-bound and the White Sox thinking about who they can trade away at the deadline coming up. But none of that matters when the two teams take the field tonight at U.S. Cellular Field.

Link to a post on ChicagoSideSports

It’s been a lousy summer for baseball fans here in Chicago. Of course, the Stanley Cup was won a few weeks ago, and some people around here would make that trade any day of the week. And having two sports teams doing well at the same time seems like a pipe dream, so the lack

Link to a post on ThroughTheFenceBaseball

When I read that Jim Thome has signed on with the White Sox organization, I was happy for him but disappointed that it was not with the Cubs, the team that he followed as a kid growing up. Thome has no history with the Cubs organization, but I wrote about him anyway in this piece that

The Cardinals and the Cubs

I grew up about a hundred miles away from St. Louis, Missouri. Chicago was 200 miles away, and seemingly in a different world. So when I came to Chicago, as people from all over the midwest do, I had an adjustment to make. I was a Cubs fan already, but I had to recalibrate my

Even the throwbacks didn’t work

The Cubs have worn “throwback” uniforms–which are designed to recall earlier eras in their history–five times prior to last night’s game against the Giants in San Francisco. They won each of those games, including last summer in Fenway Park (shown above), and for the first interleague game against the White Sox back in 1997. And

It’s time for Chicago’s Civil War

Baseball and Chicago are just meant for each other. People sometimes say this is a Bears town, but in reality, there are just eight Bears games played in Chicago every year (ten if we’re really lucky). The Cubs and the White Sox, however, play that many games in a little over a week. And while

Quite an achievement

Even the most hardcore Cubs fan there is could be forgiven if they forgot about Ron Hassey. He came to the Cubs in the middle of the 1984 season, part of the Rick Sutcliffe trade that sent Joe Carter and Mel Hall to the Indians, and set the Cubs on their way to the divisional

Someday we’ll go all the way

Being a Cubs fan is very hard. No, baseball is not life and death, and so I won’t pretend that people don’t have it a lot worse than I do. I’m fortunate, in many ways, with how my life has turned out. And yet…. Imagine waiting for something your whole life. Then imagine the sense

Waiting for the call

It’s late, and I should be in bed getting some sleep. But I have an idea to share, and so that’s what I’ll do instead. There’s always coffee in the morning. I wrote a while ago that Johnny Damon would make sense for the Cubs, since they currently don’t have any veteran leaders who have

Making the old man proud

There is a promotional campaign for the Chicago Public Library that offers tips on how to be a “true” Chicagoan. The first of these steps is to pick a side between the Cubs and the White Sox. Other steps include forswearing ketchup on hot dogs, embracing deep dish pizza, and so forth. But step #1,

Tells me all I need to know

About a year and a half ago, I went on a tour of the Louisville Slugger bat factory in (where else?) Louisville, Kentucky. I’ve written about it briefly here, but it’s well worth a visit if you find yourself anywhere near Louisville. Consider that before the company came along, batters would hold things like table

Mascot musings

Today was a much nicer day here than it could have been for mid-November, and my eight-year old was at Toyota Park in the suburbs for the annual Girls on the Run event. It’s a nice field, and I’m sure the soccer team (or is it a club?) likes that it doesn’t have to share

Taking another chance on Robin Ventura

I am not a White Sox fan. I’ve written about how much I like their park, but it’s always been Plan B when it comes to baseball for me. Actually, it’s more like Plan C, since going to games in ballparks I haven’t seen before is Plan B. But it is still baseball, and I

Is he a ballplayer or a candy striper?

I got the card you see above in a trade with Josh Wilker of cardboardgods.net. It’s really a great blog, and on some level he inspired me to start writing this blog. I enjoy baseball cards, because they connect me to both the game I love and to my long-gone youth, but I wouldn’t have

Whatever it takes

I read an article online today about an interesting possibility that I had not considered. The article is here, but basically the idea is that if the Cubs hired Walt Jocketty, the former General Manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, he would in turn hire Tony LaRussa, who would convince Albert Pujols to sign as

Serious title envy

I mentioned in my last post that I went to a White Sox game last night. I briefly discussed the Cubs/Sox fissure in this town here, but I must say that the game last night was thoroughly enjoyable. Great seats right near the visiting team’s dugout, weather that held off on raining too much, two

Milestones

In a stats-driven game like baseball, there are some particular numbers that everyone pays attention to. For a single season, 60 (and later 61) home runs was the magic number, and probably still is, although the juicers (McGwire, et al.) exceeded  that number several times. There’s also 20 wins for pitchers, 200 hits for batters,

It’s about time!

I’ve been saying for years that Jim Hendry was not the right person to be making decisions for the Chicago Cubs. Three division titles notwithstanding, the bar has been raised higher than that, and Jim Hendry’s handiwork seems as far away from clearing that bar as it ever has been. I’m practically giddy at the

My blue hat’s off to Jim Thome

This won’t be a pleasant topic to address. There isn’t any physical pain or suffering involved, only mental anguish on my part. And of course it has to do with being a Cubs fan. What a great life I might have if baseball didn’t matter to me, or I was a fan of a team