A beanball analogy

I love a good analogy, especially one that I can borrow from sports. Tennis analogies were my favorite once upon a time, which is odd because I don’t play tennis all that much. In order to be consistent, I should look to baseball for analogies whenever I can. I found just such an analogy today,

Monday, Monday

After eight years in the broadcast booth for the Chicago Cubs, Bob Brenly has announced that he will not be returning in 2013. I liked Bob Brenly, but life is about change and he decided to move on. That’s fine, but it has raised the inevitable question of who will replace him. And even though

Gave proof through the night

The piece I wrote yesterday about Jimi Hendrix and the anniversary of his death set me on a mission to find my Hendrix CD. It was purchased sometime in the 1990s, back when CDs still needed to be purchased in order to acquire music. I still have lots of old CDs, and fortunately I was

Wrigley, Ronny and the Boss

ChicagoSideSports is a new website in town, and it focuses on topics that mean a lot to me. Chicago is a great sports town, and ChicagoSide presents angles on it that national outlets like ESPN never could. I was thrilled when my first piece for them was published a couple of weeks ago, and even

Legendary

Baseball likes to use the term “legend” quite a bit. Any player in the Hall of Fame has probably had “legendary” attached to his name at one time or another. The late Ron Santo was routinely introduced as such when he was doing Cubs games on the radio: “Welcome to baseball, everyone! Along with Cubs

Forget about the goat

Before reading any further, I want you to think of an unlucky number. I’m willing to say that the default answer is the number 13. Absent some searing personal tragedy–like someone who lost their job on January 6 and now considers 16 to be unlucky–most people just accept that there’s something unfortunate attached to the

Thanks, Kid K

The news that Kerry Wood is retiring from baseball today comes as quite a shock. He’s been a part of my Cubs’ experience for so many years that it will be hard to imagine not seeing his familiar number 34 in the dugout. Life goes on, of course, but it’s still a startling turn of

A fleeting Cub’s story

It’s Opening Day, 1973 at Wrigley Field. Baseball has returned from a long winter’s nap, but it’s still in a daze. During the offseason, one of its brightest stars, Roberto Clemente, was lost in a plane crash in Puerto Rico. The Pirates came within three outs of the 1972 World Series, but that seems less

Ronny, Kong, and the Bull

As with previous months, I was fortunate enough to be included on the mlb.com/blogs list of top fan blogs for the month of March. It’s an honor to be in the company of so many passionate baseball fans, and it’s good that all of us have a place to learn about who else is doing

Welcome Back Buckner

I want to preface this by saying that I don’t think Bill Buckner will ever be a Hall of Famer, even though is career was longer and more productive than many current Hall of Famers. His .289 lifetime batting average, for instance, is higher than that of Eddie Murray, Ryne Sandberg, and Carl Yastrzemski. But

Hanu-Cubs, Night 2

As with last night, and every night during this festival of Jewish Cubs players, the shamash is the vocal stylings of the late Steve Goodman (with some help from others this time): Last night’s honoree, the late Dave Roberts, is profiled here. Tonight I’ll be discussing Sam Fuld, who was drafted by the Cubs and

Baseball’s first professional player

In 1936, the first ballots for the newly-created Baseball Hall of Fame were mailed out for voters to consider. As with modern Hall of Fame balloting, there were two ways to be elected: the Baseball Writers Association of America (or BBWAA) was allowed to vote for contemporary players from the 20th century, while the Veteran’s

He’s officially gone

A number of years ago, I was participating in a fantasy baseball draft and I picked an unknown (at least to the people taking part in the draft) third baseman named Aramis Ramirez. I pronounced it AIR-uh-miss, and nobody said anything to the contrary. A few months later, in the middle of the season, the

It will be worth the wait

Christmas is certainly a unique time of year. The holidays bring out a side of people that remains hidden for most of the year. Maybe its the snow, or the gift giving, or the reflection that accompanies the end of another year here on earth. Whatever it is, we all need at least a couple