A Tale of Two Sweeps

It seemed only fitting that this year's Crosstown Showdown ended in the same fashion it started – with a sweep. "I think it'll be a different Monday in Chicago," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said after the White Sox swept the Cubs on Sunday night in a 5-1 win at U.S. Cellular Field, just one week after being swept at Wrigley [read more...]

Pujols To Join The X-Men

The Wizard had a lot of excuses prepared for today's post. After all, the Cardinals have somehow managed to lose two in a row to the suddenly hot Kansas City Royals, so many excuses would be needed. There are the injuries, the fact that both games were one-run loses, flooding, etc., etc. It really comes down to the St. Louis offense not [read more...]

WS stands for White Sox and World Series – Coincidence?

The baseball season is 70 games old, which makes it about 43.2% complete, give or take 0.009% or so. That also makes it time to obnoxiously and prematurely speculate about who is primed and ready for the World Series. Yes, a month before the Midsummer Classic even happens, we erstwhile members of the sports media have to sit down at our [read more...]

MLB Report Cards

The start of June means only one thing to nearly every student in the country: School is almost over and summer is about to begin. But before thousands of kids can enjoy the beach, sleeping late and Fourth of July fireworks, there's that important thing called grades. Have a poor report card, and a student's summer can turn from backyard [read more...]

Mars-Wrigley deal not sweet enough for Cubs fans

It's been over a couple decades since the Wrigley family sold the Cubbies to the Tribune Company -- and there haven't been any Life Savers for Chicagoans or anything as sweet as a World Series title during that time; or for the last, say 100 years. So now that Mars Inc. is buying Wrigley Jr. Co., [read more...]

What We Expected (And What We Didn’t)

While this baseball season is still in its infancy, this fact does not prevent us who follow the Cubs from forming opinions, rational or otherwise. Here are my initial thoughts on the first week of the 2008 season: WHAT WE EXPECTED; VALIDATED: *Derrek Lee is back. Remember the guy who wore out right and lefthanders in 2005? They guy who drove the [read more...]

Opening Day 2008

Is there a better hooky day than a Monday baseball opener? Never before have the Cubs opened at home in March. I was not about to sit this historic day out. 6:15 I rise with this thought dancing in my head- which do I wear to the game…my vintage Moonlight Graham jersey or the Cubbie parka? I have four [read more...]

The Fairs And Fouls Of The Friendly Confines

When people ask me about my job, I like to tell them that I share an office with Carlos Zambrano and Lou Piniella. And while that's technically not true, it sounds cool and has some aspects of accuracy to it. In reality, I'm a Wrigley Field seat vendor, which is a fancy title for a guy who walks around the [read more...]

Lookin’ Back

It was about two months ago that I was sitting in the interview conference room of the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. At either end of the roughly 120-foot long room were podiums fronted by rows of chairs, while the center of the room maintained stands for cameras. The center of the room was also broken up by groups of round [read more...]

Early Cubs, Sox Assessments

Assessing the virtues or fallibility of a baseball team after one week feels a bit disingenuous, as though we are giving a thumbs up or down guess as to whether a marriage will last based upon the success of the honeymoon. The Cubs marriage with winning may have just honeymooned with a killer deal at the Bellagio, whereas the White Sox [read more...]

Kerry Wood: For Cubs, Fans It’s Kerry When?

An annual rite of spring in Chicago is the speculation that this year will finally be the year that Kerry Wood puts it all together. A Cub since 1998, Wood has only 67 career victories, which works out to an average of fewer than ten per year. During that time, he missed the entire 1999 season and significant parts of 1998, [read more...]