Category: Uncategorized
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Delayed gratification and the NFL
Great Expectations could easily have been about Chicago’s baseball fans. I remember the excitement for the 2006 Sox season and the 2017 Cubs season. Boy was that wasted energy on both sides of town. Forget how we felt after the Bears won it all in 1985/86. The hype surrounding the Bears and Caleb Williams is…
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Looking ahead..
Don’t believe every forecast you read is the lesson of the day. Yesterday I intended to make the 3-hour drive to Peoria for an early afternoon title between the Chiefs and the Quad Cities River Bandits, but I believed the forecast for three hours of rain and pivoted. Instead, I embarked on a 178-mile journey…
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Tough decisions
The trade deadline has come and passed, and everyone is evaluating the trades. However, nobody’s mentioned that the truly crappy teams (White Sox, Rockies, Marlins and A’s) don’t appear to have solved any of their long-term problems. This isn’t a major problem for fans of the rest of the teams, however, success is fleeting and…
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Telepathy works, Cubs style
I really didn’t think I had formed much of a bond with Carter Hawkins, Cubs GM, when he held a similar post with the Indians, but something clicked. For the past couple of weeks, I hinted at a player the Cubs should trade at the deadline and not because I don’t love love love him.…
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A coin flip?
I don’t think it’s as much a matter of being a half full or half empty sort of a guy when discussing which side of a trade you fall on. No matter how well a player is performing immediately before getting traded, what happens next is always a crap shoot. However, everyone looks at the…
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A sure thing..
Everybody loves a sure thing, especially if they have a few bob on it. However, guessing what is to be a sure thing is more difficult than anyone would like to admit. The only things that are sure in my world are my starting the day with an iced tea and my choice of bacon.…
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A question of leadership..
I’ll argue that to be a great player one needn’t be a great leader. In fact, some players are destined for greatness even if they are in the back of the room. Some athletes perform better when others take the lead and excel. It’s not necessarily a pressure issue. I’m thinking of two particular players…
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Don’t sleep on the Royals..
As a young fan I couldn’t really root for the Royals of the mid-70s, except against the ’77 and ’78 Yankees in the ALCS. For me, those were the most boring postseasons of my youth. The blah Phillies v. the Dodgers and blah Royals v. New York. Being a Cub fan, I rooted for them…
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Controlling one’s fate..
The general myth that once one makes the postseason anything can happen is misleading because while everyone has a puncher’s chance of getting in the playoffs, only 6 teams in each league make the postseason for now. I don’t bother with the running odds of teams’ chances of making the postseason because it doesn’t take…
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The circle of life
It’s no coincidence that MLB chose this weekend for its HOF inductions and that the draft was last week. I’m pretty sure most baseball fans have already forgotten who Travis Bazzana is. I had pretty much forgotten that Adrian Beltre, Jim Leyland, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer are this year’s honorees, but that might be…
I'd rather be sitting in a ballpark. 