Mudville
Friday, May 25, 2012
Mudville Adam Dunn HR Watch Sports Quarterly report: Cubs sunk, Sox so-so
Posted by Ted Cox on 05.25.12 at 10:32 AM
- Paul Boucher
- The White Sox and Cubs have taken their lumps so far this season, but especially the Cubs—aside from this Jeff Samardzija beaning of Paul Konerko.
Or lack of it. Sorry about that, Cubs.
Not that the Cubs' struggles have been at all surprising. New brain trust Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer admitted early on the Cubs were likely to go down before they began the slow rise to a championship, and they all but guaranteed that by bringing in innings eaters like Chris Volstad and Travis Wood to fill out the starting rotation. (They've turned out to be the flesh-eating bacteria of innings-eating starters.) The Cubs also suffered the indignity of being swept by the White Sox at Wrigley Field last weekend. With the Cubs idle and sitting on a nine-game skid Thursday, the Sox did them the favor of beating Minnesota, meaning the Cubs can now boast they're only tied for the worst record in baseball with the Twins at 15-29.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Mudville Sports Hyping the humble: Sports Illustrated's Jabari Parker profile
Posted by Ted Cox on 05.21.12 at 12:17 PM
That's typical glossy-magazine hype, especially in an era when Time puts a breastfeeding woman on its cover, and Newsweek's labels Barack Obama "the first gay president."
Even so, it does set off the BS detector, as I seem to recall a certain pretty good player, also at Simeon, named Derrick Rose in between Parker and James.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Mudville Sports Splitsville: White Sox win, Wood walks off
Posted by Ted Cox on 05.19.12 at 11:30 AM
I went to what turned out to be a hotly contested rivalry game between the White Sox and the Cubs, and a retirement party broke out.
The game, a 3-2 Sox victory Friday in the first of a three-game set this weekend at Wrigley Field, was overshadowed by Kerry Wood's final appearance. Wood had already informed the Cubs brass that he wanted to retire, that his body no longer was able to recover quickly enough to make him an effective reliever on a day-to-day basis, but that he didn't want to go out on his last appearance, which ended with him disgustedly tossing his hat and glove into the stands behind the Cubs' dugout. So manager Dale Sveum decided to "give him his day in the sun, so to speak," even though as it turned out Sveum wasn't there for it, as he had been ejected for arguing an umpire's call when the moment came in the eighth inning.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Mudville Media Politics News Joe Ricketts and the freest speech money can buy
Posted by Michael Miner on 05.18.12 at 03:19 PM
Writes reporter Seth Cline:
"Ending Spending Action Fund, the Super PAC funded entirely by Ricketts, has spent more than $1.3 million since 2010 influencing elections, all of it benefitting Republican candidates, according to federal election filings. Like a closer in baseball brought on in the ninth inning to seal a victory, the group's moves have come just days before voters head to the polls, and only once has it failed to ensure victory."
One Democratic victim was Congressman John Spratt of South Carolina, chairman of the House budget committee. "By Election Day," Cline tells us, "Ricketts would dump $187,000 into the race—a game-changing sum in a rural district with no major television markets or newspapers. Spratt lost the race to Republican Mick Mulvaney by 10 points. 'It was like a tidal wave,' Spratt says. 'Suddenly constituents were calling saying they were getting five pieces of mail a day towards the end, on all kinds of topics.'"
The Democrat who won despite Ricketts's money was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, "who spent $26 million on his re-election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a sum not available to most candidates."
Mudville Sports It's a beautiful day for a ball game indeed
Posted by Ted Cox on 05.18.12 at 01:11 PM
- Ted Cox
- Robin Ventura: The skipper tests his flipper
Fraternization reigned supreme. With the wind wafting out during batting practice, the Cubs' light-hitting Reed Johnson clubbed one to the last row of the left-field bleachers.
"Ah, Reed, do it!" called out Sox outfielder Alex Rios, a former teammate of Johnson's on the Toronto Blue Jays.
"That's my game, baby," Johnson called back as he began trotting around the bases after his turn in the batting cage.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Mudville Media Sports News The family Ricketts, Obama, and the Cubs
Posted by Michael Miner on 05.17.12 at 12:07 PM
Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade, "is increasingly putting his fortune to work in conservative politics," the New York Times reports Thursday. The Times offers a detailed description of a 54-page, $10 million plan called "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good."
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Mudville Sports Prescription for White Sox success: win in your damn division
Posted by Ted Cox on 05.16.12 at 02:47 PM
- Paul Boucher
- Adam Dunn: There's nothing to smile about until you start beating your division rivals consistently.
Win games against your goddamn division rivals.
It couldn't be more plain. In years when the Sox excelled, such as 2005 and 2008, they beat up on their division rivals. Last season, by contrast, they were 32-40 against the American League Central. They were 5-13 against the eventual division champs in Detroit, but a woeful 7-11 against sub-.500 Kansas City. They played the Twinkies even at 9-9, and dominated only basement-dwelling Cleveland at 11-7.
Adam Dunn K Watch Mudville Seriously? Adam Dunn HR Watch Dunn narrowly misses record, bravely breezes on
Posted by Kate Schmidt on 05.16.12 at 08:46 AM
- Johnny Sampson
- "I'll catch you yet, Bill Stoneman . . . "
Evidently I'd gasped more loudly than I realized—"I thought your mother had died," said the coworker in the office next to mine. But there's no question I was shocked. Flying in the face of senior Sox correspondent Steve Bogira's prediction, Adam Dunn failed in his pursuit of the record for consecutive-game strikeouts. Dunn's jaw-dropping zero K's against Kansas City last Thursday left 70s-era Montreal pitcher Bill Stoneman's record 36-game missing streak intact!
Monday, May 14, 2012
Mudville Media Sports News Why don't they publish scores anymore?
Posted by Michael Miner on 05.14.12 at 10:50 AM
So in the Monday Tribune thrown up on my doorstep, I didn't expect the account of Sunday's NBA playoff game between Miami and Indiana—a game I had to turn off a few minutes before it ended—to heap on the color and detail. But I did suppose that somewhere in the story, or in the headlines accompanying the story, the Tribune would mention the final score.
Is it just me? Back in tenth grade I turned in a report on a junior varsity basketball game that was heavy on the quips but forgot to mention the score. I was thrown off the school paper. That was traumatic, so don't trust my judgment.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Adam Dunn K Watch Mudville Adam Dunn HR Watch Sports Bums' rush: Come back, Big Donkey (and Becks and Rios)
Posted by Ted Cox on 05.12.12 at 01:31 PM
- Paul Boucher
- Adam Dunn mashes a first-inning homer Friday night at White Sox Park.
Adam Dunn crushed a first-inning home run to give Gavin Floyd all the runs he'd need to beat the Kansas City Royals. Gordon Beckham followed a two-out Alejandro De Aza single and stolen base in the third with a two-out RBI single up the middle. Dunn followed that with a two-out ground-rule double that, unfortunately, left Becks at third, where he was stranded when Paul Konerko's broken-bat liner to short left was stabbed by a diving Alex Gordon, depriving Paulie of the chance to blow the game open, an opportunity seized instead by the unlikely Alex Rios three innings later with a two-out, two-run triple, scoring Becks, who'd led off with a double, and A.J. Pierzynski, who'd replaced Dunn, who'd walked, on the bases with a fielder's choice.
