Anytime is Cubstime at the Tribune
Cubune watcher Keith Makenas offers this numerical assessment of the number of stories per team in the Sunday Tribune:
Hawks - 0
Bulls - 1
White Sox - 1
Bears - 4
Cubs - 5
Gosh. You'd think it was baseball season. But it's always Cubs season inside the Tribune Tower. The imbalance looks even more garish when you consider that the Bulls earned their sole story through an 89-80 comeback victory over the Pacers, the unflattering White Sox story was about a player implicated in a shooting, and the Bears managed to fall short of the Cubs on a game day during the most promising season we've had in two decades.
Stranger still, the Cubs coverage included two pages devoted to Sammy Sosa. As if that wasn't enough, on Monday, Tribune columnist Fred Mitchell followed up with a column about Sosa's star-studded birthday party in... where? We're not sure. Mitchell doesn't say. Somewhere on a beach. The Dominican Republic, perhaps, since the headline refers to Sosa's "native land." Did Fred Mitchell actually go to the Dominican Republic to attend Sosa's birthday party? That might help to explain the shortage of stories about Chicago's other sports franchises. More importantly, what is behind the Tribune's strange obsession with this washed-up goofball? (Sosa, I mean: There are 35 references to Sosa in the Tribune archive since Oct. 1, but only one reference to current, legitimate Cubs superstar Derek Lee). Did they all fall in love with him during the Friday employee potlucks in the Tribune Tower lunchroom?
Sosa, meanwhile, is offering, as proof of his integrity, the fact that no Chicago reporters have written a book about his alleged steroid use, referring, of course, to the book two San Francisco Chronicle reporters wrote about Barry Bonds. Sosa's defense depends on the assumption that investigative reporters in the Tribune Tower are just as aggressive as investigative reporters in San Francisco. We're pretty sure that's not the case, since the Tribune is still writing valentines to Sosa long after the guy bailed on his team, left town, shrank, lost his talent, and quit baseball.
There is one thing you can say about Tribune reporters, though: they're good team players. They stick by their Cubbie brethren.
Hawks - 0
Bulls - 1
White Sox - 1
Bears - 4
Cubs - 5
Gosh. You'd think it was baseball season. But it's always Cubs season inside the Tribune Tower. The imbalance looks even more garish when you consider that the Bulls earned their sole story through an 89-80 comeback victory over the Pacers, the unflattering White Sox story was about a player implicated in a shooting, and the Bears managed to fall short of the Cubs on a game day during the most promising season we've had in two decades.
Stranger still, the Cubs coverage included two pages devoted to Sammy Sosa. As if that wasn't enough, on Monday, Tribune columnist Fred Mitchell followed up with a column about Sosa's star-studded birthday party in... where? We're not sure. Mitchell doesn't say. Somewhere on a beach. The Dominican Republic, perhaps, since the headline refers to Sosa's "native land." Did Fred Mitchell actually go to the Dominican Republic to attend Sosa's birthday party? That might help to explain the shortage of stories about Chicago's other sports franchises. More importantly, what is behind the Tribune's strange obsession with this washed-up goofball? (Sosa, I mean: There are 35 references to Sosa in the Tribune archive since Oct. 1, but only one reference to current, legitimate Cubs superstar Derek Lee). Did they all fall in love with him during the Friday employee potlucks in the Tribune Tower lunchroom?
Sosa, meanwhile, is offering, as proof of his integrity, the fact that no Chicago reporters have written a book about his alleged steroid use, referring, of course, to the book two San Francisco Chronicle reporters wrote about Barry Bonds. Sosa's defense depends on the assumption that investigative reporters in the Tribune Tower are just as aggressive as investigative reporters in San Francisco. We're pretty sure that's not the case, since the Tribune is still writing valentines to Sosa long after the guy bailed on his team, left town, shrank, lost his talent, and quit baseball.
There is one thing you can say about Tribune reporters, though: they're good team players. They stick by their Cubbie brethren.
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