"Necessity Never Made a Good Bargain"

For most of this off-season Tribune writers have been criticizing Ken Williams' efforts to bring young pitchers to the White Sox while spilling praise all over Jim Hendry's $300 million effort to buy the Cubs a quick World Series. On Sunday, a squad largely composed of White Sox bench players and minor leaguers beat that $300-million team 13-2, and in the process, the White Sox trotted out four of those new young pitchers without giving up a run.

We've been waiting to see if anyone at the Tribune has the cojones to say, at minimum, "Gee, maybe we were wrong." Well, you guessed it: no one does. Tribune columnist Mike Downey even managed to avoid the topic while writing on the topic today.

Couldn't help noticing Aramis Ramirez lollygagging his way up the first-base line after hitting into an inning-ending double-play on Sunday. We saw a lot of that from Aramis last year. Nonetheless, when Jim Hendry wrote a $75 million check to keep Ramirez in Cubbie blue, the Tribune forgot all about those slow jogs to first and called the deal a "bargain." No such praise when the Sox signed Joe Crede, who can actually hit and run and field, for $5 million. You see the slant.

Can't wait to see how Piniella reacts when fly balls start bouncing off of Ramirez's head.