Tribune Overlooks Cubs Fans Trashing Shrine

When they're not writing fiction to incite fan unrest on the South Side, the Tribune is covering it up on the North Side. Only by reading the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would you discover that Cubs fans have already starting throwing trash on the outfield of the "sacred garden" where their $300 million last-place team plays. Tribune reporter Dave van Dyck was covering the April 21 Cubs-Cardinals game when Cubs fans pelted the outfield with rubbish after Ronny Cedeno was tagged out after oversliding second base. Maybe van Dyck should have his eyes checked, because he didn't notice the commotion. Or, at least, he didn't write about it.

As Cubune Watcher Bill Melvin points out, "If this happened at the Cell I'm sure every news channel would have shown it and every newspaper would have written about it. Of course, it happened at The Shrine so locally nothing gets written and nothing gets said. ESPN showed it the next day with the local feed from the St. Louis station. This double standard has to be exposed."

Sox Invest Most in Payroll

Tribune reporters try to incite unrest among Sox fans by portraying Jerry Reinsdorf as cheap, and by portraying many of Ken Williams' moves as if they prioritize money over performance. But new figures show they couldn't be more wrong. First, some examples:

1. When the Sox traded Freddy Garcia in December, Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey called it a "fire sale." How can the trade of one player be a "fire sale?"

2. Tribune columnist Phil Rogers included the following sentence in his April 20 column: "Pitching has kept the White Sox near .500 while they are scoring runs grudgingly, the same way club Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf gives out contracts."

3. When the Sox signed Javier Vazquez, Tribune beat-Sox reporter Mark Gonzales explained the deal, in part, like this: "Fixed costs are a big part of baseball, and the Sox gained financial certainty with Javier. But as you know, it's a game of results and we'll see if they get their money's worth with him." News Flash from Scoop Gonzo: Sox signed Vazquez to fix costs. Isn't that what contracts are for?

Now here's proof that these creative writers have been off base: The White Sox invest a higher percentage of the team's total value in player payroll than any other team in Major League Baseball, about 29 percent. And only the Yankees' payroll represents a higher percentage of revenue. The Yankees spend almost 65 percent of annual revenue on payroll, to the Sox's 63 percent.

For comparison, the Cubs spend about 51 percent of revenue on payroll, which translates to only 17 percent of the team's total value. So those high-spending Cubs, even after their $300 million winter created the most expensive last-place team in baseball history, are still stingier than Jerry Reinsdorf.

These figures come to us courtesy of Dan Mega, whose commentary can be found regularly on the White Sox Interactive Forum. Dan used the numbers recently released in Forbes Magazine's annual report, "The Business of Baseball," but it was Dan's idea to analyze payroll expenditure as a percentage of the resources each team has available. Sox win! Sox win!

Payroll as a Percentage of Total Value


Payroll as a Percentage of Revenue


You Won't Read it in the Tribune

43: The number of "plate appearances the Cubs' Alfonso Soriano, who signed a $136 million free agent contract last winter, needed to drive in his first run of the season." (Sports Illustrated, April 23)

It Tolls for Thee

In the wake of Redeye declaring blogs "over" yesterday, we asked the world whether it would prefer to read Tribune-owned media like Redeye or an independent Chicago blog like City Wendy in the Windy City.

The world has answered.

The Cubune Watch received links recently from two different sources. We received a link this morning from City Wendy herself and another link 10 days ago from Tribune columnist and Cubs fanatic Dave Wischnowsky. (Funny how many Tribune employees are Cubs fans. Sox fans need not apply, apparently).

In the 10 days since Dave linked to us, two readers have clicked over. We'd like to think they were two of Dave's half dozen regular readers, but in fact we know one of them was us, checking the link after Dave installed it, and the other was probably Dave, checking the link after he installed it. It's a deep link, off the front page, but this is the mighty Tribune, right?

Wendy linked to us this morning at 9:53. By 10:08 — when our server last compiled statistics — 35 readers had clicked over from City Wendy's page to the Cubune Watch.

Two readers in ten days from Tribune. 35 readers in 15 minutes from Wendy. That should tell you where the readers are.

The issue seems not to be the medium so much as the source — new media aren't thriving just because they're new, they're thriving because they offer fresh voices, like Wendy's. Maybe readers would rather spend time with an independent mind than yet another Tribune employee. It doesn't seem to matter whether that Tribune employee writes for the stodgy old morning daily, the poser tabloid Redeye, or a Tribune-owned and operated blog.

So in considering what media are "over," Tribune, ask not for whom the bell tolls.

p.s. In today's Tribune, media columnist Phil Rosenthal writes that the Virginia Tech killer's manifesto "reveals the dark side of new media." We were trying to figure out how an envelope sent through the U.S. Mail to NBC News represents "new media." Is it because the envelope contained a CD (invented in 1979) or a pdf file (1991)? Finally, Phil revealed his clever reasoning. Honestly, folks, we couldn't make this stuff up:

"If Cho didn't put his message in a package for a major media outlet, then he might well have put it on a Web site, or a Facebook or MySpace page, or posted it on YouTube."

So the killer's manifesto was new media because he might have put it on a web site (the "dark side" where, incidentally, we found Rosenthal's column). Only, he didn't. What's really being revealed quite often lately in the Tribune is a shrinking newspaper's insecurity about new competition.

And the Oscar for Most Predictable Goes to...

We had an office pool here at the Cubune Watch headquarters in Bridgeport last night, taking bets on which Tribune hack would first try to turn Mark Buehrle's no-hitter into a divisive discussion of contract negotiations.

Cubune Watch Editor Jeff McMahon didn't win, selecting Tribune beat-Sox reporter Mark Gonzales. Gonzales showed a glimmer of neutrality, maybe for the first time ever, by writing a story that is almost entirely about the amazing baseball game we witnessed yesterday. Gonzales doesn't get to the contract talk until the 12th paragraph. It's almost like reading sports coverage. It's almost like reading a real sports section from a good newspaper. Wow!

Lone Ranger lost too, choosing columnist Mike Downey, but Lone Ranger gets a consolation prize (a half-molten BeeGees 45 salvaged from July 12, 1979) because Downey manages to fill a seemingly positive story with an abundance of passive-aggressive little jabs at Sox fans:

Downey: Sox no-hitters are rare, and some of the previous ones have been as ugly as Wednesday's weather.... South Side fans often feel they need to wait (a million years) for a no-hitter to happen. Sox pitchers before Wednesday had thrown only three no-hit games in 40 years.

Reality: The White Sox have the second highest number of no hitters in MLB history with 16, trailing only the Dodgers (20). The Cubs have 10. And please, Downey, don't presume to speak for "South Side fans." Especially while you work for the Cubs' house organ.

Downey: Only one lone Ranger reached base. Of all people, it was Chicago's hero of yesteryear, Sammy Sosa.

Reality: We don't rememember a yesteryear when Sammy Sosa was Chicago's hero, do you, Chicago? We remember a yesteryear in which half of Chicago loathed Sosa, and the other half of Chicago gradually came to agree. The Tribune has such a "special" view of the world.

The pool victory and grand prize (a scoreboard pinwheel salvaged from April 20, 1991) goes to Brett Ballantini, for selecting Phil Rogers. Rogers prefers to write business stories about contracts because he doesn't know how to write sports stories about baseball. Phil's story begins, "Um, Mark, about that contract." Our reply begins, "Um, Phil, about that no-hitter." Ballantini asks, "In the future, can the Trib place a one-day moratorium on negative White Sox reporting in the event of a PITCHER THROWING A NO-HITTER?"

Apparently not.

Eternally Hip Redeye Declares Blogging 'Over'

We might as well pick up our marbles and go home.

Redeye, the Tribune edition for "young, urban professionals who are short on time and long on disposable income" (that preferred reader profile actually appears in Redeye's official mission statement), has informed said demographic that blogging has come to an end.

Of course, on the day blogging died, Redeye also ran a big promotion for its new CTA blog.

So we're not sure. Let's test the theory. Let's don our backwards Cubbie caps and pretend for a moment that we're Y.U.P.S.O.T.L.O.D.I.s living in a target market like, I don't know, Wrigleyville or Wicker Park. Would you rather hang with a Tribune employee who expresses his hipness by holding a Starbucks cup, or would you rather spend a long, slow afternoon at Cafe Bong swapping wit with a blogger like, say, City Wendy in the Windy City.

Hi Wendy.

Okay, now let's give the Cubbie caps back to the nervous sales clerks and return to being young ghetto sloths who are long on time, short on disposible income, residing somewhere in the terra incognita south of Roosevelt Road. Now who would we rather read, Starbucks Cup or Wendy?

It's looking sort of universal, isn't it? (We just got you a job offer from Redeye, Wendy. Blogs are so 2006, you might as well take it.)

We're betting this story came out of heated discussions in Redeye editorial meetings about the fizzling readership of Redeye's 13 bloggers. Even the guy with mussed hair and the eternally hip goatee in his mug shot isn't bringing in readers. Even the guy with bedroom eyes and the 5 o'clock shadow isn't luring the chicks back to that eternally hip crib, the Tribune Tower.

Or perhaps the story was mandated by the suits in the upper floors who shove cash at blogs with one fist while pounding the other fist on the podium at the annual conference of the Paleolithic Society of Newspaper Editors. Guys with green eyeshades and rolled up sleeves and blunt pencils in their pocket protectors, Cracker-Jack guys who still type ### at the end of stories they pound out on copy paper, guys who are immune from hip, guys who only ever tell the Absolute Eternal Trvth, guys like Charles Madigan, who once wrote, "Bibles of blogging are created based on nothing more than rumor."

Indeed. While newspapers traffic only in the verifiable. So it must be true: blogging is over. Long live blogging.

He's Living in His Own Private Wrigleyville

There may be a need for a separate full-time media-watch site just to track the dubious work of Fred Mitchell. He's certainly been keeping us busy lately. Maybe it's by design, if you think there's any design behind that Trib-eating grin. Maybe he wrote today's column just to bury the truly appalling example of his work that we featured yesterday.

Again today, Mitchell donates his column for pro-bono Tribune public relations work. We're still trying to figure out how he applies his subheds, which are paired with sentences like the following:

WORD ON THE STREET: Blagojevich says Tribune Co. has done well in owning the Cubs since 1981.

Gotta wonder what street Fred hangs out on. Under the heading, "OVERHEARD," Fred writes,

Blagojevich tried to imagine what the public response would be to a Cubs World Series title. "The reaction would be bigger than what happened to the Boston Red Sox [in 2004]," he said of that team's first title since 1918.

But not as big as what happened to Chicago in 2005, when the Sox won this city's first championship since 1917. That event seemed to slip from the minds of both Mitchell and Blago. Cubune Watcher Dan Grillo writes, "Am I surprised? The Tribune acts like it never happened. Mitchell didn't even bother to point out 2005 or ask Nim-Rod about it.

"In George Orwell's 1984 the main character's occupation is to rewrite old newspaper stories and change history according to the dictates of the government. I think Cub fans like Mitchell and Nim-Rod are doing their own small version of 1984."

Mitchell was certainly practicing his history revisions in his previous column, when he forgot that Chicago's first black baseball players and manager were with the White Sox.

Meanwhile, today's Tribune also features a story in which Greg Maddox says he loves playing at Tribune-owned Wrigley. What else is he going to say? Only Ozzie tells the truth about the Shrine. Speaking of Ozzie, a Tribune headline meekly tiptoes around Lou Piniella today, proclaiming, "Piniella Slightly Ticked at ESPN."

Slightly ticked? Would Ozzie ever get such a careful headline? The Tribune is so scared of Piniella that they removed the footage that ticks Piniella off — just slightly — from their own online sports front pages. Paul Sullivan also neglects to mention that the offending footage had been featured prominently on the Tribune's sites. Don't wanna offend Sweet Lou. Gotta save that up for Ozzie.

Thanks to Keith Makenas, Dan Grillo, and Brett Ballantini for assistance with this post.

Tribune Obscures Racial History of Chicago Baseball

Why would Fred Mitchell associate Jackie Robinson's great achievement with the Cubs when the color barrier in Chicago baseball was broken when Minnie Minoso joined the White Sox? Mitchell has shown over and over again that he's a company man, more than willing to use his column to promote the Tribune Company, the company baseball team, and its neighborhood. We added to the list of his transgressions as recently as April 5. But his latest effort is too ridiculous.

Under the headline, "Robinson an Inspiration to Cubs Greats," Mitchell associates Robinson with other great African American players and coaches for the Cubs, but not once does he mention the other team in town, the one that broke the color barrier. True, a quote in the second paragraph mentions the first black player on a Chicago team, but amazingly — amazingly — Mitchell doesn't mention the Chicago team he played for. The White Sox!

"Minnie Minoso was one of the first [black Latino] players to come over (1949)," Williams recalled. "Then Vic Power (1954), Roberto Clemente (1955) and others. Jackie broke the barrier for people of color, and it just didn't benefit the [African-American] ballplayers."

The rest of the Sunday Tribune also omits the salient fact that the first black players on a Chicago baseball team played for the White Sox.

The Cubune Watch owes this post to a new contributor, Dr. Crawdad, whose commentary can be found regularly on the White Sox Interactive Forum. Here's what Dr. Crawdad wrote to us:

Read the articles in the Sunday Cubune Sports: Two articles about the declining presence of African-Americans in MLB. Fine. Nice picture of a true hero, Jackie Robinson, at The Shrine. Fine.

Then there is Fred Mitchell’s column, "Robinson an inspiration to Cub greats." Here's the passing reference to the man who broke the color barrier in Chicago baseball, Minnie Minoso:

"Minnie Minoso was one of the first [black Latin] players to come over (1949)..."

The Cubune did not acknowledge the White Sox as the first Chicago MLB team to have a “black” player nor as the first Chicago MLB team to have an African-American player.

Chicago’s first “black” player, Minoso broke in with the Sox in May of 1951. Chicago’s first African-American player, Sam Hairston, debuted with the Sox in July of 1951. The Cubs followed the Sox's lead at the end of the 1953 season (September 15th) when Banks debuted with the Cubs.

No mention that, according to some, “blacks” were NOT allowed into Wrigley until Jackie Robinson played his first game there. Apparently after that first game, though, African-Americans were still not welcome at The Shrine. The following is from a Rick Telander story in Sports Illustrated, quoting Michael Wilbon, a sportswriter, a Chicago native, a graduate of St. Ignatius and Northwestern, and oddly, considering his experience, a Cubbies fan:

There is one other factor in determining the Cubs' and the Sox' fan bases. "Yes, it's north and south," says Chicago native Michael Wilbon, a sports columnist for The Washington Post and cohost of ESPN's Pardon the Interruption "But it's also racial." Wilbon, who grew up on the South Side, remembers that black Sox players and even black Cubs players lived near him because they couldn't get housing on the North Side. "My dad tried to go see Jackie Robinson at Wrigley in 1948, and he was turned away, and he vowed he would never go see the Cubs again. Walt (No Neck) Williams of the Sox lived near us, and Ernie Banks lived just east. We'd all take the "L" to Comiskey, like, 20 times a year. But Wrigley, that might as well have been in Minneapolis."

No mention in the Tribune of the fact that Comiskey Park was home to the Negro League All-Star games. No mention of the fact that blacks did attend Sox games well before Jackie's first game at The Shrine, as this 1930s Sun-Times picture documents:

The point is not that the White Sox or Comiskey Park were a bastion of racial harmony. Considering the times, I can’t help but believe that “blacks” attending Sox games (like the men pictured above) had to deal with indignities. The point is, though, that the Sox, Comiskey Park, and especially the first black players in Chicago, deserve recognition for what they did accomplish.

Keith Makenas adds: "I just wanted to add to the lovely Fred Mitchell article. He also forgot to mention that the White Sox appointed Larry Doby as the manager of the White Sox in 1978, Doby was the second African-American to lead a Major League club. The Cubs in 1999 hired their first black manager, Don Baylor, twenty one years later."

Tribune Skunked in Pulitzers... Again

Despite spending Pulitzer season ostentatiously slapping its own back for a series about teen traffic accidents — a story one might think a newspaper should have been covering all along — the Chicago Tribune won no Pulitzers again.

We're not bringing this up just to dance on the grave of the Cubune, nor to merely repeat what we wrote last year, but rather to demonstrate the lie when Tribune tells you how wonderful it is, and how respected. People only believe that inside the Tower, where the water coolers serve the kool-aid. Out in the real world, journalists want the Tribune out of journalism.

Windows to the Soul

It is both a sign of the Tribune's decline and an explanation for it that Tribune writers seem incapable of admitting when they're wrong. Even the Tribune's public editor, whose job is to admit when the paper is wrong, almost never does so — and everyone knows that's not because the Tribune is always right.

A substantial portion of the Tribune's sports staff spent the winter blasting White Sox GM Ken Williams for his trades. At times they misrepresented their own arguments as fan sentiment, at other times they misrepresented the facts, until their work resembled propaganda more than reporting. It's early in the season, but so far Williams' trades have proven golden. One Chicago sportswriter has the nuggets to admit it, but of course, he doesn't work for the Tribune. Joe Cowley in today's Sun-Times:

Looking back on Williams' trades, he is 3-0-1, and even that tie is swaying heavily in his favor.

• Reserve Ross Gload for reliever Andrew Sisco: Gload entered Thursday as a spot starter hitting .250 for the Royals, while Sisco had a 2.25 ERA in four games, bolstering one of the top bullpens in the American League. Edge: Williams.

• Reliever Neal Cotts for reliever David Aardsma: Cotts wasn't scored on in his first two appearances with the Cubs, but Aardsma (1-0, 1.29 ERA) has been a beast for the Sox in clutch time. His nine strikeouts in just seven innings pitched leads the team. Edge: Williams.

• Starter Brandon McCarthy for reliever Nick Masset and starter John Danks: McCarthy is 1-1 with a 3.75 ERA for the Rangers, but his win came against Tampa Bay -- and that should not count. Masset won Game 3 against the Indians single-handedly, while Danks (0-1, 4.50 ERA) dominated the Twins, minus one mistake to AL MVP Justin Morneau. Edge: Williams.

• Starter Freddy Garcia in a package for starters Gio Gonzalez and Gavin Floyd: Garcia is on the 15-day disabled list, while Floyd (1.50 ERA after one start) is in Class AAA Charlotte and Gonzalez (2-0, 1.74 ERA) is in Class AA Birmingham. Edge: It's a tie.

Point is, these deals were to be measured in September, not in February. It's way too early to underestimate what Williams did.

That last sentence doesn't say anything that most Sox fans weren't saying back in February, and maybe it shouldn't be notable when a sportswriter finally states the obvious, but in a city where Tribune sets the media agenda, it's as notable as an earthquake. Tribune writer Phil Rogers admitted that the Sox maybe were right on one of these trades, but not without waffling on the bigger picture, and a week later he was back to his old dissembling self. Dave van Dyck and Mark Gonzalez, the wrongest of the aforementioned wrong on these trades, are still holding out and perhaps praying that circumstances eventually make them look prescient. van Dyck hasn't corrected a story that was factually incorrect.

Why can't they admit they're wrong? Generally, Tribune writers dismiss their paper's documented bias as a matter of "perception," they whitewash criticism in their own pages even when it makes news nationally, and they greet most criticism with an impenetrable wall of arrogance. No one behaves that way but the guilty.

Footnotes from the Annals of Irrelevance

In his most recent column, Tribune Public Editor Tim McNulty wonders aloud why no one seemed to notice when the Tribune's Editorial Bored reversed a 138-year position and came out, with much self-conscious fanfare, against the death penalty. "There was barely a ripple," McNulty notes.

In the Los Angeles Times, Midwestern Bureau Chief P.J. Huffstutter wonders aloud why Chicago — once upon a time a great newspaper town — hardly seemed to notice when the Tribune was sold. "This city of big shoulders," he writes, "greeted this week's news of Tribune Co.'s sale of its media assets with a shrug."

Both gentlemen entertain some speculations but neither considers the stark reality that underlies the collapse of Tribune's stock and the flight of readers and advertisers to new media: the Tribune long ago became irrelevant to its community. The Tribune long ago severed its trust with its readers by exploiting its position to pursue its own political and economic aims. Readers long ago stopped trusting the Tribune. Readers long ago stopped taking it very seriously. Does anyone in Chicago cleave to the editorial pages anymore to see what a bunch of stuffed shirts have to say, when they are far more white, far more privileged, far more insulated, and far more conservative than the city they impose their views upon? Tribune does not represent us, and baseball has provided the perfect picture of why: Either you're neglected by Tribune like a Sox fan, or you're exploited by Tribune like a Cubs fan. Where's the public good?

As the Columbia Journalism Review charged, Tribune media "aren't doing much public good." The newspaper's journalistic capital has been spent, leaving a few Tribune journalists flatfootedly wondering where it went.

Can we imagine Chicago reacting with outrage to staff cuts at the Tribune, the way Los Angeles reacted to cuts at the Times? No, it's pretty clear, Chicago would just as soon see them all get canned. Let's start over with a fresh staff please, Mr. Zell. Let's bury Colonel McCormick once and for all.

But don't worry, Tribune, we'll still pay attention to you:

Demanding the Finest Seats

Crotchety Tribune sportswriter Dave van Dyck has complained to Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig after the White Sox replaced the press box with luxury suites and moved the Tribune staff up the foul line where Shakespeare would put them: "Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome, therefore I will depart unkissed."

Does a fiction writer like van Dyck even need to see the field? He could make up his stories at home. We're still awaiting a correction to his Jan. 11 report that Mark Buerhle is already gone.

Footnotes from a Foul Wind

Tribune beat-Sox reporter Mark Gonzales begins this season's first mailbag with a dig at White Sox pitching:

Javier Vazquez stinks and is the worst pitcher in baseball. I am not sure how many games I watch him blow. Why wouldn't the Sox send him packing? Overpaid bum blows games time after time. They sent Garcia packing and got rid of the wrong guy. Unless maybe no one else in the major wants this bum? -- Rodger Harris, Waconia, Minn.

Ouch. This isn't how I envisioned the first question of this season's Q and A. Simply, the Sox value Javier's durability and see his upside, the fact he can accumulate double-digit strikeout games. Fixed costs are a big part of baseball, and the Sox gained financial certainty with Javier. But as you know, it's a game of results and we'll see if they get their money's worth with him.

Ouch! Does Gonzo really expect us to believe that just happens to be the first question that arrived in his mailbag this season? Gonzales and van Dyck spent the winter predicting doom for White Sox pitching, with inconsistent help from Phil Rogers. Update since Gonzo emitted this foul wind: Vazquez's ERA is 0.00.

When we talk about Tribune pursuing its political and economic agenda at the cost of public trust, we're talking about a very broad agenda, from a stodgy editorial page trying to enforce 19th Century values to Tribune promotion of assets like the Cubs and Careerbuilder. But Tribune sportswriters impose their own little agenda on stories as simple as game coverage. Brett Ballantini provides this analysis of Gonzo's latest effort:

Garland "Wasn't Sharp"

Garland (three hits, three walks, three strike outs in seven shutout innings) "wasn't sharp," according to Gonzales. Nothing backs it up.

A little breakdown:

Garland followed the lead of Jose Contreras and rebounded from his disastrous first start against Cleveland. Although Garland wasn't sharp, he managed to work out of trouble.

We're told that Garland had a disastrous first start. Now, it wasn't good by any means, but he left the game in line for a win, which tells you he at least battled, and however laughably, kept his team in the game. Contreras' start was a disaster for sure. I'd peg Garland's as a disappointment. But I know I'm asking for nuance here, and that's asking too much.

His biggest escape act occurred in the bottom of the fifth shortly after being staked to a 1-0 lead.

"Escape act." As if Garland resorted to trickery or some kind of SoCal mind-meld.

Buck led off by pulling a triple down the right-field line. But Garland helped his cause by inducing the next two batters to ground back to the mound, and then got Shannon Stewart to fly to right.

"Helped his cause." Yeah, like moving over a runner helps the cause. Are you kidding me? Leadoff man on third, and Garland — without the overpowering stuff that might invite weak swings, without the benefit of an oops of a check swing creating one of those grounders -- extinguishes Oakland's hope for at least a sac fly by getting consecutive ground outs to the MOUND. Not screaming shots, but the perfect kind of Wiffleball taps that make for a no-brainer putout. The only easier outs would have been bunt pops back to the mound.

Garland threw 91 pitches through five innings, and he started to show signs of fading in the sixth.

"Signs of fading." Hmm. A 1-2-3 inning. Something tells me the White Sox will take that kind of fade out every inning.

Piazza hit a line drive that nearly knocked down shortstop Juan Uribe, who managed to hang onto the ball while falling down for the second out.

Piazza hit a line drive. In an infield gap, it's a hit. But it was right at Uribe, who moved to his left to make the stab. I hardly think the ball blew a tree stump like Uribe down. I don't know how far away the press box is in Oakland, but apparently it's much farther from the field than the new USCF box they're all crying about, because the description makes it look like Uribe made either a spectacular, juggling dive, or couldn't keep from tripping over his feet, neither of which was true. Momentum carried him left and he made a little feet-first slide after the catch. There was no body language or facial expression that indicated, "whew."

Chavez followed with another line drive that landed in Garland's glove.

"Landed." As if Garland's eyes were squeezed shut. Look, this is probably a spot in the story to point out that Garland is a pretty damn good fielder. He made the two plays in the fifth without flaw, his counterpart screwed up a double play with a bad throw earlier in the game, and now Garland stabs a screaming liner back to the mound. I don't think it would have been hyperbolic to have written something like, "continuing a very active and flawless night in the field, Garland ended the inning by stabbing Chavez's screaming liner back through the box."

But Garland retired the side in the seventh, and Buck's hit was the last one allowed by Garland in a 113-pitch outing.

A bit of a forced concession here. There's almost an incredulity ("we're just waiting for them to screw up") throughout this story that's really offensive and inaccurate. But it also continues the storyline that the Sox aren't supposed to win in Oakland (see Contreras' "accidental" great start to open the series, below).

Tribune Bets on Sox to Lose

West-Coast games are tough on a Tribune staff that barely keeps its act together under the best of conditions. For the first game in Oakland, the Tribune reserved a single column below the fold, right next to the big splash reserved for the Cubs' first hoisting of the L flag at Wrigley, for a White Sox story they knew would come in late. It's pretty clear the Tribune expected the Sox to lose that first game, because it sure looks like the main headline was pre-written for a loss: "Oakland not best place to get well."

When the White Sox pitching staff so despised by the Tribune combined to shut out the A's, the Tribune barely managed to twist that headline into a positive with this subhead: "But Contreras does, posting quality start."

We'd say it was a stunning victory, but unlike the editing staff at the Tribune, we weren't all grumpy from the day's events at The Shrine.

By the way, the Tribune seems to have unconsciously adopted Sox fans' ironic reference to Wrigley as "The Shrine," perhaps not realizing that "shrine" is a metaphor for toilet. A recent Tribune online poll asked readers if Wrigley is a dump or a shrine. It's both! Speaking of the shrine:

Subliminal Advertising?

The Tribune's online advertising seems to suggest what we ought to do, under these circumstances, with our local morning paper. A Kohler will flush anything.

Tribune Traffics in Perception

The Tribune loves to defend itself from evidence of bias and other malfeasance by interviewing people who can't possibly be foolish enough to criticize the Tribune in its own pages. The latest example comes from Fred Mitchell, a living, breathing example of a biased sportswriter if there ever was one. Mitchell has ignored White Sox news to get to the Cubs news, he has lain down to let Cubune executives use his body as a soapbox, and he has given inequitable treatment to the two sides of town even in the course of writing about whether the two sides of town receive inequitable treatment. It's all documented, Fred.

In an April 4 column, Mitchell asks White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf if he thinks the Tribune has been biased. What's does Mitchell think he's going to say? Was Jerry born yesterday? Did he just fall off the turnip truck? First of all, why would Jerry alienate the Tribune now, right after his friend and partner Sam Zell purchased it? Secondly, what is the ethical posture of a reporter asking someone on the record about the ethical performance of that reporter's newspaper for a story to appear in said newspaper? Third, what position does that put Jerry in? The very same position Ken Williams has to occupy every time he answers questions from reporters who represent his competition in the baseball market.

So Jerry says, 'Oh, no, the Tribune did a swell job.' Because that's the only sensible answer coming from the White Sox chairman at this point in time, especially with the winds of change shaking the Tribune Tower down to its fishy foundations. Just ask any White Sox official off the record, and there's no question they think there's a bias.

But Fred also thinks his readers were born yesterday.

Mitchell writes that Tribune ownership of the Cubs "created the perception of conflict of interest." Actually, it created a conflict of interest. Tribune reporters don't just work for the company that owns the Cubs, they're invested in the company that owns the Cubs through the Tribune stock in their benefits. That's not a perception. It's a fact. "Perception" is just a lubricant certain reporters use to slip out of their responsibility to the public trust.

Across the paper Rick Morrissey uses that slippery word, too:

This is a good day for those of us at the newspaper who have been uncomfortable with Tribune Co.'s ownership of an entity we writers have to cover. I never once questioned the professionalism of the people in our sports department, but the perception around Chicago was that the Chicago Tribune sports section somehow was in bed with the Cubs or that it favored the Cubs over the White Sox. I'll go to my grave knowing that wasn't the case, but perceptions are as resilient and poison-resistant as cockroaches.

You can see the strength of the Tribune Tower's commitment to denial if writers vow to carry their denial all the way to the grave, but the Cubune Watch has been about dispelling perception and documenting the Tribune bias in facts. Rick Morrissey will go to his grave not facing the fact, for example, that during the 2005 and 2006 regular seasons, during which the White Sox won and defended a World Series championship, the Chicago Tribune published almost 1,400 more stories that mention the Cubs than stories that mention the White Sox.

Are we supposed to believe that was just a coincidence? Were we born yesterday? Did we just fall off the turnip truck?

Zell Acquires Tribune Tower Blueprints

After piloting his motorcycle deep into the core of the Tribune Tower, Sam Zell sent back this first image of the Tower blueprints, snapped with his camera phone.


Rogers Plants Feet Firmly in the Wrong

Only a week after a flirtation with humble sensibility earned him a rare Cubune Watch golf clap, Phil Rogers is back in the fold at the Tower dissembling, sensationalizing, and misrepresenting fan sentiment.

A week ago, Phil was all, "Oops! Maybe Sox got it right." Now he's back on the front lines of the Tribune's campaign against everything Ken Williams does. Like we said before, Phil Rogers is like the weather in Chicago: If you don't like what he writes, just wait five minutes and he'll write the opposite.

Rogers and the other amateur GMs in the Tower think the White Sox should reward Mark Buerhle's service in 2005 with a long-term Zito-like contract even though 2006 seemed to suggest that Mark lost his stuff and 2007 hasn't yet demonstrated that he's got his groove back. Phil Rogers, like other Tribune sportswriters, also likes to think that White Sox fans agree with him. That's how Rogers interpreted applause for Mark Buerhle at U.S. Cellular Field on Monday. (Wow, Sox fans are applauding Buerhle, goes the thinking in Phil's coconut. They must agree with everything I write). We love Mark Buerhle, it's true. It's also true that we want Kenny to be sensible with payroll. This ain't the North Side.

The model for this moment is Paul Konerko. The Tribune groused about the impending end of Paulie's contract throughout 2005, while Paulie quietly led the White Sox to a World Series championship and then signed a new deal with the White Sox. So Phil... hush up.

Sam Puts His Feet Up

There appears to be some question whether Sam Zell has the requisite arrogance, the uniform of the Tribune company man:

Zell tells plans for Tribune

By David Greising, Tribune chief business correspondent

In his first full day as the prospective buyer of Tribune Co., real estate investor Sam Zell looked around the stately office of legendary Tribune figure Col. Robert R. McCormick and signaled that a new era is at hand.

"I think this would be a good place to park my motorcycle," Zell said.

McCormick is the white-collar criminal that Nelson Algren lampoons in Chicago, City on the Make as "the Only-One-on-Earth, the inventor of modern warfare, our very own dime-store Napoleon, Colonel McGooseneck." I think Algren and Zell might get along okay.

The Tribune tends to portray McCormick as some kind of hero, and of course he is a hero to those who profit from compromising journalistic principle. McCormick was the master, and he solidified that grand tradition at Tribune. We hope Zell ends it. And uses McCormick's office as a motorcycle garage. It's already greasy from the Colonel's palms.


Amazing Cubs Inflation!

One year ago Forbes valued the Cubs at $448 million, citing as the primary factor the team's ownership of Wrigley Field without debt. Suddenly the local papers are putting the Cubs at $1 billion, and it doesn't seem to matter whether the crumbling real estate goes with the team or not. Here's the recent history of the amazing Cubs inflation phenomenon (and please read the footnotes):

April 16, 2006 (Forbes): $448 million
November 2006 (Tribune): $600 million*
March 30, 2007 (Crain's): $600 million**
April 2, 2007 (Tribune): $500-$650 million
April 3, 2007 (Crain's): $1 billion***

Damn. We should have bought in when it was only $448 million. Or could there be a little irrational exuberance at work here? We'll find out.

* Tribune began throwing this number around in November without naming its source.
** March 30, 2007 figure attributed to "a serious study" with "econometric rigor" by Anderson Economic Group.
*** April 3, 2007 figure attributed to Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports industry consultant. The number is repeated, but unattributed, in the Daily Southtown.

Sox Partner Buys Cubune, Slices Off Cub- Part

This does not feel like Konerko's grand slam or Podsednik's walk off in Game Two of the World Series. It feels more like something from the days of Richie Zisk, Chet Lemon, Dick Allen, something from the long era when the stars rarely aligned for us in a universe profoundly maligned against us. It feels like one of those rare moments when a grainy image on Channel 44 made you leap up from the couch in your parent's living room or when you pulled your car to the side of the road to catch every nuance of the broadcast voice of Bob Elson or Harry Caray (before the Tribune bought Harry's soul). This feels like the kind of rare victory we only knew at Old Comiskey, back in the day when we were so used to losing that the thought of a championship was nothing more than a pang of foolish hope.

But it's happening: The Tribune Company, just bought last night by White Sox minor partner Sam Zell, is selling the Cubs.

But let's not uncork the champagne quite yet. This isn't the fall of Berlin; it's only the landing at Normandy. The Tribune has stocked its staff — particularly its sports staff — with Cubs fans and filled the heads of its reporters and editors with a strange world view in which they actually seem to believe that "everybody loves the Cubs" and nobody sees their bias. It's hard to imagine the mentality inside the Tower changing as soon as the team is sold. Indeed, once they're liberated from an easily documented financial association with the Cubs, many inside the Tower will undoubtedly feel free to let their bias fly (like an L flag). Someone has to change the corrupt thinking inside that newspaper — a new editor with old-fashioned scruples. Dennis Fitzsimmons, Ann Marie Lipinski, everyone who presided over this culture of corruption, really ought to go.

Zell is buying Tribune with the help of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which means the reporters and editors who work for Tribune media will become even more invested in Tribune assets than they already are, and with the Cubs expected to sell as early as October, they stand to profit personally and profoundly from the season that opens today.

The Tribune has still never mentioned Sam Zell's partnership with the White Sox nor his longstanding friendship with Jerry Reinsdorf. Strange, no? Maybe they thought no one would notice. Because a man who wears a Sox cap just walked into the Tower, sat down at the biggest desk, and kicked the Cubs out the back door.