Even When He Plays it Straight, He's Tricky

Dave Van Dyck witnessed history yesterday.

A quirky bit of history, yes, but history nonetheless. White Sox hitters Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Alexei Ramirez, and Juan Uribe hit consecutive home runs in the sixth inning of Thursday's win over the Kansas City Royals.

Those of us who weren't there or watching the game are reliant on Tricky Van Dyck to provide the core details that put us right there in the park with him.

The ChicagoSports.com headline (Try as he might, Hall can't homer White Sox into record books) implies that after his four teammates launched dingers, White Sox catcher Toby Hall flew out to the warning track, hit a long foul (right size, wrong shape), or lined a sharp single to left that could have left the park with any elevation.

But Van Dyck's otherwise well-written sidebar, including quotes from all five principals involved, fails to answer one question: What did Hall do in his at-bat?

The closest we get to an answer is Hall saying of his failure to hit a fifth homer, "I was all done in," which even in the context of what details Tricky Van Dyck provides makes almost no sense.

For those of you who are still in the dark about Hall's at-bat, he struck out to snap the homer streak at four.

Given that this piece is such a rarity in how well-done it is, it feels a little mean to pick on the writer for omitting a single detail, even the most important detail of the story. But no sooner do the guilts set in when, predictably enough, you consider the lead story on ChicagoSports.com...



Clouds on a Sunny Day

If you're the Tribune and you seek to seize the negative in any positive Chicago White Sox development, how would you want your pinch-hitting beat writer, Dave Van Dyck, to handle the lede for the game story in which the following things happen:

• The White Sox win convincingly.
• The White Sox extend their first-place lead.
• The White Sox complete a sweep and a 7-3 homestand.
• The White Sox break the game open with four consecutive home runs, a feat achieved only six times in major league history.
• The winning pitcher is rookie Lance Broadway, 2-0 in his two career big-league starts.

Well, it goes without saying you would address none of those things.

Instead, you'd write about Broadway being sent back down to the minors immediately after the game. As Tricky Van Dyck puts it, "instead of celebrating with his teammates on their charter flight to Oakland"--as if the White Sox are "celebrating" anything with a one-game division lead--Broadway was demoted.

Any reputable media entity would discontinue its "new journalism" practice of seizing the negative. As mentioned below, it's terrific that Van Dyck wrote a sweet sidebar on the string of four homers, but why in the world wouldn't the game story lead with such an amazing feat? The Associated Press devoted its first 14 game story paragraphs to the feat, including reaction from both White Sox and Royals players.

And if the Tribune, always daring to be different, insisted on taking a different tack from the AP, why then was there no emphasis on the White Sox's terrific homestand, resurgent offense, or realigned rotation?

In a rare season where the Cubbies are doing just as well as the White Sox--a fair pace better, in fact--it seems odd that the age-old practice of seizing the negative from the positive still applies to the South Siders. Old habits die hard.

Perhaps once the Cubbies are sold and the sale's wads of cash being squashed into the leaking dike of a $10 billion debt, Sam Zell will simply clear the deck and send all his twisted sports scribes packing. Unfortunately for fans of fair journalism, that's about as likely as a certain north side club breaking a century-long streak this season.

--Brett Ballantini