If He Cheated, and He Probably Did...and other baseball stories

While the steady diet of bias and misinformation wafting out of the Tribune Tower on behalf of its wheezing-its-way-into-oblivion newspaper is usually enough to keep things hopping here, occasionally attention must be shifted to the Tribune's all-Cubbies, all-the-time television network, WGN.

Now, there was no particular anniversary that drove the production of WGN's "All-Time Chicago Baseball Team," unless it was the unmentioned 102 years since the White Sox defeated the Cubbies in the World Series. But befitting a channel named for the "World's Greatest Newspaper," the program was an utter waste of time.

The program amounted to a poor man's version of the "Sportswriters on TV" show done so brilliantly by Bill Gleason, Ben Bentley, Rick Telander, and Bill Jauss. Unlike "Sportswriters," however, the program had no game footage or film of the players selected to the team. No Big Hurt wallbangers, no Sammy Sosa hops, and no Lou Piniella mock tirades. Hey, even Sportsvision ran game highlights during "Sportswriters," and that show's heyday was 25 years ago!

Here's the roster of Chicago's best:
Starters: Fergie Jenkins, Billy Pierce, Ed Walsh, Greg Maddux
Reliever: Bruce Sutter
C: Carlton Fisk
1B: Ernie Banks
2B: Ryne Sandberg
SS: Luis Aparicio
3B: Ron Santo
OF: Billy Williams, Sammy Sosa, Joe Jackson
DH: Frank Thomas
Manager: Al Lopez

Not altogether unreasonable, with a fair blend of White Sox (seven) and Cubbies (eight). The picks were made by baseball writers, broadcasters, historians, and former players both in Chicago and throughout the rest of the country.

But check out which voters were featured on the program's panel of "experts":

• Phil Rogers, Tribune "baseball expert," taking a brief break from sharpening his axe for White Sox GM Ken Williams
  
• Mike Downey, Tribune "sports columnist," master of the one-sentence paragraph
• Dave Van Dyck, Tribune baseball writer out of the bullpen, and the bitter boy of the bunch
  
• Dan McGrath, Tribune sports managing editor, the journalist charged with executing a campaign of bias and misinformation
• Rod Blagojevich, who has governed Illinois as well as the Cubbies have traditionally managed their baseball teams
• Mickey Morandini, former Cubbie who otherwise has no ties to the Chicago area
• Randy Hundley, former Cubbies catcher pretty directly responsible for the free agent monstrosity that was Cubbies catcher Todd Hundley
• Ron Kittle, former White Sox outfielder, feeling awfully lonely on a panel dominated by Tribune employees and Cubbies faithful
• Rich Lindberg, Chicago-area writer and White Sox historian

All presided over by another Tribune employee, Dan Roan.

The highlights, as it were, of the roundtable discussion:

Rich "Goose" Gossage, who started his career with and was transformed into a closer by the White Sox, was pictured in a Cubbies uniform. The newly-minted Hall-0f-Famer played five seasons for the White Sox, one for the Cubbies.

Dr. Phil, saying that Frank Thomas "had the yips about throwing his whole career." No mention of why Thomas had trouble throwing (the Big Hurt was a two-sport player at Auburn and suffered a serious right shoulder injury as a football tight end during his freshman season) or why there was a need to sully the All-Time Designated Hitter with talk of his defensive play.

Dr. Phil also made an extraordinary admission regarding Sammy Sosa: "if he cheated, and he probably did, he kept it hidden better than the others." Now there's a pick to be proud of. Interesting, however, considering the Tribune has been a staunch apologist for Sosa, with Rogers and Fred Mitchell serving as personal bodyguards to Hoppin' Sammy's legacy.

At second base, vanilla milkshake Ryne Sandberg was the obvious landslide winner to 2008 voters, but amazingly, four-season Cubbies veteran Rogers Hornsby finished second, with 21% of the vote. (How stacked did the Tribune feel it had to make the voters to get that absurd tally?) Finishing in third with 16%, 1959 American League MVP and 14-year White Sox second sacker Nellie Fox.

To make sure all viewers knew who was in charge, the Tribune dispatched Hit Man Hundley to admonish Kittle for, ahem, picking too many White Sox players for his All-Time Team. McGrath surely treated the Hit Man to a Tom Collins after that shot to Kitty's kneecap.

The two most misplaced baseball minds on the panel, Blago and Morandini (what, Ronnie Woo-Woo wasn't available?), both insisted that the best manager in Chicago baseball history was, double gulp, Lou Piniella!

And finally Lindberg, who actually was equipped to give an accurate assessment of Chicago's baseball history given he's a lifelong resident, fan, and historian, wasn't used much. Probably because he was the only one who knew what he was talking about. Or did the Tribune's henchmen out him by procuring a copy of Lindberg's first book, 1978's "Stuck on the Sox," before the taping?

--Mark Liptak and Brett Ballantini