Our Fans Count More Than Your Fans

ESPN, the Chicago Sun-Times, and MSN.com all reported that Wednesday night's game at U.S. Cellular Field was a sellout.

The Tribune was the lone dissenter, reporting the crowd at Wednesday night's game as a "near sellout."

Apparently the Tribune's interpretive attendance translates into sellouts being sellouts only if they happen at Wrigley Field.

How often do you think the Tribune calls a Cubbies game a "near-sellout?"

--Submitted by Cubune Watcher Chris

No Respect Roundup

There's been a trend of late in the Tribune Sports section. It's not anything new, just the typical downplaying of White Sox success that we've all come to understand is part of the Tribune's mission. But in the course of a seven-game winning streak, the Tribune's distortion of reality has become more glaring and obvious that usual.

First, a pop quiz: Which Chicago baseball team in first place on Sunday was ranked No. 1 in Phil Rogers' latest "Power Poll," and which Chicago baseball team in first place on Sunday was ranked No. 10? Here's a hint: The team that was in first, but ranked 10th, has defeated a division rival ranked ahead of it in the "Power Poll" twice this week.

More disturbing is the victory-snatched-from-defeat theme of White Sox story ledes that have been popping up in the paper throughout the winning streak. All the writing comes courtesy of Mark Gonzales, with the exception of Monday's story, written by Dave "Tricky" Van Dyck.

Wednesday's 6-1 win vs. the Angels:
Ozzie Guillen looked like a genius … for at least one night.

Thursday's 4-3 win vs. the Angels:
Jim Thome took a big load off his White Sox teammates and himself Thursday night.

Friday's 2-0 win over the Giants:
Manager Ozzie Guillen believes Cuban import Alexei Ramirez should have more home runs despite the lack of playing time and getting acclimated to playing in cold conditions for the first time.

Saturday's 3-1 win at San Francisco
There was plenty of traffic on the basepaths Saturday night. But Mark Buehrle topped Barry Zito when it came to escaping jams, particularly in avoiding the big innings that have inflated Buehrle's earned-run average.

Sunday's 13-8 win over San Francisco:
Earlier this month, the White Sox were mired in a six-game losing streak, dealing with a blowup doll controversy and facing questions about their feeble offense.

Monday's 4-1 win vs. the Indians:
If the White Sox need any more ammunition to show doubters this may be a special season, it came Tuesday night at U.S. Cellular Field when they beat Indians ace C.C. Sabathia.

Yesterday's 7-2 win over Cleveland:
After the White Sox were held to one hit through five innings and were on the verge of watching a sterling effort from Javier Vazquez go for naught, Jermaine Dye couldn't be blamed Wednesday night for spiking his bat and pumping his fist after solving nemesis Paul Byrd.

Keep in mind, these aren't random tidbits culled from the body of each game story. These are the ways the writers chose to begin the story, the one lede they arrived at out of all the possible directions their reports could have taken.

The lede establishes the tone of a story, particularly when it's a game result. We often begin reading having already seen the result the previous day. So the lede in game stories shapes perception--and, unfortunately for Tribune writers, exposes the author's biases, pro or con, toward players, teams, and game circumstances.

I wouldn't blame some skepticism at the start of the White Sox's winning streak, although leading with negatives night after night is still a bit harsh. But look at yesterday's story--the White Sox are the hottest team in baseball, in first place with a bullet. What does Gonzo trot out? How feeble the Chicago hitters were for five innings. That Javier Vasquez was about to have (another) great effort wasted. That Jermaine Dye is so weak that he had to celebrate "solving" Paul Byrd.

In every case, reading the lede exposes that the writer presumes the White Sox can't be for real, that they have no business in first place or finding any sort of success, even just a quarter into the season.

This organizational attitude, which encourages a Tribune writer to dismiss the achievements of the crosstown team even at the cost of his own credibility and the paper's status, permeates Tribune media. It's as if there's a memo circulated every season, reminding writers who signs their checks, contributes to their 401(k)s, and stands to enrich them once the Cubbies are finally sold off.

--Brett Ballantini

28 Days

It only took four weeks, but a Tribune writer finally has acknowledged the Kosuke Fukudome "Horry Kow" T-shirts being sold outside and worn into Wrigley Field by supposed Cubbies fans. ChicagoSports.com blogger Rahula Strohl had previously written on the controversy, his criticisms of the shirts getting him barbecued as "politically correct" and worse in comments from CS readers. But the core sportswriters--the winceable Dream Team of Sullivan, Rogers, Gonzales, Downey, Morrissey, and McGrath--have been mum.

Unfortunately, Paul Sullivan's piece today doesn't bring a happy conclusion to the story. The apologetic headline, Cubs can't stop all sales of offensive Kosuke Fukudome T-shirt, says it all.

The Cubs and the Tribune are caught in a tough place here. But between the month the Tribune took to officially acknowledge the shirts and the sellers, the fact that it owns its ballpark and could well better police it and the Wrigleyville area to rid the city of such ugliness, and that no one on its pages can bother to state the obvious and condemn this type of ugly racism for fun and profit, it's hard to be too sympathetic.

Worse, imagine the taunts and, apparently, the T-shirts screened once Fukudome finally slumps this season.

--Brett Ballantini

Who's Got the Power?

A week ago in Phil Rogers' "Power Poll" feature on ChicagoSports.com's "Hardball" blog, the 14-10, first-place White Sox ranked No. 4. The 16-9, first-place Cubs ranked No. 3.

Both teams had a rough week. The White Sox took the collar, losing the five games between polls, and falling to second place. Dr. Phil rightfully spanks the punchless Sox down to No. 11 in his poll. He also makes the incongruous comment that the White Sox have no run producers in the minors save for Josh Fields.

Dr. Phil, there's a guy on the White Sox named Carlos Quentin. White Sox GM Ken Williams acquired--the overeager might go so far as to say stole--him from the Arizona Diamondbacks for a Single-A first baseman, Chris Carter. Well Phil, on Sunday there were 11 players in the majors with an on-base + slugging percentage of better than 1.000. Astoundingly, only one of those players was in the American League.

His name? Carlos Quentin.

Quentin's the guy who made a preposterous throw from left field, on the fly, to double off a Tiger at first base early this season. He's already been hit by seven pitches this season, but he's such a bad-ass he doesn't wear any of that Barry Bonds armor to the plate. If Quentin was on the north side, fans already would be wearing some form of offensive T-shirt to "celebrate" him. So Phil, look him up; he's in the White Sox media guide, really.

Quentin is brought up not to deflect attention from the hapless White Sox offense. After all, saying this ballclub is the 11th-best in the majors is a fairly big stretch at the moment. But Rogers and his gratuitous shots at the White Sox GM are way out of line. Even in a short skinny as part of a space-filler of a power poll, Rogers can't resist letting loose on Sox brass.

The purpose of competing in the majors is to have the best major league roster you can. A terrific Single-A hitter like Chris Carter is an asset, but he's not a major-leaguer who earns you major league wins. Quentin's OPS+, is 177, essentially meaning he's hitting 77% better than the average American Leaguer. The next-best White Sox hitter is Joe Crede, whose OPS+ is 119. Quentin is by far the White Sox's best hitter through the first month, and he was essentially shoplifted out of the Diamondbacks organization. But your readers would probably rather read your fiction pieces about win-win trades with Arizona you're spinning as lopsided, so keep the cheap shots coming, Phil.

Oh, and the Cubs? They didn't have a very good week, either. They went 2-4 (and then lost Sunday night's game, which was completed after Phil posted his power poll), falling to second place. Funny, while Rogers admits the Cubs are "spinning their wheels" and have no closer, he can't see dropping the Cubs even one spot in his poll. His beloved bumblers choke away two series, one home and one away, to their two closest division rivals, but they're still the third-best team in the majors.

Another crisis averted. This is a the guy who Cubs manager Lou Piniella referred to as irreplaceable in the Tribune lineup?

--Brett Ballantini

Tower Struggles to Cover Lesser Buildings

Cell Trounces Wrigley Again in SI Fan Poll

The White Sox play in the eighth most popular ballpark in America, according to Sports Illustrated's annual fan poll, while Wrigley Field (that "sacred garden" revered by the people who own it and their army of pajama-clad followers) finished 15th. The Cell consistently stomps on Wrigley in that poll, but the Tribune always finds a way to circumvent the comparison, which would, of course, debunk the Wrigley Field myth at a moment when it is poised to earn the Tribune several hundred million dollars. The Tribune's take this year? Neither stadium finished in the top five. Hmm. Now why do you suppose the Tribune only looked at the top five instead of, like Sports Illustrated, honoring the top ten?

-- Thanks to Lone Ranger for this post.

Tribune: Wrigley Building to Remain in Chicago

Both the Tribune and its yuppie-pandering Redeye edition published this marble-mouthed sentence, reassuring us, to our great relief, that the Mars Corporation is not going to hoist the Wrigley Building onto the back of a flat-bed truck and haul it out to Mars' headquarters in Maclean, VA:

Though most of Wrigley's operations will remain in Chicago, including its executive offices and ornate white building on Michigan Avenue, the shift in Wrigley's power base, including the fact that the founding family will no longer be owners, means something, experts said.

The sentence was penned by none other than David W. Greising, by all accounts one of the nicer and more talented scribes in the Terrible Tower, who nonetheless remains most famous among White Sox fans for somehow overlooking 1.75 million of them crowded on the streets of Chicago in October, 2005. Some fair maiden needs to rescue poor David from that Tower and free his prose from the nefarious influence of the Ring of Power.

-- Patrick Sheehan

Fuzzy Math (or News That Makes Us Richer, Part 2)

Paul Sullivan was lucky enough to witness a 19-5 pasting of the Brew Crew last night. But apparently he was too distracted by the presence of Mark Cuban in the park to bother fully researching his own writing. An excerpt from his game story:

[Geovany] Soto has 20 RBIs in April, the most for a Cubs rookie since records began being kept in 1956.

Wait a just a second. "Records began being kept?" Isn't baseball the most over-recorded sport in human history?

Now, it's possible that the deep Tribune coffers and resources are vastly overestimated, but there were several options available to Sully before he opted out so lazily:

• Page through the Cubs media guide.
• Telephone his newsroom for assistance.
• Drop $29 on yearly access to www.baseball-reference.com's advanced stats and devote 10 minutes to surfing.
• Befriend one of the millions of SABRheads in the world, many of whom already are likely corresponding with Sully. Such perfectionists would likely do a whiz-bang, instantaneous run of the numbers for Sully for free, and in time for Wrigley's seventh-inning warble.
  
• Contact Stats, Inc., which not only would quickly track a straightforward record like most Cubs ribbies in April by a rookie, it'd probably tell him how many batting gloves that rookie went through during the month and the kid's favorite type of hoagie sammich.
• Or, if all else fails, don't print the stat.
  

Not to be outdone in the popular Trib category of fuzzy math, Sully's study buddy Dave Van Dyck wildly speculates about the presence of every north sider's favorite Racer X, Cuban, in the crowd:

Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks (who fired coach Avery Johnson on Wednesday), has publicly expressed interest in owning the Cubs, but it is still uncertain if he could raise the expected $700 million it would take or whether he could get approval from other MLB owners. Tribune Co. hopes to sell the team by the end of the year, and several groups have expressed interest, although Cuban is the most visible individual suitor.

This is unethical journalism to the nth degree.

DVD very fairly speculates on Cuban's ownership interest in the Cubbies. Cuban likely would bring increased interest, aggressiveness, and competitiveness to the Cubs, the team that's bordering on 100 years between World Series titles and counting. That's newsworthy. The fawning is a little unbecoming, but after untold years of faceless ownership, Cuban could be a fresh breath for the Wrigley regulars.

However, DVD, a Tribune employee and presumed stockholder, cannot resist speculating on a price tag for the ballclub, which has been a favorite pastime from the moment the Lovable Losers approached the auction block.

A modest, reasonable price tag might even be OK, for speculative purposes. For example, stating that the Cubs were expected to fetch at least the $XXX million a prior team sale earned is fair play--after all, the cost of buying into MLB's gold mines is stretching ever upward.

But to pull $700 million out of his hiney isn't speculation, it's auctioneering, and the act is absolutely out of line. We know the Tribune has been bandying about a false-bottom price of $1 billion as the likely cost of the ballclub and Wrigley Field for months now, so DVD's numbers surely don't reflect the combo price. DVD can't even employ the specious price of $500 million in his wild speculation; no, the dutiful stockholder/employee has upped the ante to $700 million, citing it in no small measure as a starting point ("the expected $700 million").

This speculation has no place on the sports page, or anywhere in the Tribune, for that matter, at least without a disclosure accompanying it, per Tribune policy. It certainly has no place being created by a fiction writer the likes of Dave Van Dyck.

--Brett Ballantini