Yes, South Side, the Sky is Falling!
Since the All-Star break, the Tribune has been writing its White Sox game stories with a sense of inevitability.
No, not the inevitability of the White Sox winning the AL Central, but rather the team losing its lead. Day after day, win or lose, the length of the White Sox's division lead is prominently mentioned in the game story, if not in the lede.
But Sunday's writeup by Mark Gonzales is the best yet. His entire story addresses the incompetence of the White Sox bullpen and GM Ken Williams' growing impatience with the team. This after a second straight heart-stopping win, against arguably the White Sox's most formidable division opponent in front of record-setting crowds in Detroit. Two come-from-behind wins, the first with the team down to its last strike, and this is the ChicagoSports headline for Saturday's game story:
White Sox escape again, but test GM's patience
Short-handed bullpen gets in and out of jams
And in case you feel that a zealous Cubbies-fan copyeditor slapped that hed on Gonzo's otherwise life-affirming White Sox game story, here's his lede:
The White Sox and opposing teams are testing general manager Ken Williams' patience.
Here's the funny thing: Nowhere in the story does Gonzo actually address Williams' supposed frustration. Williams is portrayed as "less than giddy" about trade prospects and once again acknowledges that he may be criticized for not making a deadline deal (hmm, think the Tribune's own "baseball expert" Phil Rogers might be among the loudest critics?), but Gonzo offers nothing about the supposed frustration Williams is feeling about his team.
A better guess is that Williams is proud as hell of the team he masterfully pieced together, sitting solidly in first place at the end of July against all odds and every "expert" prediction.
Reality doesn't prevent Gonzo from following he and Tricky Dave Van Dyck's typical pattern for White Sox stories, seizing the negative from the positive.
The entire context of Gonzo's story is negative, with statements like the Sox gathered enough resources to pull out a victory...despite knowing their depth will be stretched past Thursday's 3 p.m. non-waiver trading deadline being extremely typical.
Gonzo inserts only three--yes, three--positive statements about Saturday's potential coffin-slamming win at Detroit.
The first comes buried three paragraphs into the story, after three negative cracks on the White Sox, acknowledging that Octavio Dotel and Bobby Jenks closed the door on the Tigers and helped the White Sox "keep" their 3 1/2-game lead over the Twins.
The last two positives come, predictably, at the end of the story. where Gonzo drops all this trading deadline and DL grumbling to actually report game facts in his game story. The second to last paragraph addresses Chicago's mastery of Tigers ace Justin Verlander--no small mental chip to have on your toughest division opponent, although tellingly Gonzo manages to choose that space not to editorialize. The last paragraph recounts back-to-back homers by Carlos Quentin (picked up by Williams in the free-agent steal of the season) and Jermaine Dye (extended by Williams and an MVP candidate despite everyone's assessment that the right fielder was washed up).
That's it. Thanks for playing, White Sox. Being in first place with a better record (.578, 3 1/2 games in first) than our Cubbies (.577, tied for 1st and falling), is merely a bigger excuse to spotlight your supposed shortcomings.
--Brett Ballantini
No, not the inevitability of the White Sox winning the AL Central, but rather the team losing its lead. Day after day, win or lose, the length of the White Sox's division lead is prominently mentioned in the game story, if not in the lede.
But Sunday's writeup by Mark Gonzales is the best yet. His entire story addresses the incompetence of the White Sox bullpen and GM Ken Williams' growing impatience with the team. This after a second straight heart-stopping win, against arguably the White Sox's most formidable division opponent in front of record-setting crowds in Detroit. Two come-from-behind wins, the first with the team down to its last strike, and this is the ChicagoSports headline for Saturday's game story:
White Sox escape again, but test GM's patience
Short-handed bullpen gets in and out of jams
And in case you feel that a zealous Cubbies-fan copyeditor slapped that hed on Gonzo's otherwise life-affirming White Sox game story, here's his lede:
The White Sox and opposing teams are testing general manager Ken Williams' patience.
Here's the funny thing: Nowhere in the story does Gonzo actually address Williams' supposed frustration. Williams is portrayed as "less than giddy" about trade prospects and once again acknowledges that he may be criticized for not making a deadline deal (hmm, think the Tribune's own "baseball expert" Phil Rogers might be among the loudest critics?), but Gonzo offers nothing about the supposed frustration Williams is feeling about his team.
A better guess is that Williams is proud as hell of the team he masterfully pieced together, sitting solidly in first place at the end of July against all odds and every "expert" prediction.
Reality doesn't prevent Gonzo from following he and Tricky Dave Van Dyck's typical pattern for White Sox stories, seizing the negative from the positive.
The entire context of Gonzo's story is negative, with statements like the Sox gathered enough resources to pull out a victory...despite knowing their depth will be stretched past Thursday's 3 p.m. non-waiver trading deadline being extremely typical.
Gonzo inserts only three--yes, three--positive statements about Saturday's potential coffin-slamming win at Detroit.
The first comes buried three paragraphs into the story, after three negative cracks on the White Sox, acknowledging that Octavio Dotel and Bobby Jenks closed the door on the Tigers and helped the White Sox "keep" their 3 1/2-game lead over the Twins.
The last two positives come, predictably, at the end of the story. where Gonzo drops all this trading deadline and DL grumbling to actually report game facts in his game story. The second to last paragraph addresses Chicago's mastery of Tigers ace Justin Verlander--no small mental chip to have on your toughest division opponent, although tellingly Gonzo manages to choose that space not to editorialize. The last paragraph recounts back-to-back homers by Carlos Quentin (picked up by Williams in the free-agent steal of the season) and Jermaine Dye (extended by Williams and an MVP candidate despite everyone's assessment that the right fielder was washed up).
That's it. Thanks for playing, White Sox. Being in first place with a better record (.578, 3 1/2 games in first) than our Cubbies (.577, tied for 1st and falling), is merely a bigger excuse to spotlight your supposed shortcomings.
--Brett Ballantini
Labels: Mark Gonzales, Reporting Game Facts, Seizing the Negative From the Positive
posted by Chicago Cubune Watch permalink
