The bigger they are

Criticizing the Tribune right now is like kicking a puppy that's falling down an elevator shaft. But yes, we have noticed what they're up to. Our friend on the inside is promising big changes. Stay tuned...

The Moose is Loose Again

This week, the Tribune unveiled its new look. Paid media analysts could describe it better, but the "World's Greatest Newspaper" has moved off into a View-Master direction: Bigger pictures, less words.

Knowing the Tribune the way you do, that should undoubtedly be a good thing, right? Fewer words mean less smarminess, bias, and factual flubs. Jury's still out on that, though.

On page one of Saturday's Tribune sports sits Rick Morrissey, all by his lonesome. See, that's the way the Trib does it now; one supersized picture tells the "story," and then some copy at the bottom expounds on it for those of us who don't think a newspaper should be a series of flash cards.

Anyhow, Moose is writing about the White Sox, stuck in a two-game hole in the ALDS. Unlike Phil Rogers' page two story, which effectively dresses down the team's homer-or-nothing offense and highlights the astounding fact that on Friday, the White Sox had 12 hits, on which not a single runner advanced more than one base, the Moose wastes his lede on an old, tired tune. You know, the one that goes something like: White Sox fans hate the Cubbies more than they like the White Sox.

The way things are going, White Sox fans soon will be able to fall back on their natural pastime: the intense enjoyment of watching the Cubs fall apart.

Good one, Rick. See, a lede like that is rubber-stamped forward at the Trib copy desk because it's a twofold insult. First, dis White Sox fans (representing a huge percentage of Tribune readership in spite of themselves, by the way) by insulting their devotion and intelligence. Second, perpetuate the Tribune myth that The Shrine is the center of the universe by positing that White Sox fans, even on the heels of a thrilling and gutsy run into the postseason and in the midst of losses and offensive ineptitude in the ALDS, could give a flip about the North Side Bumblers.

Sure, Moose is the Trib's designated comedian, wedging one-liners into his copy so awkwardly you wish one day he had been booed off the stage at a Zanies amateur night just to spare him the future embarrassment of trying to be funny in print. But good lord, he had upwards of three hours to come up with a good joke lede--and you didn't have to watch every pitch Friday to know there were plenty available--and the best he can muster is a retread insult to White Sox fans?

With every outing, Morrissey seems more like that doofus you knew in school: well-meaning, not a kid you wanted to see picked on, but someone you hoped would grow up and get a clue.

Well Rick, you're in your fifth decade now. Time is running out for you to do so.

--Brett Ballantini

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

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

From today's Tribune:

Tribune Editor Resigns

Chicago Tribune Editor and Senior Vice President Ann Marie Lipinski announced her resignation today, a week after the paper announced significant cuts to its newsroom staff and a reduction in the number of pages it prints each week.

Gerould W. Kern, who has been Tribune Publishing's vice president of editorial since 2003, was named Lipinski's successor by Tribune Publishing Executive Vice President Bob Gremillion, who assumed interim oversight of the paper this month after the retirement of Publisher Scott C. Smith.

Who's Gerould W. Kern? Read all about him here.

Editorial Page Wears Cubbie Blue Too

The Tribune's Editorial Bored has admitted that "The future of our parent company—conceivably, the future of our jobs—rests to some unknowable extent on the successful sale of the Cubs and Wrigley Field, and the resulting reduction of corporate debt. " And perhaps that explains why the Editorial Bored seems to go out of its way to mention the Cubs whenever possible, regardless of the actual topic of the editorial. Here's one:

The perfect Father's Day gift

June 13, 2008

You wait until the last minute, hoping for inspiration. You seek clues. You ransack your brain for fresh ideas. You get none. What does Dad want for Father's Day? He's apt to shrug and say, 'Nothing.' (He may be thinking: A few hours on the couch, with a six-pack and a Cubs game and no interruptions sounds good.)

Not my Dad. Here's another plug they slipped in:

Just veto the thing

June 25, 2008

The writing has been on the wall ever since the General Assembly passed a state budget that Gov. Rod Blagojevich says is $2 billion out of whack. There are two things he can do about it: He can veto the entire budget and tell lawmakers to start over. Or he can use his amendatory veto to cut the budget down to size himself. On Tuesday, Blagojevich made it clear he's still holding out hope for option 3: House Democrats suddenly realize they forgot to fund all that spending and hustle back to Springfield to pass some new revenue measures. House Speaker Michael Madigan has shrugged off that suggestion for weeks, so the governor called a news conference Tuesday to announce a July 9 or else deadline. What's he waiting for? By July 9, we'll be more than a week into the 2009 fiscal year and two days into the Cubs' last home stand before the All-Star break. Might as well get busy.

Huh? Is our state government's calendar determined by the Cubs now? Only in the Tribune. Another:

Stats aren't for sale

June 9, 2008

In a move almost as boneheaded as calling a tie in the All-Star Game, Major League Baseball three years ago declared itself the owner of Greg Maddux's ERA, Jason Giambi's on-base percentage and Corey Patterson's sorry, sorry batting average.

Baseball fans accustomed to helping themselves to those numbers—they were right there in the sports pages, after all—were surprised to learn they'd been committing larceny, and steamed when they learned what MLB was up to: It was trying to take over fantasy baseball....

If MLB officials are smart, they'll stop gouging and start groveling. Fantasy players are some of the best fans on earth. They may root for the home team, but they have a stake in dozens of other games every week involving players on their fantasy rosters. They're a great advertising demographic: above average education and income; big consumers of sporting goods, online tickets, fast food and alcohol. They're three times as likely as the average Joe to attend an actual game and melt down the MasterCard: two tickets, $88; six beers, $36; four hotdogs, $16, etc. Watching the Cubs lose in the bottom of the ninth (bummer!) thanks to an Albert Pujols homer that moved your fantasy team up a notch in the standings, priceless. And by the way, free.

"Bummer!" Do you get the sense we've got a Cubs fan writing all the Tribune's editorials lately? Maybe it's this guy Paul Weingarten:

Oh, no. It's commencement time!

By Paul Weingarten

June 20, 2008

I've been trying to remember what, if anything, I could recall about the commencement speaker at my graduation, whoever that might have been and whatever he/she might have said. But hey, that was quite a while ago and the memory's not what it was.

You current Northwestern University grads won't have that problem. You'll remember that Mayor Richard M. Daley was your commencement speaker on Friday, even though some of you dissed him in e-mails to NU's president, Henry Bienen....

The NU naysayers who dissed Daley said they were expecting someone like Jerry Seinfeld. It's like, after spending all that money on tuition, the grads are expecting a send-off ceremony with tickets that could be scalped to bring Cubs World Series-like prices....

Paul Weingarten is a member of the Tribune's editorial board.

Thanks to Lone Ranger for this observant post.

Clobberin' with Lies

Dave van Dyck was responsible for writing up Saturday night's White Sox game story.

(Those of you who just cringed, bonus points for appreciating Tricky Van Dyck's special brand of "writing.")

With the White Sox's offense back in full force and scoring outrageous amounts of runs, you'd think Tricky V.D. would shoot right out of the gate with a delicious lede. Perhaps he'd mention Joe Crede's four home runs in the past two games, an accomplishment not attained by a White Sox player in nine seasons. How about 64 hits in five games so far in the homestand? Hey, he couldn't even be blamed for leading with news of the rarest of baseball accomplishments, a Paul Konerko triple.

No, the lede for the story detailing the White Sox's trampling of Minnesota, their fiercest rival and closest Central Division trailer, by a lopsided, 11-2 margin avoids any such pertinence:

They may have the worst winning percentage of any team leading a division, but the White Sox have a bigger lead than the best team, the Cubs.

Now, let's try to ignore how horrible Tricky Van Dyck's writing is and how lazy and convoluted a lede this is. As is to be expected from a writer from a newspaper that prides itself more on torpedoing its crosstown rival than reporting facts, Tricky Van Dyck's lede is simply wrong.

The division leader with the worst record is not the red-hot White Sox but the Arizona Diamondbacks, whose 34-28 record trails the White Sox by a full 1.5 games. Moreover, the north side bumblers are no longer the "best" team in baseball as the Trib's Hall of Fame-nominated hatchet man implies--they're now tied with the L.A. Angels at 39-24.

Apparently the Tribune sports editors "missed" the falsities when they "fact-checked" Homer Dave's story.

— Submitted by Cubune Watcher Edward B., with an assist from Brett Ballantini

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

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

Tribune: All the News that Makes Us Richer

On page 5 of the Tempo section in today's Tribune we find a charming feature about some people who built a one-third-size replica of Wrigley Field in Freeport, IL. But we don't know anything about those people except for one name — Denny Garkey — and the word "organizers." And the story doesn't tell us anything about the community that hosts the field. Instead of emphasizing the people who built this field or the community in which they built it, the Tribune predictably emphasizes itself. That is to say, it emphasizes its own assets, without disclosing that they are assets, and at a time, we note, when those assets are for sale.

The first paragraph, ostensibly describing the mini-field, mentions the Cubs, Wrigley Field, the "Friendly Confines," the green scoreboard, the red marquee sign, and the WGN press box. Need we remind you that Tribune owns WGN?

The second paragraph mentions a person, Dutchie Caray, whom it describes as "the widow of famed Cubs announcer Harry Caray." If the Tribune didn't constantly promote its selective memory of Harry's biography, he might be more appropriately described as the larger Chicago area actually remembers him: "famed White Sox and Cubs announcer Harry Caray."

The third paragraph mentions those anonymous "organizers" of the new field in the course of getting to another mention of Tribune-owned Wrigley Field. Did we mention it's for sale?

And then, best of all, the final paragraph is devoted to the billy goat curse, the Tribune's favorite strategy, for the last quarter century, to attract fans to a losing team. The lovable losers, cursed by a goat.

The story hardly manages to be about its topic — the miniature field — at all, and never gets around to asking the "organizers" why they built it, how they raised the money, how the community has reacted, etc.

And most importantly, the story never discloses that the Tribune owns the assets it is describing, despite ethical codes and a Tribune policy requiring such a disclosure. Why is it important to include such a disclosure in such a cute little feature story? Because as a Tribune editorial recently admitted, "The future of our parent company—conceivably, the future of our jobs—rests to some unknowable extent on the successful sale of the Cubs and Wrigley Field, and the resulting reduction of corporate debt. "

-- Patrick Sheehan

Bleepin' Lead Story

It's pretty clear how the Tribune behaves when its Cubbies are playing poorly, trumping up every meaningless accomplishment and downplaying the achievements of the crosstown rival. And last fall, we saw the latest example of how the Tribune will try to huff and puff and blow the Cubbies into the World Series.

Considering how much time and effort the Tribune has expended over the years to convince you that their Cubbies product is worth buying, it's rather funny that once the product really is good, the Tribune doesn't know how to sell it. Perhaps it's understandable; the sports desk has so little experience in the rarefied air of first place.

As the morning broke today, the Cubs were the hottest team in baseball, sitting atop the NL Central, tied for the best record in baseball at 15-6. Oh, and in a strange little development that has a lot more to do with the Cubs playing baseball since the Civil War than it does with any sort of organizational commitment to excellence, the team just won its 10,000th game, an extra-inning affair on the road vs. the defending NL champs.

What, then, are the lead stories on ChicagoSports.com? The 25-year anniversary of former manager Lee Elia's profanity-laced tirade against Cubbies fans. Count 'em, five stories celebrating one of the most pathetic and hilarious moments in Chicago sports history.

True, it is likely that the Elia tirade is the first real Cubs highlight, and most lasting, of the Tribune-owned era. And if there's one thing we know, the whozits and wassats traipsing about the Tower will never hesitate to congratulate themselves.

Even when the joke is on them.

--Brett Ballantini

The Silent Ban

Apparently, though it wasn't made known to the public or reported via the "company newspaper" Tribune, the Cubbies have "banned" the offensive Kosuke Fukudome T-shirts being sold outside The Shrine. Interesting, then, that the shirt was blatantly being sold by multiple vendors outside the park, including one highly-visible seller outside of the Cubby Bear.

Today, Rahula Strohl becomes the first member of the Tribune organization to acknowledge the T-shirts. Not in the newspaper, mind you, nor in any online "news" area, but in the sports blog What's Goin' On. And sad to say, based on the vitriolic responses that made up roughly half of the comments on Strohl's criticism of the shirts, they will be on sale outside the park and worn inside all season long.

Funny that these issues never came up on the South Side, when Shingo Takatsu and Tadahito Iguchi became the first two Japanese players in Chicago.

Never underestimate a Cubs fan's right to be ignorant. Or the company newspaper's right to be negligent.

--Brett Ballantini

Horry Kow, It's Frat Boys on Parade

The Tribune has devoted a lot of space lately about the practice of throwing baseballs onto the field during a game. Ryan Theriot thought seeing a dozen or more baseballs fly back onto the field after an opponent's home run in a Cubbies rout was "awesome." Lou Piniella, who's fallen into the habit of defending just about everyone and everything Cub, doesn't see an issue with balls flying back onto the playing field during a game ("I don't think our fans are obnoxious"). Paul Sullivan suggests this is a "new tradition."

But there's a more disturbing story brewing inside and outside The Shrine: The special way some fans are welcoming their first Japanese player, Kosuke Fukudome, to Chicago.

Funny though, you won't read about "Horry Kow" Fukudome T-shirts in the Tribune. (The link connects to a Sun-Times story from April 18.)

The Tribune apparently has all the space in the world to endlessly debate the practice of tossing baseballs back onto the field after opponents hit home runs, or Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman's reaction to it (the Tribune has run at least two articles solely devoted to Brennaman's comments). Yet nothing has come up about the blatant racism in the Fukudome T-shirt and the fans who "proudly" wear it.

In the Sun-Times story, the team offered no official comment on the racism running rampant inside and outside of its ballpark. Of all the things to offer a quick and definitive comment on, the ballclub's newest and best player being insulted by ugly stereotypes and racism should be first on the list.

So...how long will the Cubs and the Tribune remain silent?

--Brett Ballantini

Head Games

Two papers, two reads on Monday's White Sox loss to the Oakland A's:

Daily Herald
A's Smith Outduels Buehrle

Chicago Tribune
Left Spinning Their Wheels

Same game. Different spins.

--The Lone Ranger

Quote of the Year

It's early, but we have a contender for quote of the year, courtesy of Cubbies beat writer Paul Sullivan, penning yet another of the already-tired Dusty-Baker-returns-to-Chicago stories.

In a hard-hitting piece that compares Dusty to current Cubbies manager Lou Piniella, Sully leads his story with:

Asked the difference between managers Lou Piniella and Dusty Baker, Kerry Wood said they're actually quite similar, pointing to their main character trait."They both hate to lose," he said.

So simple, it's classic.

--Brett Ballantini

A Tale of Two Stories — Biased Stories

Two stories on the front of the Tribune's sports page today, one about a White Sox victory, one about a Cubs victory. In each, the hometown manager makes self-deprecating comments. Here's Ozzie:

"We got Detroit at the right time. Those guys are going to wake up sooner or later because they have unbelievable talent."

And here's Lou:

Before the game, Piniella said the Cubs were "fortunate" to be in a position to end the trip with a winning record "despite the problems we've had in the rotation and with our offense."

The bias shows in the way each reporter responds to those comments. Even though the Cubs have more reason to thank their lucky stars — they won by one run but had two runs gifted to them, one by an umpire and one by a Phillies error — Cubs house organ Paul Sullivan writes, "But the offense was just good enough Sunday." He writes of Jason Marquis pitching in and out of trouble and writes that "Derrek Lee saved the day with a brilliant stop to present the winning run from scoring with two outs in the ninth." When the Cubs are lucky, they're also brilliant, but when the White Sox are lucky enough to allow only five hits in two games and hit two grand slams on the same day, Dave van Dyck can only be skeptical:

"The question is whether this is real or whether it comes from playing Detroit, considering five the Sox's seven victories have come against, surprisingly, the worst team in baseball."

So, the Sox have a winning record (van Dyck neglects to mention that it's the best record in the American League) only because they beat the Tigers five times. But isn't it also true that the Tigers have the worst record in baseball only because they lost to the White Sox five times? Maybe if they played another team they would have won those games, in which case they would be 7-5, not 2-10.

It makes sense for managers to downplay their teams' accomplishments in April, to stay humble for the long haul. When Lou does it, the Tribune contradicts him. When Ozzie does it, the Tribune piles on.

-- Jeff McMahon

Dr. Phil's Issues With Honesty

You might recall late last season, when Tribune "baseball expert" Phil Rogers apparently fabricated a story about White Sox GM Ken Williams refusing the Diamondbacks' request of CF Brian Anderson in return for Javier Vazquez, instead steering Arizona toward CF Chris Young. As we know, Young has blossomed into a star for the Diamondbacks while Anderson failed as a starter and had forgettable 2006 and 2007 seasons.

What made Rogers' unsupported assertion even more curious was that he cited no sources in his story, and a day or so later Arizona's assistant GM at the time was on record claiming Young was Arizona's primary, if not only, target in the trade. The timing was also suspect: Dr. Phil's "insight" came on the heels of Young spearheading a sweep of the Cubbies in the NLDS. Of course, the Tribune staff to a man predicted the Cubbies would advance to the LCS, and it seems the only way to salve the wounds of being so wrong all the time is to concoct a story that makes the GM on the other side of town look foolish. Apparently, 70 wins for the White Sox wasn't humiliation enough.

Recently, the popular baseball site MLB Trade Rumors opted to include the Rogers link, straight-faced, in a report about Young's contract extension with Arizona. (The sentence including the link reads: "Certainly Kenny Williams wishes he'd sent Brian Anderson to Arizona for Javier Vazquez instead, but the deal has still benefited both clubs." Rogers can't even be that kind.)

There's no obvious fiction involved today, but Dr. Phil sure has it in for Williams. In the category of "beating a dead horse" comes today's item:

"Young Piece to Build Around
Diamondbacks love former Sox farmhand

Javier Vazquez has replaced Mark Buehrle as the best pitcher on the White Sox staff. But the trade for Vazquez hasn't been a good one for the Sox, who lost 24-year-old center fielder Chris Young in the deal.

The Diamondbacks don't believe there was anything fluky about Young's 32-homer, 27-stolen base rookie season. They have signed him to a five-year, $28 million contract extension that makes him one of the faces of their franchise.

[Obligatory quote from Arizona general manager Josh Byrnes about how awesome Young is.]

The Sox were willing to trade Young because they were loaded with outfield prospects at the time. He played alongside Ryan Sweeney and Jerry Owens in Double A and Brian Anderson was one rung ahead of that trio. Young had the highest ceiling of the four, but Williams thought he was expendable.

Ouch."

And, in case you weren't sure how the Tribune was leaning on this one, three photos illustrate this afterthought of a piece. One is of Young, with the caption "Chris Young, whom the Sox traded to the Diamondbacks, has blossomed as Arizona's leadoff man." The other two, of Jerry Owens, and Anderson, have a shared caption: "White Sox GM Ken Williams believed that Jerry Owens and Brian Anderson were more major-league ready than Chris Young."

What's next, a Dr. Phil item mocking former Sox GM Larry Himes for dealing Sammy Sosa for George Bell?

All this would be fair game, even coming some two full seasons after the trade was made, if the Vazquez-Young trade was some sort of what-was-he-thinking? steal. But it's not even close to that.

Heading into today's start, Vazquez has gone 27-21 in his White Sox career. He has three complete games, 431.3 IP, 415 H, 111 BB, 411 K, a 4.30 ERA, and a 1.22 WHIP. In Vazquez's first full season with the White Sox, when he admittedly stumbled start after start, his ERA was still only 0.10 worse than the AL average. Last year, Vazquez's ERA was 1.00 better than average. At 31, he's still enjoying prime years at a fair market price of $12.5 million a year--a contract Williams didn't have the good fortune of inheriting from another GM, but extended himself. Vazquez's statistical twin is Brad Radke, and among the 10 most similar pitchers to Vazquez is Richard Dotson. Short of Young blossoming into Willie Mays, White Sox fans will take it.

Young has played one full season in the majors, and his future is certainly bright. His 32 HR, 68 RBI, and 27 SB from the leadoff spot were good enough to place him fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting, but he also had some numbers that weren't exactly ideal: 43 BB and 141 K (nearly one K per game), a .295 on-base percentage, .237 average, and an OPS+ of 89 (the average NL player rates 100). His B+ Runs (-13) and BtWins (-1.2), measures of an individual's batting value compared with the rest of the league, were also below average.

It may be better to contrast Vazquez with the ace across town, the Cubbies' potassium-deprived, $18 million man, Carlos Zambrano. Z is 35-21 with 1 CG, 450 IP, 368 H, 218 BB, 405 K, a 3.60 ERA, and a 1.30 WHIP. Zambrano's most frequent comp? Ramon Martinez.

So, Zambrano has measurably more wins, a better ERA (even adjusted for being in the NL), and more mound meltdowns and locker-room brawls than Javy. Vazquez lets fewer batters reach base and strikes out more hitters than Z. You'd give Z the edge, although last year Vazquez blew him away. Is it a $5-6 million per year salary edge? Probably not. Call it a wash.

Imagine if the Cubbies traded a bright prospect--it should be too hard, they've done it countless times. In return, they received a starter who didn't miss turns and would become their best pitcher in a year or less. A Zambrano. A Vazquez. Do you figure some bumpkin baseball writer, two years down the line, would still be shedding a tiny tear over how terrible the trade was?

Look at how Rogers' piece opens: The White Sox acquired their ace, but the deal "hasn't been a good one." How is that possible? Rogers chides Williams for picking the wrong player to trade, although the Sox "were loaded with prospects at the time." Isn't this the very reason you trade a prospect, because you have a bunch? Even if you have no proven outfielders--and the White Sox did--prospects are just that, prospects. They are chips you use to acquire real major leaguers, and if too many of the prospects you trade become real major leaguers, you're in the unemployment line.

Rogers, then, could point out that Young is the first prospect Williams has dealt who is coming close to, if you want to be dramatic about a trade where your get an ace in return, "haunting" him. It's also important to keep in mind that we're talking about only one season's worth of spooking. But for Dr. Phil to do that would gut all his future criticisms of the Sox GM, ones that have come as recently as this offseason, when the White Sox "gutted their farm system" to acquire Nick Swisher. The same Nick Swisher who's now heralded for spearheading the resurgence on the South Side for the first-place White Sox.

The value of HRs and Ks and OBP and "attitude" can be debated until Phil Rogers is finally pushed out of the Tower with his golden parachute, but Swisher is a perfect representation of the player Williams needed on the 2008 White Sox (high-OBP slugger, flexible fielder, great attitude and leadership, reasonable pricetag). None of the players Williams supposedly missed on, including Aaron Rowand, Torii Hunter, and yes, Young, are. Yes, anyone could use 30 dingers out of your leadoff hitter and CF--that's why Swish is roaming out there on the South Side these days.

Dishonest, disingenuous, whoops-how'd-that-get-printed-again journalism has become the norm at the Tribune. Someone there ought to try to stem the tide. That would be Pulitzer-worthy.

--Brett Ballantini

Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com for the statistical support.

POSTSCRIPT: Vazquez started the game after this morning's post, going seven shutout innings, with five hits, nine strikeouts, and no walks in an 11-0 win over the Tigers. Thanks for the effort, Javy!

...and the Flintstones

The next phase of the bizarre Fred Mitchell/Ernie Banks tag-team rehabilitation effort on behalf of Sammy Sosa continues Thursday in the Tribune. The dueling apologists' most glaring remarks begin with this gem from Fast Freddie:

"Although Sosa is the only major-league player to hit 60 or more homers in three seasons, his use of a corked bat, his early departure from Wrigley Field during the final game of the Cubs' disappointing 2004 season and other self-centered acts caused the same fans who once cheered his every move to turn on him."

Well, yeah, all those things and the fact that Sosa's head grew to twice its size, literally and figuratively, during those 60-home run seasons.

But it's not as if Fast Freddie doesn't acknowledge Sosa's dirty dance with those Flintstones vitamins:

"There also are unsubstantiated rumors of steroid use that have chipped away at Sosa's status."

Chased by more bizarre apologizing from Mr. Cub:

"It is unfortunate that it turned out that way," Banks said. "Sammy did a lot for the city and he did a lot for the game. There was not a celebration or a big ending to his career. He's just kind of walking away quietly and nobody is recognizing him."

There's something especially sad about the true heroes of baseball sympathizing with the cheaters. What's next, Hank Aaron lobbying for the Braves to sign Barry Bonds?

Finally, Fast Freddie draws an insipid parallel between the redemption of a generally admired figure who was tragically castigated in "Red Sox Nation" for a World Series error and Sosa, a known and proven cheater:

"There is precedent for fence-mending in baseball. Bill Buckner, a figure of scorn in New England since his costly error on Mookie Wilson's roller in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, was invited back to Fenway Park for a ceremonial first pitch before Tuesday's home opener with Detroit, and Red Sox fans greeted him with a prolonged ovation."

Yep, the guy who poked out 2,715 career hits, many on one, non-Flintstones-aided leg, is a direct parallel to the fella whose lasting contribution to the game was the homer hop.

--Brett Ballantini

When Does a Start Start?

In today's Tribune, Dave Van Dyck attempts to manipulate time. Unsurprisingly, his sleepy editors allow it.

After Sunday's stirring win vs. Houston, the Cubbies had drawn to 3-3 on the season. Not bad, not good. Hey, that's what .500 represents, right?

Not to DVD, who was beside himself with excitement over the team's three wins in six tries:

"The manager, Lou Piniella, is starting to see his "fast start" hopes come around, with the Cubs ending their first week at home by winning two games in a row and three of the last four."

We've seen this sort of selective memory before by Tribune writers when it comes to their coverage of the Cubbies. Just yesterday, Paul Sullivan extolled team closer Kerry Wood for being two-for-two in saves, conveniently ignoring his Opening Day implosion in order to establish some sort of false "perfection" on behalf of the first-time closer.

Today, DVD is so desperate to establish that the Cubbies have had a "fast start" that he completely doctors the season's first homestand, altering it from the 3-3 mediocrity it was into some sort of 3-1 "fast start." Did the first two games of the season not count on the north side?

Perhaps this explains why the Tribune is so pleased with its Cubbies year after year, even when the losing campaigns vastly outnumber the winning ones: It simply doesn't count some of the losses.

--Brett Ballantini

Perfection by Omission

Paul Sullivan practices a common Tribune tactic in his ebullient take on the finish to his north sider's second win of the season on Sunday. Call it "perfection by omission."

Sully breathlessly reports that closer-until-broken Kerry Wood was able to "pick up his second save in two tries with a perfect ninth inning."

Now, to the letter, Sully isn't fudging here. Wood, despite a 9.00 ERA and 1.33 WHIP, has not yet blown a save in two tries.

But there's an implication in the writing that Wood's been perfect this season, that 1-2-3 9ths are just another day at the office for him, the long-time Cub, first-time closer.

Heh, not exactly. It was a mere six days earlier that Wood debuted disastrously, handing the game to the Brewers in the 9th before receiving a complete, three-run bailout from Kosuke Fukodome in the bottom of the inning.

Sullivan was at that game too, right? Let's check. Yep, here you go: "But the day was a total downer for Carlos Zambrano, who remains winless in four Opening Day starts and left in the seventh inning with forearm cramps. And for Kerry Wood, who allowed three runs in the ninth in his debut as the Cubs' closer."

After Wood's implosion, visitors to ChicagoSports.com voted by a 74% landslide that Wood be replaced by the electric Carlos Marmol as the team's closer. Comcast SportsNet's you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours Chicago Tribune Live, the talking head survey of all Chicago sports that just happens to star a panel of experts almost exclusively culled from the dank Tribune catacombs (the White Sox played on Comcast that day, but the Cubbies still managed to cut in line for coverage), was just as hysterical in its debate.

If the White Sox's Bobby Jenks had just completed his second save in two tries but badly misfired in his first outing of the year, is there any chance whatsoever that Tribune coverage merely would laud Jenks for the two-for-two and conveniently overlook the fact that he needed a barf bag to escape his outing in the opener?

You know the answer to that rhetorical question. Never. Ever.

Apparently Sully feels Kerry Wood's psyche is as fragile as all his reconditioned arm pieces. And that Chicago sports fans aren't smart enough to catch the insipid bias that seeps into every Tribune sports page.

--Brett Ballantini

Picks to Click?

Throughout the 2007 season, you'll recall there was constant talk from Tribune White Sox beat writer Mark Gonzales about the White Sox keeping players through their walk years. This wasn't in order to compete and win in 2007 as much as it was that by losing free agents, the White Sox would receive those apparently coveted sandwich picks in the amateur draft.

It was sort of funny to read, because sandwich picks became Gonzo's pet project in 2007. (Don't re-sign Jermaine Dye--you'll get picks when he leaves! Trade Mark Buehrle? But what about those picks?) You'll recall that after the World Series, every White Sox notes column by Gonzo seemed to be peppered with tidbits about performance incentives, like "Jim Thome's 500th at-bat will reap him $250,000" or "with his 30th home run, Paul Konerko gets a Harley." Sandwich picks were Gonzo's incentive clauses of 2007.

Yet because the White Sox are having trouble dealing Joe Crede, one of those popular free agents in his walk year, the Tribune's angle is curiously altered. In Gonzo's recent "Joe Crede vs. Josh Fields" feature, there was no talk of, "be cool, Sox fans, if Crede plays out the year and Scott Boras sends him to the Blue Jays as an international bonus baby, no biggie...sandwich picks!"

No, according to Gonzo, if Crede plays out his contract with the White Sox, "the Sox face the prospect of receiving no compensation besides draft picks if they cannot trade Crede before he becomes a free agent in the winter." (In other words: Sandwich picks? Yawn. Boy the Sox are lame if that's all they can get.)

The Tribune: All the news that suits it.

--Brett Ballantini

Opening Day!

And everybody in the Trib Tower is drinking that delicious blue Kool-Aid.

Gulping by the gallon is Phil Rogers, baseball expert.

Dr. Phil's Cubbies season prediction? 95-67. Yes, you read that correctly. 95 wins.

The Cubbies have won 95 games or more exactly twice in the past 62 seasons.

Such optimism deserves a deeper analysis.

Phil's Pros
Adding Kosuke Fukodome and Jon Leiber.

Oh, and--careful, bizarre qualifier coming--having "played .578 ball over the last four-plus months [of 2007] without any hitter having a career year." Too bad you can't just take your favorite chunks of each season and place it on the back of your baseball card, Phil.

Phil's Cons
Little things like no "high-profile [read: dependable] No. 2 starter and established closer." Those things probably wouldn't haunt a team in a 162-game season, would they, baseball expert?

In fact, it would probably be easy to win 95 (yes, 95!) games without those two things, right? Because, after all, you know, like, no hitter had a career year in 2007. And they got the guy from Japan, and they installed the most oft-injured and disappointing young pitcher in recent baseball history as their closer.

When Underachievement Means Overachievment
Know what's funny? Even if we assume the real Cubbies showed up sometime in June after Sweet Lou finally pushed the right tantrum button--that managing technique's not gonna grow old this year, is it, Phil?--and the true Cubbies are a .578 monster, .578 projects to only 93 or 94 wins over the course of a season. So in Phil's eyes, not only do the Cubbies get a mulligan for being horrible last April and May, they'll actually be better than their overachievement in the last four months of the season. Which, you'll recall, featured a car-crash sort of pennant race wherein neither the mediocre Cubbies or barely-there Brewers wanted to win the division.

You'll also recall that Dr. Phil and the rest of the Tribune crew decided to take the team's flaccid end to the season into account, instead oddly twisting it into a slingshot that would shoot the Cubbies to a NLDS win against the superior Diamondbacks (in fact, if you smoked enough of the Tower herb, like Paul Sullivan, you predict a sweep!).

Blind Spot: The NL Central
Dr. Phil doesn't even dare denigrate the gilded Cubbies by acknowledging that one reason he feels they could improve, or at least should win the division, is that teams in the NL Central would have trouble competing in the Pacific Coast League. That's a legitimate, simple statement that would largely shut up the critics who might be tempted to, y'know, poke holes in Dr. Phil's "analysis."

But no, as far as we can tell the good doc feels the NL Central is pretty dadgum good. Why else would he predict that five of the six NL Central teams would improve in 2008? And no, not just an improvement of one or two games, but the best turnaround of any division in major league baseball. According to Dr. Phil's breathless caffeination, the six teams of the NL Central--acknowledged even by grandmothers and house pets entirely indifferent to baseball as the worst division in baseball--will finish 488-484 this year!

Yep, this offseason the Cubs treaded water, the Brewers did about the same, the Reds added Dusty and a closer, Houston can't pitch, Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh, and St. Louis lost more major-league talent than anyone this season (at least in Phil's eyes). But somehow, some way, the division will get better by a whopping 29 games.

Phil Rogers: A Real Baseball Writer?
A real baseball writer wouldn't say the Cubbies would win 95 games and the division just because the company memo demanded it.

A real baseball writer would point out that Ryan Theriot had a "career" year, Jacque Jones most definitely hit better than anticipated, and Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee, and Aramis Ramirez may not have had "career" years, but performed about how you'd expect.

A real baseball writer would point out how preposterous it is that one of the Cubbies' best power men (Soriano) batted leadoff last year because, well, he wanted to. Or that this year's leadoff hitter, Theriot, had an on-base percentage of .326 last year.

A real baseball writer would point out that the team's splashy free-agent acquisition, Fukodome, essentially replaces a guy they already had in Matt Murton, whose .281/.352/.438 numbers in 2007 will be grounds for a Trib-sponsored Fukodome Rookie of the Year campaign if the Japanese import manages to match them. (Of course, that doesn't factor in the overseas ad dollars that will work their way onto the hallowed brick walls of The Shrine, but those numbers don't show up on a baseball card.)

A real baseball writer would acknowledge the team's lack of confidence in five-tool prospect Felix Pie could derail the career of the most promising player to come from their system in years.

And Wait a Minute...What About the Pitching?
While the offense (apparently) didn't have any "career" years or overachievers, the Cubbies' pitching staff did, which is something Dr. Phil conveniently ignores.

The team had a 4.04 ERA, second in the NL.

Ted Lillly went 15-8, 3.83, and pitched 207 innings with career bests in wins, Ks, and IP; for his career he averages 12-10, 4.46.

Rich Hill went into 2007 with career numbers of 6-9, 123 IP, and a 5.12 ERA; in 2007 he was 11-8, 3.92 ERA, 195 IP.

Sean Marshall entered 2007 at 6-9 with a 5.59 ERA and had a 7-8 season in 2007, with a 3.92 ERA.

Ryan Dempster managed 28 saves with a 4.73 ERA in 2007, which may have alarmed the bleacher bums, but Dempster's career ERA is actually 4.82. And his ballyhooed return--a retreat, really--to the rotation ignores the fact that as a starter, Dempster has a 5.01 career ERA.

Bob Howry posted a 3.32 ERA in 2007, better than his career 3.49.

Michael Wuertz has a 3.48 ERA in 2007, better than his career 3.59.

Lieber, the (consolation) prize pitching addition of the offseason, is 38, hasn't had an ERA under 4.00 in four years, has combined to go 12-17 with a 4.87 ERA in the past two seasons, and pitched well enough in spring training to...work in long relief to begin the season.

Even Carlos Marmol, the prize of the Cubbies pitching staff, is suspect. He brought a career ERA of 6.08 into 2007 and in his first relief season posted a 5-1 record with a 1.43 ERA.

2004 All Over Again
Four seasons ago, noted baseball expert Ron Santo wet himself over the idea that the Cubbies would win 100 games. Rather than joke about the notion, the Tribune took it seriously, assigning Paul Sullivan to provide a detailed analysis of just how the team would hit the century mark, month-by-month, game-by-game. Apparently it took months for the paper to see what the rest of us saw--a disintegrating club that would wheeze to a 89-73 finish--because it published several "updates" to this fictional 100-win campaign, deep into the summer.

The question is, has Ronnie been whispering sweet nothings to Tribune staffers again this spring?

--Brett Ballantini

Same Old Same Old

Did you notice that when the White Sox beat the Cubs 5-3 on Saturday, the Tribune barely covered the game? Instead, Dave van Dyck covered "a few oddities" he noticed during the game, such as Neal Cotts in a Cubs uniform. Could have sworn we saw that last year, but whatever, the Tribune has always been a little slow on the uptake. Dave seemed mostly concerned with making excuses for what remains, as April looms, the company team: "The visiting Cubs didn't bring their second, third or fourth hitters," he wrote, and suddenly we were transported back to the ballfields of our youth, which were paved with asphalt, and listening to the whiney babies who just lost saying, "Yeah, but we didn't bring our best players." You know if the Cubs had won that game the Tribune would have given them a banner headline: "Cubs Trounce Sox! And They Didn't Even Bring Their Best Players!"

Yes, it's like the ballstreets of our youth all over again, only with the Tribune cheerleading for the other team, it's like hearing it from the other team's parents rather than the kids themselves. Most unseemly.

---
From Cubune Watcher Brett Ballantini:

Reluctantly, Phil Rogers announces today that the Orioles may be looking for veteran infield help (Juan Uribe) in a Brian Roberts trade. I'm not sure how I feel either way about acquiring a guy from the substance abuse hit list, but Rogers' addendum is what caught my eye. Now, Rogers won't acknowledge that if Baltimore wants vet infield help back, the foregone conclusion of Roberts-to-Cubbies is scuttled. That would bust the company line, wherein, the Cubbies are supposed to be able to hold up any team they want to get the players needed to pathetically attempt to snap the streak before it reaches 100. No, Rogers points out that, y'know, Roberts-to-the-Sox sure SEEMS plausible, but the minor league system is so bare, there's no way a deal could be made.

Totally off the top of my head: Brian Anderson, Carlos Quentin, Brad Eldred, Jason Bourgeois, Lance Broadway, Andrew Sisco, Nick Masset, Jack Egbert, Mike McDougal, Joe Crede, Charlie Haeger...

More Pholly from Phil

When Phil Rogers isn't pimping the Cleveland Indians (you love the Wahoos, Phil, we get it, and although I despise that team even I'll stand up to say that Rogers' comparison of the 2007 model to the 2003 Cubbies doesn't even begin to be fair or accurate), he's cutting hard into the White Sox.

In his 2008 preview today, Dr. Phil again criticizes White Sox fans--season ticketholders specifically--for wanting to root for a winning team vs. a rebuilding team. Aside from the fact that if White Sox fans wanted to see the Charlotte or Birmingham teams play, we'd fly there and watch them, what's with condemning a fan base for wanting to see wins?

But here's his most puzzling point:

While the pitching staff as a whole was a big problem in 2006 and the bullpen a disaster in '07, the Sox's slide may have had even more to do with the complete lack of production from three spots in the lineup: center field, left field and shortstop.

Consider the year-by-year on-base-plus-slugging rankings among AL teams at those positions:

•In center, where Aaron Rowand was replaced by a cast including Brian Anderson, Darin Erstad and Jerry Owens: sixth in 2005, 13th in '06 and 14th in '07.

•In left, where Scott Podsednik was counted on as the regular all three seasons: 14th, 12th and ninth.

•At short, where Uribe has been the regular: 10th, eighth and ninth.

While no one's gonna argue with the paltry production put forth from those three positions, do you see anything wrong with the math? Center field has been mostly a disaster since the job was handed to the surf n' turf party boy in 2006, and it's no surprise that the White Sox's OPS rankings have plummeted there. But in exhibits B and C, LF and SS, the team rankings have gone UP since 2005, which runs contrary to whatever point Dr. Phil was trying to make.

He also chooses to spotlight the 917 at-bats given to Jerry Owens, Danny Richar, Andy Gonzalez, and Alex Cintron last season. As compelling an issue as that might be, and White Sox fans may forever wonder how so many at-bats were issued to those so little deserving, the latter two are the only glaring examples, and Rogers knows it. He makes it seem as if Owens and Richar were starters out of spring training, when in truth the two only saw playing time due to injuries (Owens replacing the broken Erstad) and trades (Richar plays after the Iguchi giveaway), in the second half of a lost season.

Rogers chastises Owens for not getting his first RBI until his 99th at-bat (crazy weird, but hardly a fair or sensible criticism who got many of those at-bats during a horrid first stint for the team and who, as the speedy leadoff guy is charged with piling up SBs--32 in 93 games, projecting to 52 in 150 games at a tasty 80% success rate--not RBIs); no mention is made of his improved and fairly impressive second-half numbers.

Richar was in his first major-league stint and while his on-base percentage was weak, he displayed impressive pop for a guy who looks like he weighs about 100 pounds. Apparently he hasn't rolled around in the infield dirt enough to acquire that Ryan Theriot "grit" (yet Richar as a 24-year-old rook went .230-.289-.406, the 27-year-old, eyeblacked Cubbie .266-.326-.346, in his third year).

The story that Ken Williams has been telling all offseason, true or not, is that the biggest key on offense for the White Sox is simply to have their reliables (Dye and Konerko, looking your way) push closer to their average seasons. Aside from the offhanded mention that Konerko is still on the team, there's no mention of this from Rogers. Wouldn't it have been informative to do a little research to find out if Williams' offseason-long plan (again, this wasn't a default belief of the GM's, but what he's said all winter) is a pipe dream (i.e. guys in their 30s don't ever bounce back to average seasons without HGH, etc.) or a reasonable expectation? As long as Rogers was counting up at-bats for fellas who are no longer on the ballclub, couldn't he have projected (with his own brutal math, common sense, or with the aid of a million Web sites and formulas out there) what the White Sox offense should produce this season? I mean, Dr. Phil has only had all winter to figure this out. Clearly the man does own a calculator, although at times you wonder if it's only used as a paperweight.

If you're going to roast the White Sox GM (and even their innocent season ticketholders) for foolishly wanting to compete against those world-beating Wahoos and Bengals rather than opting for prudent and austere "rebuliding," shouldn't your due diligence be to prove WHY this is the smarter plan? I mean, I'm a fairly intelligent baseball fan and I truly don't know what the smarter direction is. We're supposed to believe that rebuilding is the wise choice because, what, Phil Rogers is the Tribune's baseball expert? He watches a lot of baseball? He likes the Wahoos a whole lot? It's Detroit's, Cleveland's, Kansas City's, Minnesota's and Cubbies' turn? What's the reasoning? And shouldn't real, live editors at the Tribune be asking these questions BEFORE such an incomplete article reaches readers?

It just goes to show: new ownership or no, when in doubt, the Tribune will criticize the White Sox first, and do the math later.

-- Brett Ballantini

Tribune's Unique View of Access

The Tribune couldn't plug the city's new Access Guide without simultaneously plugging the baseball stadium it owns:

Chicago is offering a new free guide for visitors with disabilities called "Easy Access Chicago." Basic visitor information for city attractions like Millennium Park, Navy Pier, Wrigley Field and the Sears Tower are all in the guide...

But what does the Access Guide itself have to say about the Tribune's "sacred garden?"

Wrigley Field cannot hope to match the level of accessibility of Chicago’s other stadiums. There are very few wheelchair seats so fans need to purchase tickets well in advance....

Meanwhile, here's what the Access Guide has to say about that Southside stadium the Tribune prefers not to mention:

U.S. Cellular Field was designed to accommodate the needs of all baseball fans. Staff members also get special training. Discounts for persons with disabilities are available for weekday games.

--Keith Makenas

With Friends Like The Tribune...

Today Tribune baseball expert Phil Rogers admits that he didn't vote for Harold Baines in Hall of Fame balloting this year because... drumroll... he forgot.

On Monday, the Tribune is changing their masthead to something "cleaner." If only it could say the same for its sports section.

--Brett Ballantini

Could Tribune Bias Be More Blatant?

Even though Rich Gossage began his career with the White Sox and spent five seasons on the South Side (1972-76), the Tribune apparently could not find an image of the Goose in a Sox cap:
Click the 'photos' tag below (and then scroll down, since the top of the page will look the same) for more visual proof of Tribune sliminess.

Reading the Chicago Daily Hypocrite

The Tribune ripped Ken Williams when he traded Freddy Garcia for Gio Gonzalez and two other prospects. Now they're ripping him for trading Gio Gonzalez. The Tribune has been badmouthing Ryan Sweeney for years — they urged the White Sox to trade him just a year ago — and now they're badmouthing Williams for trading him. The Tribune has scarcely even mentioned Fautino De Los Santos before, and suddenly, now that he's gone, he's the hottest prospect in Chicago.

The Tribune doesn't like anything Ken Williams does, beginning with winning a World Series for the South Side, being the first general manager to win a World Series for Chicago in nine decades, yes, winning a World Series before the Tribune's precious Cubbies.

Nick Swisher is coming to 35th and Shields. Here's our Brett Ballantini on Phlip-Phlop Phil Rogers' coverage of the trade:

I don't want to sound like a stats geek, but I simply don't feel Dr. Phil has earned a level of respect from me as a reader that causes me to swallow statements like "I loved what I saw from de los Santos in the Futures Game in July" as reason to hate a trade for an actual major leaguer, one who's actually good, and who actually brings life to the White Sox.

To be fair, Dr. Phil adds Santos' strikeout rate as further cause for concern. A strikeout rate at Single A. He says the Chris Young trade for Javier Vasquez "blew up in [Williams'] face," when by all accounts Javy is the team ace and one of the AL's best starters, and Young, though incredibly promising, is a strikeout machine. One asset in the D-backs' favor is that Young is younger, but I think both Chicago and Arizona knew that before they made the trade.

Dr. Phil chooses to overlook the fact that Sweeney had regressed after being essentially handed a job—remember when Ozzie couldn't stop raving about him, at the expense of BA, Owens, Young?—and that Sweeney recently hit something horrible in the Fall League, where every one of his hits were singles — instead saying that it was "over-coaching by an undistinguished group of minor-league hitting instructors" that caused Sweeney to suddenly suck.

And Gio? Believe me, I loved the thought of Giovanny pitching for the Sox. But you know, the guy's never pitched above AA. He led all minor-leaguers in strikeouts with 185 last year, says Dr. Phil, repeating Double A. Now, I'm not going to hold that against him, but as many have rightfully pointed out, we're raving about a guy who hasn't sniffed Triple A. I also think it's very safe to say that with Lance Broadway's gutty start at the end of last year, Gio was at best the No. 7 spring training starter for 2008.

So in return for three guys who weren't going to be playing for the White Sox in 2008, they get an A's prize, a guy Oakland clearly was not looking to deal. He's a Moneyball poster boy (imagine, the aw-shucks ol' KW, picking a Moneyball plum from the master himself). He's super cheap with regard to production: disregarding their superior defense, Swisher's HRs and RBI over the course of his contract will come at a cost of about 42% of Rowand's and 28% of Hunter's. I wanted those other guys, too, but jeez, this is a pretty nice consolation prize.

Worst of all, Dr. Phil bases nearly all of his criticism on the fact that the White Sox have no chance in 2008, so why are they making a move for "today?" (Which in fact is a false premise given Swisher is 27 and locked up through 2012). If that isn't typical Cubbies/Trib thinking, what is? So 2008 should just be one big Futures Game to the White Sox? They shouldn't even try to compete? Of course Boston, New York, Cleveland, Detroit, L.A. all look tougher than the White Sox right now. I'm sure at least that many teams did so in January 2005 as well. But Boston won the WS and could find itself in an accompanying hangover or arm fatigue this summer, New York's still thin on arms and lord knows there's the laughable "A-Rod curse," Detroit should hit .300 as a team but their arms, well, and even gilded Cleveland seems to have a penchant for choking away the big one--and speaking of big one, what are the odds on Cy Young Sabby showing up in March north of three bills?

I will never fault KW for guts. You win some, you lose some, especially when his stated missive is to not rip off anyone, but always get a deal that's good for both sides. This trade is a great example of that.

Minor leaguers are minor leaguers. If you have a killer 25-man roster--not saying the 2008 White Sox do--your minor leaguers will never play for you. Yes, they can be dealt for other good players, but you know what? If you trade them all, you get to draft and sign more, every year. Why is Dr. Phil treating them like the last of the world's oil reserves?

We know why: because he envies Ken Williams to the point of hatred. And from Cubune Watcher Brian Dykes, quoting Rogers in italics:

"What happened to the once responsible managers of the 2005 world series champions?" - So Ken Williams should spend money like Cub management? Don't trade the future, just buy anyone you can get! Look how well that's worked out for the Cubbies.

"That strategy blew up in his face when he sent center fielder Chris Young to Arizona for Vazquez, and this trade could make that one pale in its long-term cost." - Chris Young is a .230 hitter, Vazquez has won how many games the last 2 years?

"It's the kind of trade you make only if you have A) a deep farm system and B) a reasonably good chance to reach the playoffs in the near future. The White Sox have neither." - Kinda like when the Sox got rid of Mags and C Lee for nothing before the 2005 season? They had NO CHANCE to reach the playoffs after that.

"Perhaps Richar and Quentin will prove to be worth the gambles. But after their early tastes of the big leagues (138 games for Quentin and 56 for Richar), they are both .230 hitters." - But .230 is stellar for Chris Young in AZ?

"Gonzalez, who has now been in three White Sox trades, and de los Santos are both potential No. 2 starters, if not aces." - Sure, kinda like how Mark Prior and Kerry Wood are right now. These two guys are certain aces. And how many times have you been right about a sure bet, Mr. Rogers? Have you ever?

"It has been almost four years since Sweeney elicited Harold Baines comparisons from Roland Hemond in spring training. But with a change of scenery, and perhaps a break from over-coaching by an undistinguished group of minor-league hitting instructors, he could blossom into a hitter like the popular Swisher"

With a change of scenery, the guy the Sox just traded could become like the guy they got for him. Hmm. Is it too much to ask in this city to have baseball writers who make sense in print?

McGrath Spills His Bias

Tribune Sports Editor Dan McGrath, who has been known to insist his Sports Dept. is not biased against the White Sox, nonetheless included these lines in his predictions for 2008:

Story lines for '08
What will the Cubs look like under new ownership? Are the White Sox headed back toward irrelevance? Can the Blackhawks keep their momentum going? Whither Charlie Weis?

Now what would cause the sports editor to ask whether the White Sox are "headed back toward irrelevance?" The comment is relevant only to the commentator. The White Sox have never been irrelevant to their fans, and never been irrelevant to Chicago. The fact that attendance drops when the team loses is a sign not of irrelevance but of intelligence. Meanwhile, the Cubs managed to finish in last place in 2006 without being called irrelevant. Where can we find the irrelevance of which the sports editor speaks? Only inside the sports editor. That might explain the biased coverage.

Thanks to Brett Ballantini.

Tribune Predicts its Bias for 2008

Sunday's Tribune includes a story in which "predictions" are detailed for 2008. Each baseball beat writer takes a stab at predicting the future. Or are they revealing their biases?

From Tribune beat-Sox reporter Mark Gonzales:

A demanding schedule that features 15 of their first 22 games against American League postseason contenders Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota, and the New York Yankees will put heat on the franchise to get off to a fast start, and avoid the slow start that crippled them in 2007. An aging roster will force Ken Williams to make one of his most controversial trades in his tenure as general manager. Otherwise, they could be looking at a 100-loss season.

Our Indefatiguable Schoolmarm thinks Gonzo needs to spend some time reading the newsroom copy of Strunk & White — as well as any newspaper's coverage of the 2007 baseball season, since the White Sox, far from pretty in 2007, were nonetheless in first place on April 25.

Now here's the "prediction" from Cubs beat reporter Paul Sullivan:

Hoping to end a 100-year championship drought, the Cubs will head into September with a six-game lead in the Central Division--before a downward spiral that will conjure up memories of 1969. Still, they will manage to stumble into the postseason with an extra-inning win in the final game in Milwaukee, as road-tripping Cubs fans tear up the Miller Park turf in a riotous celebration. The Cubs will then sweep San Diego in the first round and shock the New York Mets in six games to earn their first World Series appearance since 1945. But Detroit Tigers owner Michael Illitch will bring a goat into his luxury box for Games 1 and 2 at Comerica Park. Ron Santo will strangle the goat, but it's too late. The die is cast and the Cubs go down meekly in five games.

Ah, the goat mythology again. Looks like Sam Zell is going to have to clean out the newsroom to get any fresh ink on the page. Amazing that the Tribune has the Sox losing 100 games, the Cubs in the World Series, when a relatively slim 13 wins separated the two teams in 2006, slim given this was the worst Sox season in two decades, while the Cubs may have played in the weakest division in history. And both teams had the same number of playoff victories.

-- Thanks to Brett Balantini for this post, with a nod to Lone Ranger

Tribune Buries Drug Link to Sosa

Headline on the front page of the New York Times:

Affidavit Says Sosa Discussed Amphetamines

Headline to the same story on the Sports page of the Chicago Tribune:

Federal Affidavit on Grimsley Unsealed

Top two paragraphs of New York Times story:

The Department of Justice has unsealed search-warrant affidavits by a federal investigator on two people involved with steroids in baseball, identifying four more baseball players who may have used the drugs, and a federal magistrate judge criticized The Los Angeles Times for faulty reporting.
While dozens of players were named last week in the Mitchell report into the use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball, four others who were not in the Mitchell report — Sammy Sosa, Peter Incaviglia, Geronimo Berroa and Allen Watson — are named in one of the affidavits. The other affidavit, expected to be made public Friday, is believed to name at least one other player who did not appear in the Mitchell report.

Top three paragraphs of Chicago Tribune story (notice who's missing):

NEW YORK - Jose Canseco, Lenny Dykstra, Glenallen Hill and Geronimo Berroa were accused of using steroids by former major league pitcher Jason Grimsley in a federal agent's affidavit unsealed Thursday.
Grimsley also accused Chuck Knoblauch of using human growth hormone; David Segui and Allen Watson of using performance-enhancing drugs; and Rafael Palmeiro and Pete Incaviglia of taking amphetamines, according to IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky's sworn statement.
All but Incaviglia, Berroa and Watson were mentioned last week in the Mitchell Report on doping in baseball.

First mention of Sosa in Tribune report: Bottom of paragraph seven:

Tejada's name was mentioned when Grimsley described a conversation he had with Baltimore Orioles teammates Tejada, Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa about how they would play after baseball banned amphetamines.

Why is the Tribune still covering up for Scammin Sammy?

Fitz Falls; Tribune Censors Reader Comments

Dennis Fitzsimmons, the Tribune Company CEO who will be best remembered for wearing a business suit to a baseball rally, was shitcanned today by new Tribune boss Sam Zell, a partner with Jerry Reinsdorf in the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls.

In a final act characteristic of the respect the Chicago Tribune has shown to the First Amendment during the Fitzsimmons era, the Tribune removed public reactions to Fitzsimmons' firing from the forum attached to the online edition of the Tribune story. Instead comments like these now appear:

What happened to all of the other comments?

---

Really...what DID happen to all of the previous comments? This happens in other strings as well and this very question of what happened goes unanswered. No wonder the Trib is in trouble.

Ah, Fitzy, we're really going to miss you here at the Cubune Watch, for our job will never be this easy again.

How Low Can Highlights Go?

Today is that illustrious day when the Tribune's baseball beat reporters, in an effort to fill space, reflect upon the last 12 months of mediocrity they've inflicted upon Chicago. Cubs-beat reporter Paul Sullivan and beat-Sox reporter Mark Gonzales go over their highlights, and it's probably not a coincidence that Sully's are 100 percent Cubbies related, while Gonzo leads off with,

"With apologies to Jim Thome's surge to 500 career homers during a 90-loss season, Colorado's late-season surge was as amazing as it was encouraging to those teams that normally shy away from youth while in the heat of a pennant race. And it was amusing to discover that Rockies shortstop phenom Troy Tulowitzki lives less than two blocks from where I grew up."

Wow. Fascinating. The Tribune probably hired this guy because Rockies shortstop phenom Troy Tulowitzki lives less than two blocks from where he grew up. What else could it be? Gonzo hasn't shown a lick of talent since he got here.

Gonzo goes on to repeatedly insult Ozzie Guillen, whose toenail clippings know more about baseball than Mark Gonzales does, on his way to reminiscing about seeing Alyssa Milano in the airport. Only... he didn't recognize her.

The guy's highlight for 2007 is seeing Alyssa Milano in the airport, and he didn't recognize her. That's either a medical problem for which he needs to see his groinecologist, or he's just a typical Tribune investigative reporter — utterly clueless.

Hey Tribune: HAVE YOU FIGURED OUT YET WHICH CUBS PLAYERS WERE SEEN BY MATT KARCHNER STICKING NEEDLES IN EACH OTHERS' ASSES? No? Been too busy recapping the year's highlights, probably. Here's a suggestion: call Matt Karchner. Use the telephone.

Then, among Gonzo's "things to watch for in '08," one is vaguely negative about the Sox, one has to do with drugs, and one has to do with whether the Cubbies can take a step forward and win 90 games. Tasty.

Speaking of the Cubbies, Sully takes a shot at Cubs fans for pissing all over him when he complained about Cubs management, also known as Tribune management, making announcements directly to fans instead of filtering their propaganda through the Tribune. "Some Cubs fans prefer their information spoon-fed," Sully says, and you can hear the room go "Oooooh."

Actually, fans on both sides of town figure they're being spoon fed when they read the Tribune. Now why do you suppose that is?

-- Thanks to Brett Ballantini for this post.

Tribune's Sleazy Math Continues

Turns out there were not nine former Cubs implicated in the steroids report, as the Tribune trumpeted yesterday, but twelve:

The 12 ex-Cubs mentioned are Hill, Todd Hundley, Kent Mercker, Jerry Hairston, Rondell White, Benito Santiago, Gary Matthews Jr., Matt Franco, Ismael Valdez, Rafael Palmeiro, Todd Pratt and Stephen Randolph. Ex-Cubs reliever Matt Karchner wasn't named but said he witnessed two unnamed teammates inject steroids in an apartment they shared during 1999 spring training.

Of course, none of those 12 Cubs are pictured on the front page of today's Tribune, despite the colorful tale of Cubbies poking each other in the bottom with needles. What pictures do they choose to run? Bonds, Canseco, Clemens, Gagne, Giambi, Pettitte, and Tejada. And what picture do they run of Canseco? One of him in a Sox helmet. Go figure.

America's Sleaziest Newspaper.

Math: Not the Tribune's Strong Point

The Tribune, which recently called White Sox fans stupid, should invest in a calculator. Here's some fuzzy math from Tribune beat-Sox reporter Mark Gonzales (with corrections supplied in comments by some stupid White Sox fans):

Rowand's contract
By Mark Gonzales.

Although Aaron Rowand's five-year, $60 million contract with the San Francisco Giants seems identical to Paul Konerko's deal two winters ago, the breakdown is different. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Rowand will receive an $8 million bonus, followed by salaries of $4 million in 2008 and 2009, $8 million in 2010 and 2011 and $12 million in 2012. Rowand has a full no-trade clause in 2008 and a limited no-trade clause the following years. Konerko's contract was distributed evenly over five years with no bonus and a limited no-trade clause until he gains full no-trade rights next May.

COMMENTS:

Anyone want to check Gonzales' math?
$8M bonus
$4M 2008
$4M 2009
$8M 2010
$8M 2011
$12M 2012
-------
$44M.

Where is the other $16M?

Posted by: DBF | Dec 13, 2007 11:53:07 AM
----

Hey, Gonzales, your math does not compute. Go re-read the article over at the Mercury News like I did to see where you went wrong.

Lazy journalism at its best.

Posted by: Luke P | Dec 13, 2007 3:59:30 PM

To be fair to Gonzales, he pilfered this story from the San Jose Mercury News (which got the numbers right), so it's not clear whether he's failing at math or reading. But we're thinking it's probably math. Why?

Because even though NINE former Cubs were named in George Mitchell's steroids report today, the Tribune seems much more preoccupied with the White Sox named, although it can't seem to decide how many Sox were named. According to Gonzo the Math Whiz, it was seven:

Seven ex-Sox players named in Mitchell Report
By Mark Gonzales

Seven players who were members of the White Sox organization at one time were named in connection with performance-enhancing drugs, according to the Mitchell Report released Thursday afternoon.

But according to the front-page report at Tribune-owned Chicagosports.com, it was four:

Closer look: Chicago players named in Mitchell Report

After a quick scan of the 409-page Mitchell Report released today, it appears nine former Cubs and four former White Sox players are mentioned by name linked to performance enhancing drugs.

However, on the front page of the venerable, math-challenged Tribune itself, it's two:

Steroid report names former Cubs, Sox

Glenallen Hill was one of nine former Cubs and Jim Parque and Scott Schoeneweis were the only former White Sox named as users of performance-enhancing drugs.

Notice that seven, four, and two are all less than nine. Pay attention Tribune:

7 < 9

4 < 9

2 < 9

So why so much emphasis on the Sox in the report, only one of whom, Scott Schoeneweis, was on the team at the time that he allegedly received shipments of steroids? (During a blessedly brief visit to the South Side). Meanwhile the report describes Cubs players sticking needles in each others' buttocks.

According to Phil Rogers, You Are Stupid

The following statement actually does appear in print in today's Chicago Tribune, a newspaper that continues to associate itself with Chicago despite its blatant disdain for those who live here:

For White Sox fans, the news just keeps getting better and better. They're probably just not clever enough to realize it.

The quote comes from Tribune baseball expert Phil Rogers, who has the right to call us stupid because he's a genius.

If Rogers ever dared to show his face south of Roosevelt, such that he had to defend his work to the human beings he maligns and misleads daily, he'd probably say the sentence is meant to be sarcastic. Or that it's meant to come from Ken Williams, in whose mouth the Tribune loves to put false statements. But we know exactly from whom the sentiment derives, and Phil Rogers is merely the latest sphincter to emit prejudice from that foul tower.

Tribune Boosts Tribune... At Fans' Expense

And you thought it was a tragedy that the Cubbies were swept out of the playoffs? Not at all, says the corporate octopus, as a suction-cupped tentacle slips quietly into each of your pockets to rummage for change. The Tribune-owned Cubs' amazing survival in a division in which every other team collapsed led to high ratings for Tribune-owned WGN (a clever acronym that means World's Greediest Newspaper). Now that's what the Tribune calls "lovable losing!"

The Tribune loves Cubbie losing because as long as the Cubbies lose, the Tribune can't lose. Here's the first line of the radio ratings story that ran this morning:

The Cubs' charge to the playoffs may have ended in more heartbreak for fans, but it lifted WGN-AM 720 to another first-place finish in the Arbitron radio ratings released Monday.

Now here's the same story in 2006:

Despite the Chicago Cubs' last-place finish, their radio station WGN-AM 720 held onto first place overall in third-quarter ratings.

The Tribune wins when the Cubbies finish in last place. The Tribune wins when the Cubbies finish in first place ... and then lose. The only real losers are the Cubs and their "heartbroken" fans.

So come on, now, everybody sing:

And we'll lose-lose-lose for the Tribune, if they don't profit it's a shame, for it's one, two, three strikes you're out in the newspaper game!

Morrissey Fouls Reinsdorf

In the middle of a loooong column about the history of the Chicago Blackhawks, Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey takes this shot at White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf:

As much as Hawks fans loved their team and their sport, they decided their sanity had priority. Many of them stopped going to the United Center. And it killed them. If you know a former Hawks fan, you know that. You know a person who aches for hockey but has sworn off the Hawks. Not the way White Sox fans had sworn off Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf before the 2005 World Series. It was worse than that.

You would think Morrissey could have found an example a little closer to home, what with Cubs fans all over Chicago sports-talk radio only a week ago swearing off the Cubs forever. Of course, those same fans swore off the Cubs in 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003, but last year they actually picketed the stadium (the Tribune didn't cover the protest), and the example is far more pertinent. Even when some Sox fans were pissed at Reinsdorf, they never swore off the White Sox. On the South Side we know the difference between the team, its stadium, its owners, and the media. On the North Side, those things are all the same thing, and when you swear off one, you've sworn off all.


(Thanks to Lone Ranger for policing Morrissey).

Tribune Begins Propagandizing 2008

Here's the headline for puffery concealed as a story on the 2008 Cubbies' schedule:

Cubs begin '08 on familiar turf

A truer headline might have pointed out that the turf will be soggy, pot-holed, and may or may not still be Tribune-owned. But it's clear the sale hasn't gone through yet. Same story, White Sox:

Early jaunt west may trip up Sox

The White Sox-schedule story basically highlights all the ways the 2008 White Sox will get their asses kicked. Over at the Tribune Tower, they're getting a head start on next season by pre-writing their stories. Tribune beat-Sox reporter Mark Gonzales highlights some obvious series—Cleveland, Boston, etc.—that will be tough. But he even rounds up the Minnesotas and Oaklands. Look at San Francisco:

Despite San Francisco's terrible 2007 record, the Giants have two of the majors' better young pitchers in Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum.

There you go, two losses. And then:

The Sox haven't fared well on the West Coast since 2001, and they make four trips there in 2008.

Hmm. We seem to remember a sweep on the West Coast in October 2005. The Sox had a winning record on the West Coast in 2005 and played .500 ball on the West Coast in 2006.

Worse, Gonzo has the Sox trembling in their boots at the thought of having to face, you guessed it, the Cubbies. As if the Cubs are actually good this year, rather than just the sole survivors of some powerful suction in the basement of the National League Central Division. Watchout Southsiders, here come the Cubs in their blue pajamas, clinging to their cartoon teddy bears.

Paul Sullivan's Cubbies-schedule story is unsurprisingly lighter. It's also better written. But dig the ending:

• Greg Maddux enters the final year of a two-year contract with San Diego, and though he might pitch beyond 2008, the Padres' May 12-15 appearance could be his Wrigley Field swan song. Look for tickets to that series to be snapped up quickly by fans hoping to see Maddux's final start at Clark and Addison.

Sullivan's knee-jerk response to the yearly memo—pump up those ticket sales, boys!—belies the fact that the Tribune won't own the Cubbies in May 2008. Or will it?

• The first rematch against Arizona will take place May 9-11 at Wrigley. The Diamondbacks swept the Cubs out of this year's division series. Whether Cubs fans can build some animosity towards the D'backs is questionable because the Cubs basically beat themselves.

The Cubs basically beat themselves. We're not sure which connotation of "beat themselves" Sully intends. Both self-flagellation and masturbation are two things the Cubbies have done extensively for 100 years.

• If the Cubs are to reach the postseason in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1907-08, they'll have to play well on the road in the final month. They'll play 19 of their 25 games on the road in September, including the last seven in New York and Milwaukee.

Ouch. Why doesn't this news make it into the headline? Nineteen of their last 25 games on the road. The Cubs were swept by the Florida Marlins in the September of this, their glorious Division-championship season, so how are they going to win a game in the last month against two semi-real teams? Isn't this bigger, ugglier news than the Sox's early trip West?


(Thanks to Brett Ballantini for this post)

Did Phil Rogers Fabricate Chris Young Story?

I know. It's a terrible question to ask about a newspaper, but they've fabricated a story before, never corrected it when it proved false, and in that case, like this one, they seemed to be trying to turn Chicagoans against White Sox General Manager Ken Williams. So we have to ask:

Did Tribune reporter Phil Rogers make this up?

[Brian] Anderson, then coming off a strong season in Triple A, was whom the Diamondbacks initially wanted when the Sox general manager called to talk about pitcher Javier Vazquez, who had asked for a trade. Williams told Arizona he was keeping Anderson, a first-round draft pick, and that led the parties to discuss Young, a 16th-round pick in Double A.

This paragraph comes from an Oct. 5 story ("Young Socks it to 'em") in which Phil Rogers tries to pin the blame for the Cubs' poor showing on Sox GM Ken Williams, because Chris Young, who pounded the Cubs, was once a White Sox prospect. The Tribune's malice toward Williams is clear: Having already tried, unsuccessfully, to turn Sox fans against Williams by reporting falsely that he intended to trade Mark Buehrle, this new story tries to turn Cub fans and Sox fans alike against Williams on the basis of another trade. But there is evidence that this story, too, is false.

On Oct. 6, ESPN 1000's Bruce Levine interviewed Mike Rizzo, the assistant GM of the Washington Nationals, who served as the scouting director for the D-backs when they built the current team. Levine asked Rizzo directly about the report that Anderson was the first player Arizona asked about, only to be diverted to Chris Young. He said Young had been on their board for some time and he was the key to the deal. Absolutely no mention that Anderson was a component of the deal whatsoever.

Notice Rogers doesn't cite any sources for his "information." Sox fans on the White Sox Interactive forum opened a thread on the topic and, since Rogers is known to lurk there (it's not unlike watching your own funeral, as one person after another steps to the pulpit to express a lack of confidence in your reporting), they asked Rogers outright to chime in. Who were his sources, they asked. Did he have any sources, they asked. He didn't respond.

Did Phil Rogers make it up?


Brett Ballantini contributed much to this post.

Oh, What a Tangled Web They've Woven

Well, Amanda Kaschube is out of the doghouse. Just hours after she outed the Tribune newsroom as a hotbed of Cub fandom — undoing some elaborate propaganda woven by Sports Editor Dan McGrath and sportswriter Ed Sherman — her boss made the same slip. At the end of his front-page story:

The '07 Cubs -- expected to be the last under Tribune Co. ownership -- will be remembered as a decent team that gave their fans more fun moments than flaky ones.... Wait till next year? Like we have a choice.

Interesting pronoun switch from "their fans" to "we." In their sorrow, the Cub fans in the Tribune Tower forgot to pull the wool over our eyes. But no problem, Dan, we always knew exactly where you were coming from.

It's Not a Curse — It's Karma

May that be the last game ever played by a sports team that's owned by a newspaper.

Caught in Yet Another Web of Lies

Tribune Sports Editor Dan McGrath wrote this week that his department contains "a healthy number of Sox fans." Sportswriter Ed Sherman, who claims to be a Sox fan but sure doesn't act, sound, or quack like one, told White Sox Interactive that there are more Sox fans than Cub fans covering sports for the Tribune. So why did sportswriter Amanda Kaschube write this entry in the Tribune's "From the Cubicle" play-by-play when Chris Young hit his leadoff homer in tonight's game?

First inning
And here we go. Chris Young takes the first pitch deep and it's 1-0 Diamondbacks. Well then. And the Tribune office is depressed.

Doh! And you know the first thing she's going to hear tomorrow: "Amanda, can I see you in my office please?"

Cubune Claims World Domination

It's hard to believe this appeared on the front page of a major American metropolitan newspaper, but indeed, it can be found on the front page of today's Chicago Tribune:

"It certainly assumes a loud, proud home crowd in the enchanted kingdom of Wrigley Field will have an influence on the Cubs' reversing their curse, now that the whole world is lampooning its favorite franchise once again."

Okay, bad enough calling the urinal an enchanted kingdom when it's up for sale, but honestly, is the whole world rapt by the Tribune's Cubbies? I'm sure they're just glued to TBS in Baghdad, and pissed it's not on WGN. Are the Tribune's Cubbies the whole world's favorite franchise? The Yankees and Red Sox both have a much larger national following than the Cubs, and the White Sox still seem to be the most popular team in Chicago, especially with the Cubs' TV ratings now showing a collapse almost as dramatic as the collapse of their ability.

Meanwhile, on the Sports page, Tribune fiction writer Dave van Dyck gives the Diamondbacks the following pieces of advice in this morning's paper. The Diamondbacks. Not the Cubs, the Diamondbacks:

1. Don't be intimidated
2. Stay aggressive
3. Keep the Cubs' sluggers refrigerated
4. Show plate patience
5. Don't panic

Don't be intimidated, because a Little League ballfield full of sloppy sobbing drunks in blue pajamas is so scary. Stay aggressive, because the D-Backs were probably planning to just chill out during this game, kick back, see what happens. Keep the sluggers refrigerated, because in the course of hanging out, why not toss a little batting practice? Did he mean "sluggards?" because these "sluggers" have fewer hits than Vanilla Ice. Show plate patience, because the last thing we need is for Chris Young to belt the first pitch of Game Three out of the park. And finally: Don't panic. . . . I just don't even know what to say to that one.

Thanks to the Lone Ranger for this post.

Tribune: True to Form, if Nothing Else

We had to wait two years, but the Tribune delivered, true to form. On the first day of the playoffs in Chicago in 2005 the Tribune ran a front page story about crime, pot-smoking, and curiously stereotypical African Americans in the neighborhood of U.S. Cellular Field. On the first day of the playoffs in 2007, can we count on the them to write about the rapists, racists, and rummies of Wrigleyville?

Brett Ballantini reports:

So, to herald the beginning of NL playoffs' brief stay in Chicago, Paul Sullivan earns his juicy paycheck with the fluffiest fluffy fluff fluff feature on, surprise, Cubbies who live in Wrigleyville, wherein it is written that Ryan Dempster plays "Frogger" with traffic by RUNNING FROM WRIGLEY TO THE LAKE BEFORE GAMES. No matter how delicious the notion that Dempster puts himself in harm's way sounds to the blue-pajamas faithful, that cannot be smiled upon by Cubby management given that there's a large, unencumbered patch of grass to jog on to his heart's content sitting in the middle of his workplace, Wrigley Field. What a doorknob.

Oh, and Sully says that Dempster used to ride his bike "to work," but it got stolen. Is Dempster angry? Distrustful of the raucous neighborhood? Lucky he didn't get killed after a blown save by one of the "faithful?" Dumb as a box of rocks for being a major leaguer who isn't bright enough to secure his bike somewhere other than the base of a streetlamp?

Nah, Dempster just walks to the park now, reports Sully with misty-eyed, Joe-Jackson- emerging-from-a-cornfield admiration.

Scott Eyre, a Cubbie who isn't caught up in the utter romance of the urinal trough on the North Side, is relegated to two quotes at the end before the story mysteriously truncates (more Cubbies who didn't espouse the party line, perhaps?), one portraying him as a Twinkie-gobbling porko compared to the deft and nimble Dempster.

What... did you expect a smear piece on pot smokers in the neighborhood or something?

Tribune's Ratings Premise Falls Apart

In a story today, Tribune reporter Ed Sherman insists the Cubs' local television ratings for the playoffs are down 38 percent from 2003 (38 percent!) because the games are on TBS, and late at night, and not because of a shift in fans to the White Sox. The Tribune was so sure of its self-serving interpretation of the numbers that it put it in the headline: What did they expect? Cable, Late Start Hurt TV ratings. And then Sherman spends most of the story arguing for that angle, rather than reporting. It smelled fishy from the start.

And then the national ratings came out and guess what? Nationally, playoff ratings are up, even though the games are on TBS for the entire nation and late at night for much of it.

What does that mean? More people are watching baseball everywhere, but in Chicago 38 percent fewer are watching the Cubs. (And these are the ratings for Game One, before the Cubs gave a clear indication how badly they were planning to suck). You figure it out. Because you can't count on the Tribune to tell you the truth.

Sherman clearly had access to the national numbers when he wrote his story, because he quoted some of them. He just didn't quote the ones that show national viewership increasing even as Cubs viewership fell. In other words, he left out the stats that prove his self-serving premise is false. TBS and timing hasn't stopped fans anywhere from watching baseball, and yet the Cubs still lost 38 percent of their following since 2003. What happened between 2003 and 2007?

With the L Flag Flying, Trib Takes Shots at Sox

The Tribune's new Employee Stock Ownership Plan means that Tribune reporters Josh Noel and Emma Graves Fitzsimmons stand to benefit directly from the sale of the Cubs. So they stand to benefit directly from the notion, presented as unsupported fact in their story today, that the Cubs have a huge base of suckers ensuring continued Cubbie income:

There's considerably more interest than there was in the White Sox at the same point during their World Series run in 2005, he said.

"It's just a whole different demographic.... You're drawing from a wider base."

The guy they're quoting is a professional scalper. If you're a black guy scalping a single ticket on Waveland Avenue you can expect to end up in handcuffs, but if you're scalping thousands of them behind a company name you're an expert in the eyes of the Tribune (which has been known to indulge in some scalping itself), especially when you're taking a dig at the White Sox and perpetuating the myth — which has never been proven — that the Cubs have a larger fan base.

You see why the Tribune ignored the 1.75 million people at the Sox victory parade: that's actual numerical evidence that refutes their self-serving assumptions.

Meanwhile, Tribune baseball expert Phil Rogers manages to blame White Sox General Manager Ken Williams for the woeful woo-woo Cubbies' woeful woes:

Ken Williams is an equal-opportunity heartbreaker.

His heavy-handed management of the White Sox, post-World Series, is having consequences on both sides of Chicago. His deals contributed to the Sox going backward, instead of back to the postseason, and now one of them is threatening to stop the Cubs too.

Even with the Cubs in yet another tailspin to disaster, the Tribune continues to wage war against the first general manager in nine decades to bring a World Series trophy home to Chicago. Actually, come to think of it, they're probably waging war on Kenny precisely for that reason. Envy.

Or maybe Rogers is just embarrassed because he picked the Cubs to win it in four saying: "Zambrano, Lilly, Marmol and Howry are too much for a team with a pop-gun lineup. The Cubs' power hitting has shown up at the right time."

A pop-gun lineup. What a genius. Why does this pop-gun baseball expert still have a job?

Finally, here's a snide remark from supposed Sox fan Ed Sherman:

You could look at it a couple of ways. Either a number of Cubs fans have switched their alliances to the White Sox since 2003, or the combination of putting a playoff game exclusively on cable and starting it at 9 p.m. resulted in a big drop in the local ratings. Just a guess, but we'll go with the latter.

The fact is, in 2005 and 2006, the White Sox passed the Tribune-owned Cubs in every statistical measure of team popularity, including viewership on Tribune-owned WGN. But you can see how hard that is to accept for Tribune reporters/Cubs investors, even the ones who claim to be Sox fans.

If it's not woo-woo with these guys, it's boo-hoo.


Brett Ballantini contributed to this post.

Stop the Presses! Cubune Picks Cubs to Win!

You'll be shocked to discover that the Cubs shareholders who work in the Tribune Tower think the Cubs are going to prevail in the Division Series against Arizona. Paul Sullivan, who covered this sloppy team for 162 games and once referred to them as "accidental contenders," predicts they'll sweep the Diamondbacks, and hey, maybe they will. Most Trib writers think they'll win it in four games, and one genius thinks they'll win it in six.

Tribune fiction writer Dave van Dyck thinks the Cubs will win because "The excess of power will be too much for the D'back pitchers and in postseason series three-run homers traditionally win games."

Who has an excess of power? Arizona season HRs: 171; Cubbies: 151, and the Cubs play in a Little League park. Maybe DVD's been taking LSD to work, and we don't mean Lake Shore Drive.

Of the Cubune's public faces, only golf expert and token staff Sox fan Ed Sherman picks the snakes. Whoever he likes, Sherman has shown that his world view remains firmly planted in Cubland. And how could it not be? He drinks out of the same water cooler. He shares the same profit sharing plan. And the Tribune has been pushing a little too hard lately to convince people it has Sox fans on staff:

The Tribune sports desk
Spirited voting among 18 members of the Tribune's sports copy desk—except for the one wise guy who picked Cubs in 6—led to a nearly even split. Undoubtedly the healthy number of Sox fans and Cubs fans looking to alter cosmic karma led to the eight picks for the Diamondbacks.

Only because of a "healthy" number of Sox fans on its Sports Desk did the Diamondbacks get any votes. That shows confidence in the expertise of the Sports Desk, doesn't it? And what's a "healthy" number of Sox fans? When the Tribune hires a Sox fan, it's like getting a flu shot?


Brett Ballantini contributed to this post.

Tribune Urges Charlie Brown to Kick Football

The front page of today's Tribune declares that 'Foul-up in '03 is history.' There's news for you. An editorial yesterday urged Cub fans to forget history:

Steve Bartman come home; all is forgiven. The Chicago Cubs are in the playoffs. Forget the goat. Forget the choke. Forget 1929, 1945, every single season between 1947 and 1966, 1969 and especially 2003. Let bygones be bygones. Go Cubs!

Should it make you wary when a major media corporation urges you to forget history? What's the saying about those who forget history?

And why would the Tribune want their legion of devoted supplicants to forget history? The reporters always insist that when they do nasty biased self-serving things, they do them unconsciously, not because they're getting orders from upstairs. And news flash: we believe them. We're sure it has nothing to do with a Tribune-wide effort to whip Cub fans into a frenzy, to sell unprecedented tons of playoff memorabilia, to demonstrate to potential franchise buyers what an enormous mass of Charlie Browns follow their team. We don't think it has anything to do with the fact that the people who write these stories benefit directly from a sale of the Cubs because of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (although, it would be easier to believe innocence on this point if they disclosed that fact, as ethical standards require). And who knows? Maybe they're doing Cub fans a favor by urging them to be more stoopid. Maybe this year will be different. Maybe the Cubbies will win it all. To the Tribune, that doesn't really matter. Victory would be sweet indeed, but they can still sell the rubes a lot of crap along the way to another failure. Whether or not the Tribune is playing Lucy consciously or not, purposely or not, the simple fact remains that the Tribune has $12 billion in debt and one asset, on the market right now, that can make a dent in it. So come on, Charlie Brown, I'll hold the football, and you kick it!

Tribune Fever: Catch It!

The Tribune's website has a cool new Cubs Fever section. I don't remember their Sox Fever section in 2005. Do you? Of course, the Tribune doesn't profit directly from Sox Fever, but they do profit directly from Cubs Fever, and so what if they violate the provision of journalism ethics that says,

"Journalists should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived, remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility, disclose unavoidable conflicts... deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage."

Hardly anyone seems to respect their "journalism" anyway. You can't polish a turd, as they say.

When you go to the Tribune's new Cubs Fever section, you can watch a bunch of mediocre Tribune videos about the Tribune's precious Cubbies and you can send a Piniella-Gram. I don't remember seeing an Ozzie-Gram in 2005, do you? Even though Ozzie tends to say more colorful things than Lou. And more true things. With an Ozzie-Gram, for example, you could call Jay Mariotti a $&$%#% #^$*&.

Or an #$%$# *&.

Let's see if we can make Lou tell the truth by clicking on him:

Tribune-Only TV

Cubune Watcher Bryan Dykes noticed the "On the Air" section on top of the Tribune this morning. "I guess this is where you list the local games that are on TV tonight?" he asks, because listed was the Cubs game, the Sox game, DePaul Volleyball, the Blackhawks game, and Chicago Tribune Live, the Tribune-owned sports show on partially Tribune-owned Comcast Sportsnet

Dykes asks, "A) When did Chicago Tribune Live become a sport, or B) Is Chicago Tribune Live the ONLY sports talk show on TV and cable?"

We vote for C) The Tribune uses its editorial space to promote its own investments and assets, and this just proves it once again.

Tribune: Congratulations Tribune!!!

1. Stuart Dybeck, who hails from and writes about Chicago, won a $500,000 MacArthur genius grant. The Tribune headline: "Stuart Dybek: We knew he was a genius all along." Yeah, sure, congrats Stu, but first and foremost, CONGRATULATIONS TRIBUNE! And not because the Tribune ever actually said Dybek was a genius or predicted his grant — no, they just want a piece of his cake. The first piece, thank you very much. Next, we predict, the McCormick-Tribune Foundation will purchase Stuart Dybek and rename him The McCormick-Tribune Stuart Dybek.

Maybe the Tribune finally learned its lesson from 1951, when it compared Nelson Algren's "Chicago, City on the Make" to a piece of excrement. That little book just turned out to be the best prose portrait of Chicago ever written. New strategy: instead of panning great literature upon its debut, wait for writer to win award, then claim the achievement as your own. Genius, Tribune, sheer genius. Congratulations, Tribune! You should get the genius grant!

2. Some guy gets convicted for conning churches out of their properties. Who nailed him: the police? the district attorney? Spiderman? No... the Tribune! Here's their subhed: "Tribune Investigation shed light on scheme, alerted others to thefts." God thanks you, Tribune. Since we have you wearing your tin star, maybe we don't actually need police or a district attorney. That would save the taxpayers money. Congratulations, Tribune!

(Also, notice that Tribune Investigation is capitalized, unlike the rest of the headline, as if a Tribune Investigation is a proper noun, like, I dunno, The Untouchables. Watchout badguys!)

3. Congressman resigns after failing to disclose beachfront property he owns in Nicaragua. Tribune writes (on Sept. 22, 2007), "A Tribune investigation recently revealed Weller failed to disclose several Nicaraguan land transactions on his congressional ethics forms." Wow, Tribune, you're keeping the politicians honest! Congratulations, Tribune! Except, are you honest yourself? Because can you actually disclose something that was reported in the Chicago Reader almost a year earlier (Oct. 25, 2006)?

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/wellerbeach/

Shame on you, Tribune. And let this be a lesson to you, Chicagoans: if you visit the Tribune Tower, keep your hand on your wallet. If they'll steal credit for your grant, your hard work, and your scoop, they'll steal anything.

Let Us Compare

Today's Tribune predicts the World Series is within reach for the Tribune-owned Cubbies, in spite of the fact that the team's meteoric rise to mediocrity seems fueled largely by the bottom loving suckage of the rest of their division. This inspired us to see what the Tribune was up to on Sept. 25, 2005, when the White Sox were 1.5 games up in their division, where they had been all season, and had just thumped the Minnesota Twins 8-1.

WOE IS OZ ; The White Sox precipitous plunge has their outspoken manager's emotions on a gut-wrenching roller-coaster ride;

Melissa Isaacson, Tribune staff reporter.
You are tired just from listening, drained by the relentless questions and the patient answers, worn out from watching a man trying to explain himself, to the point where it seems even he is confused, pouring out his soul until his eyes are red, his face is moist and he finally must slump to a sitting position on the concrete steps of the White Sox's dugout. This was Ozzie Guillen's day Thursday, really just the tiniest sliver of a day, of a week that must feel like a month and a month that must seem like eternity for the manager of Chicago's slumping White Sox.

Ah yes, "precipitous plunge," worry and woe on the South Side, a World Series within reach on the North Side. The Tribune staff was apparently too busy salivating over the prospect of a White Sox collapse to consider what it meant that the team had just pounded the Minnesota Twins. It's true that the 2007 Cubs have just distanced themselves from the Brewers, while the 2005 White Sox were just beginning their streak to the finish line, but don't we expect our reporters to be a little something more than wind socks and Cub fans? In the Chicago Tribune Magazine on Sept. 25, 2005, crack investigative reporter Jeff Lyons is writing about what? You guessed it, attendance. The headline makes it clear the Magazine is writing only for Cubs fans:

IF A WHITE SOX-CARDINALS WORLD SERIES SHOULD MATERIALIZE, CONSIDER THIS:

Sox manager Ozzie Guillen would be up against his former boss, Tony La Russa, who piloted the Sox in 1985, the year Guillen debuted in the bigs. If you believe in the ex-Cub factor, the Sox have the edge. They have only one former Cub, Ross Gload, but the Cards have three-Ray King, Julian Tavarez and Mark Grudzielanek. Both teams have won in spite of serious injuries (Sox: Scott Podsednik, Joe Crede, Frank Thomas; Cards: Scott Rolen, Reggie Sanders). Chicago has 3 times the population of St. Louis, but the Cards have drawn 3.4 million to the Sox's 2.3.

Tribune Real Estate Called Dumpy & Dangerous

Among those many things you won't read in the Tribune, you won't read what a dump Wrigley Field is. It's for sale, after all.

Today's Daily Herald features a story in which the Pittsburgh Pirates join the Cincinatti Reds in calling Wrigley's outfield "the worst in the major leagues." Here are some quotes from the Daily Herald about the crumbling eyesore that Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin calls "a sacred garden":

"It's rock hard and it's as fast as turf and looks like there's been a dozen cows grazing out there for the past week," said Pirates left fielder Nate McLouth. "It was the worst I've ever played on. Taking balls in (batting practice) you kind of came to the conclusion that you can't really charge a ball that's hard hit…. It was by far the worst I've ever played in and it's unfortunate because it does kind of play into the game, it does have an impact."

"The outfield is not good, it's not good, it's not (a) major-league caliber outfield. It's really bad, as a matter of fact," said Pittsburgh manager Jim Tracy. "I noticed it as soon as I walked in behind the cage today for batting practice. It's very, very difficult to play the outfield out here. The outfield is horrendous to play on, as bad as I've ever seen it in the big leagues."

“The ground is pounded down, you watch balls roll and moving all over the place," Tracy said. "The ball is moving out there as fast as I've ever seen it to try and draw a bead on it."

"I'm surprised more people don't get injured out there. It's as bad as there is," said Reds left fielder Adam Dunn. "It's worse than playing in a parking lot. It looks like they had a monster truck rally. It's terrible. There's potholes. It's bad. It's unsafe."

Now to be fair, the Tribune did allow a couple of AP stories to slip into print that include some buried criticism of their precious investment property. Both stories raised the topic in light of Ken Griffey Jr.'s injury in right field last week. Maybe the Tribune thinks that covers it. But as far as assigning some local reporters to get the scoop, well, let's just say this story falls into the same category as Sammy Sosa's incredible hulk routine: don't ask, don't tell.

How Soon They Forget

Tribune writers must be wetting their pants for their Cubbies to get into the playoffs so they can finally erase any records or memories of the 2005 season. They've been actively forgetting ever since 2005, as we've reported before, but Mark Gonzales takes forgetting to new heights in his story today:

Jose Contreras and Jon Garland pitched the Sox's first consecutive complete games since David Wells and Jim Parque went the distance in 2001.

Funny, we seem to remember White Sox pitchers throwing four consecutive complete games during the American League Championship Series in 2005. Not all that long ago, really.


Thanks to Brett Ballantini for this and many recent posts.

A Day in the Life of Tribune Bias

The Cubs are for sale. Tribune employees benefit directly from the sale, so there's no time like the present for the Tribune to promote its favorite team, and today's Tribune nicely illustrates how they're doing it.

First, there's a page-one article about cheating, as in Bill Belichick. On the jump, the article describes George Halas both allegedly cheating and worrying about cheating. But then the article makes the leap to baseball, with its oft-stolen signs. Not only does it target Bill Veeck
and scoreboard allegations from Old Comiskey (Isn't Wrigley the park with a guy in the scoreboard?), but it drags up former Sox coach Joe Nossek and runs a picture of him beside the article. I guess that's because he "was the master of stealing signs" as stated in the photo caption.

Really? Are those the only cheaters we can come up with in Chicago baseball? Even if the Tribune was too investigatively impotent (or disinterested) to prove the allegations that former Tribune employee Sammy Sosa's Cubbie career came out of a syringe, how do they talk about cheating and overlook that corked bat?

No, the Tribune has better use for its precious Cubbies.

The Cubs show up in two other unlikely areas of the paper. In the Q-Section, an article on "One Lively Cemetary" discusses people personalizing the gravestones of their dearly departed. Wouldn't ya know it, someone chiseled a Cubs logo into a headstone. How quaint.

Meanwhile, in the Real Estate section, there's an article about "Condo buyers benefitting as more sellers willing to make a deal." So how do they work their precious Cubbies in? Not so subliminally. One photo accompanying the article has a happy condo owner not only posing in his starter condo, but sporting a Cub hat while doing so.

Ah yes: cheaters on the South Side, only the eternally loyal and prosperous on the North Side. And like Sosa's bat, your Tribune is full of [cork].

Thanks to Lone Ranger for writing this post.

The Daily Diss

Today's Tribune Business section includes a story by Tribune staff reporter Becky Yerak about a dispute over Bears tickets in the bankruptcy proceedings of Sentinel Management Group. Apparently, Sentinel owned six season tickets to Bears games and four season tickets to White Sox games, and the former employee who sat in the Bears seats is trying to hold onto the tickets. Stop the freakin' presses! Slow news day? The story's so pointless we think the whole fiasco may have been written just so Becky Yerak, who as a Tribune employee has a financial interest in the Cubs, could write its last line:

No tussle occurred over the White Sox tickets.

We're sure Yerak will say she was just reporting the facts. Yeah, right.

Seeing Cubbie Blue (and Only Cubbie Blue)

Your Sunday Tribune Magazine included a nearly 2,000-word feature about a blog, Bleed Cubbie Blue, that's only been around since 2005. The Tribune author, Donald Liebenson, is really impressed that the blog has over 3,000 registered users (WhiteSoxInteractive.com has 8,144, but doesn't merit a mention in the article), and that the blog belongs to a network of blogs (SouthSideSox.com, which belongs to the same network, doesn't merit a mention in the article).

And Just when you think Liebenson is about to mention the other team in town, and its network of equally devoted bloggers:

"BCB is not the only game in town. The many other Cubs blogs, with names such as Agony and Ivy, Goat Riders of the Apocalypse, Cub Fan Nation, Bleacher Hideaway and View from the Bleachers, are testaments to the fact that everybody talks about the Cubs, but unlike the weather, everyone seems to know what to do about them."

He doesn't.

What's really going on here? It seems likely that the author, his editors, and his publisher bleed cubbie blue too, and none of them give a rat's ass about ethical journalism.

Tribune Chomping at Bit for Sox Elimination

The lords in the Dark Tower can't wait for the White Sox to be eliminated from the playoffs so they can finally give up their flimsy pretense of Sox coverage and devote all their abundant resources to the company team. Check out the headline today:

Sox comeback delays inevitable
Record-setting win staves off elimination

The Associated Press story on last night's game doesn't mention elimination, while the Tribune mentions it twice in the headline, before we even get to the story. Similar machinations are at work in the story itself.

AP: After Thome was intentionally walked, Scott Podsednik hit a grounder to second baseman Nick Punto, who flipped to Jason Bartlett covering the bag. But Bartlett never got his foot on the bag. Punto was charged with a throwing error and Pierzynski followed with an RBI single to end the 4 hours and 29 minute marathon.

Tribune's Mark Gonzales: Pierzynski's single came one play after second-base umpire Joe West ruled that second baseman Nick Punto's throw pulled shortstop Jason Bartlett off the bag on a force play.

Notice how Gonzo leaves room for doubt over Joe West's call, which the AP reports cleanly. Maybe Gonzo had his elimination story pre-written so he could concentrate on his nachos during the game, and this way he didn't have to revise too much. Yeah, either that or the Tribune has a big countdown to Sox elimination board in the newsroom, waiting for the day they can finally pretend they own the whole town.

We're Back, and Evil Still Prevails

Thank you for all your emails. We've been quiet for a while because the Bridgeport Headquarters of the Cubune Watch were closed for staff vacations, and we have to say, it was nice visiting democratic societies where free people benefit from a diverse and ethical media, and it's a little hard coming back to a city that's smothered by a monolithic mediocrity monopoly. We were also hoping justice would right itself in our absence, that the Force would be with us once again and the Dark Empire vanquished, but alas....

Upon our return, we did notice one very interesting change in the Chicago Tribune: bylines have now become part of headlines. On Sunday Derek Lee hit a game-winning home run and on Monday the Cubune headline read like this:

Lee, Cubs embrace playoff atmosphere,
motor to huge win, writes Paul Sullivan

And yes, just like that, with Paul Sullivan's name actually bigger and bolder than Derek Lee's name, even though Lee hit a game-winning homer and all Sully did was watch it fly and write that down.

We have to assume Derek still gets the bigger, bolder paycheck, but who knows? Now that the Tribune is being booted out of the baseball business maybe they're planning to put all their marketing energies into commodifying their reporters. Maybe Dave van Dyck will end his stories (and when we say stories, we really do mean stories, as in fiction) with a hop and a heart thump. Can't wait.

Tribune Ignores Wrigley Hooliganism

Thanks to CBS 2 News, and only to CBS 2 News, we now know of another fan-on-field incident at Wrigley. The Tribune has not covered this incident, or the subsequent court case, at all:

Man Pleads Not Guilty To Running On Wrigley Field
Kevin Kleine Charged With 2 Felony Counts

(AP) CHICAGO A 22-year-old northwest suburban man has pleaded not guilty to charges he ran onto Wrigley Field during a Cubs game.

Kevin Kleine of Hoffman Estates faces two felony counts of criminal trespass to a public place of amusement.

Officials say Kleine ran onto the field during the June 1 game against Atlanta after his friends agreed to pay him $400. He was quickly caught.

He is free on bond, and his next court date is scheduled for Aug. 27 in Skokie.

A second man faces similar charges. Officials say a barefooted Brent Kowalkoski sprinted across the field toward Cubs relief pitcher Bob Howry in late June before being tackled by a security guard.

Kowalkoski's lawyer wouldn't say why his client ran on to the field, but says the Elmwood Park resident was "under the influence."

Tribune Powders Cubbies' Bottom

Does it seem to you that the Tribune is going awfully easy on a Cubs "juggernaut" that has lost seven of its last 10 games? We seem to recall that just about every time the White Sox lost a game in the second halves of 2005 and 2006 the Tribune compared them to some spectacular collapse of the past, such as the 1969 Cubs, but so far the 2007 Cubs have been spared such indelicate comparisons. Last night, for example, they were pummeled 15-2 by the Colorado Rockies. Tribune headline: "Rocky stop for Hill." Well, it's a cute headline anyway. Almost as cute as the little cartoon baby bear on the toothpaste-blue pajamas worn by the company team.

In the midst of this darkening of Cubbie fortunes, Cubs beat reporter Paul Sullivan writes a thoughtful column titled, "Tribune Years Could End With a Bang." And we don't think he's referring to any Tribune executives eating a bullet in the tower's most stratospheric offices because here's the subhed: "No pennants but team in far better shape than in 1981."

Team in far better shape than in 1981? Isn't baseball in general in better shape than in 1981? If the Tribune has gotten the Cubs in better shape than in 1981, it has less to do with baseball than with an ingenious marketing strategy that, by casting journalistic ethics to the wind and exploiting all the Tribune's media properties, successfully redepicted, in the public mind, an empty crumbling ballpark as a "jewel" that now fills to the gills with drunks 81 times a year. On that basis, and that basis alone, the Tribune will get a billion dollars for selling the Cubbies. But, as Jesus might ask, "What does it profit a newspaper if it gain the whole world and suffer the loss of its soul?" Even with an extra billion in cash, the widely disrespected, increasingly irrelevant, and financially troubled Tribune will be in much worse shape than it was in 1981.

Fights Played Down and Played Up

It turns out that the Cubs' ingenious new slogan, "It's gonna happen!", recently featured in Sports Illustrated, was not developed by the geniuses in the Cubune Company Marketing Dept, who fathered such past triumphs as "lovable losers" and "everybody loves the Cubs" designed to fill a stadium despite a losing baseball team. No, this new slogan, inflected with the revolutionary notion of winning, comes from notorious Cub fan John Murray, famous for attacking Cubs reliever Randy Myers on the mound in 1995. Murray's slap on the hand consisted of a one-year ban from The Shrine (all Chicagoans should be so lucky), and now he's back at the forefront of Cub fan sentiment, printing "It's gonna happen!" on T-shirts, signs, and wristbands.

The Cubune Empire has been trying really hard to pretend Murray does not exist, especially when covering fan-on-field incidents on the South Side. But now this. According to the Tribune's Paul Sullivan, "The Cubs are aware of Murray's history and have asked Comcast SportsNet and WGN-Ch. 9 not to show Murray's signs during telecasts, according to team sources."

I mean, how can we maintain the carefully cultivated impression that these things only happen on the South Side if this guy keeps showing up on the North Side? Jeez.

Meanwhile, there's strife in the Milwaukee Brewers clubhouse, and who wouldn't be frustrated and embarrassed by letting the Cubs catch up to you? That's almost as bad as being swept by the Cubs at home. Anyway, the AP reported on a "tangle" in the dugout tunnel between a Brewers player and a coach.

The Cubs-owning Tribune ran the AP story, but in its headline, upgraded the "tangle" to a "brawl." AP used the terms "tangle, scuffling, nearly tangled, heated dispute, talk" to describe the incident, but Tribune wants you to think there was a riot up there. Never let the truth get in the way of the trophy.

The Rapists of Wrigleyville

Another woman has been sexually assaulted in the shadow of Wrigley Field. In a three minute report, ABC 7 News referred to the neighborhood as Wrigleyville. The Tribune is calling it Lakeview, even though the assault — at 3700 N. Lakewood — occurred just four blocks from The Shrine. The Tribune seizes every opportunity to link crime to U.S. Cellular Field, but makes certain that much more serious crimes are not associated with the baseball stadium it owns at Clark and Addison.

But the fact that rapists lurk in the shadows of Wrigleyville, waiting for female adherents of the alcohol-soaked culture up there to stumble home in the wee hours of weekend mornings, has everything to do with a neighborhood under the influence of Wrigley Field and with the Tribune Company's relentless promotion of the Bleacher Bum culture inside and outside of the stadium walls (See all the ongoing Metromix and Redeye coverage of Wrigleyville, for example).

But the Tribune's relationship to sexual assault is complex. This weekend's assault once again merited a front-page community alert from the Tribune's web edition, even if that alert was very careful to steer very clear of any mention of Wrigley. The Tribune routinely ignores sexual assaults in most of the rest of the city, especially neighborhoods where the women tend not to be Caucasian. You can bet, though, that if a sexual assault occurred that close to U.S. Cellular Field, we'd hear about it, and they'd find a way to tie it to the White Sox.

Bad Form

When they're not whining about the location of their free seats (second item here) Tribune reporters are crying that they don't feel special. Here's a post by Cubs beat reporter Paul Sullivan and a couple of select responses from readers:

Bad form. Cubs general manager Jim Hendry announced the Kendall trade during the Cubs telecast on WCIU-Ch. 26 last night, making the media wait until afterward to learn of the deal. The Cubs PR department had the press release already written and was simply waiting for Hendry to announce it on TV before telling the beat reporters. Maybe this is the wave of the future, but it shows how little the organization cares about the reporters who cover their team every day. I don't know of any other team that announces its trades on TV, but the Cubs apparently believe they're above it all. -- Paul Sullivan

Comments

On your last "Bad Form" report, wasn't Hendry's action just a way to reward to the VERY interested, listening, and immediately "present" fans? Why the intermedia jealousy?

This is just making you - and your employer - look like a bunch of carping beat writers. Paul, you already have a tendency toward - ahem - uptightness. Just relax! I'll bet that if you spent a year being laid back around the team, they might begin to treat you differently.

And, aren't you forgetting that you work for The Newspaper with the ~very best~ access to all things Cubs?

Please do get off the high horse. This last point highlights the dangers of blogging: writing about topics that exhibit poor thinking on the part of the author. Here's where an editor is helpful! - TL

Posted by: Tim Lacy | Jul 17, 2007 10:49:16 AM

---
Paul, if you are complaining like this when the Tribune still owns the team, at least sort of, I do not even want to think about how you are going to scream your lungs out when the Cubs are independent of the Tribune, and can give you the treatment that it sounds like you deserve. Like maybe replacing your seat in the press box with a high chair, and putting a bib on you so that you can be spoon-fed the news. Hendry was totally correct in telling the fans, who have stayed with the Cubs through an incredible drought of non-Series years that the Cubs were going to do their best to do it THIS YEAR. Now shut up, stop your carping, and enjoy the wild ride to October.

Posted by: Dale Ridder | Jul 17, 2007 2:00:39 PM

Tribune Discovers Columbia Journalism Review

A front-page story in the Chicago Tribune today quotes the Columbia Journalism Review, a publication the Tribune has been pretending doesn't exist for about six months. Michael Oneal, who covers Tribune for the Tribune, quotes CJR executive editor Michael Hoyt in a front-page story announcing that the Tribune will start running ads on its front page. Hoyt, like most journalists, thinks that's a real bad idea.

But Hoyt couldn't get his name in the paper for the life of him six months ago, when CJR ran an editorial urging Tribune to get out of the newspaper business entirely because it "isn't doing much public good."

America's leading journal of journalism accused Chicago's largest media company of doing no public good, and not one word about it appeared in a Tribune publication.

What emerges in this little contradiction is a telling glimpse of Tribune ethics. If Tribune putting ads on the front page is newsworthy enough to quote Hoyt, then certainly Tribune doing no public good is NEWSWORTHY ENOUGH TO QUOTE HOYT.

Apparently there's an upper ceiling to newsworthiness, too. That last item was perhaps just a little too newsworthy for the tender eyes of Chicagoans. So your Tribune withheld it from you.

Dissed Again? We're Used to It.

It's almost funny to read the Tribune's feigned indignation about ESPN leaving the White Sox off of a poll about Chicago teams ("South Siders Get Dissed Again," July 14). What the Tribune really seems to be saying, with this story, is "See, we're not the only ones." Or "See, it's not our fault — it's endemic to the White Sox." But why oh why would anyone expect a national media organization like ESPN — a national organization that openly embraces bias, we might add — to identify the White Sox with Chicago when Chicago's own media don't identify the White Sox with Chicago.

Particularly those Cubs-owning media, like the Chicago Tribune and Superstation WGN, that represent Chicago on the national stage.

Yet More Reasons A Newspaper Shouldn't...

... own a baseball team. In today's Tribune, business reporter Michael Oneal, who covers Tribune for the Tribune, reveals a new potential buyer of the Cubs:

The family that founded discount broker TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. has joined the list of potential bidders for the Chicago Cubs, the Tribune has learned.

Note: "the Tribune has learned" is reporter code language, feigning modesty while actually meaning, "hot diggity dog we gotta scoop!" Oneal goes on:

Sources close to the situation said the Ricketts family of Omaha and Chicago has signed a non-disclosure agreement with Cubs owner Tribune Co. and is readying the application Major League Baseball requires of all parties wishing to bid on one of its franchises.

You see the problem already, don't you. In the first paragraph, the Tribune discloses the new buyer. In the second paragraph, we learn the new buyer has a non-disclosure agreement with the Tribune.

When confronted with this sort of contradiction, Tribune reporters and editors gather in Les Nessman's office and insist there is no contradiction because, they sigh exasperatedly, Tribune and the Tribune are different. And if you believe that load of Indiana farm-fresh fertilizer, we've got a baseball team to sell you for a billion dollars.

A storied franchise, to be exact

Later in his story, Oneal refers to his precious (billion-dollar) Cubbies as one of baseball's "most storied franchises."

That they are. They are the most storied because the Tribune has written far more stories about them than any other baseball team. Even during the two seasons when the White Sox owned first place wire-to-wire, won a World Series and defended it, the Tribune published 1,400 more stories mentioning its storied Cubbies. Read all about it, if you haven't already, here.


Thanks to Lone Ranger for assisting with this post.

Foreign Substance in Tribune Reporting: Mediocrity

We've been waiting for years for the Tribune's big scoop on Sammy Sosa, a stunning investigative splash that explains how Sosa went from skinny mediocre player to incredible hulk and back again, the kind of reporting that landed a couple of San Francisco Chronicle reporters in jail for protecting their sources. So far the Tribune's been pretty easy on former Tribune employee Sammy Sosa. But today they gave it their best shot. Are you ready? Hold on to your hats. From Fred Mitchell:

Several sources close to the Cubs have told me Sosa was not the only Cubs player who used a corked bat, at least in 2003. On the night Sosa's bat exploded for all to see, officials from Major League Baseball notified the Cubs organization during the game that they had one hour to get rid of any other corked bats of Sosa's in the team's clubhouse before they came down to inspect his arsenal of bats. More than 70 marked corked bats then were extricated quickly by Cubs personnel from the clubhouse, about a third of them belonging to other players.

It wasn't quite the big scoop we were looking for, but at least it was news... in 2003. Where were Fred's sources back when the story was hot, back when cork was the most-discussed foreign substance? Who were the other players involved? What else were they injecting, besides cork, and where were they injecting it? This is apparently the best the Tribune can do, at least when it comes to negative news about the company team. Too little, too late, and even then, buried in Mitchell's cute-items column.

Tribune Takes Credit for Buehrle Signing

The Chicago Tribune did nothing but screw up negotiations between Mark Buehrle and the White Sox with erroneous reporting, fictional controversy, and sanctimonious preaching (see previous post). But that didn't stop the Tribune from taking credit today for Buehrle's re-signing. This unbelievable tidbit comes from Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey:

It's nice to know that sometimes people listen, whether it's to reason or to fans or even to this tiny corner of the world called the newspaper. Both sides listened and understood. Team Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf listened. So did Buehrle.

There's no evidence the deal was influenced by the Tribune or anyone else who stuck their nose in Buehrle's business. Both sides knew what they wanted, both sides fought for it, both sides compromised. But as we've seen, if the Tribune doesn't toot its own horn, no one else will.

And while they were at it, the Tribune also credited its company team, the Chicago Cubs. This comes from Tribune "baseball expert" Phlip-Phlop Rogers:

The White Sox did what it took to keep Buehrle in uniform through 2011, and for that all parties involved deserve a lot of credit. Even the Cubs, who weren't involved, deserve some credit.

Why do the Cubs deserve credit in Rogers' expert opinion? Because Buehrle says he likes playing against the Cubs.

He thrives on the City Series and all things about Chicago baseball, which is just one of the dozens of reasons that it is a very good thing that Buehrle decided to stick around rather than testing a free-agent market that could have rewarded him with crazy money.

Don't expect to understand this level of expert thinking, Sox fans. Rogers' thinking is so expert, you have to be Rogers to understand it. And it's lonely in there. Try, for example, extending his logic:

Buehrle likes sliding on the infield tarp during rain delays. So, really, the infield tarp deserves credit for Buehrle's re-signing.

Yeah, okay, that makes some sense. And the infield tarp also deserves credit as a superior newspaper, because at least you can believe what you read on the infield tarp.

A Tempest in a Tribune

Today the White Sox re-signed one of our most iconic players, and the Chicago Tribune lost any hope of continuing to cover up one of its most endemic errors. On Jan. 11, 2007, the Chicago Tribune declared "the end of an era on the South Side" because, according to their eagle-eyed reporting, pitcher Mark Buehrle was gone. Here are the exact words from Tribune reporter Dave van Dyck:

It should not be surprising that Sox general manager Ken Williams will not try to re-sign the team's recognized pitching leader after giving him a chance for an extension last spring.
"With the market as it is, I don't anticipate making that overture again," Williams said recently.
In other words Buehrle's $9.5 million this year will be his last salary from the Sox, who should have younger (and cheaper) options by next season.
It will be the end of an era on the South Side, with Buehrle having helped usher in the new winning feeling in 2000.

Buehrle signed a new four-year contract with the White Sox today, but it didn't take half a year for the error of van Dyck's reporting to become obvious. It was obvious to many Sox fans on the day van Dyck's story appeared. Anyone who knows Ken Williams could see that van Dyck's "in other words" interpretation of Williams' quote was an egregious — and probably malicious — misinterpretation.

Williams and Buehrle said as much in subsequent days. Here's Williams at SoxFest in January:

"I should know better now than to answer direct questions with direct answers. I have to change the way that I'm doing this job.... In an effort to be truthful, honest, candid—it just doesn't work. On the surface, it would work if everything you said, every channel it went through after you said it, it would be interpreted the same way, in the same context. But that's not just the case. That's not just reality."

And here's Buerhle the very next day:

"It's something that some of the media people took differently and ran with it."

But the Tribune never corrected its error. On the contrary, Tribune reporters did their utmost to drive a wedge between White Sox fans and White Sox management by stoking a controversy where no legitimate controversy ever existed. And sadly, most of this town's media followed along. All the Sox and Buehrle ever needed was time to talk. But for six months we've had to listen to sanctimonious reporters preaching about the sin of trading Buehrle while scarcely concealing their hope that the Sox would trade him away. Here's Tribune "baseball expert" Phlip-Phlop Rogers:

By failing to prioritize the signing of his most marketable arms, White Sox general manager Ken Williams has committed himself to constructing future rotations around Jose Contreras, the oldest of the five 2006 starters, and Vazquez, the only one of the five who has a losing career record (100-105, including 11-12 season a year ago).... Make no mistake about it. Buehrle, eligible for free agency after this season, and Garland, signed through 2008, are going to follow Garcia (traded to Philadelphia for pitching prospects Gavin Floyd and Gio Gonzalez) out of town unless they compromise value to stay. On the one hand, that's the way the business works. But on the other, it still seems remarkable that a team would fail to do some heavy lifting to keep home-grown foundation pieces like Buehrle and Garland.

Make no mistake about it, Phlip-Phlop is just as wrong in July as Vandy was in January. The Sox re-signed Garland after 2005, re-signed Contreras in 2006, re-signed Vazquez at the start of 2007, and re-signed Buehrle today. And Danks has proved worth more than McCarthy and Garcia combined. All the controversy we've read about starting pitching has been a tempest in a Tribune. Anywhere outside of the Cubune Tower, the Sox have done a great job pinning down a solid rotation.

It's no accident that the White Sox announced Buehrle's signing to the Sox fans at U.S. Cellular Field today instead of feeding it to a bunch of malicious gossips at a press conference.

Tribune Forgets South Side Has Bus Service

A little over a week ago, the Tribune ran a list of Chicago's busiest bus routes. People who actually ride buses in Chicago were stunned to see that all the busiest routes on the Tribune list were North Side routes. For example, Michael Kmak of Pilsen couldn't believe the Addison bus — which leads to Tribune-owned Wrigley Field — could actually be the third-busiest route in Chicago, so he looked up the figures himself and discovered that, in fact, it isn't. Kmak was the first to expose the Tribune's error — if error it was — on his Chicago El blog:

As I was reviewing the top bus routes, I just couldn't be convinced that the #152 Addison bus was the third busiest in the system. That made absolutely no sense to me. So I researched myself, and found out that the Addison bus didn't even make the top thirty of the routes. I listed out the top twenty-plus routes and sent them to Hilkevitch. The bus routes they listed were all on the north side and serving the communities mostly on the lake shore.

John Hilkevitch, the Tribune's transportation and UFOs reporter, didn't reply to Kmak. The Tribune ran a skimpy, nearly invisible correction that explained nothing, but left its faulty graphic online. It's just too sinister to think the Tribune would promote certain bus routes in certain privileged neighborhoods while Illinois debates funding for the CTA, but who knows? It's the Tribune. The CTA Tattler writes,

I hope it's not because of the thousands of North Side RedEye readers. I hope it was just a plain mistake. But it was truly bizarre and questionable.

Suddenly the South Side Chicago Board of Tourism's campaign to introduce Chicago to its South Side doesn't seem quite so funny. Below you'll find the Tribune's fishy list of the busiest bus routes in Chicago, including the number of weekday boardings, followed by the CTA's actual list of the busiest bus routes in Chicago:

THE TRIBUNE's LIST
01) # 151 Sheridan: 20,156
02) # 147 Outer Drive Express: 13, 423
03) # 152 Addison: 11,467
04) # 156 La Salle: 9,740
05) # 146 Inner Drive/Michigan Ave Express: 9,582
06) # 145 Wilson/Michigan Express: 7, 271
07) # 155 Devon: 6,228
08) # 135 Clarendon/La Salle Express: 3,666
09) # 157 Streeterville: 3,174
10) # 136 Sheridan/La Salle Express: 2, 437

THE TRUTH:
01) # 79 - 79th: 33,766
02) # 20 - Madison: 24,437
03) # 9 - Ashland: 23,475
04) # 66 - Chicago: 22,621
05) # 63 - 63rd: 21,979
06) # 77 - Belmont: 21,974
07) # 3 - King Drive: 21,314
08) # 53 - Pulaski: 21,233
09) # 4 - Cottage Grove: 21,125
10) # 22 - Clark: 20,178
11) # 151 - Sheridan: 20,156
12) # 8 - Halsted: 19,857
13) # 49 - Western: 19,125
14) # 82 - Kimball-Homan: 18,679
15) # 87 - 87th: 17,590
16) # 67 - 67th-69th-71st: 15,643
17) # 36 - Broadway: 15,467
18) # 29 - State: 15,438
19) # 72 - North: 15,430
20) # 62 - Archer: 14,289

Day in the Life of Tribune Spin Machine

Tribune columnist Fred Mitchell sees cheery happy fuzzy cute parallels between the fan who charged Bobby Howry at Wrigley on Monday and a play now running at a North Side theater:

Life imitated art Monday night when a fan ran out onto the field in the ninth inning at Wrigley Field as the Cubs faced Colorado.

Currently showing at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater is "I Sailed with Magellan".... The show includes a scene in which Uncle Lefty—a free-spirited jazz man and Cubs fan played by actor Lance Baker—jumps out of the Wrigley bleachers and runs on the field to shake Willie Mays' hand.

He is taken out by a Wrigley Field security guard, and Uncle Lefty is promptly incarcerated into a "loony bin."

Yeah, that's it! Brent Kowalkoski was running out there to shake Bobby's hand. That's the ticket. Cub fans are just so Disney-delightful that they especially want to shake the hands of Cub pitchers who give up homeruns, and the lead, in the top of the ninth. That Cub fan who attacked Randy Myers on the mound in a previous incident was probably also just looking for a nice handshake.

But we couldn't expect Fred and his Tribune co-conspirators to show such largesse to troublesome fans on the Southside. No. Southside bad. Southside evil. Northside happy! Wrigley wonderful! Handshakes for everyone!

Hoy Vey

Meanwhile, the Spanish-language newspaper Hoy treated Spanish-speaking readers to a feature on Carlos Zambrano, including a front-page color photo over the fold and a full-size back-page color photo. The feature is part of Hoy's ongoing nationwide series, "Conoce a tus Cubs," in which the Tribune-owned Hoy newspapers are exclusively promoting the Tribune-owned team in gross violation of the most important ethical principles of American journalism.

But Wait, There's More

Frank Thomas, for a long time the greatest baseball player in Chicago, hit his 500th homerun this week. The Tribune headline:

"Former Sox standout hits 500th Homer."

Former Sox Standout? Here's the headline they gave Sammy:

"SAMMY SOSA SLAMS NO. 600"

Yes, in ALL CAPS.

Tribune Columnist Phlip-Phlop Rogers writes about Thomas' 500th as if it's an obituary and makes sure to include Ken Williams' full "idiot" quote from last year. For Sosa, he made excuses:

In 2004, his final season with the Cubs, Sosa hit 35 homers in 126 games, production that so disappointed him he ducked out of the clubhouse early on the last day, angered his manager, Dusty Baker and set in motion a trade that sent him to Baltimore.

Let's see. That's Fred, Phlip, Hoy — wonder what Gonzo's up to. In his mailbag, the Tribune's beat-Sox reporter, Mark Gonzales, can't wait to bury all memory of 2005. John Browning of Flemington, N.J. writes in to ask, "When was the last time the Sox had a stretch when they went 6-22? (I'm guessing 1968). Do you think its time to re-design the Sox uniform?"

Gonzales' reply:

I think it's time to change the introductory music and clips on the scoreboard, unless they want to start playing Jethro Tull's "Living in the Past."

Har. If Gonzo doesn't know when the Sox last had a 6-22 stretch and doesn't feel like looking it up, fine. But then why include the question? He just gives a sub-witty answer to the nothing part of the question, and it makes him seem underqualified for and disinterested in his job.

Brett Ballantini and William Melvin contributed to this entry.

'Loyal' Fans Attack 'Lovable Losers'

The Chicago Tribune deprived readers Tuesday of dramatic photos of Cub fan Brent Kowalkoski charging Bobby Howry on the mound at Wrigley. The Sun-Times ran a pair of the photos of Kowalkoski being tackled and cuffed by Cubs security at the edge of the mound. We had to wait a day to see a photo in the Tribune.

If the same incident had occurred at U.S. Cellular Field, the Tribune certainly would have displayed the photo right away and prominently. In fact, when a woman ran onto the field after a Sox game in May, the Tribune used a photo of the incident as the lead photo on their online sports page. The Tribune identified the woman as a Sox fan, even though she wasn't wearing any Sox gear, while Tribune reporter Paul Sullivan was very careful to identify Kowalkoski not as a Cubs fan, but as a fan "wearing a souvenir Cubs jersey." (Sullivan probably figures he was a Sox fan in disguise.)

On the bright side, this incident briefly reminded our local media of the Cub fan who attacked Cub pitcher Randy Myers on the mound in 1995. The Tribune had miraculously forgotten all about that incident during its coverage of two, count 'em two, fan-on-field incidents at the Cell earlier this decade. Here's a 2004 letter to the editor by Sox fan John McHugh trying to remind the Tribune of its Cubbie history:

It's unfortunate that Paul Sullivan's otherwise nice story about Cubs and Sox wives playing softball for charity (Tribune, July 1) served to reinforce a stereotype about U.S. Cellular Field. A Cub wife said that a brawl wouldn't occur because "We're at Wrigley . . . Those things don't happen over here."

Sullivan missed a great opportunity to remedy her misperception. He should have mentioned the Cubs fan who attacked his own team's relief pitcher, Randy Myers, a few years back. He should have recalled the Dodgers racing into the stands after abusive Wrigley fans. Has he forgotten the terrible incident after a ballgame earlier in the season? That tragedy took place on Addison Street, not 35th.

The tragedy McHugh refers to was a murder. We also noticed Cub fans throwing beer at Rockies' outfielders during last night's game. And we'll remind you again of the Tribune coverup of a Cub fan hurling a fast ball at Jacque Jones' head last year. The fact is, fan-on-field incidents occur more often at Wrigley. For some reason, those famously loyal Cub fans tend to attack their own lovable players, and they enjoy the privilege of having their deeds downplayed by the city's largest daily.

Windsock Flips Direction Again

Dr. Phlip flipped his flop again. Phlip Rogers, the Tribune columnist who thought Ken Williams' off-season pitching trades were a terrible idea in March, a great idea later in March, a terrible idea in May, and a great idea just one week ago... thinks they're a terrible idea again. No surprise there... we predicted it in our previous entry. This guy changes his position more often than Tom Skilling.

Today Phlip thinks Williams' trades of Garcia and McCarthy, which he described as "the right call" one week ago, were a bad call because Williams only got five young pitchers, and he should have also gotten a left fielder, a center fielder, and a shortstop. Doh! Kenny probably just didn't think of asking Texas and Philly to throw in three more position players. Shoot, we probably could have gotten Aaron Rowand, Michael Young, and Ryan Howard. Dammit Kenny.

Maybe Jerry Reinsdoft should name Phlip Rogers the Sox' new GM. Not only can he trade two pitchers for five pitchers, a left fielder, a center fielder and a shortstop, he's also always right, because his hindsight changes as fast as the circumstances. Some say his hindsight is so good because of the very special place where he stores his head.

Columnist or Windsock?

We'll just let Tribune 'baseball expert' Phil Rogers speak for himself:

June 18: Sox Make Right Call on Garcia, McCarthy

When White Sox general manager Ken Williams traded Freddy Garcia and Brandon McCarthy in deals for younger pitching, he said those trades with Philadelphia and Texas would help the Sox in 2007, as well as the future. While only John Danks is delivering immediate benefits in Chicago, he probably will be right.

May 20: Execs Mainly At Fault for Sox's Slide

I wonder what would be happening now if Williams and the front office had had more faith in some they cast aside. Williams couldn't resist making big moves... stocking up on young arms for 2007. It's almost like Williams caught Jerry Krause Disease, trying to prove it was the organization that won in 2005, not the players. Williams should have been the Executive of the Year in 2005, but he has not had the answers since then. Yes, John Danks is a nice pitcher, and we'll see about Nick Masset, who starts Sunday against the Cubs. Yes, Garcia and McCarthy are a combined 4-7. But the bottom line is, well, the bottom line, and it took only four months for the World Series champs to turn into just another team.

March 26: Oops! Maybe Sox Got It Right

It would be an understatement to say I didn't like the trade when it was made.... As Opening Day approaches, Ken Williams and Jerry Reinsdorf, the decision-makers, probably feel like a doing a little gloating.... Building another rotation such as the one that won the World Series won't be easy... but Danks looks like he'll do as much for that cause as McCarthy would have. That means anything the White Sox get from Masset and Rasner (who will open the season in Class A) is gravy. The more you look at this trade, the more you understand why Williams did it. It was an offer he couldn't refuse.

March 2: ... Arms Deals Don't Make Sox Better in '07

But the thing I'm still trying to figure out is how these moves will make the White Sox better in 2007.... In terms of the upcoming season, it will be a surprise if the White Sox gain more from the Garcia and McCarthy trades than they lose, no matter how loyally Guillen defends his bosses. (And on Feb. 14 Rogers wrote: "Out went Freddy Garcia. Out went Brandon McCarthy In came . . . well, no one who is likely to replace Garcia or McCarthy, at least not this season.")

We were almost impressed on March 26 when Rogers almost admitted he was wrong. Until May 20 when he decided, again, that he had been right, and it was Ken Williams who was wrong. But now he's back to saying Kenny was right. It shouldn't take more than a bad outing by Danks, or a pitch thrown by Garcia or McCarthy, for Rogers to switch again. Can't wait.

One thing we know: General managers don't have the leisure of changing their minds after they trade a player. They can't say, Oops! I was wrong, cancel that trade. So why should they take advice or criticism from guys who change their position on a trade whenever it's convenient? And why should anyone read these guys? Obviously, they don't know any more than anyone else who can read a box score.

If nothing else, Rogers knows how to go with the flow. We just wish he'd follow it the rest of the way down the Sanitary Canal. He makes a career out of criticizing the White Sox, often irrationally, in a newspaper owned by their competitors, and then he authors a book to profit from their World Series victory. And we have to tolerate this guy's voice in our city... why? Because, “Mediocrity is wanted. Mediocrity is solicited. Mediocrity is honored.”

Dem Fightin' Cubbies

So when the Twibsters write about their Fightin' Cubbies tomorrow, will they mention Derek Lee, when he a clear shot at Chris Young, running behind 63-year-old Lou Piniella? (Nice, Derek, start a fight and then hide behind an old man. Lee sure fights like a Northsider). Will they mention Carlos Zambrano being more interested in preserving his doomed no hitter than in retaliating for Lee's hit-by-pitch? We'll see.

UPDATE: They didn't mention either. Paul Sullivan quotes Alfonso Soriano saying, "If they throw at somebody, we have to throw at somebody, too, because that's not fair," but then Sullivan doesn't mention that Carlos Zambrano didn't do that. Mike Downey notes that Lou Piniella fell to the ground but doesn't mention that Lee was hiding behind him. He also gets Piniella's age wrong: "Lee's impulsive actions even could have led to a serious injury for his own manager, inasmuch as the 66-year-old Piniella was knocked to the ground during the brawl."

Add to Sam Zell's shopping list: fact checker and standards editor.

Finding the Cloud in the Silver Lining

Yesterday we showed you how the Tribune, equipped with the same information as three other newspapers, spun it negative. Today we'll show you another piece of Tribune artifice that makes the White Sox look bad, stemming from the same press conference with Aaron Rowand.

In a story published yesterday Mark Gonzales writes,

PHILADELPHIA -- The White Sox's offensive struggles are so obvious that even one of their biggest supporters can't hide the truth.

"I'm not surprised at how poorly they're playing," Phillies center fielder Aaron Rowand said of his former team after it suffered a 3-0 interleague loss Monday night at Citizens Bank Park.

"I think everyone in baseball is probably surprised how they haven't hit."

The two quotes from Aaron Rowand contradict each other. Is Aaron surprised the Sox are playing poorly, or is he not surprised? The first quote is particularly negative, controversial, and insidious — it suggests a real rift between Aaron and his former team. It's also dubious, because three other newspaper reporters and an MLB reporter attending the same press conference with Aaron Rowand did not have that quote. They only had the more positive one. Both Nathaniel Whalen of the Daily Southtown and Scot Gregor of the Daily Herald had exactly the same quote from Rowand:

“I think everyone in baseball is probably surprised how they haven’t hit,’’ Rowand said before the Sox were shut out for the fifth time. “There’s so much talent over there. Between (Jim) Thome, J.D. (Jermaine Dye), Paul (Konerko), Joe (Crede’s) been hurt, A.J. (Pierzynski), everybody, Darin, the talent over there is unreal.

“I’m sure it’s surprising they haven’t hit the way they were expected to. The starting pitching looks like it’s done pretty well, keeping them in games. If you didn’t have the starting pitching and you have a team batting average of whatever it is (.232), you wouldn’t think they’re just a couple of games under .500. You think they’d be like the Devil Rays of (2001).’’

Or maybe Gonzales had a big scoop? As we've learned, some Tribune scoops turn out to be works of fiction.

Finding the Silver Lining in the Cloud

So the Tribune is going out of its way to make the White Sox look bad, as if they need any help with that right now, and meanwhile, it's going out of its way to make the Cubs look good. Ten days ago, when the Cubs were 22-31, Tribune Columnist Rick Morrissey said they had to go 7-3 in the next stretch to merit attention.

They have gone 6-4. I guess they're toast, right?

Wrong.

In today's Tribune, Morrissey says the Cubbies are still in it. But not for the reason anyone else would offer right now, that the NL Central appears to be heading toward a sub-.500 division winner.

No, Morrissey's Cubbies are still in it because they fight in the dugout.

That's right, the single-most embarrassing moment in recent Cubbies history — and that is saying a lot — is now a point of pride and a rallying cry for the Cubune empire. Even if it really isn't, given the recent 6-4 stretch.

Morrissey's main source for his inspiration? Quotes from 175-pound rookie Ryan Theriot. Excellent. Can't wait to see Theriot take on Barrett.

Brett Ballantini contributed to this post.

How They Spin It

Four newspapers equipped with the same quotes from Aaron Rowand, and here's how they spin them (hint — one of these things is not like the others):

Joe Cowley, Chicago Sun-Times: "Rowand, Sox Share Mutual Attraction"

''It's the first time I'm going through free agency. I haven't heard anything from my agent or other teams.'' That doesn't mean Rowand doesn't have a special place in his heart for the South Side -- not only because he was drafted by and grew up in the Sox organization, but also because of the 2005 World Series run.

Scot Gregor, Daily Herald: "Rowand's Ties to Sox Still Strong"

The Sox seemed to miss Rowand’s competitive fire while finishing third in the AL Central last season despite winning 90 games. And they really seem to miss the 29-year-old outfielder this season.

For what it’s worth, Rowand said he misses the Sox, too.

Nathaniel Whalen, Daily Southtown: "Rowand Still Fond of Sox"

Whenever he sees his name linked to the White Sox via trade, free agency or anything else, former South Side cult hero and current Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Aaron Rowand doesn't know what to do.... If given a choice, Rowand probably never would have left the Sox for Philadelphia in a Nov. 25, 2005 trade that brought Jim Thome to the South Side.

Mark Gonzales, Chicago Tribune: "Rowand Isn't Sure About Return to Sox"

Rowand can become a free agent next season. He wondered Monday whether the Sox would make a competitive offer in what is expected to be a thick market for center fielders. He wasn't sure if he would lean toward the Sox if all offers were similar.

Nothing in Rowand's quotes, printed in all these newspapers, supports Gonzales' negative spin. Here's Aaron's main quote:

''Anytime you get drafted by an organization, come up through the organization, win the World Series [with] the organization, yeah, you're going to have a soft spot for that team,'' Rowand said. ''If you asked anybody anywhere if they were put in the same situation, they'd say that same thing.''

Thanks to Cubune Watcher Keith Makenas for this entry.

A Good Chicago-Style Election

It's a good thing the Chicago Tribune, which is always accusing city officials of corruption, doesn't run our local elections, because I'm pretty sure the guys who count the votes aren't supposed to do any campaigning in the polling place. Here's how the "voting" for the Tribune's All-City Team began today:

Today: First base

The case for Paul Konerko: There's not much right now....

We'll just pause right there. If one thing has become abundantly clear in recent years, it's that Tribune sportswriters don't know any more about sports than most of the fans in this town. So when the Tribune asks us to vote on something, it probably doesn't need to tell us how to vote. We can figure it out. But the Tribune Company is accustomed to leading readers by the nose — straight to Wrigley Field where it can load them up with Old Style and separate them from their money — and this poll is being conducted by ChicagoSports.com, which is edited by admitted Cub fan George Knue and staffed almost* entirely by admitted Cub fans that Knue hired. (*We can now say almost because ChicagoSports.com identifies one recent hire — Amanda Kaschube — as a Sox fan. Wow. Now there's one).

ChicagoSports.com has also admitted that most of its readers are Cub fans, which is interesting because the most recent poll showed most baseball fans in Chicago are Sox fans, which means most Sox fans don't read ChicagoSports.com. Big surprise. We could therefore expect the polling at this particular precinct to favor the Cubs even without the Tribune conducting a campaign inside the voting booth.

Furthermore, even Paul Konerko would vote for Derek Lee at this position right now. Jeez.

Next on Gonzo's Circus

Here's the intro to Tribune beat-Sox reporter Mark Gonzales' mailbag at the Tribune website (click image for a closer look):


Huh? Here's a better question: What is up with that last sentence stinking, when will the Tribune abandon its hope that the Sox will abandon hope, and how about sending Gonzo — or whatever lackey wrote this intro — out for some grammar enhancement?

You Won't Read it In the Tribune 2

Wrigleyville Alderman Tom Tunney wants to reign in the beer-sodden, urine-soaked stupidity that plagues the neighborhood surrounding Wrigley Field, according to the Chicago Sun-Times and NBC-5. The Tribune's neighbors are "fed up," but the Tribune has not covered the story.

Could it be because the Tribune uses the beer-soaked, urine-sodden stupidity to lure the corn-fed squares from Iowa and Minnesota (Steve Rhodes), convert them into sudden Cubs fans for the duration of their beer-sodden, urine-soaked visit, and then suck the money out of their wallets? Gotta wonder. That might also explain the gross disparity in the way the Tribune covers crime in the vicinity of the two ballparks.

Meanwhile, inside Wrigleyville's biggest beer garden: Zambrano slapping Barrett wasn't the only news to come out of Wrigley Field this weekend.

A fan ran onto the field during the same game, and the Tribune actually mentioned it. Briefly. At the end of a long story. The mention is notable because the Tribune usually prefers not to cover such incidents — except when they happen at U.S. Cellular. We would have liked a picture — you know, equal coverage — but hey, at least we got a few words: "And so another strange day ended at Wrigley Field, where a fan ran onto the field just as Aramis Ramirez was connecting for a home run in the eighth inning. The fan was corralled before he could cause further trouble, which is more than could be said for the Cubs." Har har. The Daily Southtown went into much more detail after interviewing Ramirez, who was apparently concerned for his safety:

Aramis Ramirez said he was "in shock" when a fan ran onto the field during his eighth-inning homer Friday. The fan, who came out of the left-field seats, was running toward center when a security guard caught up with him. Ramirez was rounding first when he saw what was happening. "I didn't know what was going on," Ramirez said. "I noticed it when I was running to second base and the (guard) was grabbing him. I was shocked. I wasn't nervous because security was holding the guy." Still, as Ramirez headed for third and then home, he looked back to make sure the fan hadn't broke free. "I was watching because he wasn't supposed to be there on the field," Ramirez said. "I don't know what happened or when he came out."

It's not hard to imagine how differently the Tribune would have played that incident had it happened on the South Side.

More Anti-Sox Antics by Tribune

Do the Tribune's editors know what the guy's been up to who handles the sports photos at chicagotribune.com? In addition to draining the color from photos of the White Sox this spring, and little episodes like the one discussed below, he does stuff like this. Think he might be a Cubs fan? Think his editors might be too? Or is it just good for the bottom line in the Tower?

Propaganda Machine Rolls On

TOURIST ALERT: Fan on field at U.S. Cellular! Sure it's a laughing girl this time, but next time who knows — it might be one of those armed bank robbers! Why does the Tribune publish photos of fans on the field at U.S. Cellular, but never at Wrigley? Because it feeds a favorite story line — that U.S. Cellular is dangerous, unstable, anything can happen, so the tourists from Iowa probably shouldn't venture too far from "the friendly confines." That's also why the Tribune covers every development in the life of William Ligue but none in the life of Ronald Camacho. It's why the Tribune takes pains to dissociate Wrigley from the murders of fans leaving Cubs games but liberally attaches much less serious crimes to the Cell. It's why the Tribune greeted fans arriving for the playoffs in 2005 with a front-page story about poverty and pot smoking in Armour Square. Much less coverage was given to the body found in a Wrigley Field Honeyhut with a needle stuck in its arm. It's probably also why Tribune reporters and photographers averted their eyes this April, when Cubs fans were already throwing trash on the field at Wrigley. And hey, whatever happened to that lady who — in perhaps the most accurate pitch thrown by anyone in a Cubs cap last year — nearly took off Jacque Jones' head? The Cubune should have signed her up, but instead they covered it up.

We're not sure how the crack investigative team at the Tribune missed this fans-on-the-field scandal at Comiskey:

Fire Them All

Lots of Sox fans have been prodding us to write something about Mike Downey's latest lump of anti-Ken-Williams propaganda, but honestly, we can't do it any better than this.

Double Standards for the Company Team

You know what looks like bias? When a newspaper writer criticizes one team while making excuses for the other — on the very same topic. Phil Rogers and his ilk have been all over the White Sox for not re-signing Mark Buehrle, even while lubing up the Cubs to help them excrete Carlos Zambrano. Here's Rogers saying the Cubs won't be making a Maddux-sized mistake when they lose the only reliable pitcher they've had since Bartman:

Because Zambrano hasn't come up big in [big-game] situations, there isn't the parallel to the Greg Maddux situation in 1992 that some suggest. Yes, he's young. Yes, he has had success. But he's not heading into free agency as the Maddux of '92, coming off a Cy Young Award season and owning 95 career victories, including three years of 18-plus wins.

Zambrano and Maddux were both age 26 in their walk years. Carlos currently has an ERA .07 higher than Maddux, which could well fall below Maddux's first Cubbies' ERA by seasons' end. Modestly projecting him to 13 wins this season, Z will have averaged 13 wins to Maddux's 15.5 in full seasons. Zambrano's numbers aren't good right now, no doubt, thanks in part to the White Sox, and he can be a Sosa-sized jackass with all his skyward pointing and flying spittle, but he remains the hottest commodity on the Cubs' pitching staff. But Uncle Phil says not to worry, Cubs fans, he's not all that.

After all the Buehrle controversy the Tribune has incited, Phil must know he sounds like a hypocrite, so he addresses his double standard directly. Just not very well:

If the Cubs don't re-sign Zambrano, it won't be because they tried to get him on the cheap, as the White Sox have tried with Buehrle.

The Cubs offered Zambrano $11 million this year. Last summer, the White Sox offered Buehrle $33 million for three years. Does Phil own a calculator? If the Sox didn't bump up that offer, maybe it's because Buehrle promptly imploded. But Rogers doesn't even consider that reason, because he's too busy making excuses for the Cubs:

They (the Cubs) made legitimate five-year offers before the announced sale of Tribune Co. suspended negotiations, but Zambrano has enough leverage to want to be very near the top of the market, if not at the top. When the Cubs let Zambrano get within a year of free agency, you knew it was going to be a tough negotiation, no matter how sincere Zambrano is about wanting to stay put.

Yeah, negotiations are tough on the North Side, where the Cubs had financial diarrhea all winter, but negotiations aren't tough on the South Side, where the team actually has to maintain a feasible budget. It makes perfect sense... if you're living in your own private Wrigleyville.

Does a contract really have to extend 5 years to be reasonable? Are sportswriters acting as agents now? Are they taking the customary percentage too?

And if it's really true that the Tribune's sale shut down negotiations with Zambrano, doesn't it also mean the Cubs can't engage in any significant trades this year? What if Derrek Lee goes down again, or Alfonso tweaks his hammy, or what if that Phil-Rogers-All-Star, Mark DeRosa, takes a fastball in the chops? The Cubs are confined to Iowa and MLB's spare parts? (Tony Womack, Todd Walker, Mike Remlinger, Todd Hollandsworth, and Jeromy Burnitz are listening to offers.) Sounds like a big story to me, but I don't think I've read that one in the Tribune. Have you?

Brett Ballantini contributed much of this entry.

Is AJ's Act Getting Old? No, But the Tribune's Is.

Wouldn't it be lovely if Chicago could read a newspaper feeling confident that the stories it tells are fairly and accurately reported? Instead, we have a big daily that tries to build audience by fomenting controversy, sometimes — as we've seen before — regardless of the truth.

How many Chicagoans reading Paul Sullivan's story about A.J. Pierzynski today feel confident the story is true? We thought we would compare Paul Sullivan's packaging of the controversy to the actual evidence his story presents. In the quotes below, we reversed the order, putting the evidence (Mark Buehrle's quotes) above the spin (Paul Sullivan's setup of the quotes). First you'll read what Mark Buehrle said, then you'll see how Sullivan spun it for Tribune readers:

BUEHRLE: "I think it is disrespecting Toby," Buehrle said before Sunday's game. "It's kind of saying: 'You can't do your job.' I don't see where he has to be in there just because it's a big rivalry. That doesn't matter. He needs a day off. Whether it's against the Cubs or anyone else, he needs a day off."

SULLIVAN: While Guillen and Pierzynski eventually hugged it out, and Pierzynski added to his growing legend with a grand slam on Sunday, it appears some of Pierzynski's teammates are tired of his act.

Some of Pierzynski's teammates? Only one is quoted. Where are the many to justify the plural? Buehrle clearly seems to be criticizing AJ here, and deservedly so, but is the criticism as hot as Sullivan makes it out to be, or is Sullivan trying to make it bigger than it is? The false plural suggests the latter.

BUEHRLE: "It's just A.J.," Buehrle said. "Everything I keep hearing is 'Oh, A.J. is not in the lineup. He's a big part of this team and with the big rivalry, and with him being such a part of it because Cubs fans don't like him … ' We don't look at it that way. And I'm sure Cubs fans don't care if he plays."

SULLIVAN: Buehrle was not surprised that Pierzynski was putting himself ahead of his team with his public griping, putting Guillen in a tough spot.

When Buehrle refers to "Everything I keep hearing," he's clearly referring to everything he's hearing in the media, not everything he's hearing from AJ. He says "we don't look at it" the way you guys portray it. It makes you wonder how much of Buehrle's criticism is actually directed at the media coverage of AJ Pierzynski rather than at AJ himself. But Sullivan spins the quote into an accusation of AJ "putting himself ahead of his team." Notice Mark Buehrle does not utter those words. Sullivan does.

BUEHRLE: "I think some of the stuff he does during the course of the season he could not do, to kind of clear his name up a little," Buehrle said. "He likes to be that [villain]. He likes to see his name in the paper. He likes to, well, not to be in the middle of controversy—I don't think he purposely tries to cause some of it—but he just speaks his mind and pretty much causes controversy."

SULLIVAN: Buehrle believes Pierzynski enjoys playing the role of the villain at Wrigley Field because he craves the attention.

First, notice this little piece of artifice: [villain]. Sullivan changed an important word in Buehrle's quote, and now it matches the word he uses setting up the quote. What did Mark actually say? Did he say, "He likes to be that guy?" If so, doesn't it change the tenor of the quote? Did he say, "He likes to be that &%$#@&?" Because that would change the tenor, too.

Next, notice that Buehrle does not actually say AJ craves attention. After saying AJ likes seeing his name in the paper, Buehrle moderates his statement by saying AJ does not like being in the center of controversy — he just speaks his mind. In this case, the thrust of Buehrle's quote points away from AJ craving attention, but Sullivan spins the quote in the most ungenerous light.

Reporters will defend themselves from this kind of analysis by pointing out that the quote is right there for the reader to look at. But the sentences that frame a quote, particularly before it appears, certainly influence how readers absorb it. Otherwise, you could just give us the quotes and leave the reporter out altogether. Hey, there's an idea.

Brett Ballantini and Lone Ranger contributed to this entry.

11 p.m. UPDATE: Just got home from the game to find that Buehrle confirmed our take on Sullivan's work with these comments, published tonight on MLB.com:

On Monday afternoon, Buehrle said he had talked to Pierzynski, and there was no animosity between the two, adding that his comments were not taken in the spirit he intended.

"It has kind of been blown out of proportion, and it's kind of a story being made up out of nothing," Buehrle said. "Everything is good. We're good.

"I'm not trying to defend anyone or stick up for anyone," added Buehrle, when asked about the point he was trying to make with his Sunday statement. "I don't think it came across the right way. Like I said, it's just a story that someone was trying to take and run with it. Obviously, they did a good job at it."

So, to repeat: Wouldn't it be lovely if Chicago could read a newspaper feeling confident that the stories it tells are fairly and accurately reported?

Columnist or Hematophagic Opportunist?

Saturday was a low point for White Sox fans — almost as low as Sunday was for Cubs fans — which made it a particularly hard day for White Sox players and executives. So of course Tribune columnist Phil Rogers seized upon that moment to declare the White Sox "just another team." Phil's the kind of guy who waits until you're down before he runs out from where he's hiding to throw a kick. He's a real brave soldier once the enemy is badly wounded.

Once upon a time, this was a great town for columnists.

If Rogers really thinks the White Sox are mediocre, why did he wait for Saturday's particularly painful loss before he said so? This is the same columnist who almost admitted he was wrong earlier this season when the Sox off-season trades proved successful. Now, one ugly loss to the Cubs later, he's citing those same trades — which remain favorable to the White Sox — to criticize the team.

Rogers is always sniffing the wind for his moment, like the mosquito that's lurking on your bedroom ceiling, patiently anticipating lights out. He only starts to buzz when he catches a whiff of fresh blood. He's a half-hearted, part-time Mariotti.

Once upon a time, this was a great town for columnists.

And it's not enough to call the White Sox "just another team." Rogers lays a load of fictitious blame on the Tribune's favorite scapegoat, Ken Williams, the first executive in nine decades to bring this city a World Series championship.

Why does the Tribune hate Ken Williams so much? Maybe it's because Kenny's young, smart, successful, and he repeatedly foils the imaginary world Tribune is always portraying for its gullible readers, a world where everyone shuts up and drinks their Old Style, watches the CW, and sends their money upstream to the Tower, where the empty-hearted use it to stuff their shirts. It's a world that's safe for Tribune because in this happy happy world, everybody loves a loser.

Or maybe it's because Kenny represents the South Side, a culture the Tribune would just as soon forget, outside of the occasional murder story to reinforce the usual stereotypes (and keep the tourist dollar safely to the north).

Or maybe it's because in the last 25 years the Tribune has produced nothing but mediocre baseball — and ethically compromised journalism — while Ken Williams produced a champion. That might have something to do with it.

If Phil Rogers is looking for mediocrity, he doesn't have to leave the Tower. Which is too bad. Because once upon a time, this was a great town for columnists. Just ask Nelson Algren.

Affirmative Action for the Company Team

Phil Rogers' column on his All-City Team contains what looks like a not-even-veiled threat issued to the White Sox:

If Buehrle leaves there won't be any misunderstanding about the story line. It will be because White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf was unwilling to pay him the going rate for a pitcher with his track record. It will be because the Sox didn't believe in Buehrle after he went through the roughest stretch of an otherwise smooth career.

Notice Phil Rogers isn't claiming to describe reality. He's not saying there won't be any misunderstanding about the "reason" Buehrle would leave. He's describing the "story line." He's telling the White Sox how the Tribune intends to cover an event, should that event come to pass, and those intentions are threatening. Sox fans really want Buehrle back, too, but I'm not sure that gives reporters license to issue threats of bad publicity.

Reality doesn't even come into play, such as the reality that the Sox already offered Buehrle a contract, just as reality did not come into play in January, when the Tribune reported, in a story that remains uncorrected, that Mark Buehrle was already gone. Now they're all just praying Buehrle leaves the White Sox so they can a) claim their January story was prescient rather than wrong, and b) launch their planned "story line."

Why not cover baseball instead?

When Rogers finally gets to his topic, the All-City Team, he finds himself in a quandary: How do you get some Cubs on the team? A couple of Cubs arguably deserve a spot, such as Derek Lee at first, particularly with Paul Konerko in a slump, and Alfonso Soriano in left, particularly since the Sox don't have a regular left-fielder right now. (Even so, Rogers bases his selection on Soriano's "Yankee days"). But then what? An honest assessment of ability looks much more black than blue so Rogers puts some affirmative action to work for the company team.

First he selects someone named Mark DeRosa (ever heard of him?) at second base. Rogers admits DeRosa is about to lose his job on the Cubs, but he still claims he's better than this man:

Iguchi stays pretty low-key, mostly because of a language barrier. I guess that's as good a reason as any to dismiss his ability and slip an anonymous Cub in at second.

Then Rogers selects Aramis Ramirez at third over Joe Crede. Ramirez, busy hustling doubles into singles and letting pop flies bounce off his head, probably needs to be on the All-City Team to justify that $75 million Tribune contract. "Thanks, Phil," says Aramis, "You're really earning your 75k."

Finally, we smell some last-minute revision in Phil's selection of a closer. Did Phil originally select Ryan Dempster as the All-City Closer, then revise his column after Dempster handed a win to the Mets on Thursday? Rogers' blurb on Jenks is really about what a great selection Dempster would have been before Thursday's game. Of Bobby, Phil finally says, "Jenks doesn't have Dempster's experience but has a far superior arm and continues to show remarkable resiliency." Dempster's Experience? At what, blowing games? Jenks has seven strikeouts and two saves in the World Series. Most of Chicago prefers that kind of experience.

Brett Ballantini contributed substantially to this entry.

Separate and Unequal

Two Chicago ballclubs, two extra-inning games, two blown saves, two losses, but the White Sox "blew a lead" while the Cubs "battled." The Sox suffered a "bullpen meltdown" while the Cubs merely "frittered away opportunities." Nah, there's no bias.

Two Chicago ballclubs, two extra-inning games, two blown saves, two losses, two headlines:

Sox Headline: "Relief proves extra painful; Sox's bullpen fails to hold lead; homer by Morneau wins it"

Cubs Headline: "Cubs' Theriot earning Piniella's confidence with clutch hitting"

Meanwhile, The New York Times — that powerhouse of sports reporting — scooped the Tribune on a story about the Tribune's all-time favorite employee, Sammy Sosa. Sosa, who plays for the Texas Rangers, is so important in the Tribune Tower that Tribune columnist Fred Mitchell attended Sosa's birthday party last year in the Dominican Republic. (No, we're not kidding. We wish we were.) Sosa is so important in the Tribune Tower that last fall the Tribune published 35 stories mentioning Sosa, but only one mentioning Derek Lee, an actual Cubs player. So, Sosa's pretty important in the Tribune Tower, but not when the story involves steroids. According to the New York Times, MLB steroids investigator Sen. George Mitchell requested Sosa's medical records to determine whether his Cubs career was artificially enhanced. Tribune missed that story, and has posted the Times' story on its website in lieu of doing any actual reporting on this terribly uncomfortable topic. So the Tribune is surprisingly thorough about covering Sammy Sosa, yet surprising lax when covering Sammy Sosa's possible steroid use.

When Senator Mitchell is done investigating Sosa, perhaps we could ask him to investigate the rest of the Tribune Company.

Bartender? Make It a Double

Just in case you missed the April 28 Tribune story by John Schmeltzer about an Absolut Vodka ad campaign in which the Cubs win a World Series in an alternate universe, you can read a May 3 story by Paul Sullivan about a vodka ad campaign in which the Cubs win a World Series in an alternate universe.

Why two stories when one was too many? In marketing, it's called The Rule of Repetition.

The Tribune archive contains 919 references to the Billy Goat, 721 references to Cubs curse, and 291 references to "lovable losers." That's how you fill a stadium while fielding a last-place team. They're supposed to lose, see. That's what's so lovable about them!

We can probably expect more stories, or perhaps a centerfold, in July when the Absolut billboards, featuring a Billy Goat, actually go up.

Or maybe the second story is just an oversight. Maybe Sullivan and his editors didn't realize Schmeltzer's story had already run. Maybe they don't read the paper. You know the Tribune's in trouble when they don't even read it in the Tower.

There is an interesting difference between the two stories: Schmeltzer's story mentions the brand name, Absolut, eleven times, not including headline (12) and caption (13). That's repetition for you. Sullivan doesn't mention Absolut at all, referring instead to "a popular brand of vodka." We'd like to see as much brand-name chastity in his Cubs coverage:

PITTSBURGH -- A popular Chicago baseball team will delay a decision on Angel Guzman's status until Friday, manager Lou Piniella said Wednesday. Guzman was scheduled to start Sunday at a popular Chicago baseball stadium.

Even better if he can work a little ethical disclosure in there:

PITTSBURGH -- A popular Chicago baseball team owned by the company that owns this newspaper will delay a decision on Angel Guzman's status until Friday, said manager Lou Piniella, an employee of the company that owns this newspaper. Guzman was scheduled to start Sunday at a popular Chicago baseball stadium owned by the company that also owns this newspaper.

Nice. Now it's almost all on the table. (There should probably be something in there about the stock-sharing plan that transforms Tribune reporters into Cubs investors). But Sullivan only seems to get modest around the booze. He has his standards. As long as he's the Cubs' house organ, his dance card is apparently full.

One Day At a Time

After we criticized Tribune sports columnist Fred Mitchell last week for some horrid examples of Cubune bias, he became quite friendly to the White Sox. First he wrote a whole entire column about Paul Konerko and Jim Thome's work on behalf of Children's Home + Aid, and then he nicely noticed out loud that some of the players in the NFL Draft wore Sox caps. Check it out:

Don't know why, but two of the first 11 players selected on Saturday—Redskins safety LaRon Landry from LSU and 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis from Mississippi—wore White Sox caps when they received their calls.

You spotted the leakage right away, didn't you? It's that phrase "Don't know why," which certainly would not appear if the same sentence were written about someone wearing a Cubs cap. (Everybody knows why people wear Cubs caps: Because "everybody loves the Cubs!" Especially on WGN.)

Don't know why those football guys were wearing Sox caps. Maybe it just happened to be raining Sox caps. Or maybe Ken Williams trained a monkey to put Sox caps on people's heads right before they go on teevee. It couldn't be that those guys are Sox fans, of course, because Fred can see those guys with his own eyeballs, and everyone inside the Tower knows that Sox fans are invisible. Or, when something resembling a Sox fan does appear, the spectre oft appears in black and white, while the team itself sometimes appears faded, almost translucent. Like ghosts.

Fred and many of his Tribune colleagues don't know why anyone would wear a Sox cap, because they seem incapable or unwilling to appreciate the fact that the White Sox have fans. The Tribune even downplayed the significance of the 1.75 million Sox fans who appeared on the streets of Chicago, where it was awfully hard to ignore them, in October 2005. Maybe they can't see Sox fans because Sox fans don't behave precisely like Cubs fans (Thank God), or maybe it's a culture clash, like the way they can't see places like Englewood and Back of the Yards, or maybe it's just because they can't see beyond the 25-year Tribune/WGN/Cubs collaboration — the 25-year Cubune campaign — to put Cubs caps on everyone in the nation.

(That has been a largely successful 25-year campaign, we might add, involving lots of trained monkeys. Colonel McCormick was right: you can wrap snake oil in newspaper).

Psst: During the 20th Century, hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans migrated to other parts of the United States. A lot of them were from the South Side. A lot of them were Sox fans. So, now there are Sox fans all over the U.S. We know this, because some of us have been some of them. Some of us are also related to some of them. Maybe WGN hasn't always featured expatriate Sox fans on TV as prominently as it does expatriate Cubs fans. But we're out there. That's why "Sox World Series products have emerged as the 'third-greatest hot market' following the 2000 Yankees-Mets subway series and the 2004 Boston Red Sox," according to the Sun-Times (the Tribune missed that story). So yes, there are Sox fans in Chicago and there are Sox fans in America, but the Tribune doesn't know it, because the Tribune doesn't cover Chicago and the Tribune doesn't cover America. The Tribune covers its own private Wrigleyville. Nationwide.

Anyway, this was just a little slip by Fred. He really does seem to be trying. Easy does it, Fred.

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.