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

Take My Manager...Please

In today's edition, Fred Mitchell reports that White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen missed Joe Crede's eventual game-winning grand slam in the 7th inning because he was busy sending a message to major league baseball. Jeez, the guy gets the quick thumb from umpire Phil Cuzzi and he's off in the clubhouse, playing Sims, downloading reggaeton, and exchanging IMs with Bud Selig?

Whoops. Seems Fast Freddie was a little too quick to type the ### on this item. Let's turn to the master of the one-sentence paragraph, the Bright One's answer to Mike Downey, Rick Telander:

So where was Ozzie when Joe Crede launched a dramatic grand slam over the left-field fence in the seventh inning to give the Sox a come-from-behind 7-4 win over the visiting Minnesota Twins?

''On the computer,'' he said afterward. ''That's where I was, sending a text message to Major League Baseball.''

No, no, no.

He was just kidding.

''I was watching the game,'' he corrected. ''We have so many TVs in the clubhouse.''

(Apologies for the excessive one-sentence paragraphs. It's a Rick Telander space-eating thing, see.)

One thing's for sure: Don't joke with Fast Freddie. By the time you clarify, he's already at the postgame spread.

--Keith Makenas