Who's Got the Power?

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

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

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

His name? Carlos Quentin.

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

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

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

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

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

--Brett Ballantini

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

Back to Baseball

The White Sox have flown out of the gate, resting comfortably in first place at 11-7, already 2.5 games in front, and 4.5 and 5 games ahead of supposed world beaters Cleveland and Detroit. This in spite of a .242 team batting average and two starters, Paul Konerko and Juan Uribe, batting well south of the Mendoza Line.

So, naturally, it's time for a White Sox mailbag that accentuates the positive, right? That's not how ChicagoSports.com is posing it:

Mark Gonzales' White Sox mailbag
The Tribune's White Sox beat writer answers reader questions throughout the season. This week, Joe Crede's durability and whether the Sox will re-sign him, the disappearance of Ozzie Ball and a struggling Paul Konerko

--Brett Ballantini

Vast Depth of Logic

Last night on ChicagoSports.com, White Sox beat writer Mark Gonzales weighed in on what is clearly the most glaring issue tormenting Chicago's first-place team: its lack of outfield depth.

Actually, the article was a sort of bizarre, a let's just focus on the "young" outfield depth of the White Sox, piece. It's the kind of story that is meant to fill space, random or not; Gonzo could (and should) easily have called this, "Checking in with Ryan Sweeney."

Anyway, Gonzo points out that of a young outfield corps that once numbered Sweeney, Jerry Owens, Brian Anderson, and Chris Young (or, in Phil Rogers parlance, ChrisYoungChrisYoung
ChrisYoungChrisYoungChrisYoungChrisYoungChrisYoung
ChrisYoungChrisYoungChrisYoungChrisYoungChrisYoung ChrisYoungomigodChrisYoungisn'tontheSoxanymore), only Anderson is currently on the White Sox roster.

Baseball fans, sabermetricians, bus drivers, statue sculptors, and even politicians put down their newspapers, shake their tiny fists, and cry out: "So what?"

While there's nothing overt about Gonzo's piece, there's an inherent bias in this filler with a "White Sox outfield not so deep anymore" headline. Because in truth, well, yeah, the White Sox outfield is extraordinarily deep. Its cast includes:

• Jermaine Dye, entering Tuesday's action as the 10th-leading hitter in the AL
• Nick Swisher, an on-base monster, instant clubhouse leader, and fan favorite
• Carlos (don't call me Mini Canseco or Baby Bichette) Quentin, he of the home-run swing and mind-boggling arm
• Alexei Ramirez, whose across the body throw from center to second this afternoon left mouths agape
• Pablo Ozuna, like Ramirez a super utilityman with wheels
• Anderson, one-time wunderkind now squeezed for ABs after a terrific spring
• Owens, who's dropped three or four spots on the depth chart simply because everyone else is playing so well

Countless times the Tribune has taken White Sox GM Ken Williams to task over having dealt Young to Arizona for Javy Vazquez (a pitcher the Tribune's so-called baseball expert, Rogers, predicted would be the best in the AL Central this season). Yet not once, even in this early season, has the paper extended kudos to Ken for having acquired Quentin from the Diamondbacks.

Of course, Gonzo recently made mention of the trade, noting that Quentin cost the White Sox their top hitting prospect--you know, single-A first baseman Chris Carter.

Coming soon: A Trib expose on how the Quentin deal gutted the White Sox's minor-league depth at first base. The horror!

--Brett Ballantini & The Lone Ranger

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

How Did They Choose Those Letters?

Two fan letters are published on ChicagoSports.com. One, from a fan who extols the faith of Cubbies fans who have waited 100 years for a World Series win. The other, from a fan who feels he should be given the Cubbies as his birthday present.

The White Sox fans' letters? The first is from someone who's giving up being a fan because of high player salaries. The other letter is from a fan who can't believe we "gave away" Jon Garland and that Ken Williams "gave" the Angels Torii Hunter, and is published about, oh, two or three months too late.

-- Brett Ballantini

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.

Photogate Continues

Cubune Watcher Brian Dykes, himself a photographer, collected these latest examples, showing the Tribune enhancing color in its photos of the Cubs — look at the vibrancy of that Cubbie blue, which today's Tribune claims is the color of Michael Barrett's blood — and diminishing the vibrancy of its photos of the White Sox. For today's example, Brian selected AP photos published in both the Tribune and YahooSports.com. In fact, photos of the White Sox appear properly exposed in every online publication we have checked so far, except the Tribune, where they look underexposed. See for yourselves. Why would they do this? Who would you rather buy tickets to see? Those bright blue Cubbies on bright green grass, or those pale gray White Sox on sort of yellow grass? And remember, a little money from every Cubs ticket goes into the pockets of Tribune journalists.

All photos are copyright 2007 by the Associated Press. They are reproduced here under the fair use doctrine of criticism for purposes of illustration or comment.

Tribune Caught Uglifying Photos of Sox?

Yesterday we criticized the Tribune for publishing washed-out Sox photos underneath vibrantly-colored Cubs photos. A few hours later, the Tribune's Sox photos suddenly became much more vibrant. We also criticized the Tribune for routinely placing Cubs elements above Sox elements on its online sports pages. A few hours later, an existing story about Tadahito Iguchi was bumped up on the sports page, and an existing story about Carlos Zambrano was downgraded. For a few hours, Tribune-owned chicagosports.com even placed its Sox photo gallery above its Cubs photo gallery, although they returned the galleries to their prior positions before the end of the night.
Should we be happy about these improvements? The improvements are only cosmetic. The issue testifies to a deep-seated pro-Cubs, anti-White Sox bias in the construction of the Sports page, and the photos raise a troubling question: Has the Tribune been doctoring photos of the White Sox to make them less attractive than photos of the Cubs? In this post, you can see the difference in color saturation in Tribune photos published online before and after our criticism, and lest you think it's the fault of the photographer, the AP's M. Spencer Green, you can see the same photo as it appeared in the Tribune and as it appeared on the Daily Southtown's website. In yesterday's post, you can see the difference in color saturation between Sox photos and Cubs photos.

All photos are copyright 2007 by the Associated Press. They are reproduced here under the fair use doctrine of criticism for purposes of illustration or comment.

When 'Beat' Means 'Tired'

The Tribune's baseball beat reporters, Paul Sullivan and Mark Gonzales, seem much more interested in covering contract negotations than in covering baseball, and they've been bungling the job. Here's another example. The following lede appeared on the Tribune's sports page Tuesday afternoon:

Carlos Zambrano and the Cubs went off to their arbitration hearing Tuesday afternoon after a last-ditch attempt at a settlement failed.

It was eventually replaced by this one:

Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano agreed to a one-year, $12.4 million deal Tuesday, avoiding arbitration just before his hearing was scheduled to begin.

Tribune Bias in Placement

Please click for a larger view.

What Chicago Thinks of its Sportswriters

Predictably, many Chicagoans are unhappy with Rex Grossman today, but they always seem to be unhappy with their sportswriters. Before the Super Bowl, Tribune columnist Steve Rosenbloom took umbrage on his "Rosenblog" after Rex Grossman said some sportswriters are ignorant. What you'll find very interesting is the tone of the public comments that followed. No one here is saying Grossman is great, but every comment rips Rosenbloom and other parasitic practitioners of sportswriting. Remember that untold thousands of Chicagoans informally boycott the Tribune as a matter of course. These comments aren't coming from people who loathe the Tribune so much they avoid it. These comments come from the Tribune's own website, which means these comments come from Tribune readers, and most importantly, the coveted "new-media" readers who participate in the interactive features on the Tribune's websites. You're about to read an expression of public opinion that represents a commentary on the state of Chicago sports journalism. With readers like these, who needs enemies? Check it out:

Not shocking you would have something to say right after Rex said you newspaper people were ignorant. He has taken the abuse from every angle all year long. And all year long, he has taken the scrutiny and critism without getting too irritated with the media at all. So now he says one thing and you jump all over him. How much did you expect him to take before he finally said something that wasn't politically correct? Sorry, Rosenbloom...Rex isn't perfect and neither are you. Posted by: Josh | Feb 2, 2007 3:53:33 PM

So the park district was looking for another opportunity to "gouge the fans"? The article says they were looking to show the game in order to raise money for charity. If you can't even get that straight, I guess Rex is right - - "journalists" like yourself in the print media are ignorant. Let the Waddle countdown continue. Mr. Rosenbloom, your plane is boarding . . .. Posted by: jackarmstrong | Feb 2, 2007 4:35:29 PM

Ignorant fits this stupid blogger perfectly. Way to man up and admit it, see if you man up in 2 days about how good the Bears are and how wrong you were. Posted by: Kyle | Feb 2, 2007 4:46:07 PM

So you don't think any of the newspaper writers are ignorant about the game? Grossman didn't say every newspaper columnist was ignorant; only ones like you who are dumb enough to make even Sean Salsbury look bright. Posted by: Vince | Feb 2, 2007 4:46:59 PM

Rosenblah,
You have been the biggest local hater on DA BEARS and especially Rex. Something you chose and your employer still obviously endorses. You throw down "his scarlet letter"?! What about your daily intentional hate?! Too bad the kid couldn't call you out for what you are, a hack who intentionally hates on everything! Good for Rex, but again he held back, way back for what you alone have dished. The Choice: and remember death is not an option, leave town! Would love to see you in Green Bay next season! Play Angry / Play Hostile GO BEARS!!! GO REX!!! Posted by: skiman506 | Feb 2, 2007 8:16:29 PM

This is funny because Rosenbloom is as ignorant as they come. This man knows nothing about sports whatsoever. This blog is basically only good for coming on and ripping on Rosenbloom. I mean look at the comments. He has to know he is terrible. Yes Rosenbloom you are stupid and ignorant. If you had any intelligence you may have come up with a writing concept beyond "your table is ready" and "death is not an option" at some point. Posted by: Derek | Feb 3, 2007 12:04:44 AM

Wow, I have never seen a point by a media critic (Grossman) proven any faster. It's amazing to think that Rosenbloom is actually paid for this spew. It gives hope to souless, mean-spirited writers everywhere. Posted by: AnotherBruce | Feb 3, 2007 4:00:56 AM

Bloom... Has Grossman posted a 0.0 quarterback rating yet this offseason? No, try about 100 pts higher. And what's with the comment about waiting another generation to see a Bears Super Bowl? You're the biggest hater in Chicago. You and Skip Balis would be great together on ESPN Deportes or something. I mean, poor Sean Salisbury. He spends his Sundays with a dope-fiend (Irvin), and his Thursday with a dope (you). GO BEARS! Posted by: Mike in Bloomington | Feb 3, 2007 10:17:31 AM

Bernard Berrian said on PTI that if the newspaper guys could watch film they would see that it is not all Grossman's fault. I would have to agree. Sometimes it is a breakdown in pass protection, or a receiver running the wrong route or *gasp* someone on the other team making a good play. Yeah Grossman has deserved some of the abuse, but seriously when did football become a one person game? Posted by: gnjaxon | Feb 3, 2007 1:13:28 PM

You are exactly what Grossman called you...ignorant. Posted by: jim | Feb 3, 2007 1:33:20 PM

I think there must be some sort of masochitic gene in the typical sports writer. Why can't you guys simply be happy? Why do you feel it's necessary to taunt fans. Morrissey says Lovie needs to rant and rave more. Really? Well, maybe he can get Denny Green to come in and give a pep talk. I'm pretty sure Green is free this weekend. Posted by: Denis Verte | Feb 3, 2007 4:19:59 PM

Anybody wonder why Rosenotti never responds directly to any of the posts? I have two theories:
1. Doesn't want to know how many people really despise him;
2. Doesn't really know how a blog works
Posted by: Mark | Feb 3, 2007 4:21:43 PM