After recent outcries against ESPN’s new commercial depicting Tigers fans as, let’s say “slightly less aesthetically pleasing” than they are in reality, the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports has created another new commercial to put things back in perspective, this time featuring real White Sox fans in all their glory. Enjoy.
Beer & Baseball – is there a better combination in the world? Send us your ballpark beer shots thru Facebook and Twitter and we’ll post them on the blog. Our goal is to get one from every ballpark in the Majors. We’re off to a great start!
Wrigley Field — Rockies @ Cubs 06/27/11 by Peter Ribolzi
Dodger Stadium — Angets @ Dodgers 06/26/11 by Nick Kavalauskas
Coors Field — Tigers @ Rockies 06/18/11 by Ryan Smith
U.S. Cellular Field — Tigers @ White Sox 06/04/11 by Ryah Smith
Yankee Stadium — 09/04/10 Blue Jays @ Yankees by Sean Frangella
“The Dropkick,” as it forever will be known, might go down as the most hilarious Cubs/Sox moment in the history of the rivalry. Soto’s reaction is priceless. This might have just jump-started a series that was lacking interest and passion (maybe because both clubs are below .500?). Thank you Ozzie!
It’s been a wild ride for the Verniere family, but we’ve come out on the winning end of things. As always baseball ties into life and it seemed so true during the labor and birth of the newest Sox fan, Charles George “little hurt” Verniere. Whether the events were coincidental or not, we’ll never know, but I think a timetable of how things went down will best tell the story?
Saturday, May 7
10:50 AM – Early labor begins as I’m on the phone with Chicago Rickshaw booking my ride to Wrigley Field. CGV’s first move was to prevent his father from going to a Cubs game. Smart kid! I text Smitty the news that I would not be attending.
1:25 PM – Smitty posts his most accurate article to date, Pete’s baby certainly no Cubs’ fan, and it was obvious since he already stopped me from going to my first Cubs’ game on his watch. Alexis’ contractions are about 10 -12 minutes apart at this point. Looks like nothing is going to happen today, Doctor suggests we enjoy the day.
3 PM – Cubs beat the Reds in dramatic fashion in the bottom of the ninth; the game CGV prevented me from taking in. He already knew how much I hate that freaking, “Go Cubs Go” song. Thank You, Son!
11:48 PM – White Sox win 6-0 with another great performance from Gavin Floyd and the offense waking up from it’s slumber with a 17-hit attack.
Sunday, May 8 – Mother’s Day
Morning – Spent most of the evening and throughout the early morning awake since Alexis had contractions all night. Doctor said to call back when contractions were 5 minutes apart.
3:52 PM – Cubs lose to the Reds and as the last out is made Alexis’ water breaks. This could all have been coincidental, but CGV is obviously not a Cubs’ fan at this point for sure. It turns out it was not a complete breaking of the bag, but enough to get the go ahead to go to the hospital. Off we go.
Monday, May 9
12:19 AM – Alexis is fully dilated and it’s time to have the baby as my phone chimes to tell me that the Sox beat the Mariners 5-2 that included two more scoreless innings from Sergio Santos to bring his total to 15. Not sure how Little Hurt knew it, but he knew to arrive on an early victorious morning.
2:11 AM – Charles George Verniere is officially born at 6 lbs. 5oz and 19.5 inches long. It’s the most glorious day of my life and words cannot explain it. Of course, baseball played a part by positively occupying the waiting time.
11:39 PM – The White Sox won their third straight game behind home runs from Gordon Beckham, Alexei Ramirez, and Carlos Quentin. Edwin Jackson pitched a seven innings of shutout ball with five strikeouts and one walk. This victory moves CGV aka Little Hurt to 3-0 since he headed into the world, with two wins outside of the womb. The Cubs and Twins have not won yet since Charlie arrived.
Even though I’ve only slept for seven hours since Saturday it’s been worth every minute of no sleep. As usual the joy of my personal life has carried over to my baseball life with everything moving in the right direction. The Sox go for four-in-a-row tonight.
"RRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!"
Nice try, Pete. You thought you could slip one past me, but there’s no way I’m letting you get away with such a backhanded compliment. “In no way am I taking anything away from the Detroit Tigers sweep of the White Sox, but on paper the Sox are a better team” is tantamount to saying “no offense, but… [insert highly offensive statement here]” or “[insert compliment here], having said that… [insert completely contradictory comment here].”
Your “on paper” argument is paper thin. I might have overlooked it if the Tigers hadn’t completely dismantled the Sox over the weekend in every facet of the game, outscoring them by a total of 21-3, including not one, but two shutouts. Scoring 9 runs in not one, but two games is an accomplishment in an of itself, but to do it without the services of Victor Martinez is even more impressive.
Most national writers had the Tigers, Sox and Twins separated by as few as two games by the end of the season, so I’m not sure what “paper” you’re reading. All three teams have obvious strengths and glaring weaknesses that should make the AL Central an interesting race throughout the season. But it seems the Tigers are the only ones living up to even modest expectations.
On paper, I’ll give you that the Sox have a solid rotation, but it lacks a true ace, while the Tigers have not one, but two aces in Verlander and Scherzer. On paper, the Sox have a lineup with power and some speed, but it is clearly inconsistent. Major off-season addition, Adam Dunn has been forced into the difficult role of DH which he originally had expressed reservations about and has clearly struggled with hitting a paltry .145 with only 2 home runs thus far. Meanwhile, the Tigers have a perennial MVP candidate in Cabrera anchoring a productive young lineup. On paper, the Sox have an inexperienced bullpen with no closer, while the Tigers have a proven lights-out 8th/9th inning combo of Benoit and Valverde. On paper, the Sox have what should be a decent defense, but paper can’t solve the almost comical performance we’ve seen so far.
So “thanks” for the backhanded compliment, but you can keep it. As this past weekend has shown, these are no “paper” Tigers you’re dealing with—these are the real thing.
My 19th Opening Day at the Cell out of the last 21 was as good as any I could remember. Not sure what was more impressive, the double-digit hit attack for the fifth game this young season, or Edwin Jackson’s dominating performance over the Rays with 13 strikeouts and one walk. As if those stats weren’t enough, Paul Konerko set a White Sox record by recording a RBI in the first six games of the season.
The one thing that made the game more unique than any other Opening Day was the fog that rolled through the Cell during the first few innings of the game. It was if the game was being played on the Moors.
The Sox offense continued it’s timely hitting even without the services of Adam Dunn as they drove in a few insurance runs in the eighth by stealing bases and base hits. Juan Pierre continued his hot start to season by going 3-for-5 with a run and RBI including driving in Brent Lillibridge in the eighth. Alex Rios continued hitting for the second straight game after starting the season without a hit in the first four games with two doubles.
The game was sold out and it lead to long waits for beer and food, which I did not enjoy. There’s no joy in being a Sox fan as there’s always something, right? You get used to not waiting in line for things, since we’re the red headed stepchild in attendance in Chicago. Based on the season thus far the Sox sold out Opening Day and the Cubs did not, so that may be changing.
Opening Day is like a holiday for me and it’s my favorite day of the year. It’s always fun no matter the outcome, but even more fun when your team wins. The Sox have swagger right now, hopefully they can keep it up.
Rush is playing at the United Center in about a week-and-a-half, but that’s not what 2112 references in the headline. It’s our Chicago baseball teams record after Opening Weekend. The White Sox have a 2-1 record in the AL Central while the Cubs sit at 1-2 in the NL Central. Both the Sox and Cubs played weaker teams in their division this weekend.
The White Sox looked like a completely different team offensively during their series against the Cleveland Indians, while the Cubs posted a win against the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team that they beat only five times in 2010. While both Sox and Cubs fans would like to be 3-0 this season, and both teams had opportunities to make that happen it was still a positive weekend overall.
The White Sox posted 24 runs and even though only one of those came on Sunday they looked more like the team fans were sold on last season that never materialized. Juan Pierre and Gordon Beckham set the table for the heart of the line-up to clean up. Adam Dunn has been effective to say the least. Carlos Quentin seems to be the CQ of 2008, and the starting pitching was progressively better each game.
On the negative side of things, Alex Rios does not have a hit yet and Will Ohman looks more like the pitcher that Cubs fans wanted to run out of town. He struggled again today and let the game get out of hand. The Sox went 9-9 against the Indians last season, so getting out to a 2-1 series win is a good start to the season. The Indians can still hit and might be better the next time the Sox see them with the return of Grady Sizemore later this month.
On the North Side those pesky Pirates got the best of the Cubs this weekend, but the good news is the Cubs took one. I watched bits and pieces of the Cubs this weekend and one thing that looked different to me was they seemed to have more fight this season. Marmol was lights out on Saturday and even though he took the loss on Sunday he didn’t pitch that poorly. Yes a walk lead to putting the winning run on base, but who would ever have imagined that clean-up hitter, Lyle Overbay, would bunt and two runs would score on a dribbler that barely made it past the pitcher’s mound. Unlike last season though the Cubs had the tying run at third base in the bottom half of the inning.
Matt Garza had 12 strikeouts; unfortunately he also had 12 hits, but left the game with a 4-3 lead on Sunday. Carlos Zambrano looked pretty solid on Saturday, but he left the game with a hand cramp. Always something with that guy. There’s no sophomore slump for Starlin Castro at the moment. He leads the team with a .615 batting average and looks another year smarter. Carlos Pena came inches away from his first home run on Sunday while Alfonso Soriano hit his first.
Aramis Ramirez may be hitting .364 at the moment, but he does not seem to have his power stroke, which could be a problem. The reason it’s a problem is the Cubs are counting on 30 home runs from Ramirez, not base hits. While he seems to be seeing the ball well enough he’s almost Bobby Abreu like at the moment; high average with minimal power. It’s only the first weekend but he should be watched closely as he is as much of wild card for the Cubs as CQ for the White Sox. Ryan Dempster pitched as poorly on Friday as he did in his last Spring outing. That can’t be a good sign.
Monday begins a new week in baseball and can lead to new things. The Cubs host the Diamondbacks tomorrow afternoon, while the Sox go to KC for a short two-game series on Tuesday and Wednesday before coming home to Chicago for their home Opening Day against the Rays. I’ll be there, as it will be my 19th opening day in 21 years. I know… “We’re happy for you!”
We shouldn’t get to far ahead of ourselves. We being the White Sox Nation, even though the Sox ended their game with a 14 run explosion by the fourth inning of their Opening Day game against the Cleveland Indians. They did with new comer, Adam Dunn, driving in four runs and Carlos Quentin driving in five. The best news is CQ’s production, he claimed he finally learned how to relax this season; that seems to be true for the moment.
Of course, the game ended with some drama as the final score was 15 – 10, but that score is deceiving. Mark Buehrle admited to pitching only fastballs for two innings since the lead was so large.
“If we didn’t have that big lead, it might have been a little different,” Buehrle said. “But there were two innings where I was just throwing fastballs and I was getting outs, so I’m not going to complain.”
Cubs fans on Facebook chose to drown their sorrows by pointing out how terrible the White Sox bullpen was yesterday. There were to balls that went down as hits that were both errors, one for Alex Rios and one for Lastings Milledge. Those balls lead to four runs. This is old news for those of you who’ve read my articles before, but the judgement calls on errors needs to be improved. If you subtract those four runs then the bullpen let up two.
You throw a lot of strikes when you have a big lead, and that’s what the White Sox bullpen did, it’s a shame that the defense let them down. The only one who pitched somewhat poorly was Will Ohman who let up two home runs. He pitched well for Baltimore and Florida last year, but we all know he did not perform well for the Cubs a few years ago. He’s the wild card.
Hopefully the Sox ride the momentum from game one into this afternoons game against the Tribe. Prediction, Edwin Jackson will have nine strikeouts today. Boom!
I watched the Charlie two-fer last night, duh winning! Most people remember, Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn from the hilarious baseball comedy, Major League, but do you remember Sheen as Oscar ‘Hap’ Felsch in the docudrama, Eight Men Out? Let’s get to Eight Men Out first.
This movie is very well paced and if accurate very telling of Charles Comiskey’s greed. Comiskey was the anti-Steinbrenner, not willing to open his pockets for his team at all. The bonus for making it to the World Series was flat champagne. Eddie Cicotte won 29 games for the “Black Sox” that season and went to Comiskey for a $10,000 bonus for winning 30 games. “Commie” pointed out that “29 was not 30, Eddie.”
What Eight Men Out illustrates more than anything is the arrogance of baseball players, thinking that they were above the law and would just get away with it. When the jury proudly finds the team not guilty, the eight “Black Sox” all expected to play baseball next season and win the World Series. Instead, the commissioner that the owners put in charge saw it differently and they were banned from baseball.
It’s not only and indictment of what happened in 1919, but it fits with the steroid scandal that took place in baseball a few years ago.
One of the other things that I think Eight Men Out proves is that curses do not exist. The reason I say that is shouldn’t a team that threw the World Series have been damned to baseball hell; instead the White Sox won another World Series in 2005 proving that curses are a farce or more accurately put; an excuse.
The only crime in the banning was that “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and George “Buck” Weaver were banned from baseball. They played their hearts out and were banned for being in on the meetings about throwing the Series.
Everyone’s favorite Tweeter, Charlie Sheen, is more of a supporting character in Eight Men Out, but he has a lead role in the comedy-classic, Major League.
Major League is comedy gold as sports comedies go, and definitely a baseball classic. The new owner of the Cleveland Indians wants to put together a team of has-beens and nobodies to get the attendance under 800,000 to move the team to Miami.
The phone calls that new GM, Charlie Donovan, places to players and potential manager, Lou Brown are comedy gold. I’ve probably seen the movie at least 30 times and still laugh out loud. “Hey Lou, Charlie Donovan, GM of the Cleveland Indians, how’d you like to manage the Indians this season.”
“Ah, Charlie, I don’t know let me get back to you.”
“It’s a chance to manage in the big leagues!”
“I’ve got a set of white walls to change, I’ll let you know.”
Lou Brown played by James Gannon steals the show, he’s an old school manager who’s managed the Toledo Mud Hens for 30-years. He has the best lines that always are laugh out loud. In a way, the Indians are in the same spot now as they were back in the 80’s when Major League was filmed.
Based on Sheen’s current troubles it’s kind of ironic that his character was in jail when the movie starts.
Again, as in most sports films there’s an underlining theme, and this is the cliché, “there’s a reason they play the games.” This team was assembled to lose and they win the division, not to say that any modern teams have been assembled to lose but there have been some surprises over the years.
Comedy Central is airing Major League next weekend on the 10th and 11th, I suggest you watch if you’re looking for some good laughs.
“Is this heaven?”
“No…it’s Iowa”
Those words are arguably the most famous moment of dialogue from the baseball fantasy classic, Field of Dreams. As always going into the week of Opening Day, I like to revisit some of my favorite baseball movies, at least those that I own or have Netflix streaming availability. I thought it might be worth sharing these films, as we get closer to Opening Day.
Last night I sat down and watched Field of Dreams right after I watched the Hawks beat the Wings in a playoff like hockey game.
First off, there’s more sentimental cheese in this movie than I can usually tolerate, yet somehow packaged with a historic baseball plot it makes it great. I’m not going to bore anyone with the plot of this one, because if you don’t know it then maybe you should check your pulse.
The fact that Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) is giving the “Black Sox” are chance to play ball again deserves the academy award right there, especially Shoeless Joe, who hit the only homerun of the tainted Series and batted .375. Hardly sounds like someone throwing a World Series.
The part of the movie that makes it great though isn’t all the incredible legendary baseball references, Ray helping everyone like the Jesus Christ of baseball, or the insane notion of ghostly baseball players living in someone’s corn field in Iowa; it’s that the movie is really about a son’s relationship with his father and the healing power of baseball.
I believe in the healing power of baseball as it healed me in 2005 when I had a tragic loss in my life, and it can heal you too.
That’s why Field of Dreams is one of my favorite baseball movies. It’s not my all-time favorite, I’ll get to that later this week, but it’s a great film about the greatest game ever played.
