Category: Chicago Cubs

Thankful For This Wacky Week and Land-o-Links for 11/22/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports4 Comments

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It’s been a wacky week leading up to Turkey Day, with Rupert Murdoch and Fox, of all people, coming to their collective senses for once by deciding that a special and corresponding book where O.J. Simpson goes through a “hypothetical” rendering of how he would have killed Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman is a bad idea, Michael Richards of Cosmo Kramer fame spewing out the N-word on stage over the past weekend and then gets laughed at in the middle of his apology on David Letterman, the Cubs organization opening up its wallet to sign Alfonso Soriano until he’s eligible for Social Security, the Jets attempting an onside kick at the opening of the 2nd half that didn’t work against the Bears, Northwestern attempting an onside kick at the opening of the 2nd half that worked perfectly against Illinois, an Ohio State-Michigan rematch for the national championship being a distinct possibility after a classic game on Saturday (although USC needs to lose one of its last two games, forcing the Wolverines to switch gears and having to cheer for Notre Dame this weekend), and Suri Cruise no longer has parents out of wedlock. Despite of all that, there are still plenty of links out there for your Thanksgiving weekend:

(1) Steve Milton: The Rubber Industry’s New Best Friend (Chicagoist) – At some point in my lifetime, the Guiness Book of World Records went from being a collection of outstanding human achievements such as getting to the top of Mount Everest the fastest or the having the longest long jump in international competition to morph into a freak show that honors the carnie that can cram the most piercings into his belly button. That being said, this rubber band ball is pretty sweet.

(2) Macy’s Brands the Holidays (Wall Street Journal) – The only thing that could be worse than the feeling that I had walking by the old Marshall Field’s on State Street the other day to see a bunch of red Macy’s banners all over the place is the thought of someone putting a huge spaceship in the middle of Soldier Field. Oh wait…

(3) Q and A with Will Carroll (Siberian Baseball) – Minneapolis Red Sox had a great session on the gyroball with a contributor to Baseball Prospectus.

(4) White Sox Top 10 Prospects (South Side Sox) – Speaking of baseball, here’s a summary of the top 10 prospects in the White Sox farm system.

(5) Time To Bring On Tougher Challenges (Mark Tupper Weblog) – The schedule has been pretty easy for Illini basketball so far, but it’s going to kick into high gear with games against Maryland and Arizona last week. Rich McBride looked sharp last night coming off of his suspension for impersonating a Portland Trailblazer.

(6) You’re Beautiful (Linda) – My talented sister had a show at the MFA Gallery at Montclair State (I’m not sure which exit that is in Jersey) this week. In case you were wondering, I received absolutely NONE of the artist genes that run in the family.

(7) Don’t Blame Me If You Freeze Your Ass (Chronically Insane) – Tips from Chronically Insane to keep warm during this holiday season.

(8) Bowing Down to the Golden Calf (Fleece the Pig, Flog the Pony) – Another year, another disasterous Circus Trip for the Bulls. I will never understand why Jerry Reinsdorf and Bill Wirtz don’t use their pull to get Ringling Bros. to come to the United Center during the summer when the building is empty as opposed to the very beginning of both the basketball and hockey seasons.

(9) Bush’s Daughter Robbed in Argentina (Washington Post) – A theft that’s pulled off right in front of a bunch of Secret Service agents? Now that’s something that truly deserves an entry into the Guiness Book of World Records.

Go Bears, Go Illini, Go Bulls, and Happy Thanksgiving!

(UPDATE: For even more entertainment, via a Deadspin tip, Gilbert Arenas has his own blog now and it’s highly recommended reading.)

(Image from New York Times)

The Windy City vs. The Big Apple: Examining The Rivalries

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, NHL Hockey, Sports1 Comment

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While Chicagoans hold their greatest vitriol for the Packers, we can take solace in the fact that no matter how the Bears perform, we at least get to live in what we consider to be the greatest city in the world as opposed to Green Bay. As I’ve noted before, Chicago has across-the-board pro and college sports rivalries with all of the teams in Detroit, but anyone that’s ever lived in the Windy City would never willingly move to the Motor City. (Granted, any that’s ever lived anywhere would probably not willingly move to Detroit.) There’s really only one town that Chicago is constantly comparing itself to in terms of life in general: New York City. Chicago has always competed with New York in terms of sports, pizza (as a certified pizza connoisseur, I have a deep respect for the thin slice that you can fold over, but there’s nothing that compares to the deep dish), the arts, comedians, writers, mobsters, politicians, financial markets, skyscrapers, rappers, and pretty much everything else.

Since New York holds an unparalleled place in the world’s psyche along with carrying a whole lot more sizzle, though, Chicago has a bit of an inferiority complex with its East Coast rival as displayed in the “Second City” moniker, albeit the harping about New York here is not nearly as acute as the afflictions in Boston and Philadelphia (I’ve seen firsthand how neurotic those people are towards NYC). In the age of geographic alignments of sports leagues and divisions, Chicago-New York matchups don’t take on the gravity or frequency today as they did compared to even only a decade ago, yet there’s still some glamour associated when the two largest sports fan markets in nation meet up on the field, court, or ice. (Don’t waste my time, L.A. “fans”.) Thus, in honor of the Bears’ being in the midst of two consecutive trips to the final resting place of Jimmy Hoffa, here’s a ranking of the Chicago-New York sports rivalries from top to bottom:

(1) Chicago Bulls vs. New York Knicks – Obviously, the first thing that comes to mind are the heated battles in the early-1990s between Michael Jordan’s Bulls and the Pat Riley-led Knicks, who were essentially the Bad Boy Pistons minus basketball skills other than hard fouls. While the Bulls got the best of the Knicks more times than not with several dispositions in the playoffs and Jordan’s “Double Nickel” game at Madison Sqaure Garden from his 1995 comeback (years ago, the late Gene Siskel wrote this nice retrospective on #23’s top performances at MSG) , I’ll still go to my grave believing that the MJ-less Bulls of 1994 would have made it to the NBA Finals that year if not for the egregious phantom foul call by Hue Hollins on Scottie Pippen in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals. (Only the 2000 Illinois-Michigan football game could compare in terms of me being violated by an officiating crew – Illini fans know what I’m talking about.) Outside of just those ’90s games, these two NBA franchises are amazingly intertwined in terms of players and coaches with Phil Jackson, Charles Oakley, Bill Cartwright, Jalen Rose, Eddy Curry, Jamal Crawford, Antonio Davis’ crazy wife, and, of course, John Starks (at the time of that signing, Jerry Reinsdorf obviously felt that he didn’t piss off Chicago fans enough by bringing Albert Belle into town) just off of the top of my head. Plus, Isiah Thomas was nice enough to give us the draft pick that turned into Tyrus Thomas along with the chance to grab Greg Oden next year in what could turn out to be the NBA version of the Herschel Walker trade between the Cowboys and Vikings. This rivalry is certainly in a down period with Zeke’s historic ineptitude, but I’m sure that it will rise again in the near future.

(2) Chicago Cubs vs. New York Mets – This was one of the top rivalries in the National League before the divisions were realigned following Major League Baseball’s expansion in the 1990s. The Wrigley Field Bleacher Bums were among the most frequent users of the “Dar-ryl” chant against Darryl Strawberry while the most infamous Cubs moment this side of Steve Bartman was the black cat running in front of Ron Santo at Shea Stadium in 1969, which subsequently led to Chicago’s historic collapse to give the Mets the pennant. In fact, when the Cubs challenged a proposed realignment during the 1980s that would have sent them and the Cardinals to the NL West when there were still only two divisions, the Tribune Company cited the team’s rivalry with the Mets as the main factor. (The fact that West Coast road games would start at 9:30 Central Time on WGN was only a minor consideration, right?) While the two teams have suffered a number of of poor seasons over the past decade, the eventual three-division realignment is what really took a lot of the steam out of this rivalry. Still, there seems to be a bit of mutual disdain between the two clubs and fan bases that isn’t quite there with my White Sox and the Yankees (as I’ll explain later).

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(3) Chicago Bears vs. New York Giants – A classic old-time NFL matchup that, in my opinion, the league ought to be scheduling every year the way they currently have the Colts-Patriots annual tilt or the 49ers-Cowboys games from the past. Seeing that these are marquee teams with national fan bases from the two largest media markets in the NFL, it’s a no-brainer on paper. There’s a substantial amount of history between these two franchises, particularly in the pre-Super Bowl days when the clubs met six separate times for the NFL Championship (which is still the most any two teams have met in the title game including Super Bowls). Of course, the most memorable Bears-Giants moment from my lifetime, however, was the infamous whiffed punt by Sean Lendetta in the 1985 NFC Divisional Playoff Game (if anyone has found footage of this on YouTube, please let me know) that the Bears returned for a touchdown en route to 21-0 shutout.

(A couple of notes on this past Sunday’s Bears-Giants game: (a) Rex Grossman has certainly been on and off, but I don’t believe that it compares to the schizophrenic play of Devin Hester. The Bears punt returner seriously either fumbles/muffs/runs backwards for a loss or takes it all the way back to the house – there’s seriously no in between. I was cursing his performance all game, which he thereupon ran back a missed field goal for that tied for the longest play in NFL history, which is amazingly held by another Bear in Nathan Vasher. Hester’s like the Kirsten Dunst of football; and (b) The way that Eli Manning was shell-shocked to the point where he threw an interception right back to Bears in the series after that Hester touchdown, thereby sealing the game, cannot be much of a comfort to Giants fans. Rex was on the ascent by the end of the third quarter after playing a horrible first half while Eli got progressively worse as the night went on.)

(4) Chicago White Sox vs. New York Yankees – I always like to compare the Yankees with the Michigan Wolverines in terms of rivalries since, just as everyone in the Big Ten considers Michigan to be a huge rival, all of the American League teams circle the New York games on their respective schedules. However, Michigan really only considers Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Michigan State to be rivalry matchups, while the Yankees limit their emotions to the Red Sox and Mets. The point here is that White Sox fans (and I am most definitely one of them) might put a great deal of importance on the games with the Yankees, but I know well enough that this feeling certainly isn’t reciprocated. This was certainly different in the 1950s and 1960s when the Sox and Yankees were perennially battling each other for the AL pennant (with the Sox on the short end every time with the exception of 1959), yet in this age where the two teams rarely play more than six games per year due to the unbalanced scheduling in baseball, it’s unlikely this matchup is going to be much of a rivalry again unless they start meeting in the postseason on a regular basis.

(5) Chicago Blackhawks vs. New York Rangers – I’ll freely admit that I know little past the basics of hockey, but, as I’ve mentioned before in my Modest Proposal to Save the NHL, I do have to take issue with the fact that the NHL has essentially ignored its “Original Six” rivalries ever since they stopped using those wacky names for conferences and divisions. Thus, in the infinite wisdom of league schedulers, the Blackhawks and Rangers played each other only once last year and will play against one another only one time this season. Instead, Hawks fans get to enjoy plenty of tilts with the Columbus Blue Jackets (at least when they aren’t being blacked out on television in Chicago). So, this once great matchup sadly barely registers anywhere anymore.

And finally…

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(6) Chicago Cubs vs. New York Yankees – This isn’t a rivalry at all other than being baseball fans’ (if not everyone’s) universal benchmarks for failure and success and a Fox executive’s wet dream of a postseason matchup, but it’s an opportunity to remind Cubs fans that Babe Ruth’s alleged called shot came at Wrigley Field against the Chicago National League Ball Club in the 1932 World Series. Ahhh… it’s great to be a White Sox fan.

(Images from SportsWall, Cubbies Baseball, Baseball Myths)

Land-o-Links – 10/27/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Politics, Random Thoughts, SportsLeave a comment

The long Bears bye week is finally over. Until Sunday’s game, there’s a smorgasbord of links to start your weekend off right, so let’s get to it:

1) The Marques Colston Travesty (Manning Family Reunion) – I make no apologies for noticing this glitch after Week 1 and immediately picking up Colston for my Yahoo fantasy football team to exploit it. You snooze, you lose.

2) We Have Ways Of Making Your Mascot Talk (Deadspin) – A warning for all of my family members that attended or are attending Penn: this video is a bit disturbing.

3) “The Running of the Brides” (Linda) – My sister was caught on TV this past weekend (it’s one her friends that’s the future bride).

4) Portland Trail Blazers Get Hint After Being Left Off 2006-07 NBA Schedule (The Onion) – Last year, I saw a bunch of Trail Blazers walk into the Las Vegas casino I was staying in at the time. Let’s just say that it was like Grand Theft Auto, only in real life with really tall guys.

5) Slabs Are Joining Scoops in Ice Cream Retailing (New York Times) – Cold Stone Creamery rules.

6) Tom Skilling Gets Out of Jury Duty (Chicagoist) – His brother knows a thing or two about criminal courtrooms.

7) Fire Jay Mariotti (Petition Spot) – Sign me up.

8) That’s Where The Money Is (Free Darko) – Here’s a big reason why I’m excited for the upcoming Bulls season that’s starting on Halloween night.

9) Ray-Ban Hopes to Party Like It’s 1983 By Relaunching Its Wayfarer Shades (Wall Street Journal) – Remember when this fashion trend was cemented by this commentary on the University of Illinois by our favorite Scientologist?

10) Harold Ford Jr. On His Playboy Party (YouTube) – Even by today’s lowlife standards, the Tennessee Senate race has been particularly ugly. Fortunately, Harold Ford Jr. perfectly summed up his reasons for attending a Playboy Party at the Super Bowl last year. Amen, brother!

11) The Cubs Might Kill This Man (Siberian Baseball) – Take it from someone that’s a White Sox fan: hiring Lou Piniella as manager was the right move for the Cubs. I know that there was a sentiment out there to bring in hometown hero Joe Girardi, but savvy baseball fans know that you don’t get much better than Piniella at the helm. The franchise has been putzing around since 1908, so the least that it could have done for its tortured fan base was get the top manager on the market, which it certainly did here.

12) Outside of Michigan and Missouri, Series Taking Hits (MLive.com) – Mike and Mike had some ominous words this morning stating that the game of baseball is in real trouble if the only time people tune into the playoffs are when the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, or Dodgers are involved. For what it’s worth, I’m trying to figure out exactly what deal Tony LaRussa made with the devil to give the Cardinals a 3-1 lead over the Tigers in the World Series heading into tonight.

And speaking of the World Series…

13) Indelible Soxtober Snapshots (Chicago Tribune) – One year ago yesterday, I was basking in the glow of the first White Sox World Series Championship since 1917 in the comfort of my home with my wife. What made that Sox season magical was that, unlike the ’85 Bears, the Bulls dynasty of the ’90s, or the ’05 Illinois Final Four run, it truly came out of the blue: I had no expectations for the team whatsoever at the beginning of last year. In fact, I was pretty convinced that I would never see the White Sox win it all in my lifetime. Fortunately, the magic of Ozzie Guillen’s signaling for the fat man from the bullpen, Paul Konerko’s grand slam, Scott Podsednik finding his power stroke twice in the postseason after not hitting a single homerun during the regular season, Geoff Blum coming off of the bench to hit a game-winning RBI after 14 innings, El Duque punching out three straight batters with the bases loaded against the Red Sox, the White Sox starting rotation pitching four straight complete games in the ALCS, A.J. Pierzynksi’s decision to run to first with a phantom ball in the dirt, and Bobby Jenks routinely making that annoying “fire” graphic come up on the Fox radar gun to close the games out made last October one of those months that I’ll be telling my kids about years from now. As for today, though, there’s always next year.

New Features on Frank the Tank’s Slant and Land-o-Links for 10/23/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, College Football, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, Random Thoughts, Sports2 Comments

There are a few new features on the sidebar, including The Slant Poll of the Week that aims to capture the pulse of the winners of society that read this blog and lists of Recent Posts and the Top Posts of the Day. Later this week, I’ll step away from the world of sports and news to recap my 10-year high school reunion. (Hooray HF!) Until then, here are some links:

1) Give Me Back the Old Iron Mike, The Wordsmith (Chi-Sox Blog) – A heartfelt call for the return of the preeminent public speaker of our time. For those that need a reminder of the brilliance of Mike Tyson, here’s his magnum opus.

2) Fantasy Sports? Child’s Play. Here, Politics Is The Game (New York Times) – I enjoy discussing politics more than most people, but I’ve got to draw the line here.

3) Obama vs. Clinton – A Primary Fight for the Ages? (Washington Post) – Speaking of politics, people are going a little overboard with Barack Obama merely mentioning that he’s thought about running for President. I’ve said before that 2008 would be a great time for him to run, but it’s not as if though yesterday’s Meet the Press interview was some grand revelation that has justified being the lead story of virtually every newscast and newspaper in the country.

4) Dartmouth – Holy Cross Football “Brawl” (YouTube) – Forget about that Miami-FIU fight. This is what happens when the dregs of society don’t get into Harvard or Yale.

5) Egg Salad Is Latest Food To Be Found Contaminated (Chicagoist) – This is why your diet should consist of only frozen pizza, bacon, and Twinkies.

6) MILF Weed (YouTube) – I don’t have Showtime so I haven’t gotten into “Weeds” yet, but this is a great clip with my main man Snoop Dogg.

And finally…

7) The Cubs Casket (Goat Riders of the Apocalypse) – The Cubs finally killed him. Thank goodness that I’m a White Sox fan.

Land-o-Links – 7/21/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, Soccer, Sports1 Comment

I’m not happy with the performance of the White Sox lately at all. If this keeps up, we might be worrying a lot more about the AL wild card contenders behind us right now than Detroit. Well, at least there are some links to take away attention from the slumping Sox:

1) Making Money in Basketball (Blog Maverick) – Mark Cuban’s suggestion on how to build a successful minor league basketball franchise: pay off high school kids… seriously. While his “business plan” here starts with this unfathomable leap, he does make an excellent point as to how European basketball teams make their serious profits from the buyout clauses of the players that they develop that go on to the NBA and that there’s no reason that an American minor league club couldn’t do the same. The Wall Street Journal had an article a couple of weeks ago about how the reverse of this money flow occurs in the soccer world, where European soccer clubs will pay large “transfer rights” to Latin American clubs for the top players that they develop, which are completely separate from the actual playing contracts for those players (it’s a virtual stock market regarding the value of soccer players, which is why the Journal reported that hedge funds have been getting into the action). In the case of superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, Manchester United paid his old club in Portugal $19.2 million for his transfer rights. Something tells me that the Pistons paid a bit less for the rights to Darko Milicic (although I could be very wrong in that thought).

2) Scientists Plan to Rebuild Neanderthal Genome (New York Times) – They’re exclusively using DNA samples from Patrick Ewing and Bill Laimbeer.

3) Ex-Village People Singer Answers Charges (Los Angeles Times) – You knew it had to be the cop, right? By the way, it might be just me, but I always have an internal chuckle at every wedding that I attend where all of the grandmothers are whooping it up to “YMCA” since it’s obvious that they have absolutely no clue what that song is about.

4) Remini Held Suri Cruise During L.A. Visit (Washington Post) – There still hasn’t been any denial that this baby is an alien cyborg. Hmmmm….

5) Quite Frankly, Baker Bails Out (Chicago Tribune) – A number of Cubs bloggers received emails that appeared to come from the producers of Stephen A. Smith’s show on ESPN, urging them to join the studio audience during a Dusty Baker interview and boo him. Smith stated that he believed it was a hoax and then blamed Deadspin for all of this. Of course, Deadspin has a nice retort to Stephen A’s accusations.

And finally…

6) Pennsylvania Man, 80, Admits Dealing Crack for Sex (San Francisco Chronicle) – On that note, have a great weekend!

Chi-Town vs. Motown: Rivalries Across the Board

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, NHL Hockey, Sports8 Comments

Dennis Rodman. Ben Wallace. John Salley. Magglio Ordonez. Al Simmons. Chris Chelios. Erik Kramer. Bobby Layne. All of these prominent sports figures from past and present have one thing in common: they have played for teams in both Chicago and Detroit during their careers. Chicago sports teams might have individual rivals from cities other than Detroit such as the Green Bay Packers and St. Louis Cardinals that are more pronounced. However, Chicago and Detroit are linked by having geographically defined and historic rivalries in every sport across the board whether it’s in the professional or college (when taking into account the Big Ten plus Notre Dame) ranks. Not even New York vs. Boston (they have the pro sports covered, but you couldn’t pay enough money to the average person on the street to watch Rutgers play Boston College in anything on the college front) or Los Angeles vs. San Francisco (L.A. doesn’t have an NFL team while the Bay Area only has a quasi-NBA franchise in the Warriors) have sets of sports rivalries that run as wide and deep as Chicago vs. Detroit. With the important series between the White Sox and Tigers (the Sox took game 1 last night after a marvelous performance by Jon Garland) occurring this week, here’s my ranking of the top Chicago vs. Detroit rivalries taking into account history and present fervor:

1) Bulls vs. Pistons – As I’ve stated before, the Bad Boy Pistons were the first team I ever had pure hatred for during my childhood. During the late-1980s and early-1990s, this was the most heated rivalry in all of sports with annual nationally televised Christmas Day matchups at the old Chicago Stadium and inevitable meetings in the NBA Playoffs, coming to a peak when the Pistons walked off of the court after being eliminated by the Bulls in 1991 without even acknowledging Michael Jordan and his team. The rivalry subsided when the Bulls, during their 1990s dynasty, eventually found new foils in the Knicks and Pacers and then the Pistons rose back to dominance after the start of the new millennium right when Chicago went into the cellar. However, with Ben Wallace defecting from a Motown fan base that loved him to go to Chicago out of all places (the basketball equivalent of Johnny Damon spurning the Red Sox for the Yankees), these two franchises are going to be rekindling that old hatred this season and beyond.

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2) Notre Dame vs. Michigan – Michigan fans will tell you that while Ohio State, without question, is their biggest rival, they save their harshest vitriol for the Irish. At the same time, even though Domers count USC as their most important game of the season, there’s a certain respect for the Trojans in contrast to the pure hatred for the Wolverines. Notre Dame and Michigan are the two winningest programs in college football history with fight songs that are beaten into everyone’s heads, whether or not they care one iota about these teams, from birth. When you add in the pompous fans on both sides, the only thing comparable to this game is watching the Yankees play themselves in an intrasquad game: you hope there’s a way that both teams can lose. Regardless of how much I might hate these teams, the college football season really doesn’t start until Notre Dame plays Michigan in September.

(Sidenote: I really wish I could put Illinois vs. Michigan on this list, but I’ve learned over time that the “rivalry” is completely one-sided with my Illini brethren. Now, the most emotionally scarring sports moment that I have ever witnessed at an event that I actually attended was the 2000 Illinois – Michigan football game, where the Illini had the game stolen by the Big Ten referees who, with less than four minutes left in the game with Illinois ahead, incorrectly called a fumble by Illinois’ Rocky Harvey when he was actually down and then seconds later inexplicably didn’t call a fumble on Michigan’s Anthony Thomas when he dropped the ball when his knees weren’t anywhere near close to the ground. Michigan would go on to score the winning touchdown on that drive. The errors were so egregious that the Big Ten issued an unprecedented apology to Illinois a couple of days later and spurred the conference to begin using instant replay. What happened in Champaign that Saturday evening wasn’t a case of heartbreak a la Illinois losing in the 2005 NCAA Championship Game. Instead, it was probably the only time I’ve ever felt completely violated after watching a sporting event. To say the least, my disdain for Michigan peaked at that point.

However, when I went to law school at DePaul, the two undergraduate schools that matriculated the most students there by a substantial margin were Illinois and Michigan. Everytime I spewed my anger toward the Maize and Blue, my Michigan alum classmates were sincerely and genuinely perplexed. They had absolutely no feelings toward playing us whatsoever. In fact, a number of them upon moving to Chicago even started cheering for Illinois when they weren’t playing Michigan. They simply didn’t think about us at all as any sort of rival – we might as well have been Northern Illinois. While learning about this apathy was initially even more enraging from a personal standpoint, it also made me realize that Illinois vs. Michigan was a fictional rivalry and we, as Illini fans, look pretty petty into making the matchup into something more than what it actually is. This is now so apparent across the Big Ten that the Michigan Daily even had an article a couple of years ago examining how much we hate them in contrast to their ambivalence toward us. From that point on, I decided that if I was going to hate a team that really wasn’t a true rival of the Illini, I’d redirect more of my sports rage toward someone outside of the Big Ten: Duke. Of course, that’s not to say that I won’t continue to drop “Muck Fichigan” lines at every opportunity.)

3) Bears vs. Lions – In 1934, the Detroit Lions began their tradition of playing on every Thanksgiving Day by matching up against the Chicago Bears. When examining longevity and frequency, only the Packers are bigger rivals to the Bears than the Lions. While in terms of sporting excellence this rivalry has seen better days, the Bears and Lions are, year-in and year-out regardless of records, the most important franchises in their respective cities. So, as we wait for Matt Millen to put together an offensive formation that features one quarterback and ten wide receivers, we can appreciate the history between these two NFL teams along with the passionate fan bases that they bring to the table.

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4) Blackhawks vs. Red Wings – As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this rivalry once would have been the clear and undisputed #1 on this list. However, this matchup is looking more like Illinois vs. Michigan as opposed to Bulls vs. Pistons with every inept team that the Blackhawks trot out on the ice. Still, there’s incredible history here, from their mutual status as Original Six franchises to the Bobby Hull vs. Gordie Howe boxing matches.

5) Illinois vs. Michigan State – A continually growing college basketball rivalry that is based more on excellence as opposed to bad blood. When looking at the Big Ten over the past decade, these two programs have perennially been at the top of the conference, which makes their annual matchups that much more important. For the record, if I had to pick the one head coach in college basketball other than Bruce Weber that I respect and admire over everyone else, it would definitely be the Spartans’ Tom Izzo.

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6) White Sox vs. Tigers – This season, these two teams are battling for supremacy in the American League. I’ve got to rank this rivalry at #6, however, because they have spent the last one hundred seasons as pretty lackluster franchises. It wasn’t very long ago that the Tigers were battling to avoid losing 120 games in a season, while the White Sox finally broke an 88-year World Series championship drought in 2005. If these two clubs can sustain some success over multiple seasons after this year, then we’ll have another true rivalry on our hands.

And finally…

7) Cubs vs. Tigers – This isn’t a real rivalry at all, but it serves me with an opportunity to remind my readers that are Cubs fans that your team (a) hasn’t won a World Series since 1908, when they defeated none other than the Detroit Tigers in five games and (b) hasn’t won a National League pennant since 1945, when they then lost to the Detroit Tigers in the World Series in the maximum seven games. The Circle of Life continues (as well as the Curse of the Billy Goat).

(Images from Pistons.com, Beckett.com, Beckett.com, FightingIllini.com)

Oops! I Screwed Up – Corrections for 7/13/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Major League Baseball, Random Thoughts, Sports1 Comment

Every once in awhile, Frank the Tank’s Slant unintentionally prints erroneous information and is not able to update it within a reasonable amount of time. Unlike the vaunted New York Times, which buries its corrections in the middle of the obituaries section, this blog will devote an entire post on its front page from time-to-time to rectify its unaddressed errors. Please review the following:

1) In the Land-o-Links – 6/15/2006 post, Frank the Tank’s Slant reported that the opening line for the new Jay-Z/Beyonce song is “I used to run the bases like Juan Pierre”, which is incorrect. Instead, the opening line is actually “I used to run base like Juan Pierre”, where “base” is a reference to free base cocaine, A.K.A. crack. Frank the Tank’s Slant sincerely regrets the error and apologizes to Shawn Carter A.K.A. Jay-Z A.K.A. Jigga A.K.A. Hova. This blog should have known better.

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2) In the 2006 American League Preview post, Frank the Tank’s Slant has managed to bungle every prediction as of this year’s All-Star Break. While this blog stands by its predictions and will not issue a full retraction unless it is warranted at the conclusion of the Major League Baseball season, Frank the Tank’s Slant sincerely regrets influencing anyone that would have been intoxicated enough to actually base wagers on such predictions.

3) In the 2006 National League Preview post, please see all of the comments for the 2006 American League Preview above, except that this blog will issue a full retraction of its idiotic and insane prediction regarding the Chicago Cubs immediately (and please note that the prediction was made by a diehard White Sox fan, which makes this whole situation completely unacceptable).

A special non-sports post is on tap for tomorrow that everyone can relate to. Until then, enjoy your Thursday!

(Image from Wikipedia)

Land-o-Links – 6/20/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, SportsLeave a comment

Huge sports night is on tap with Game 6 of the NBA Finals and White Sox vs. Cardinals. Until then, here are today's links:

1) Cursing (Blog Maverick) – I vacillate between sincerely respecting Mark Cuban's passion for life on the one hand and wondering how someone who still can't properly use "your" versus "you're" can become one of the richest people in the world on the other hand.

By the way, Chicago quite possibly has the most boring set of sports team owners anywhere. Jerry Reinsdorf is a noted recluse, the Tribune Company is a faceless corporation, the McCaskey family hasn't appeared anywhere since hiring Jerry Angelo to run the Bears, and Bill Wirtz is too busy peddling bottles of booze to realize that he also owns a hockey team. In contrast, take a look at Dallas. If Tom Hicks, who as owner of the Texas Rangers signed A-Rod to a contract worth a quarter of a billion dollars, lived in any other city, he would be considered that nutty, crazy, and wacky guy that is always trying to get his name into the paper. However, he's only a distant third on the insanity scale in Dallas behind Cuban and Jerry Jones. Just a random observation.

(Update: Cuban actually sounds somewhat rational in his latest post regarding whether the NBA is rigged. The lack of proper punctuation, however, is still there.)

(2nd Update: Bill Simmons reiterates his theory on NBA referee assignments.)

2) Let Us Now Read From the Book of Dwyane (Deadspin) – I'm really just linking to this because of the picture. Although I picked the Mavericks to win the NBA Finals and I still believe that they will pull out the last two games in Dallas, I have to admit that I have a man crush on Dwyane Wade. He's real and he's spectacular.

3) Capitalist Rap (Forbes) – 50 Cent is obviously selling a whole lot of that purple stuff. He also performed a Don King-style fleecing of Mike Tyson.

4) No Hugs for Piven at Wrigley (Chicago Tribune) – A nice treat for all of those fathers that spent the day with their kids at the Cubs game on Sunday.

And finally…

5) Business Dreams Turn Sour (Chicagoist) – Forget about the increase in gang activity. There's now been an uptick in illicit lemonade stand trafficking. It looks like the South Side has followed me to Naperville.

Land-o-Links – 6/15/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, Random Thoughts, Sports3 Comments

I almost crashed my car earlier this week when I heard the new Jay-Z/Beyonce song, where Jigga's opening line is, "I used to run the bases like Juan Pierre." Well, judging by how well he has played this season, we can note that Juan Pierre also used to run the bases like Juan Pierre but doesn't do so anymore. As your resident White Sox fan, I'm pleading mea culpa to my misguided remarks before the season that I would rather take Pierre over Scott Podsednik as a leadoff man. Alas, this brings up an important question – is it more impressive that Jay-Z name-drops Pierre in a song or that Scotty Pods is married to a Playboy Playmate? Feel free to leave your comments on this issue as well as today's links:

1) Celebrity Sports Fan Rankings (ESPN.com) – Speaking of Jay-Z, Hova as partial-owner of the Nets comes in at #6 on this list. Our Chicago reps are Bill Murray (the one guy I really wish was a fellow Sox fan is #9 for the Cubs), Eddie Vedder (interesting choice for the Bulls at #11), Jim Belushi (really stretching the definition of celebrity at #29 for the Blackhawks), George Wendt (a shame that he is ranked lower than the less talented Belushi brother at #35 for the Bears) and Da Mayor himself, Richard Daley (appropriate comment by ESPN at #43 for the White Sox). Overall, it's a pretty legit list, although the stunning choice for the Yankees (whom after the Lakers, should have had the pick of the litter in star power) gave me that vomit-in-the-back-of-the-throat taste in my mouth while Jon Bon Jovi and Usher were not given their proper due whatsoever here.

(Update: Also, where is Lil' Jon?)

liljon_041106_7.jpg
2) Jay-Z Shelves Cristal at 40/40 Club, Urges Boycott (AllHipHop.com) – Once again speaking of Jay-Z and following up on a report from last week, our Roc-A-Fella Records founder doesn't care for the French, either.

3) Bush Received Weapons Cache From King of Jordan (The Smoking Gun) – Complete list of gifts from foreign leaders to President Bush during 2004. I didn't realize Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia was such a huge Cowboys fan.

4) At Tribune, a Call for a Split (New York Times) – Maybe the Cubs will be sold after all.

5) Sox Pitcher Dismissed After Miss (Chicago Sun-Times) – After Suge Knight, Ozzie Guillen is the last person in the world that you want to cross.

And finally…

6) How Much is Your Blog Worth? (Business Opportunities Weblog) (submitted by Minneapolis Red Sox) – For all of my fellow bloggers out there, be sure to check out how much your blog is worth based on your Technorati link count and the AOL-Weblogs deal. If you would like to pay the current market value of $5,645.40 for Frank the Tank's Slant, please contact me ASAP. I'm nothing if not a capitalist.

(Photo from Atlanta Thrashers.com)

A Tale of Two Managers

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Major League Baseball, SportsLeave a comment

Let's see if you can match up the following actual quotes from this past Sunday with the appropriate Chicago baseball manager:

1) Manager A: "We have to get better as a team… It's not about individuals. We have to get better with the little things."

2) Manager B: "I'm proud of how the team battled back, especially the way things have been going… We don't quit."

Interestingly, Manager A's remarks came after his team won 7-5 and continues to roll on with the second-best record in all of baseball. In contrast, Manager B's quotes were in the wake of his team losing its sixth game in a row by giving up a franchise record 8 home runs in a single game and their third baseman letting a routine pop-up bounce off of his head that allowed a Braves player onto base (who would subsequently score Atlanta's winning run). Is there any wonder why Ozzie Guillen (Manager A) is the most beloved coach in Chicago history this side of Mike Ditka while Dusty Baker (Manager B) is questioning whether he's going to still have a job by the All-Star break?

I'll be the first to admit that the Cubs' problems run a whole lot deeper than Dusty Baker. There are the injury problems, the naive belief over the offseason by Jim Hendry that there wouldn't be injury problems, and the lack of financial commitment by the Tribune Company to spend the money that is commiserate with a franchise that draws over 40,000 fans a game. However, Dusty's attitude that he and his team are merely the victims of bad luck doesn't address why he doesn't bench a veteran such as Neifi Perez when he drops a cut-off throw and airmails a ball over the catcher's head… on the same fucking play! I wouldn't expect Dusty to yell and scream when it's not in his nature to do so, but I do expect him to hold his players accountable rather than constantly giving them free passes.

In contrast again, when the White Sox looked complacent for a moment and lost only two games in a row, Ozzie was right there to wake them up with a profanity-laced tirade. Guess what happened afterwards: the Sox have come back and bashed in runs for two straight wins. Even after that success, Ozzie still believes that the team needs to have more practices regarding fundamentals when they get back home.

Ozzie has instilled the attitude that nothing is taken for granted on the South Side. His team knows that they need to go balls-out everyday or else they're going to be sitting on the bench. Dusty, however, still thinks this is just an unfortunate stretch for the Cubs. The problem is that this unfortunate stretch has lasted over 98 years, so Cubs fans have the right to be losing their collective patience.