Category: Chicago White Sox

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)

Land-o-Links – 7/18/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, DePaul Blue Demons, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, Random Thoughts, Sports3 Comments

Have the Mets stopped scoring on the Cubs yet? All jokes aside, my White Sox didn’t fare any better against the other New York team this weekend. The three game sweep at the hands of the Yankees makes the series beginning tonight against the Tigers a pivotal point in the season. I still don’t quite believe in Detroit because of their inexperience, but I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention that the baseball world didn’t think the Sox were for real until the last out of the World Series last season. In fact, the 2004 Red Sox are the only World Series winners of the last five years that really had any “big game” experience prior to their championship season. Until tonight’s game, here are the links for the day:

1) The True Nature of Bo’s Tecmo Dominance (Deadspin) – The Big Three of Old School Nintendo: Mario in “Super Mario Bros.”, Link in “The Legend of Zelda”, and Bo Jackson in “Tecmo Bowl”.

(Update: Per TK, the Bo Jackson footage was from Tecmo Super Bowl as opposed to Tecmo Bowl. The original Tecmo Bowl didn’t use NFL teams or players.)

2) Oprah: I’m Not Gay (Washington Post) – Crisis averted for American males: there will not be an Oprah/Rosie love child.

3) The Deal-Breakers (Chicago Tribune) – Rationally, to paraphrase the former Hollywood magnate Samuel Goldwyn, I believe that verbal commitments aren’t worth the paper that they’re written on, so I can’t really be shocked by this or play the “unethical” card here. Emotionally, however, if Kelvin Sampson and Indiana somehow steal Eric Gordon from Illinois, my hatred for the Hoosiers would catapult them past Duke and the Packers on my personal list of the most evil teams in all of sports (and that’s akin to switching the order of the Ten Commandments for me). If you’re not up for a couple of rants per week on this blog for the next umpteen years about how Sampson is the Anti-Christ, you absolutely do not want this to happen.

4) DePaul Big East Basketball Opponents for 2006-07 (DePaul Blue Demons) – Having two games apiece against Notre Dame and St. John’s is a good thing. However, what’s up with South Florida (who I don’t believe should have ever been invited to the Big East) appearing twice on the schedule instead of traditional rival Marquette? That’s not very cool. All in all, I have some doubts as to whether DePaul is going to have enough to get to the NCAA Tournament next season since the tough Big East gauntlet is coupled with a brutal non-conference schedule with home games against Kansas (speaking of a school with a coach that is the Anti-Christ), Wake Forest, and California, along with a trip to the Maui Classic that will feature Kentucky, Memphis, UCLA, and Oklahoma.

5) Chicago Weighs New Prohibition: Bad-for-You Fats (New York Times) – If Ed Burke had read my list of Chicago buffets from last week, he never would have proposed such a clamp on the joys of humanity. Do we live in Russia or something?

6) Never Say Never (Chicagoist) – See, Naperville isn’t such a bad place to live! However, I do remember seeing the noted T-shirt being sold around the corner from my old apartment in the city right before my wife and I made the move out west.

And finally…

7) Snoop Dogg Planning West Cost Dominance (AllHipHop.com) – Tell us what you really think about non-West Coast rappers shooting videos in your ‘hood, Snoop.

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 – 7/12/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago White Sox, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, Random Thoughts, SportsLeave a comment

It wasn’t exactly an exciting All-Star Game up until there were 2 outs in the 9th inning last night, but it was nice to see the American League clinch home-field advantage for their pennant winner, who will hopefully be the White Sox. By the way, I really can’t stand the fact that Bud Selig decided to use an exhibition game to determine home-field advantage for the game’s championship as opposed to using the individual records of the teams involved like every other sport. However, I’ve got to admit I was on edge when Michael Young had 2 strikes on him in the top of the 9th as well as when Mariano Rivera was closing it out at the bottom – this really did have true implications for AL manager Ozzie Guillen and my White Sox in the future. It was artificially created and completely unfair drama, but it was drama nonetheless. Anyway, here are today’s links:

1) New Gender Divide: At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust (New York Times) – Case study used: a comparison of the performances of Frank the Tank and his wife at the University of Illinois.

2) In Tijuana, the Real ‘Nacho Libre’ (Washington Post) – The happiest place on Earth!

3) Shock and Gone (Chicago Tribune) – I have never listened to Mancow with any regularity, but I do remember back in high school when he announced one morning that he was going to pay for all of the customers at a Homewood gas station around the corner from my childhood home, which caused the worse traffic jam that has ever been seen in the South Suburbs (and with the perpetual construction surrounding the I-80/I-294 interchange heading into Indiana, AKA “The I-PASS Lane to the Gates of Hell”, that’s saying something).

4) Sports Bars May Be Left With Shania, ‘Simpsons’ (Chicago Sun-Times) – It’s the day after the All-Star Game, which means it’s also the worst day of the year for sports fans.

And finally…

5) Awkward Moments Abound in Penis Pump Trial (San Francisco Chronicle) – Our nation’s justice system at work.

The Battle of the Sox That Wouldn’t End

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago White Sox, Golf, Major League Baseball, Soccer, Sports1 Comment

On a day where Italy bested France on penalty kicks to win the World Cup and the Chicago area hosted a PGA Tour event (following up on my diatribe on this subject a few months ago, Rick Morrissey beautifully tore a new one into the PGA president for dropping the Western Open and rotating the tournament out of Chicago every other year starting in 2007) and a NASCAR race (pretty boy Jeff Gordon took the checkered flag in the USG Sheetrock 400) within a few miles of each other, the White Sox and Red Sox engaged in a 19-inning game that brought to the forefront a lot of issues for the second-half of the baseball season. A few thoughts heading into the All-Star break (no White Sox or Cubs games until Friday???):

1) The Pair of Sox Are Baseball’s Best – At the beginning of the year, I had about as much faith in Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett holding up for the entire season as I did in Mark Prior and Kerry Wood (who might be done forever) doing the same, which is the reason why I had picked Boston to finish behind both the Yankees and Blue Jays in the AL East. Well, it turns out that Schilling and Beckett haven’t broken down while the Bosox have solved their closer problems (Minneapolis Red Sox had a nice post last week on what makes a quality closer) with the emergence of Jonathan Papelbon (save for Jermaine Dye’s line drive rocket out of the park with 2 outs in the 9th to bring the White Sox back to life yesterday). With their pitching staff largely in order and possibly the strongest batting lineup from top to bottom in baseball, the Red Sox look like they are in better shape this season than they were when they won it all in 2004.

Meanwhile, the White Sox are bashing the ball on offense a lot better than last season, but the pitching staff has taken a step back. Bobby Jenks, of all people, has become the most stabilizing and consistent force off the mound for the ball club. The White Sox starting rotation hasn’t been clicking on all cylinders for quite awhile despite the fact that Jose Contreras hasn’t lost a decision since last August. Contreras has continued to be a rock, but the consistency from game-to-game for the rest of the starters has been lacking so far. Fortunately, the superior depth that the White Sox have in this spot means that they have a great chance to rectify this in the second half. I’m more considered about the middle relievers, who, outside of Neal Cotts, continue to fail to inspire confidence in me. That’s the area that I’m looking for Kenny Williams to shore up prior to the trade deadline. Still, we’re in a great spot here. I don’t think the White Sox have been playing up to par pitching-wise at all, yet they still have the second-best record in baseball.

Regardless, this weekend’s White Sox-Red Sox tilt was a possible ALCS preview with a look at the top two teams in the game at this time (the Tigers are just mercilous with their continued winning, but until they beat the White Sox head-to-head in a series, they’ve got a gaping hole on their resume). For that matter, if we took a combination of the top starting position players from just the White Sox and Red Sox and put them up against the starters from the National League All-Star Game, the only spot where I believe the NL would have an advantage would be at first base with Albert Pujols (and even there, a combined Sox team wouldn’t be giving up much at all with Paul Konerko or one of the virtual first basemen of David Ortiz or Jim Thome). The Red Sox took the weekend overall, but the White Sox winning a marathon game with two separate comebacks has got to have some carry-over effect the next time these two clubs meet in September at Fenway Park.

2) The White Sox Aren’t a Small Ball Team and Never Have Been – During the White Sox playoff run last season, there was a myth propogated by the national media that the team engaged in “small ball” or a bastardized version call “Ozzie Ball” that was the antithesis of the Moneyball philosophy advanced by Oakland’s Billy Beane and his follower Theo Epstein in Boston. This seemed to become the conventional wisdom despite the fact that the White Sox were fourth in the American League in home runs last season with higher power totals than the perceived-to-be-stronger-on-offense Red Sox.  I guess the media forgot that teams other than the Red Sox and Yankees actually existed in the American League, so they went and continue to go overboard in attempting to differentiate the White Sox.

All of this wouldn’t bother me if the White Sox themselves didn’t buy into this myth and just realize that they win a lot more of their games by Moneyball-esque power than by small ball. Instead, we get situations such as the bottom of the 17th inning yesterday. At that time, the White Sox had runners at first and second with nobody out and all they needed was one run to score to win the ballgame. It’s perfectly smart baseball to lay down a sacrifice bunt to move a runner who wouldn’t reasonably be able to steal from first base to scoring position. However, I’m not a fan of attempting a sac bunt when there is: (a) a man already in scoring position, (b) an advantageous 2-0 count in favor of the hitter, or (c) two strikes on the hitter. All of this occurred in the same at-bat by Tadahito Iguchi in that 17th inning, who ended up popping out straight to the pitcher on an attempted bunt with two strikes on him. Of course, the White Sox then grounded into a double play after that to kill the potential for a win in that inning. Fortunately, Iguchi redeemed himself by hitting the game-winning single in the 19th.

The point here is that the White Sox are not a small ball team and, therefore, shouldn’t try to act like a small ball team. If a guy is already in scoring position, the team has good enough hitters where a bunt has more of a chance to hurt them than to help. This is the only thing that Ozzie Guillen does as a field general that I have any criticism over.

3) Player to Dye For – Jermaine Dye was the MVP for the White Sox yesterday with both his bat with a 2-out 9th inning homer to tie the game and glove with an outstanding catch to prevent possibly a triple by the White Sox. For that matter, he has been the MVP for the White Sox for this entire first half of the season. If a World Series MVP could ever be underrated, Dye would fit the bill. While Jim Thome has certainly electrified the crowds at U.S. Cellular Field with his moonshot home runs, Paul Konerko gets the “Paulie” chants, and A.J. Pierzynski attracts attention in every way, Dye has quietly gone about his business by killing the ball at the plate and snatching everything in right field. An even better reward than the invitation to tonight’s Home Run Derby for the White Sox leader would be the opportunity to start in the All-Star Game itself as a replacement for the “injured” Manny Ramirez (he didn’t look hurt in playing all 19 innings yesterday). This is bigger no-brainer for Ozzie Guillen than any of his discretionary picks of White Sox players for the All-Star roster. Jermaine Dye should be starting in right field on Tuesday night.

Jerry Reinsdorf: Best Owner in Sports?

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago White Sox, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Sports5 Comments

In the Fall of 1993, Jerry Reinsdorf was at a high point. His basketball team, the Bulls, had just won a third straight NBA championship with ESPN’s greatest athlete of the 20th century at the helm. Reinsdorf’s baseball team, the White Sox, had clinched the American League West with a roster filled with young and rapidly improving talent. Meanwhile, he had under contract four of the biggest stars in sports at the time (at least when it came to shoe endorsements) with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Frank Thomas, and Bo Jackson. Considering the curse-worthy collective lack of success of Chicago’s sports franchises in the past, Jerry Reinsdorf should have been the most celebrated team owner in the city’s history from that point on. Instead, he became the most vilified.

Even though the Bulls would win three more championships following MJ’s first retirement, Chicagoans blamed Jerry Reinsdorf and his stubborn loyalty to Jerry Krause for prematurely sending His Airness into his second retirement along with running Pippen, Phil Jackson, and everbody else on probably the most popular team in all of sports history out of town. That led into multiple failed rebuilding plans that saw Krause trade future All-Star Elton Brand for a straight-out-of-high-school prospect in Tyson Chandler (whose time in Chicago has just ended pursuant to a great trade to the Hornets for P.J. Brown and J.R. Smith – watch out for Smith, who was a throw-in here, to become the real impact player in this deal), MJ allegedly coming out of retirement to play in something other than a Chicago uniform (once again, the sports seasons of 2001 through 2003 are completely erased from my internal hard drive, so I can’t confirm that this actually happened), Jay Williams tragically end his career along with a lot of Bulls fans’ hopes in a motorcycle accident, unsuccessful bids to bring Tracy McGrady, Grant Hill, and any other decent free agent to the team (culminating in the franchise blowing a wad of money on Ron Mercer just so that it could spend its money on something), and the horrific sight of the Bulls turning back the clock by playing five pasty white guys on the court at the same time on a regular basis in 1999 (they were awesome at the Mikan Drill, though). Simply put, the most exciting team that any us had ever seen or will see in our lives turned into the most unwatchable club of all-time literally overnight.

That would have been enough to give Chicago fans several legitimate reasons to hang Reinsdorf in effigy, but the sad thing is that the news was even worse for the White Sox during the same period. At least the Bulls had built up substantial capital with its fan base during its 1990s dynasty to weather through the lean years. The Sox, however, were still stuck with a franchise that hadn’t won since 1917 and built a sterile ballpark that was outdated within a year after Camden Yards opened up. Then came the two biggest blows to the Sox fan base on top of that already shaky ground. First, Major League Baseball players went on strike in 1994 right when the Sox had the best record in baseball. With Reinsdorf being the most visible ringleader of the owners that wanted to dig in against the players, he received an inordinate share of the blame for the cancellation of a World Series that a lot of Sox fans thought we would have won. After that traumatic event which tested the faith of Sox and baseball fans in general, the team then proceeded with the infamous “White Flag Trade”, where they traded away a number of veterans in exchange for a bunch of prospects at the trade deadline in 1997, even though they were only 3 1/2 games out of first place. It became the ultimate symbol of a baseball franchise that was willing to give up in the middle of a season even though it was in contention and, in the process, destroying its relationship with its fan base. (Note: Ultimately, this was judged to be a positive long-term trade for the Sox as it put into place the pieces for the team’s division winner in 2000. Therefore, the substance of the trade was actually fine, but the timing of the trade caused the fallout that wouldn’t be rectified for nearly a decade.)

So, as a quick recap, Reinsdorf was blamed for running the most iconic athlete of our time out of town, breaking up the greatest basketball team in history, cancelling the World Series just when a star-crossed franchise was in position to win it all for the first time since 1917, and flat-out giving up on a contending team and its fans in the middle of a season – while doing all of that in a 4-year timespan. If he wasn’t considered the worst owner in Chicago sports (with Bill Wirtz, the McCaskey family, and the Tribune Company as competitors on the scene, this exercise has always been like picking your favorite son of Sadaam Hussein), he was certainly the most hated.

Yet, look at where the Bulls and White Sox are at today. The Bulls have finally climbed out of the abyss of the post-Jordan era to field playoff teams again and were able to grab the top free agent prize of this offseason in Ben Wallace, making them a legitimate threat to get back to the NBA Finals next year. Meanwhile, on the South Side of Chicago, the attitude of the White Sox and its fans has gone from negative to a glorious passion for winning. Riding the motor mouth of Ozzie Guillen, the Sox finally won the World Series last season and then proceeded to take steps to field an even stronger team this season. A franchise that was ignored and had a completely apathetic fan base up until a couple of years ago has now become the model team for all of baseball.

What has Reinsdorf done differently since the debacles of the 1990s? The answer: nothing. Reinsdorf has proven to be one of those people that rewards loyalty over anything else, which was a severe detriment in his continued backing of Jerry Krause but has been in boon in terms of his current organizations. As Bob Verdi pointed out in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune, a lot of credit has to go the owner for hiring a superb pair of general managers, John Paxson and Kenny Williams. At the time of each of those hirings, Reinsdorf took a lot of flak for staying in-house as opposed to going after the marquee names such as Jerry West and Billy Beane or bringing MJ back into the fold. Meanwhile, the Cubs were thought to be bold in bringing in a battle-tested pennant-winning manager in Dusty Baker rather than engaging in “conservative” nepotism such as the Sox in hiring Ozzie Guillen as the team’s field general. Instead, Ozzie is now the one that gets to manage in the All-Star Game as the defending World Series champion next week while Dusty might be searching for a new job.

Reinsdorf has also had somewhat of a reputation of being cheap considering that his teams are in the nation’s third largest media market. I personally never thought he really could be blamed too much for being a relative penny-pincher since he didn’t enter the world of sports with billions of dollars in his pockets in the manner of Mark Cuban or Tom Hicks and the White Sox never have been and never will be a spontaneously regenerating cash cow like the Yankees or crosstown Cubs. However, during the very period when Reinsdorf was hated the most in the 1990s, he actually had the largest individual contracts in the histories of both the NBA (MJ) and Major League Baseball (Albert “Corky” Belle) on his teams’ payrolls at the same time. Thus, the way the Sox and Bulls have been spending money today shouldn’t be surprising at all. The owner can hardly be called a cheapskate when the Sox currently have a payroll that’s higher than the deeper pockets of the Cubs and the Bulls put up the mega-dollar long-term contract to lure Ben Wallace from his comfort zone in Detroit.

The fact is that I believe Jerry Reinsdorf is as commited to putting winning teams out on the field and the court as anyone else in sports. He won’t sign random players to huge contracts just to appease the fans in the offseason a la the Knicks or Mets, but if he sees a viable plan to winning from one of his general managers, he will fully make the necessary financial commitment. At the same time, while Reinsdorf isn’t the most charismatic person with the media, you can count on one hand the number of owners that have won world championships in two different sports while setting both of his franchises up for extended success. So, it’s time that Chicago sports fans to forget about what was conventional wisdom for over a decade and reassess the world we live in now. Mark Cuban might the most fun owner out there, but it’s hard to argue against Jerry Reinsdorf as being the best.

Fine Explosions in Naperville and Land-o-Links for 7/5/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, Sports3 Comments

When my wife and I decided to buy a house in Naperville and leave our apartment in Roscoe Village on the North Side of Chicago a couple of years ago, most of my friends thought it was more sane for us to move to a space station using a shuttle that had pieces of foam falling off of it. The majority of the comments were along the lines of, “You’re moving to Yuppie-ville?” and “Enjoy the beige houses.” Of course, these friends at the time were all (a) not married and (b) looking at things from the perspective of renting for the next year as opposed to emptying out a bank account to buy a place to prospectively raise a family for the next ten to twenty years.

Granted, there are plenty of things that I miss about living in the city. In particular, I loved our neighborhood of Roscoe Village, which was lined with classic Chicago brownstones and close enough to Wrigleyville to walk to Clark and Addison within twnety minutes yet far enough away that we didn’t have idiot Cubs fans pissing on our lawn after games. (As a Sox fan that lived that close to Wrigley Field during the all-consuming Cubs playoff run in 2003, I have little patience for Cubs fans claiming that South Siders have been too obnoxious since we won last year. The only thing worse than being a White Sox fan living on the North Side during that time in ’03 was being a Red Sox fan stuck in the Bronx at that same time.) There’s no place in the world that I love more than Chicago and I still get a small adrenaline rush when my commuter train pulls into view of the city’s skyline every morning.

That being said, moving to Naperville was a terrific decision. Forget about the stellar public schools or the accolades that it is the best place to live in the nation. Here’s what it all comes down to, which I learned about last night: Best. Fireworks. Ever.

They were so good that I actually felt compelled enough to dedicate an entire post to such an inane subject. Let me note that I’m not throwing these positive proclamations around very lightly. My parents to this day are certified fireworks fanatics, which means that I spent my Fourth of July weekends as a child hitting the South Suburban fireworks trifecta of shows in Hazel Crest, Chicago Heights, and our hometown of Glenwood on consecutive evenings. They seriously go out of their way to catch as many fireworks performances as they can not only during the Independence Day season, but for the rest of the year, as well (i.e. Chicago’s Venetian Night, the twice-weekly Navy Pier shows, etc.). At the same time, I’ve been fortunate enough to witness fireworks displays in Chicago’s Grant Park, the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Lahaina Harbor in Maui, and at Walt Disney World in Florida (for a view on Philadelphia’s fireworks, check out my sister’s blog). (The Most Disappointing Fourth of July Fireworks Ever: Las Vegas. Last year when I was there, instead of the city having the fireworks shoot off of the rooftops of the hotels on the Strip as it had in the past, the show was shuffled off into a largely inaccessible area someplace north of the Hilton. I was upset for a moment until I realized that I was still in Vegas, which made me happy again.)

Honestly, when it comes down to pure pyrotechnics (obviously, the locale of, say, the nation’s capitol adds to the overall experience), the Naperville Ribfest fireworks beat them all. Considering the inordinate number of fireworks shows that I’ve watched, the fact that probably over half of the the fireworks there were shot off were types that I had never seen before, ranging from ones that dropped down looking like unbroken streamers falling from the sky and a number that exploded to form smiley faces. At the same time, I have never seen a fireworks display that was as perfectly synchronized to music as this one. The soundtrack wasn’t there for background filler; each song sample had its own separate types of fireworks and the explosions were timed right in line with the proper beats – simply phenomenal. If you’re in the Chicago area next year during the Fourth of July weekend, I’d highly recommend the Naperville Ribfest fireworks over the Third of July fireworks at the Taste of Chicago based purely on the overall quality of the show.

Anyway, I know a few of you are dying for my take on Ben Wallace signing with the Bulls (WOW!!!), which will be forthcoming, but I’ll also be spinning some baseball thoughts into that analysis for those that are weary of my NBA focus lately (you’ll see how). Until then, here are the links for the day:

1) Keith Richards to Be in ‘Pirates’ Movie (Washington Post) – Disney is going to save a ton of money on makeup costs with this move.

2) ‘Punch A.J.’ Campaign Under Way (whitesox.com) – I’m sure Minneapolis Red Sox is going to push for his man Francisco Liriano (and I’ll grant the argument that the Twins phenom is more deserving of an All-Star spot), but you’ve got to give credit to the White Sox marketing staff for having a great sense of humor. I can’t wait to see what the Maloof brothers are going to do to get out the vote for Ron Artest next year.

3) NBA Draft: The Illini Spin (Illini Board) – A look from John Brumbaugh about the next destinations for James Augustine and Dee Brown.

4) Lil’ Kim Leaves Prison in Style (AllHipHop.com) – This is really going to hurt her reality TV show career.

5) Benny the Bull Charged With Attacking a Police Officer (CBS Sportsline) – This is when we really need those mugshots from The Smoking Gun.

And finally…

6) Kobayashi Stands Triumphant Again (Deadspin.com) – The only time he has ever failed was against a bear in “Man vs. Beast” (a great reality show better known for then-unknown but eventual Olympic gold medalist Shawn Crawford seriously coming close to accusing the zebra that he lost to in a race of taking injections in the behind from Jose Canseco in an Oakland A’s lockeroom stall). Regardless, statues need to be erected for Kobayashi on Coney Island.

(Update:  This link couldn’t wait…

7) Hot Dog – Moo & Oink Jingle Gets Some Flavor (Chicago Tribune) – If you ever watched Soul Train back in the day on WGN with any regularity (I know I’m not the only half-Chinese/half-Polish guy out there that did), you understand that this is a travesty.) 

Land-o-Links – 6/23/2006

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

It's been an amazing week all around.  Here are some links for the weekend:

1) Ozzie Apologizes to Every Homosexual (Jay the Joke) – Ozzie Guillen correctly apologizes for using the f-bomb and then proceeds with a 4-minute long diatribe on how Jay Mariotti is still a "piece of shit."  This is absolutely well worth listening to in its entirety.

2) Guillen, Duncan Feud Over Plunking (Chicago Tribune) – During any other week with any other manager, an order to bean the son of the pitching coach of the opposing team would be the topic #1 around here.

3) A League of Their Own (Boston Globe) – Indy Transplant and I went to the White Sox-Cardinals game last night (Sox won 1-0 with their only hit being a Jim Thome homer, which was simply magnificent) and had a discussion on how much better the American League has been compared to the National League.  Sure enough, the Red Sox came out today with simulated stats showing that the record of an American League team playing a National League schedule would improve by 10 games over the entire regular season.

What's interesting to me is that the reputations of leagues and conferences in all of the major sports have completely switched around from when I was growing up.  The National League seemed to have all of the best players in the game back in the 1980s but it now seems to be the place where, as Bill Simmons claims, old pitchers from the AL such as Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens go to spend their twilight years since the competition is so much easier.  Meanwhile, the days where the NBA Championship was really won during the grudge matches between the Bulls, Pistons, Knicks, Cavs, and Pacers in the Eastern Conference are now gone with the Western Conference now boasting teams which don't make the playoffs that could probably be top seeds if they were in the East (notwithstanding Miami's victory this past week).  Finally, in the NFL, I grew up wondering if I would ever see the AFC win a Super Bowl (the NFC was victorious in 13 straight Super Bowls, a streak that was broken by the Broncos beating the Packers in glorious fashion in Super Bowl XXXII), which seems laughable now.  To this day, I have a knee-jerk negative reaction whenever I hear someone say how bad the NFC is, but I then pull back and have to remind myself how that person is right.

4) Knicks End Year of Disharmony (New York Times) – If he hasn't already, Greg Oden needs to hire a real estate agent in Chicago pronto.  I love you, Isiah.

And finally… 

5) Limited Action Figures of B.I.G., Public Enemy Coming This Fall (AllHipHop.com) – I can fulfill my dreams of Biggie Smalls putting the smack down on C-3PO.

Land-o-Links – 6/21/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, Random Thoughts, Sports2 Comments

What an evening! Mark Cuban got fined $250,000, Dwyane Wade lived up to the Michael Corleone analogy Shaq dropped a few months ago (where Kobe Bryant is Sonny and Penny Hardaway is Fredo), the White Sox hammered in 20 runs on the Cardinals, and Ozzie Guillen turned a new rookie into a sacrificial lamb in yet another beanball war. On top of that, there was such a plethora of fantastic news that I just had to post some more links for today:

1) Guillen Has Choice Words for Mariotti (Chicago Tribune) – How those in professional sports feel about Jay Mariotti.

2) Jay the Joke – How all of the rest of us feel about Jay Mariotti (actually, Ozzie summed it up pretty well above, but the detail on this blog is a public service to society as a whole).

3) YWML Suddenly Huge With 13-Year-Olds (Deadspin) – Frequent Deadspin readers will understand why this is such a ridiculously hilarious development. For those that need a refresher course, just consult your friendly Wikipedia.

4) Nine Lives, Still Intact (Hartford Courant) – The life of Lewis the Cat was spared by a Connecticut judge yesterday, although he'll be on house arrest for the rest of eternity. We in the legal field call this "The Martha Stewart Treatment" (celebrities get all of the breaks).

5) Big Ten Creates Another Revenue Channel (The Wizard of Odds) – All Big Ten, all the time. You had me at hello.

And finally…

6) Career Suicide (Siberia, Minnesota) – There are some things that you see and you can't unsee them.

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)