chicago Page 26 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Matt Nagy Has Double-Doink On The Brain
Time was running out in the first half of the Bears’ preseason loss to the Panthers on Thursday night, and Chicago was in field goal range. Well, ostensibly. Bears coach Matt Nagy took one look at the spot of the ball after the half’s penultimate play, and immediately had sweaty-palmed flashbacks. D...
Javy Báez Spices Up Garbage-Time Plate Appearance, Bats Lefty
The ninth inning of Thursday night’s Cubs-Reds game was a real circus, and I mean that in a good way. The Reds were down 12–5, they’d used four pitchers, and they were not coming back, so to finish the eighth and work the ninth they turned pitching duties over to Kyle Farmer, a second baseman. Farme...
Here Are Some Other Potential Locations For MLB Games
On Thursday, the Yankees, White Sox, and MLB announced a partnership to play a regular-season game next year at—or, more precisely, near—the iconic Field of Dreams. This follows the recent trend of the league scheduling meaningful games in non-traditional places like Japan, Mexico, and London....
Lucas Giolito's Wife Calls Out Anthony Swarzak's Wife For Being Ignorant Toward Tim Anderson's Wife
Bria Anderson, wife of White Sox shortstop Tim, had a heated Instagram discussion with Elizabeth Swarzak, wife of Braves reliever Anthony, about gun violence and race, the impetus being last weekend’s mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. Swarzak, whose IG account is now protected, came off sounding...
The Cubs' Bullpen Is Currently Held Together With Scotch Tape And Sticky Tack
The Cubs escaped what could have been a crushing loss by just a few feet on Monday night, leaving Wrigley with a 6-5 win over the A’s after leading 6-2 heading into the eighth inning. The final out in the top of the ninth came stressfully, as with two runners on and the A’s down by just one, Marcus...
Phillies Pitcher Vince Velasquez Was The Best Left Fielder In Baseball For One Night
Baseball is always at its weirdest in deep extra innings, and thanks to Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Vince Velasquez, we have another point of evidence for that axiom. In the 14th inning of Friday’s game against the Chicago White Sox, Velasquez did something no pitcher had done in nearly 39 years: ...
"Mai Tai Guy" Has No Regrets Over Stealing Walk-Off Home Run Ball From Kids
The Cubs beat the Reds in dramatic, walk-off fashion on Tuesday night, as Kyle Schwarber hit a 10th-inning dinger to put an exclamation point on a Chicago day that had already seen the capture of notorious alligator Chance the Snapper. And as one minor local reptilian celebrity was consigned to a bu...
Let The Alligator Throw The First Pitch
Chance the Snapper—a Chicago alligator who gained fame last week when he was first noticed living in the Humboldt Park lagoon—was taken into custody Tuesday morning by reptile expert Frank Robb, who was hired specifically to grab the creature. Before he was apprehended, the 5-foot-3 Chance captured ...
Report: Cubs Co-Owner Todd Ricketts Has Been Getting Away With Not Paying His Full Property Taxes
Thanks to an open records request filed by the Chicago Tribune, we now know that Todd Ricketts, finance chairman of the Republican National Committee and co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, has been getting a substantial tax break that he doesn’t deserve thanks to false documents filed by his attorney....
Today's NFL Would Have Been Perfect For Doug Flutie
It’s been 14 years since he last played professional football, but Doug Flutie is suddenly relevant again. In the run-up to the draft, there was a big feature in the Washington Post, along with a 15-minute chat on The Rich Eisen Show. When I first reached out to ask about an interview, Flutie’s agen...
Absolutely No One Could Stop These Enraged Cubs Fans From Fighting
Every good fan fight has a defining quality, and this one is no different. What we have here is not an alarming display of savagery, or swift and frightening violence, or even anything that rises to slapstick humor. What we have here is simply two women with an indefatigable commitment to causing ru...
Angry, Pinwheeling Joe Maddon Gets Tossed From Cubs-Pirates Game
A steady stream of high and inside pitches from Pirates starter Jordan Lyles set off Cubs manager Joe Maddon yesterday, causing him to hop out of his dugout, to angrily shout at the Pirates’ dugout, and to even uncork a nifty little spin move in his efforts to break free of the umpire’s grip. Maddon...
Slumping White Sox Fella Daniel Palka Would Henceforth Prefer To Be Known As "Julian"
White Sox outfielder Daniel Palka finished his rookie season last year with a healthy 27 home runs and 67 runs batted in, in 417 at-bats. It was a promising year, even if Palka also struck out a whopping 153 times. His sophomore year has not been so promising—Palka opened the season 1-for-35 from th...
Cubs' Pedro Strop On Yasiel Puig: "It's Not A Secret He's Stupid. He's Stupid As Fuck."
In the bottom of eighth with a 3-0 count against Yasiel Puig, Cubs pitcher Pedro Strop plunked the Reds outfielder with a 94 mph pitch. Puig was none too happy about the HBP, and began to slowly make his way towards the pitcher, which led to both benches clearing before any real punches were thrown....
White Sox Include Emmett Till On List Of Celebrities From Chicago
During a break in action at the White Sox-Twins game on Saturday, a graphic appeared on the park’s big screen with the intention of informing the crowd of some famous individuals that were born in Chicago. It included people like Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak, legendary actor/director/drunkard Ors...
What A Foul Ball Can Do
Laura Cusick and her husband Richard loved baseball. They loved it so much for so long that it became a part of their marriage. When they had kids, they taught them to love the game, too: to root for the home team (the Braves), and learn the players names, and to stretch in the seventh inning. They ...
The Cubs Fell Ass Backwards Into A Very Dumb Double Play
I don’t know why Javy Baez (or whoever’s giving him signals) would have so much faith that a pitcher making only his third plate appearance in the major leagues would be able to hold up his end of the suicide squeeze, but the overconfidence of Baez and the pure stupidity of Willson Contreras over on...
Matt Nagy Needs To Get Over The Double-Doink
Remembering past failures can be useful as motivation, but at this point Bears head coach Matt Nagy needs to move on, because it’s getting unhealthy. Ever since Chicago lost on a double-doink in the playoffs, Nagy’s made sure that his players remember how they lost on the flukiest of plays....
Lucas Giolito, Who Was The Worst Starter In Baseball, Is Now An Ace
It only feels like every strange or new thing that could happen in baseball has already happened. Lucas Giolito, who is currently pitching better than just about any starting pitcher in baseball a year after pitching worse than every other starting pitcher in baseball, is not remotely the first such...