Friday, June 30, 2006

RIP, Coach Walker

Monday, June 26, 2006

Houston, We Have a Problem

The Houston Astros were in town again this weekend, but this time, they took on the White Sox in a rematch of the 2005 World Series.

This weekend served as a great reminder as why the White Sox are champs, as they really made the Astros pay for their mistakes, taking the first two games in dramatic fashion. The Sox won game one after Scott Podsednik hit a grand slam off of Andy Pettite to give the Sox a 6-4 lead, en route to a 7-4 final.



In game two, the Sox hit another grand slam, this one clubbed out by Joe Crede off of World Series goat Chad Qualls. That one tied the game 5-5 in the 8th inning, before the Sox won it 6-5 in the tenth.




The Astros salvaged the series by winning the Sunday game in 13 innings, but not before serving up yet another grand slam (who gives up three grand slams in three games? Reeeeeediculous!) and watching their 8-run lead evaporate! Crazy!

I'm still a Cub fan, but I'll admit... these White Sox are pretty damn entertaining to watch. Next weekend will feature Cubs vs White Sox at Wrigley Field. Will we see Michael Barrett vs A.J. Pierzynski, part II? I suuuuure hope so ;-)

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Cardinals Suck!

Well, before I begin my latest post, I am happy to announce that my official webpage has finally relaunched after being down the past few months while undergoing a redesign! Check it out HERE.

Anyways, it looks like all those Cub fans knew what they were talking about whenever they say "St. Louis sucks." In a potential World Series preview, the White Sox just absolutely obliterated the NL Central leading Cardinals two consecutive games by some ridiculous scores: 20-6 in the first game, 13-5 in the second game. Those were like Chicago Bears scores last season!

I have never been to a game quite like the first game though. It started off normally. Then in the third inning, things went nutty. Cardinals pitcher Mark "Agent" Mulder would throw the ball, but everybody crushed his pitches. It was like they were playing beer-league softball or something. Nine runs later, Mulder was pulled and walked off in a cloud of White Sox home run smoke (literally).



You'd think with that many runs scored, this game would have featured action shots a plenty, right? Not really. Like I said, everybody on the Sox just hit the absolute living crap out of the ball so everybody just cruised in to score pretty easily. No plays at the plate, no need to slide into bases, nothing. So all we really had was just a bunch of shots of players high fiving and Cardinals players moping around wonering what the heck was going on.

After the third inning (when they scored the 11 runs), basically all of us photographers were just sitting in the photo well watching the game and eating peanuts, waiting for the game to either end or break out into a huge brawl. The brawl actually almost happened after a brief beanball war in the 6th and 7th innings, but the umps were able to keep the situation from escalating. Darn umps!

Friday, June 16, 2006

Astros vs Cubs

The Houston Astros were in town for a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field this week. The results were pretty predictable... the Cubs got beaten up on and lost all three.

I only actually shot one of the three games, the Wednesday night game, but that one game pretty much sums up why the Cubs are losing as much as they are.

Unlike the White Sox who usually deliver clutch hits and record huge outs when it matters most (like last week vs the Detroit Tigers), the Cubs just don't deliver with runner in scoring position. Instead, they seem to strike out, or worse, ground into double plays (which they did three times on Wednesday).



They run the bases poorly (aka getting picked off).










Finally, they don't record outs with opposing runners in scoring position. They let the opposing pitcher Roy Oswalt collect two RBIs, which ended up being the difference in the game! Terrible. Well, as they say, "Wait til' next year!"

A couple more images from the game below...

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Tigers vs White Sox

The Chicago White Sox took on the Detroit Tigers in a three-game series this past week. The atmosphere at the ballpark was pretty electric, which was not surprising, since it was a battle between the Sox are in second, and the Tigers are in first. With a sweep, the White Sox would have retaken the American League central division lead.

In the end, the Sox took two of the three games, despite playing pretty sloppily: they ran the bases poorly and didn't really play great defense. But they made clutch plays and delivered clutch hits in key situations (just like they did all last year during their World Series run). Although the performance was not good enough to regain first, the two wins proved a point to the Tigers that the Sox are still the superior team. The White Sox are 5-1 against the Tigers this year, which bodes very well for the rest of their 12 or 13 matchups the rest of the season...

Monday, June 05, 2006

Chicago... Again

Well, for the second consecutive weekend, Northwestern University has a team in the hunt for a national championship, as the softball team has qualified for the championship series for the first time in school history. The best-of-three series is being held in Oklahoma City, where the Northwestern Wildcats will take on the Arizona Wildcats. And for the second consecutive week, I will not be traveling to cover said national championship, so here I am in Chicago... again. I'm not too bummed about it. I mean after all, how exciting could it possibly be in Oklahoma City? Plus, I don't even really like college softball! To me, it's just wannabe baseball! Besides, I always have plenty of work here. There's always an MLB team in town, there's always the non-athletic departments at NU, and then there are the other random assignments. I won't post anything of the Rangers-Sox series that I covered, but here are some selects from other events I did go to...

A book signing by the 2001 Northwestern Professor of the Year, and the inaugural home opener of the Chicago Machine, Chicago's new major league lacrosse franchise.