Frank Thomas said goodbye and Manny Ramirez said hello in the same week. These White Sox just don’t seem comfortable sailing in tranquil seas. (more…)

I’m looking at a photo accompanying a Sammy Sosa retrospective in the September issue of Chicago Magazine. And I’m seeing Rod R. Blagojevich. (more…)

Is it over yet? I mean this baseball season, one of the most dispiriting, unsatisfying campaigns Chicago has endured. I’m a baseball guy, but I’m ready to call it a year. When do the Blackhawks start? (more…)

In Alaska, where I recently visited, it’s hard not to notice the bears. Black bears, grizzly bears, Kodiak bears, Chicago Bears. Yes, even 2,912 miles from their Bourbonnais, Ill., training camp, word reaches a traveler that this simply has to be the Bears’ year. (more…)

Stan Bowman likes baseball, but at 37, the Blackhawks’ general manager is way too young to remember Larry Sherry. Chicagoans of a certain vintage certainly remember him. (more…)

The N.C.A.A. has something in common with the 2010 job market: a college degree doesn’t necessarily count for much, even when it’s supposed to.
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The Blackhawks’ makeover of their Stanley Cup championship team went from substantial to stunning on Monday when they cut their ties to standout goaltender Antti Niemi.

The Hawks rejected an arbitrator’s decision to award Niemi a $2.75 million salary. In choosing not to pay it, they parted company with the 26-year-old playoffs stalwart, making him an unrestricted free agent, available to any team that will meet that mandated price. (more…)

Cubs manager Lou Piniella hands the ball to Andrew Cashner after pulling starting pitcher Tom Gorzelanny during their game against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field.
John Konstantaras/Chicago News Cooperative

Lou Piniella, Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tony La Russa belie the notion that managing a professional baseball team should be a young man’s game. (more…)

Chicago Blackhawks president John McDonough.
John Konstantaras/Chicago News Cooperative

John McDonough left the Cubs to go to the Blackhawks, and there he turned a moribund franchise into just what the Cubs would like to be.
John McDonough believes he remembers when he first started hearing “What’s next?” queries. (more…)