Minnesota’s Joe Nathan has been one of the American League’s most dominant relief pitchers over the last five seasons. If the elbow injury that recently sidelined him requires season-ending surgery, the balance of power will shift in the American League Central and the White Sox will benefit. The Twins are the defending division champions and have been a consistent contender throughout Nathan’s tenure with the team.
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Billy Petrick, 25, pitched eight games for the Chicago Cubs in 2007. Petrick treats his arm after a workout at Bo Jackson's Elite Sports Facility in suburban Chicago, Friday February 26, 2010.
Sally Ryan/Chicago News Cooperative

Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Billy Petrick.

The capacity crowd at sun-splashed Wrigley Field on June 27, 2007, had reason to make the connection between those names when Petrick made his major-league debut with the Cubs. Like Wood and Prior, he was a big, strong right-hander with an imposing build, intimidating stuff and a flinty mound demeanor that the scouts salute as country hardball.
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On Monday, David Hill, left, bought more than $600 worth of tickets to Cubs games this season.
José Moré/Chicago News Cooperative

Chicagoans felt as if the worst of another hard winter was finally over when last Friday dawned sunny and mild and single-game tickets to 2010 Cubs games went on sale. Pitchers and catchers had reported to Arizona for spring training earlier in the week, and a game-day-like sense of anticipation boosted the spirits of fans standing patiently in lines at Wrigley Field.
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The Olympic speedskating champion Shani Davis lives and dies with the White Sox, but he probably missed Frank Thomas’s retirement announcement last week. After all, Davis was 1,774 miles away in Vancouver, preparing for the Games.
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Northwestern University head coach Bill Carmody talks to Jeremy Nash (23) and Michael Thompson (22) during their game against Illinois at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston Saturday, January 23, 2010. Northwestern won the game 73-68.
John Konstantaras/Chicago News Cooperative

Jeremy Nash could have gone to high school at Corliss or Morgan Park and played high-level Public League basketball a lot closer to his home in Chicago’s Roseland area. Instead, he often rode three buses nine miles across town to Marist to get better academic preparation for college and beyond.
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Chicago Cubs Pitcher Ryan Dempster with his 10 month old daughter Riley, who suffers from DiGeorge Syndrome.
Heather Stone/Chicago News Cooperative

Pro athletes are easily typecast as society’s chosen ones, an exalted class of millionaire performers with the financial means to enjoy a worry-free life and the sense of entitlement to expect as much.

Ryan Dempster doesn’t fit the stereotype. A standout pitcher for the Cubs, Dempster is baseball’s version of a model citizen, the antithesis of the celebrity jock: down to earth and approachable, twice nominated for Major League Baseball’s Roberto Clemente Award for community service.
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Recently retired Leo High School principal and Alumni Bob Foster in his home in Chicago Wednesday, January 27, 2010.
John Konstantaras/Chicago News Cooperative

A breath-draining climb up three flights of stairs is required to reach the basketball court at Leo High School, but the reward is a trip back through time. Peach baskets would fit the décor of the tiny gym better than the glass backboards that hang there.

The playing floor is closer to 80 feet in length than the regulation 94. The three-point line and the sideline out-of-bounds line nearly meld in the corners, at the base of four rows of well-worn wooden bleachers, where surprised shooters often find themselves if they back up even slightly on their follow-through.
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Pride and a hint of awe are evident in her voice when DePaul University athletic director Jean Lenti Ponsetto speaks of the Big East Conference as “a man’s league.” Indeed, if college basketball were European soccer, the Big East would be the Premier League.
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Jon Scheyer was heating up the United Center on a cold Chicago night in early January, with 31 points and 6 assists in a no-sweat win over Iowa State. Now a senior at Duke, the spindly 6-foot-5 guard displayed the same deft shooting stroke and high-motor floor play that made him one of the most decorated prep players in Illinois when he was at Glenbrook North High School.

Scheyer, a product of the information age, is remarkably famous for a 22-year-old. Newspapers, chat rooms and message boards tracked his every move in high school, in particular his recruitment. He was covered almost like a professional athlete: Several Glenbrook North games were televised while he was there, and now that he is at Duke he is on TV more than Oprah.
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Chicago Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville talks to his team during their skate around the United Center in Chicago Thursday, December 31, 2009.
John Konstantaras/ Chicago News Cooperative

If the Blackhawks were a Western movie, Joel Quenneville would be cast as a United States marshal, wise and worldly, so firmly in charge there’s no need to flaunt his power or ego. As a hockey team, the Hawks are thriving like a gold-rush boomtown under Quenneville’s sharp-eyed, self-assured leadership.

They rolled into the new year with the highest point total and lowest goals-against average in the National Hockey League. They seem to set attendance and television ratings records each time they take the ice at the United Center. Six Hawks will represent their countries at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver next month. And while they have lost the element of surprise that accompanied last year’s heady run to the Stanley Cup playoff semifinals, they’ve gained the sleek, road-tested look of a Cup contender.

“We’ve got a good group,” Quenneville said after a recent practice. “They get along well, they work together, they stand up for each other. And they push each other. They recognize the opportunity we have.”
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