Windy City Weekend Roundup: "It's Back!" Edition

Unfortunately, I have not been able to publish any posts since September due to time constraints, however, I now am able to give a weekly weekend roundup of all that is happening in the Windy City.

• Cubs Convention started on Friday. The biggest announcement was probably the fact that Carlos Zambrano will have LASIK eye surgery. Maybe the Cubs don't need Jake Peavy after all.
• Back to the Cubs, this only comes two years after the first announcement.
• The Bears announced that Bob Babich's days of calling defensive plays are over for the forseeable future. Lovie Smith will now be the man who takes the blame for any failures. This is good news, because in Lovie's three years as defensive coordinator in St. Louis, the Rams were third in the NFL in takeaways and fumble recoveries, tied for sixth in sacks, and tied for eighth in interceptions.
• The Bears' new assisstant head coach and defensive line coach has a great resume. He can not only be Lovie's friend, just like Babich, but has also coached a team to an be undefeated! At losing!
  
• Northwestern men's basketball appears to be incapable of holding a lead. I was there, and it was one of the worst eight minutes I have ever seen. The fact that most of the stadium was chanting "Let's go Boilers!" didn't help either.
• This isn't Windy City related (except indirectly), but still funny.

Monday Windy City Roundup

Bears: Kyle Orton was named the starter today. And for once, since before last season, I agree with a decision that Lovie Smith has made. Orton is a much more consistent quarterback, and a game manager. I know that calling a QB a game manager is a cliche, but Orton really is. When someone makes smart throws, and slows the game down, they are a game manager. And that is exactly what Orton does. He reminds me of a lesser Peyton Manning. Sure, Orton isn't as smart, hard-working, or talented, but he is still capable in every important catergory. Grossman is a gunslinger, which can be good if you have a good offensive line (Brett Favre last year), but with one as bad as the Bears', a gunslinger is a problem (Brett Favre in '05 and '06). Grossman now is saying goodbye to Ortman and hello to the bench.

Cubs: Have a second straight Monday off. After a surprisingly good road trip down south, they have a six game homestand against Cincinnati and Washington. This gives the streaking Cubs a chance to shove a sword down the throat of Dusty Baker's new team. And Corey Patterson's new team. And Jerry Hairston's new team. Bring back Mark Prior, and the whole gang will be back at Wrigley for three games! This first series should be a challenge, with Harden, Lilly and Zambrano facing Johnny Cueto, Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang. Arroyo and Harang are Cubs killer's, and Cueto 1-1 with a 4.97 ERA in two starts this year against the Cubs. Of course, all three are struggling this year. The series against the Nats only has Marquis vs. TBA. My prediction for this week is 4-2.

Monday Windy City Roundup

Cubs: Have the day off today. This week they are at Atlanta and Florida. Harden, Marquis and Lilly are going against Charlie Morton (3-5, 5.70 ERA), Jorge Campillo (7-4, 2.83) and Tom Glavine (2-3, 4.85). Morton looks like someone who could turn into a good pitcher (he's still a rookie). Campillo could probably be a 2nd or 3rd starter. He is 2-0 with a 3.38 ERA in 13.1 innings pitched during his two August starts versus the Brewers and Diamondbacks. He still looks like a pitcher that the Cubs can get to. We all know Tom Glavine. He hasn't made a start since June 10 versus the Cubs. He went three innings, surrendering 6 hits, 4 walks and 4 runs (all earned). They'll probably still be in first at weeks end.
Scott Eyre now joins Will Ohman as a Cubs lefty traded to the NL East in the past year. Hopefully this kid Schlitter can be a decent starter some day. So far he's thrown 2 shutout innings in Class A and given up only 2 hits.

Bears: I know it's still the preseason, but Caleb Hanie looks like a better QB than Ortman. That's really no surprise, because Ortman is terrible. But Hanie still won't win the starting job. For one he's a rookie undrafted free agent. Those things shouldn't count against him at all, but do with Lovie as coach.
So, to handicap the QB race that actually matters (no offense to Hanie). The "man" part of Ortman always plays his best in the preseason. And "Ort" always plays best in the regular season, so Lovie will make Grossman the starter. That's also because the Bears want Grossman to be the starter. They want the former first round pick to be good. They assume he will be good because Jerry Angelo was confident enough to use a first round pick on him. The same happened with Cedric Benson and Thomas Jones (or maybe Benson bought Angelo and Lovie a few drinks).
So Grossman will win, lose his job to Orton, get it back and lose it again, only to have a competiton next training camp.