No sweep! Did Maddon's Sopranos wisecrack set up Cubs cosmic payback?

The Chicago Cubs ought to be happy – they managed to win a three-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals even though the dream of a sweep against St. Louis fell short Sunday with a 4-3 loss.

It's a good thing I didn't feel compelled to buy this t-shirt Sunday; it wasn't necessary. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

They gained ground on their hopes to clinch a playoff spot this season – even though the Cardinals already have clinched theirs.

BUT THERE WERE the beanball wars that gained so much attention during this weekend of baseball at Wrigley Field. Beginning Friday when there was an exchange of ballplayers on each team who got hit with pitched balls.

Leading to Cubs manager Joe Maddon insisting his ballplayers were singled out for abuse (even though some fans contend the Cubs started the whole thing). The Cubs’ manager went so far as to compare the Cardinals to cable television mobster Tony Soprano.

As he put it, “I don’t know who put out the hit. I don’t know if Tony Soprano is in the dugout. I didn’t see him in there. We’re not going to put up with that from them or anyone else.”

Which makes me wonder – if the Cardinals are the Sopranos, does that make the Cubs the athletic equivalent of that loser mob from the still-memorable HBO show. You know – the one whose boss ultimately got killed and had his head crushed by the tires of his own moving vehicle?

First 'victim' in beanbrawl weekend?

IS JOE MADDON nothing more than “Phil Leotardo?”

Is a sporting equivalent of that image going to be the ultimate fate of the 2015 Chicago Cubs – making it 108 seasons and counting since the Cubs were able to win a World Series (or 70 years since they were even able to get in)?

The fact that Cubs pitchers carried this on beyond the Friday game of the series and in fact had one of their pitchers ejected on Saturday for engaging in beanball wars makes me wonder if the pressure ultimately will get to the ball club – making them crack!

Not exactly the overwhelming powerful image that  true championship-quality ball club would want to exude at a point in the season when they could either wrap things up – or have it all collapse upon themselves.

 

WHO’S TO SAY how this season – with but two weeks left before playoff baseball begins – will wrap up? It’s certainly more intriguing than anything the Bears did Sunday in their loss to the one-time Chicago Cardinals: not even losing quarterback Jay Cutler for most of the game due to a hamstring injury.

Highlight of rest of Sox' season?

Or the White Sox, who went into the final two weeks of 2015 (for them, at least) by taking only one of three games from the Cleveland Indians – creating less of a situation they will overcome the Indians for Third Place and more of one they could fall behind the Detroit Tigers to finish in Fifth.

Which could be the only reason the die-hard fans of the ball club bother to show up for the season-ending three-game series (either that, or they really want to see Hispanic Heritage Night festivities on Oct. 2).

Although it’s still a Cubs team likely to finish in Third Place themselves and qualify for the playoffs only because of the modern trend to get as many teams as possible into the mix – rather than have the best ball club overall in the National League be the one to qualify for post-season play and the right to get their heinies kicked by the ultimate American League champs!

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Cubbie Power? Or just a third-place ball club like the White Sox might be

Is the World Series headed for Wrigley Field in 2015? Not likely.

I don’t know what to make of this year’s version of the Chicago Cubs.

I get the fact that the team’s fans are going to get all excited about a team that is likely to have a winning record – considering that the last five years resulted in losing records for the Cubs, and last-place finishes in each of the last two seasons.

SO THE FACT that it would take a collapse of historic proportions for the ’15 Cubs to be a losing ball club (even I believe the Cubs will win at least three of their remaining 26 ballgames) means this year is already successful for the team. They’ve already accomplished far more than anybody had any right to expect.

But do I really think of this as a ball club that has a right to think of itself as being championship-quality? I don’t think so.

Maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I can’t get beyond the fact that the Cubs are likely to finish in third place in their own division.

I can’t help but think that any team that has two other ball clubs in its own division that are better ought to be thinking in terms of next year and how to make themselves better to overcome.

THIS 2015 SEASON ought to be the year we ponder the quality and future of the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates – particularly since the Pirates themselves declined into decades of crud occasionally topped by mediocrity.

If the Pirates were able finally this year to prevail and win a National League pennant (for the first time since Sister Sledge ruled the music charts), that would be a remarkable baseball story in and of itself.

Yet there are those who are determined to believe that it is the Cubs resurgence that ought to be our prime desire. Then again, I don’t know that resurgence is the correct word – the team has been so awful for so many decades, while resurgence implies that they were once worthy.

Big national newsplay for a 3rd place ball club

Do you really want to know what I think of a third place finish? It means someone else is better (and I don’t care if you want to say that they are the best “third place” team in baseball).

HECK, THE CHICAGO White Sox also have the potential to be a third place team – they were only two games behind the Cleveland Indians by the end of Labor Day. They could wind up topping the Indians, while finishing behind the Kansas City Royals and Minnesota Twins by the beginning of October.

The year 2015 could easily wind up being a baseball season in which both of Chicago’s ball clubs finished in third place!

It could also be a season in which, because of the quirks of modern-day baseball’s desire to have extended rounds of playoffs, in which the Cubs get dragged into the playoff picture come October – only to be the team that gets knocked out in a first-round play-in game. While all the legitimate “first place” ball clubs advance to the full-fledged playoffs.

I’m sure the Cubs fans are going to rant and rage (I anticipate your messages telling me how full of it I am) that a third-place finish under these circumstances is special. I just don’t buy it.

I’M INCLINED TO think this is a part of the rebuilding effort – and nothing more. This was supposed to be the team that wouldn’t have a serious chance of winning anything until NEXT year.

As in 2016, and not the perennial “next year” that Cubs fans always whine about.

So my own thought about the significance of baseball in Chicago this season is that I hope Cubs fans have enjoyed the boost they got in ’15. Although I wonder how many will rant that the New York Mets may wind up in the playoff picture this year, while the Cubs may not. Particularly if the Washington Nationals play well enough in coming weeks to win their division, while the Mets play well enough to be the other wild card playoff slot that Cubs fans seem to feel they already have clinched.

Will we get a 21st Century take on this moment?

Memories of 1969 and tales of that black cat (along with fables of a silly goat) may wind up being spewed as excuses. For THAT is the true character of the Chicago Cubs franchise.

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Yecch! Gimme back a teachers’ strike, or a pennant race. Campaign too painful!

Something occurred to me this past weekend that almost has me saying with great sincerity that I want the Chicago Teachers Union strike of the public schools to continue for some time.



Now that the teachers' strike in Chicago is nearing its finale, will the activities recorded on the U.S. Cellular Field scoreboard garner the interests of Chicagoans? Or are we going to get sucked into following mind-numbing, trivial coverage of the presidential campaign cycle? Photograph by Gregory Tejeda



All those column inches of newspaper space and airtime on television and radio that produced the content that was the basis of all the babbling on the Internet that was devoted to covering the labor dispute was less time spent on what can be the nothingness of the presidential campaign cycle.

JUST THINK ABOUT it. Yes, I know that if one was determined enough to find it, they could find reporting, writing and commentary about the Obama/Romney brawl that will be taking place.

Do we really need to hear more ...



Yet let’s be honest. It got shoved to the background, just like Isaac (the storm that was a hurricane for awhile) knocked a day off the Republican National Convention and forced the final event of the Democratic convention indoors was able to steal some airtime and space away from blatant politicking.

Perhaps this is a sign from the heavens above that we should go out of our way to avoid paying too much attention to the blather that will be spewed in coming weeks by both President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

None of it is going to mean much in reality. It will all be spin. A factoid touched up with a partisan angle and a smidgen of cheap trivia to make it sound so interesting and significant – when in all likelihood it will be a whole lot of nothin’.

... from either of these men?

NOT THAT I’M saying elections, in and of themselves, are nothing. They’re actually a whole lot of something that our political operatives have managed to turn into a load equivalent to the fillings of a baby’s diaper.

We’ve been able to ignore the poop, in all its slimy, green texture, by focusing attention on the labor dispute. Although I couldn’t help but notice those weaselly political types have tried to intervene on this issue.

We’ve had speculation about whether this labor dispute, because Mayor Rahm Emanuel is so tied to Obama, will hurt the presidential campaign. We’ve had more trash talk from Republican officials (such as Paul Ryan) who probably have never given a public school in Chicago one bit of thought until now – when they could see it as a chance to spew some cheap trash political babble.

Now, it seems that since we will get the kids back into the classroom in the near future (whether through a reconsideration of the teachers union’s House of Delegates or a court injunction that Emanuel sys he will seek in coming days), I’m going to have to find something else to try to divert my news attention span away from election coverage – which can get so frivolous.

THE TYPICAL LOAD of copy posing as campaign “news” is so high-calorie and loaded with trivia that it makes one’s mind numb – you read it or hear it and you feel bloated and sleepy and stupefied.

You most likely didn’t learn anything of substance. That’s a touch of spin dripping from your lips after you have “consumed” it.

Yet unless some other story of significance crops up in coming weeks, the odds are overwhelming that we’re going to get swarmed with all the campaign trivia we never wanted to hear. And I’m sure in some way, I will be partially to blame through my own commentary at this site – despite my best attempts to do otherwise.

So on that point, perhaps I should apologize in advance for any shortcomings that will come up in my work in coming weeks. I am trying my best with the time I have to provide fact and analysis that actually helps people comprehend what is really happening.

PERHAPS I’D BE better off if I focused my attention in coming weeks on the Chicago White Sox and whether or not they’ll be able to hold onto first place and actually have a chance to win something this season.

Monday’s make-up game against the Detroit Tigers will be a significant moment to watch – even though I’m sure Chicago Cubs fans will try to downplay it.

Which is too bad. The alleged beauty of all that ivy is nothing compared to a pennant race. I feel sorry for them in that they don’t know what they’re missing.

What a shame! Particularly if Republican partisans try to turn THIS into a political issue, what with Obama being a White Sox fan.

WILL REPUBLICAN IDEOLOGUES root, root, root for the Tigers, with delusions of Michigan’s votes in the Electoral College being swayed as a result? That’s the real problem with so much partisanship.

All that campaign coverage of the past few months has numbed people’s minds to the point where they’re missing out on everything else in life!

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An African-American for mayor? Maybe things haven’t changed as we’d like

HAROLD, HAROLD!: A faint echo

Perhaps it is appropriate that we’re at the 23^rd anniversary of the day on which Harold Washington departed this planet.

His death in the very office at City Hall in which 20 people wish to work following next year’s elections brought an end to an era in which the African-American population (which is larger than any other single ethnic or racial group in Chicago) had “one of its own” in the top political post.

EUGENE SAWYER’S MAYORAL stint was engineered by the white political powerbrokers who were looking to undermine the concept of black chief executives, and we have had Richard M. Daley ever since.

So at a time when the bulk of the serious candidates likely to run for mayor are African-American, it seems that the overwhelming favorite is the dreaded Rahm-bo. Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel seems to be the runaway favorite of all the candidates in the running.

 A new poll commissioned by the Chicago Retail Merchants Association showed Emanuel taking 39 percent of the vote, if the election were held now. By comparison, the African-American candidate gets 26 percent – if one adds up all the support for former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., Rev./state Sen. James Meeks, D-Chicago, and Sen. (for four more days) Roland Burris, D-Ill.

If that poll is taken into account, the Feb. 22 municipal election will result in a runoff to be held in April between Emanuel and Moseley-Braun. It would become the emotional challenge for those people who want to rant and rage about electoral politics – since they will be inclined to complain and want to vote against both candidates.

NOW I WILL be the first to admit that I don’t take this poll all too seriously, largely because it is so early in the political process. It shows 18 percent of people being “unsure” who they want, which likely means that Emanuel leads by so much because he has been effective during the past month in pushing the concept that he is THE candidate for mayor.

It is the reason why Moseley-Braun is trying to push the concept that Emanuel’s departure in October from the White House undermined the effectiveness of President Barack Obama – resulting in his self-described “shellacking” in the elections held earlier this month. Make Obama-sympathetic voters blame Emanuel, and maybe they won’t vote for him.



MOSELEY-BRAUN: She's the frontrunner (for now)

It also is why Davis is going about these days saying Emanuel doesn’t belong on the ballot, trying to dredge up the issue of whether or not Rahm gave up his Chicago residency status when he went to Washington to work for Obama.

And it is why an attorney who is a consultant to Meeks is the leader of that legal battle to get Emanuel kicked off the ballot.

THAT IS THE point we’re at in this city when it comes to racial politics. The only way the powers-that-be think we can get an African-American candidate elected as mayor is if all the credible white people get knocked off the ballot.

Not that I think such a tactic would work.

I honestly believe that the bulk of the people who are backing Emanuel now would suddenly turn to one of the Latino candidates, most likely former Public Schools and City Colleges head Gery Chico – who earlier this week was pointing out the fact that he has Greek ethnicity in his family tree and was claiming the endorsement of his Public Schools counterpart, Paul Vallas – who had his share of supporters when he ran for Illinois governor in 2002.

So perhaps he becomes the un-Latino candidate who some people will be able to vote for, so as to avoid having to cast a vote for any of the Big Four of the African-American candidates who are in the running (I know “Dock” Walls supporters – all three of them – will claim it really is a Big Five, but I disagree). Or perhaps life-long Chicagoan M. Tricia Lee would suddenly gain significant voter support.



CHICO: The backup choice?

THE SAD FACT is that we’re not as far along the road to racial acceptance as we’d like to think we are. There will be significant numbers of voters in the municipal elections who will let race guide the way they cast their ballot.

We may have sent some African-American officials to represent us in the U.S. Senate, at the Statehouse and as president. But I think some people believe mayor is more important because that is here, not somewhere else.

I’m waiting to see what kinds of rhetoric develop once we know which of the African-American candidates will become the front-runner of the group, and the one who will wind up going head-to-head against Emanuel.

It may not be as blunt as the rhetoric (“Before it’s too late”) from Election ’83. But I’m willing to bet that the spirit will be similar to the days when Harold was still with us.

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Do people really believe Eugene Sawyer was the last black mayor ever of Chicago?

We’re going to learn next spring just how far we truly have come with regards to race. At least that is how I perceive next year’s municipal elections that will be held to pick a new mayor of Chicago.

For I couldn’t help but notice that the first person I spoke to after learning of Richard M. Daley’s intentions to not seek re-election in 2011 had as an initial reaction, “it looks like we’re going to have a black one again.”

SADLY ENOUGH, THAT person was not alone. I have heard several variations on that theme in the hours since. For as much as we’d like to think that we’re beyond the kind of nastiness that overcame the 1983 mayoral campaign and the years of Harold Washington, I’m not so convinced.

Some people are going to argue we have sent a black president to Washington, and have had a black state attorney general and two black people to serve in the U.S. Senate from Illinois. They are going to want to think we have moved beyond such considerations.

I wish we have. And this is one time I would love to be proven wrong come next spring.

But a part of me wonders if Chicago mayor is different, because there are people who perceive city government and its elections as being more important, and because of the belief that those other black officials were part of overall slates of candidates that gave people a chance to vote for many different people – some of whom they liked and some of whom they didn’t.

THERE ALSO IS the attitude that Washington political positions fall under that category of “up and out” – meaning we send people to someone else’s government, and not our own. The Washington Post gave Richard M. Daley's so-called retirement Page One play, albeit behind the story about the Potomac River, while The Pantagraph of Bloomington, Ill., let Daley's future float among the newspaper's nameplate - with the story inside.
So how many people are going to have a visceral reaction in their gut if a serious contender happens to arise from the field of candidates, and that person just happens to be of an African-American racial persuasion?

Now I don’t expect the blatant racial politicking of 27 years ago. I don’t think we’ll see people walking around with those campaign buttons depicting a watermelon with a red slash through it, or t-shirts bearing the slogan, “Vote right, vote white.”

It will be the more subtle rhetoric, not all that different from those people who get all hung up on the concept that Barack Obama is a Muslim – because no “real American” could be anything other than someone exactly like themselves.

BUT I EXPECT there to be a tension, particularly since it makes sense that Chicago, with its significant African-American population (almost 40 percent of the total city) has an electorate capable of picking black people to run for that highest of city offices.

Be honest. There are people in Chicago who like to think that the whole concept of “black mayors” is just a stupid phase we went through a few decades ago, and that the reason we kept re-electing Richard M. Daley was because we outgrew it.

The reality is that the black candidates for mayor throughout the years, including men such as Timothy Evans, Danny Davis and Burris (who already has said he can’t afford the cost of a mayoral campaign next year), couldn’t unite enough of the black vote, and couldn’t make any traction among white voters – which was the key to the Washington electoral victories of ’83 and ’87.

I can’t help but remember the 2002 Illinois governor elections – the one where Rod Blagojevich became the first Democrat in 26 years to win that statewide office. What I actually remember is the Democratic primary.

FOR IF CHICAGO voters had had their way, we would have never had Blagojevich for governor. The city vote was won by Roland Burris – because of all the predominantly black wards on the South and West sides of the city that overwhelmingly preferred Roland, making up for the fact that Burris was irrelevant everywhere else.

If it had been up to Chicago, we would have had the concept of “Gov. Roland W. Burris” for the past few years. It was only because of the rural parts of the state that we got a Gov. Blagojevich.

Which means it is totally feasible that black Chicago is strong enough to win this election – particularly since there is no front-runner, Daley himself said Wednesday he has no intention of publicly endorsing a successor, and no candidate is going to come anywhere close to 50 percent of the vote.

If anything, it is that reality that Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., referred to when he issued a statement about Daley’s departure that some political pundits are already lambasting as Rush playing the “race card.”

IN RUSH’S WORDS, “whoever (the new mayor) will be will have to come through my community.” As Rush sees it, too many people are trying to compile shortlists of who the frontrunners are, so as to exclude anyone else.

“Before anyone is deemed an imaginary front-runner in this particular race, they should pause and take that into consideration,” Rush said.

I think it is just being realistic to admit that Chicago’s sizable black population must be considered when figuring who the new mayor could be. I’d argue that people who want to disregard this factor probably are the true racists – it seems to me they’re interested in trying to ignore that particular group of voters.

If anything, it is the reason why I most enjoyed Wednesday’s edition of the Spanish-language newspaper Hoy, which used its front page to put together a montage of local political people who could be the next mayor, and included a fairly multi-racial, multi-cultural group.

WHICH IS HONEST, because the next mayor could be anybody. There is no frontrunner. Whomever does wind up getting the position is going to be in a very tight spot on account of the economic struggles that have forced governments everywhere to make severe cuts in essential programs and services.

Which almost makes me wonder if what we ought to be thinking about the candidates for mayor in the 2011 election – regardless of race – is something along the lines of, why are they dumb enough to want the job to begin with?

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Street gang leaders think they’re being singled out for abuse by law enforcement

Reading the Chicago Sun-Times, I couldn’t help but detect similarities between the rhetoric coming from men who admit they have ties to Chicago street gangs and other people who get in trouble with federal law enforcement officials – most recently our state’s former governor, Rod Blagojevich.

Now before anyone gets all bent out of shape, I am not suggesting that Blagojevich is a thug. I single him out because he's the most recent person in the public's mind to complain that "the Feds" are picking on him.

IT IS JUST that the gang leaders got a writeup in the newspaper for their thoughts about a recent attempt by Chicago Police and federal prosecutors to talk with gang members and let them know of the harsh consequences for violent actions that can be traced back to gang activity.

That meeting on Aug. 17 at the conservatory in Garfield Park (a beautiful place that scares many Chicagoans because of its proximity to neighborhoods with strong gang activity) has caused some politicians (although not Mayor Richard M. Daley) to denounce the police for allegedly “negotiating” with gang leaders.

In my mind, the kind of talk that came out of that meeting doesn’t sound like negotiations more than ultimatums. Indeed, the Sun-Times writeup on Thursday that previewed a press conference held by the gangs to try to gain television attention indicates the gang leaders who were present last month remain upset.

They say they were tricked into attending.

WHAT THEY ALSO had to say was that the Chicago Police don’t understand the present-day structure of streetgangs – preferring to think of things the way they were 30 or 40 years ago.

Those gang leaders (some of whom say they really don’t lead their gangs anymore because no one would listen to them if they did) also claim that the federal government, by making threats of using the RICO statutes designed to take down the Outfit and organized crime is singling out poor, black people who have little say over the levels of violence that are taking place on the streets of Chicago.

The bottom line? The federal government is a bully who doesn’t really comprehend the way things work on a day-to-day basis.

That just sounds so much, to me at least, like the rhetoric we have been getting from Blagojevich – who tells us the federal government is trying to break him when he didn’t do anything that should be considered wrong.

WHICH TO ME makes the gang leader rhetoric a lot of weak-kneed whining.

Not that I can blame them for being concerned. Because the federal government has shown on many occasions that when a U.S. attorney gets it into his head that he wants to use his authority on you, he’s probably going to find something improper.

The threats of incarcerating gang leaders for actions their so-called subordinates have committed, then using those same actions to seize any assets the gang leader family members may have is harsh. It is very mean-spirited.

Then again, it probably will take some borderline draconian action to get through to the gang types in our city that their behavior needs to change.

BECAUSE THE CURRENT problem with gangs is that we have severe enough problems in certain segments of our society that some people wind up fearing the misery they will suffer from not being part of a neighborhood gang more than they do any legal repercussions they would face by being a gang member.

Which is why I really don’t understand the political people, such as many white members of the City Council and Gov. Pat Quinn, who are determined to think of this latest approach as somehow dignifying the existence of the gangs.

As though if we pretend hard enough, the gangs will cease to exist in reality. It sounds to me like the older Cuban exiles who want to pretend that Fidel Castro never really took over the country, and that it is just a matter of time before he leaves and things return to the way they were 60 years ago.

Somehow, I suspect if Blagojevich himself thought anybody would care what he thought on the issue, he too probably would be denouncing the Chicago Police Department and Superintendent Jody Weis for this latest act.

ACTUALLY, I CAN’T help but wonder about one aspect of the gang leader comments that came out on Thursday. They claimed that the old days of strictly-structured gangs is history – the feds in Chicago broke them in recent decades.

Putting people like Larry Hoover and Jeff Fort (founder of the El Rukn gang that would have us think they were merely being good Muslims) away in prison for lengthy terms (the 63-year-old Fort likely will never be free again in his life) broke up the structure to the point where they say there really is no high-ranking leader who can pay for his subordinate’s crimes.

I don’t know how accurate that statement is. But I do find it believable that some young punk kid isn’t all that concerned what an old man like Fort thinks, or what anyone outside of his immediate block thinks.

In fact, I find it the kind of clueless attitude that would result in billing their “press conference” (I had no intention of going) by saying it is about “unconstitutional, guilty before innocent, premeditated arrest and indictment” by the Chicago police.

THEY EVEN GO so far as to accuse Weis (the guy whom some politicians would say is being too weak on this issue) of using “Jon Burge-style tactics” in dealing with them.

It sounds too much like the cheap rhetoric we get from many other people who have their own issues with the law. Which means that the meeting with gang leaders may well have served its intended purpose – it delivered a message that the gangs are being closely watched.

Which is what everybody in our society ought to want.

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Will Sox make 1st Place a fleeting memory

We’re at the All-Star break, and the Chicago White Sox are in first place. Whodathunkit?

By beating up on the Kansas City Royals Sunday by a 15-5 score and with a little help from the Minnesota Twins (who beat the previous first-place occupant Detroit Tigers), the White Sox can claim sole possession of first place in their division as baseball takes its annual three-day mid-season break.

THE TOP BALLPLAYERS, including first baseman Paul Konerko, will be spending the next few days in Anaheim, Calif., not to check out Disneyland, but to play in the All-Star Game proper and partake in the various festivities (including the somewhat interesting minor league all-star exhibition and the over-bloated Home Run Derby).

For the rest of baseball, it is a time to relax.

Which might be a good thing for those local sports fans who would like to see the Blackhawks Stanley Cup championship followed up promptly with a White Sox appearance in the playoffs – if not the World Series itself.

I’m not sure how realistic that latter goal is, although I never believed this particular ballclub to be as bad as they played back at the beginning of the season (remember the point that lasted for a day or two when they were literally the worst team in the American League?)

BUT THEN AGAIN, I’m not counting a division title yet, even though baseball people like to think in cliches, and one of those being that the team in first place at mid-season likely will go on to win. (It used to be the team in first place on Independence Day would win the pennant, but so much has changed with the structure of baseball that it is no longer technically accurate).

What I wonder is if too many people are going to relax because they will figure the White Sox were in first place at the All-Star break, meaning they don’t have to do anything special to keep that status.

A part of me wonders if we’re going to get a repeat of 2009 when Mark Buehrle pitched that perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays. In doing so, that particular victory tied the White Sox for first place with the Tigers.

That tie lasted for one day. It wound up being the high-point of the season, both in terms of the quality of Buehrle’s game and in terms of how high the White Sox achieved for the rest of last season. I doubt that when 99 percent of baseball fans think back to 2009 that they even remember the White Sox as a factor.

I HOPE THAT’S not what we’re going to get a repeat of here.

For I can’t help but notice that when the season resumes on Thursday, the White Sox will be in Minneapolis to play the Twins – the team that was in first place in the American League central division for most of this season and is still not that far behind.

The pessimist in me could easily see the Twins being motivated enough to want to beat up on the White Sox and take at least three of the four games they’re scheduled to play this coming weekend (if not an outright four-game sweep).

That would make the Twins literally into the team that knocked Detroit out of first place on Sunday, and took the White Sox down as well one week later.

WHAT WE LITERALLY have is a good three-way pennant race for the divisional title. Only one team can prevail (it is obvious that the so-called wild card team will come from the AL eastern division). It will be an interesting fight to the finish.

I’m only hoping it stays that way. Because I think about the most pathetic thing that could happen to Chicago sports this year (I consider the fact that LeBron James went to Miami to be a blessing in disguise) is if this division race turned into a two-way between Detroit and Minnesota.

So those are my thoughts about baseball on this day that the World Cup can no longer serve as a diversion for athletic interests.

It will be intriguing to see the All-Star Game itself on Tuesday (I always root for the American League, but realize it basically is a fan exhibition – regardless of what stunts baseball officials try to impose).

WILL KONERKO GET a chance to bat at a moment of significance? Will there be anything of significance in the game to Chicago baseball fans (the Cubs outfielder Marlon Byrd and White Sox relief pitcher Matt Thornton will be the only other Chicago ballplayers on hand)?

Is this a game where the Chicago Tribune sports staff should just stay home, letting their sister sports staff at the Los Angeles Times handle this one? With news budgets being what they are these days, it almost wouldn’t shock me if that happened.

But after Thursday, we can all return to the significance of a pennant race. Here’s hoping that the All-Star break doesn’t relax the White Sox too much, or else Sunday’s “first place” status will wind up being such a fleeting memory that we probably won’t believe in future years that it ever happened.

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