Wisch List

Thursday’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) The Michigan Wolverines are the No. 1 team in the nation. The Indiana Hoosiers were the No. 1 team in the nation. And come Saturday night, those Big Ten titans will clash amongst the candy-striped crazies of Bloomington, Ind., pitting the Associated Press’ No. 1 and No. 3 squads against one another in the biggest college basketball game of the season.

Besides UM and IU, conference kin Ohio State, Minnesota and Illinois have also enjoyed spots in the Associated Press’ Top 10 this year. And just this week, Michigan State cracked a Top 10 list for the first time, checking in at No. 9 in the USA Today Coaches Poll – even though the Spartans lost a game to Indiana last weekend.

Yes, in case you hadn’t noticed, the Big Ten is good this season.

So good, in fact, that on Jan. 16 during ESPN’s “Pardon The Interruption” basketball analyst Bruce Pearl declared, “I think you have three teams at the top of the league. I think you have Michigan, Indiana and Minnesota … I think those are the top three teams in the Big Ten, all capable of getting to the Final Four.”

Minnesota, currently ranked in the lower reaches of the Top 25, has fallen off during the past two weeks. Nevertheless, the Big Ten still has four of the nation’s 11 best teams according to the Coaches Poll and four of the Top 13 per the AP. It’s clearly the best conference in America.

But the Big Ten still isn’t as good as it was 24 years ago.

Not yet, at least. And it’s very possible that it won’t be at all.

To continue reading, visit CBSChicago.com …

Today’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) I’ve never had much sympathy for the rooftop owners across from Wrigley Field. Even during last Cubs season, when all they had was A View to a Kill.

That’s because when you really boil it down, the rooftops’ business model is no different than someone setting up lawn chairs behind a drive-in movie theater’s back fence and then inviting people to come over to eat, drink and watch the theater’s films.

For a price, of course.

With all that said, however, I do like the rooftops and enjoy everything that they add to the ambiance and vitality of game days Wrigley Field. Wrigleyville wouldn’t be the same without them, and I don’t at all want to see the clubs wither away like so much dead ivy.

So, my hope is that the Chicago Cubs figure out a way to play ball with the rooftop owners.

To continue reading, visit CBSChicago.com …

This weekend’s Wisch List newspaper column from The Daily Journal (Kankakee, Ill.) and The Times (Ottawa, Ill.) …

The WISCH LIST

By Dave Wischnowsky

Much like San Diego is famous for its sunshine and Seattle is synonymous with rain, when it comes to weather, Chicago is best known for its wicked winters.

But there’s just snow way this one has been living up to the city’s hard-earned rep.
Until Friday morning when 1.1 inches had fallen at O’Hare Airport by 10 a.m., the city hadn’t had a substantial snowfall in ages. In fact, that blanketing snapped an amazing streak of 335 days since the Windy City last had a 1-inch snow cover on the ground.

Hey, who said Chicago had nothing in common with L.A.?

“It’s pretty incredible,” National Weather Service meteorologist Gino Izzi told the Chicago Tribune last week about Chicago’s weird winter. “It’s the middle of January and … Dallas, Texas has had more snow than us.”

This winter is so uncommon that we reached a point where every calendar day that Chicago went without a 1-inch snowfall was a day that made history. The previous record for days without snow was already broken at 311 straight, set in 1940. On top of that, this was also the deepest into the winter season that Chicago had ever gone without experiencing a day with an inch of snow. Previously, the latest date for that first accumulation of snow was on Jan. 17 – way back in 1899.

I wonder what the McKinley administration thought about global warming.

Continue reading “This winter is snow problem for some Chicagoans”

Today’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) When it comes to Sammy Sosa’s future, AOL Fanhouse columnist Lisa Olson has a bold prediction.

“Within a few years,” she wrote in a column published on Thursday, “the Cubs will hoist [Sammy] Sosa’s No. 21 up a foul pole at Wrigley Field, a pinstriped flag that will fly alongside Ernie Banks and Ron Santo and all the other greats. Waves of ovations will bring Sosa to tears, remind him of all the many times when Cubs fans loved him unconditionally. He’s never really stopped craving it.”

Oh, I’m sure Sammy hasn’t. But Sosa’s need for affection happens to be the only part of Olson’s prediction that I find logical. In regards to the rest of it, well, I think she’s using a cracked crystal ball.

Or perhaps her fortuneteller is on PEDs.

To continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

Thursday’s column from CBSChicago.com …

(CBS) At least out on the football field, the hits stop when the whistle blows. But in the case of Manti Te’o, they just seem to keep piling up.

And up, and up.

This morning, the New York Daily News reported “the bizarre Manti Te’o fake girlfriend frenzy reached a new low – with a high pitched confession.” According to the attorney of hoax mastermind Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, it was the scammer himself who was on the other end of the many phone calls with the Notre Dame star, using a falsetto voice to pose as Teo’s supposed girlfriend “Lennay Kekua.”

Te’o “thought it was a female he was talking with,” lawyer Milton Grimes told the Daily News. “It was Ronaiah as Lennay.”

Talk about your unnecessary roughness.

As embarrassing as this episode is – and will surely continue to be – for Te’o, it doesn’t change the fact that the 6-foot-2, 255-pound linebacker remains an elite football talent. Once projected by many draft analysts as a Top 10 pick, the Heisman Trophy runner-up is still headed to the NFL even after his lackluster BCS championship performance and the fallout from this scandal.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

My June 23 column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) If only Illinois had played that way against the other NU.

On Tuesday night in Lincoln, the Fighting Illini shucked Nebraska 71-51 in a dominating performance from start to finish that couldn’t have been more polar from the way they played last week in a 68-54 home loss to Northwestern during which Illinois never led.

With their backs pressed to the wall, Illinois conjured up a desperately needed victory over the Cornhuskers that snapped a three-game Big Ten skid for Illinois and bumped the team’s record up to 15-5, 2-4.

But it also posed the burning question: Who are these Illini?

Are they the team that whipped Gonzaga, Butler and Ohio State and rose as high as No. 10 in the national rankings? Or are they the team that lost 5-of-7 games, started out 1-4 in the Big Ten and was manhandled by the likes of Northwestern and Purdue?

We might not be able to say just who this schizophrenic Illinois basketball team is, but this we can be sure of: We’re going to find out soon.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

My January 19 column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) For Cubs fans, it’s time to convene.

But for the Cubs? Well, apparently, it’s time to count beans.

On Friday evening, the 2013 Cubs Convention fan fest kicked off at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers, just one day after the team’s owners announced that they would like to build a hotel next to Wrigley Field on a plot of land currently occupied by a McDonald’s.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the intent of the hotel proposal is to sweeten the Cubs’ bid for tax incentives and other government assistance to help pay for a $300 million renovation of Wrigley Field, which turns 100 years old in 2014.

As an eight-year resident of Wrigleyville, I have no problem with a hotel being built at that location. Seems reasonable. And as a lifelong fan of Wrigley Field, I’m in strong favor of the ballpark getting a long overdue overhaul. Its need is undeniable.

But what I don’t like is how the Cubs – fresh off a woeful 101-loss season – are busy talking about revenue streams and financial concerns at a time when they should be talking about, you know, baseball.

Continue reading at CBSChicago.com …

From the Saturday, Jan. 19, editions of The Daily Journal (Kankakee) and The Times (Ottawa) …

In a perfect world, the summer of 2013 would be a banner one in Cooperstown, N.Y. But, as Lance Armstrong could have told Oprah this week, we don’t live in a perfect world.

Steroids exist. Cheaters cheat. Numbers can’t be believed.

And, as a result, ’13 proved to be an unlucky number for the likes of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa. I suppose the same could be said about sports fans as well after no one was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame last week, but I don’t think so.

After all, I’m glad Cooperstown was shut out.

Considered among baseball’s all-time greats based upon their stats and athletic feats, not one of the “PED Three” of Bonds, Clemens and Sosa came even close to being elected into the Hall of Fame last week by the Baseball Writers Association of America.

The same goes for first-time nominees Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza and Curt Schilling, as well as every other man still on the HOF ballot, from Mark McGwire to Jack Morris. But whether the candidates were dirty or clean, I’m glad that none of them one are entering the Hall come July. And I hope that the Veterans Committee keeps it that way when their Class of 2013 votes are eventually announced.

Last July, in my sports blog at CBSChicago.com, I wrote that I wanted to see voters impose a one-year ban on all Hall of Fame inductions as a nod to the integrity of our national pastime – or what’s left of it, at least.

Continue reading “Score one for a HOF shutout in Cooperstown”

Today’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) During his introductory press conference back in December 2011, newly hired Illinois football coach Tim Beckman curiously refused to utter the name “Northwestern” while talking about the Illini’s in-state Big Ten brethren. Instead, Beckman declared that he would only refer to the Wildcats as “that team upstate.”

Since he said that, the Illini have only beaten Northwestern once in football and basketball games combined. (A narrow 57-56 win at Welsh-Ryan Arena last January is it.)

In the football season finale in November, Beckman’s Illini were pounded by “that team upstate” for an ugly 50-14 loss in Evanston. And on Thursday night Champaign, “that team upstate” ripped 23rd-ranked Illinois 68-54 in a defeat so puzzling that it left Illini fans simultaneously scratching their heads and screaming in frustration as they streamed out the Assembly Hall doors.

Now, Beckman isn’t to blame for the basketball loss … I don’t think. But, nevertheless, his misdirected attempt to elevate the Northwestern rivalry in the eyes of Illini Nation was an early sign of how the overwhelmed coach just couldn’t get anything right.

Among Illini fans, Northwestern has historically been viewed as more of an annoyance than a rival, a designation that has been reserved for the likes of Indiana and Iowa. Beckman clearly didn’t understand that. And he didn’t see that such fighting words with the Wildcats wouldn’t resonate much with his new team’s fan base, which doesn’t aspire to beat Northwestern, but rather expects it. Especially at home.

To continue reading, visit CBSChicago.com …

Tuesday’s column from CBS Chicago …

(CBS) From the get-go, the names fit like a small-sized helmet on an XL-sized head. Awkwardly. And now, it’s time for the Big Ten to send “Legends” and “Leaders” on their way. Mercifully.

In perhaps the best sports news of 2013 thus far, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany on Monday revealed that his league is finally considering replacing its much-maligned division names. The only bad news is that any potential changes won’t come until 2014, although a decision could be made by June.

“It’s on the table,” Delany told ESPN.com.

OK. So, let’s get the thing set.

As you may recall, following expansion, the Big Ten in December 2010 decided to confuse its fans – and the country – when it announced divisional names with meanings so unclear they might as well have been called “Enigmatic” and “Vague.”

As the criticism mounted, Delany tried to clarify the names, saying: “‘Legends’ is a nod to our history and to the people associated with our schools who are widely recognized as legends – student-athletes, coaches, alumni and faculty. ‘Leaders’ looks to the future as we remain committed to fostering leaders, the student-athletes who are encouraged to lead in their own way for the rest of their lives, in their families, in their communities and in their chosen professions.”

To continue reading, visit CBSChicago.com …