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Chicago baseball ended Wednesday (Oct. 3) with the White Sox winning at Cleveland and the Cubs defeating Houston at Wrigley Field. Gee, just as the Cubs and Sox are warming up, they have to prepare for the hot-stove league. Hottest topic in the offseason will be personnel decisions, as the Sox try to figure how to move up a spot to capture the American League Central, and the Cubs try to figure a way to attract fans to Wrigley for what looms as another season of rebuilding.
Sadly, Gwen Summers will not be in studio for "Sports & Torts."
* Speaking of Cubs attendance, the team attracted 2,882,756 to the friendly confines this season. Which means they failed to reach 3 million for the frst time since 2003. But that total does set a record for a Class AAA ballclub, which is what the team looked like mostly during a 101-loss season.
* Cubs rookie outfielder Brett Jackson went 1-for-3 with two strikeouts and a walk. He finished with 59 strikeouts in 120 at-bats, which after much analysis the resident stats guru at elliottharris.com calculated as being one strikeout shy of whiffing 50 percent of the time.
* If it’s any consolation to Cubs fans (and the guess here is that it actually might be), Jackson’s on-base percentage (.303 — thanks to 22 walks) was better than second baseman Darwin Barney had in 548 at-bats (.299 with 33 walks).
* White Sox slugger Adam Dunn sat out the finale. Meaning he finished with 222 strikeouts, one short of the big-league record. He did end with a .202 batting average. If it’s any consolation to Sox fans (and they need all the consoling they can after losing 11 of their final 14), Dunn did have a .333 on-base percentage. Alex Rios, who led the team in hitting at .304, had an on-base percentage of .334.
* Speaking on Sox on-base percentages, second baseman Gordon Beckham finished with .296 and Alexei Ramirez ended at .287.
* Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis, who likely is headed to free agency, said he was surprised by the lack of fan support. Which is not exactly a way to engender fan support.
“Sports & Torts” — highly regarded (especially in the Spada and Harris households, as well as reportedly elsewhere) — will feature the Gwen Summers who runs Krusht Gear, which sells active wear. Gwen also was at the Olympia last weekend in Las Vegas and will be able to describe some of the happenings at that event.
Here is Gwen at the Sept. 22 Midwest Championships promoted by Stacy Stengel at Harper College in Palatine, Ill.:
It's Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose at a photo shoot for the UIC Dancing Flames.
Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose posed for a photo with the University of Illinois-Chicago Dancing Flames team. This is what happens when the social-media research department spends countless hours on the Internet in searching for content for this site.
Speaking of the Bulls, tickets to the team’s home games at the United Center will go on sale Friday (Oct. 5) at 11 a.m. Tickets will be available at Bulls.com, NBATickets.com, 1-800-4NBA-TIX, the United Center and Ticketmaster. Season tickets and group tickets are available by calling the Bulls at (312) 455-4000. The team’s first exhibition game will be TUesday (Oct. 9).
Back to speaking of Derrick Rose, here is some video from Bulls media day — for those eager to see him in a Bulls uniform this season:
Speaking of dancers/cheerleaders (see the Dancing Flames for reference point), here are some photos of Los Angeles Laker Girls hopefuls — what we at elliottharris.com like to think of as a public service:
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