Sports

Leo Track Running Despite Hurdles
Mon, 02/27/2012
In sports, it’s about numbers. Leo High School won their latest track and field state title last May by one point. This marked the school’s sixth state championship. When Leo won its first state title in 1981, it became the first Catholic school to take the top trophy in track and field, and no other Catholic school in Illinois has done that...

McGrath: Bears Stay Within Comfort Zone
Sun, 02/05/2012
Remove the Heisman Trophy from the discussion and I don’t know if Phil Emery knows Robert Griffin III from Robert Goulet. I would assume he does; Emery has spent more than a decade traversing the country in search of N.F.L.-caliber players for three pro teams. But his eye for talent was hardly the focal point of a recent Halas Hall news conference...

McGrath: 20 Years of Sports Radio
Fri, 01/27/2012
Sports talk radio was a phenomenon fairly new to Chicago the first time I heard it here. I was visiting from California, taking my daughter to college on a trip that included a two-hour drive from Chicago. I came upon WSCR — “the Score” — while punching the buttons in a rental car and heard a boisterous guy later identified as Mike North...

McGrath: As Rose Goes, So Do the Bulls
Sun, 01/15/2012
It’s clear the Bulls have re-established themselves as a team worthy of Chicago’s attention, because the city’s ever-twitchy fans are worried about them. Derrick Rose is playing too many minutes and is certain to wear down with so many games compressed into a tight schedule, a consequence of time lost to the N.B.A. lockout. There is no reliable...

McGrath: What About Cubbie Occurrences?
Fri, 11/11/2011
Pete Mackanin is a smart guy. He has to be if he graduated from Brother Rice High School, a South Side citadel of learning where several scholars I know first embarked on the path to true knowledge. Mackanin, a self-described “young 60” after 43 years in pro baseball, looked the part during last week’s visit to Wrigley Field: trim physique, nicely...

McGrath: Curbing the Epstein Enthusiasm
Fri, 10/21/2011
Tom Ricketts has often walked a fine line between clueless and indecisive during his two years in charge of the Cubs, but the Theo Epstein hire is being hailed as a bold and imaginative move, a case of the chairman identifying the best man for a big job and doing whatever it took to land him. Start with the salary — $4 million a year for a general...

McGrath: Bartman Got Hosed
Wed, 09/28/2011
Hell had already broken loose by the time I reached the tunnel through which Steve Bartman was being led out of Wrigley Field late in the evening of Oct. 14, 2003. Security guards surrounded the 26-year-old software specialist, but they couldn’t prevent enraged Cub fans from screaming vile insults at him as they pelted him with beer cups, peanuts...

McGrath: A Victory Restores Smiles at Notre Dame
Fri, 09/23/2011
The celebration that followed Notre Dame’s 18-point victory over Michigan State last week seemed disproportionately joyful, as if it assured the Irish of something significant just three games into their season. Then again, buzz-killing losses the previous two weeks hardly signified an ideal start to Year 2 of Brian Kelly’s campaign to restore the...

McGrath: Buehrle a Gleam in Dark Sox Season
Sun, 09/18/2011
A September collapse featuring two straight series sweeps by Detroit has the enigmatic White Sox sinking toward the Cubs’ homely perch in the baseball standings, with less than two weeks remaining in an unsightly season. Ouch. A Sox fan would sooner decorate his living room with Nick Swisher bobblehead dolls than acknowledge any kinship with the...

McGrath: Meaningful Fall Baseball a Pipe Dream
Tue, 09/06/2011
The crisp hint of fall that is often in the air for September baseball adds an urgency to the games that is missing from the more languid pace of spring and summer. Contending teams know they have to get busy—they’re running out of time. Time ran out on the Cubs’ fruitless season months ago, of course, so the fall-like conditions at Wrigley Field...