Samardzija hopes Cubs don't punt

My latest Mesa missive was on Jeff Samardzija. (READ IT)

The former Notre Dame stud receiver is trying to make the Cubs, but maybe the Bears should make him an offer he can't refuse!

Bald update

Filed my first AP story (READ IT) from Mesa yesterday on Ryan Theriot trying to keep his shortstop job by holding off the next Cubbie savior, Starlin Castro.

Still enjoying my break from blogging, thanks for asking!

Little (cell phone) shop of horrors

Cell phone shopping: More fun than sharing a 6 x 6 room with angry hornets. More dangerous, too - at least to one's sanity and one's wallet.

Would the Nadels stay with Sprint, which has been decent the last year or two after a rough start to our relationship? Or would we switch to Verizon, which most experts say has better service but which also costs quite a bit more? Would we go with basic phones or with so-called smart phones that are, well, smarter than the average freelance journalist? Would we buy at my favorite retailer, Costco, where Sprint products no longer are sold? Or would we go to Best Buy, which I used to hate but actually has intelligent, caring, non-commission salespeople at the store that's within walking distance of our abode?

I spent months pondering the above questions. I hate the very idea of expensive cell phone service. I hate having to pay upwards of 2 grand a year for something that wasn't even in the budget just a decade ago. I also hate being locked into a two-year contract again after we finally had become free agents.

And then there was the research. Oy.

One of the great things about the Internet is that there is an endless supply of information and opinions available on every product known to man, woman, child and beast. One of the horrible things about the Internet is that there is an endless supply of information and opinions available on every product known to man, woman, child and beast. It's enough to make one's bald head spin.

With my wife and daughter pushing me to make a damn decision already because they were the ones who had the most obsolete cell phones still in use on Planet Earth - Horrors! Katie's phone wouldn't hold a charge! Horrors! Roberta's phone had a slight echo! - this finally was the day.

We ended up staying with Sprint and buying three phones at Best Buy. Our new plan will cost us about $35 a month more than our old - something I wanted to avoid given the fact that my freelance pay is about a fifth of what my regular-job pay once was. But hey, as the saying goes, it's only money (we used to have).

I'd love to blame the big-bucks purchase all on my ladies, but I was the one who ended up with the most expensive phone of the three. Go figure.

Aside from answering and making calls, my new Samsung Moment is a complete mystery to me. I'm a pretty quick study, though, so I'll figure the thing out soon enough. If my daughter helps me, that is.

Still, I think that next time I'll opt for that hornet-filled room instead.

No promises but ...

I might occasionally post links to some of my freelance stuff, but not always. Here's a general rule of thumb on the Cubs spring training stuff I'll be doing:

If you see a Mesa-datelined AP story (on Yahoo, AOL, ESPN, etc.) between Feb. 25 and April 1 and it doesn't have a byline, I almost surely will have written it.

He's b-a-a-a-ck (well, not really, but ...)

No, I'm not blogging again. Oh wait. Just by writing that in this blog, I guess I'm blogging again.

Just here to say that while I'm taking a break - a long, long break - from writing for free, I will occasionally use this space for updates, personal reflections, etc.

So do check back. Just don't expect to see my breakdown of the big Bulls-Nets clash or something!

Mike

It's ChicagoNow now

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To read Mike Nadel's The Baldest Truth, please go to his page at ChicagoNow.com:

CLICK HERE!

Joining forces with a juggernaut

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The Bald Truth

OK, folks, here's a little more foreplay ...

Within the next day or three or five, The Baldest Truth will be a regular feature on ChicagoNow, Tribune Co.'s new blog site.

You will need to go to a new address, which I will provide here as soon as my stuff is up and running. Until then, do feel free to check out the site - CLICK HERE - if for no other reason than to see how much better it will be after I start posting there. (That's a joke, ChicagoNow folks; please take it as such.)

I'm not doing this for the money, because there won't be much of it coming my way. I'll be getting paid mostly by the pageview, so be sure to tell your friends and families (and families of friends) - especially Chicago-area peeps, because local hits count more toward my bottom line.

Nor am I doing this for the exposure. I've been at this so long, all that ego-driven stuff has become secondary.

Mostly, I'm doing it because I've got abso-freakin'-lutely nuthin' better to do! Wait ... I didn't really say that ...

Actually, I'm doing it because it's a cool opportunity for a guy who has been a newspaper hack for most of his life.

It's a chance to join forces on ChicagoNow with media personalities such as Len Kasper, Bob Brenly, David Kaplan, Chet Coppock and Bruce Wolf as well as jock/bloggers like Black Jack McDowell and Adewale Ogunleye.

And it's a natural next progression given that The Baldest Truth has been up and running for nearly three years.

Yes, it really has been that long. I started blogging back when the Bears were on their way to the Super Bowl and before the Copleys sold me and my colleagues into the debt cesspool that is GateHouse Media.

So keep an eye out for The Baldest Truth's grand ChicagoNow unveiling by checking back here early and often.

Phew! I need a cigarette. Was it good for you, too?

The Balder Truth

Nice to see that first-base ump Brian Gorman brought his A-game to the World Series.

Hey, he succeeded at getting three outs on only two blown calls.

Take that, Phil Cuzzi!

THE BALDEST TRUTH

As a guy who regularly pokes fun at Bobby Knight - after all, the man is such a large, stationary target - I also have to give him one of these (I'm doing a thumbs-up sign) when he does the right thing.

Somewhere, somebody probably is ripping The General for declining to attend his induction into Indiana's Athletic Hall of Fame, but they shouldn't. Knight is absolutely right in believing his appearance would be a huge sideshow - and a major distraction for the six other inductees.

So kudos, Bobby. You are the one of the five classiest guys ever to choke Neil Reed.

Icons R Us: From Favre to Kobe to Phil Ivey

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The Bald Truth

Frankly, I didn't pay attention to a single thing Brett Favre said as he talked about getting ready to play his first game in Green Bay since becoming America's most famous vagabond since Jack Kerouac.

It was his tone of voice - almost catatonic, as if he had been awakened from a deep slumber just in time for his midweek press conference - that told me all I needed to know.

He is working so hard to seem low-key, it's obvious he's not. The man is as nervous and anxious as a teenage boy going to his first high-school dance.

Which is perfectly normal. Favre doesn't want to show up for the dance, trip over his own two feet and land face-down in the onion dip. Pretty hard to impress the ladies, the peers and the onlookers that way.

I'm guessing Favre will be received quite well by the folks who spent more than a decade and a half naming their kids Brett.

And he should be. Favre created wonderful memories for those Cheeseheads. He won them a championship. He restored pride in all things Packer. He played hard and with the enthusiasm of a rookie, even when he was old and gray. He never missed an opening coin toss, no matter how crappy he might have felt on a given day. He gave his life and blood for that organization.

Yeah, it ended weirdly. Yeah, in recent years he's been more wishy-washy than John Kerry on a bad day. Yeah, it sucks for Packerland to see Favre in freakin' purple.

But it's all worked out pretty well for the Packers, too. There certainly aren't many QBs better than Aaron Rodgers.

Of course, Favre is approaching Sunday's return with great anticipation. I'm really looking forward to the game, too - and I'm not a Packers fan, not a Vikings fan and, last I looked, not scheduled to play in it.

The Balder Truth

The NBA season has begun, so I'm just a little tardy with my predictions:

The Lakers will beat the Celtics in the NBA Finals.

Kobe will repeat as MVP.

The Spurs will take the Lakers to 7 games in the Western Conference finals.

The Cavaliers will win fewer games with Shaq than they did without him.

LeBron will start shopping for real estate in New York.

The Bulls will increase their win total from 41 to 43 and again will lose in the first round of the playoffs.

Will that convince John Paxson and Jerry Reinsdorf to extend Vinny Del Negro's contract? Only if they are fools.

THE BALDEST TRUTH

Imagine Phil Mickelson turning in a Masters scorecard with the wrong score marked down at No. 12. Or Kevin Garnett shooting at the wrong end and scoring an important basket for the opponent in the NBA Finals. Or Peyton Manning looking right at a wide-open receiver in the end zone and, instead of throwing the ball, taking a knee in the third quarter of the Super Bowl. Or Derek Jeter forgetting how many outs there were in Game 5 of the World Series and throwing the ball into the stands to allow a run to score.

Hello, Phil Ivey.

ESPN The Magazine's latest cover boy as "The Best Poker Player On Earth," Ivey had what should have been a winning flush on Day 8 of the World Series of Poker's Main Event. Instead, he simply threw it away.

I'm not saying he folded because he wasn't sure he could beat his opponent. I'm saying the betting already had ended for the hand and his opponent already had shown his two-pair when Ivey, without taking another look at his two face-down cards, mucked his ace-high spade flush into the discard pile.

Incredible. The best poker player on the planet, playing on the game's biggest stage, simply forgot what he had in his hand.

The mistake cost Ivey more than 2 million chips and was a huge part of his free-fall from near the chip lead to the brink of elimination.

This all took place shortly after a pre-recorded interview in which Ivey spoke of his heightened concentration level and his determination to finally reach the Main Event final table - a destination that has eluded him forever.

It's a tribute to Phil's skill that he was able to recover and qualify for the final table. And it's a lesson - a rather refreshing one, too - that even the masters screw up royally.

Phil goes for 11, Yanks go for 27

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The Bald Truth

This seems hard to believe, but my unimpeachable source swears it's true:

Now that he has received his 10th NBA championship ring and with his Lakers favored to win it all again, Phil Jackson has contacted Antonio Alfonseca to learn the secret behind growing a sixth finger on each hand.

The Balder Truth

Yes, Larry Johnson twice tweeted gay slurs. Yes, he told a sportswriter who asked about the tweets to "get your faggot ass out of here." Yes, in a prepared statement issued by his agent, the Chiefs' All-Pro-turned-All-Stiff has said he was sorry because "I did not intend to offend anyone." Yes, has been told by the team to take a hike.

And yes, I am outraged!

I mean, there once was a time when an insincere apology meant something.

THE BALDEST TRUTH

Well, it's World Series time, which means it's time to break down how the Yankees and Phillies stack up against each other.*

*All this is contingent on the umps blowing a maximum of two calls per game.

1B: Mark Teixeira is a great fielder and he led the AL in HR and RBI, but, as Ryan Howard was heard to say: "I got chunks of guys like you in my stool!" Advantage ... Phillies

2B: Robinson Cano has become a good all-around player again but he's no Chase Utley. Unless, of course, Utley's right arm continues doing its Steve Sax/Chuck Knoblauch imitation. For argument's sake, let's figure that Chase will be all right. Advantage ... Phillies

3B: Pedro Feliz doesn't put up the kind of numbers Alex Rodriguez does. Duh! A-Rod's HGH is twice as good as any stuff Feliz can afford! Advantage ... Yankees

SS: We'll assume Jimmy Rollins is past getting benched for lack of hustle. Still, how can anybody pick against Derek Jeter, whose fundamentally perfect play is the sole reason the Yankees have won 26 championships? Gehrig Schmehrig! Advantage ... Yankees

LF: Even after four years in pinstripes, Johnny Damon still looks funny with cropped hair and a clean face. That alone would have cost him in a contest against Raul Ibanez, but Ben Francisco will be getting major PT in left while Ibanez does the DH thing. Advantage ... Yankees

CF: Melky Cabrera is OK, I guess, but Shane Victorino's very name spells "victori, no?" Advantage ... Phillies

RF: Nick Swisher being lost at the plate must feel like deja vu to White Sox fans. Meanwhile, Jayson Werth is the best ballplayer from Springfield since Homer Simpson in his prime. Advantage ... Phillies

C: With his big-game experience, Jorge Posada would seem the obvious choice. But A.J. Burnett will throw only to banjo-hitting Jose Molina. For the second straight postseason, Carlos Ruiz has stepped into the phone booth and turned into SuperCatcher. Or at least he would have if there were phone booths any more. Advantage ... Phillies

DH: When Ibanez is here, he's a nice match for Hideki Matsui. When it's Matt Stairs or Greg Dobbs, not so much. And in the three games in Philly, Godzilla will give the Yankees the most dangerous pinch-hitter in the series. Advantage ... Yankees

SP: The World Series already is stretched out, and a few rain days would make it possible for CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee to start a half-dozen times each. (Thank you, Cleveland!) Just because Pedro Martinez would drill Babe Ruth in the ass, it doesn't mean Pedrold should be the No. 2 pitcher for a championship team. Advantage ... Yankees

RP: Brad Lidge makes my head explode, so I can only imagine what he does to the phine pholks of Philly. He's great ... he's crap ... he's great ... he's crap. And right now, he's, um, who the hell knows? Then there's Mariano Rivera. About him, everybody the hell knows. Advantage ... Yankees

Prediction: It'll be close, as it should be. This ain't the BCS, ya know.

Yankees in 7.

My new deal and La Russa's new coach

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The Bald Truth

Within a few days, The Baldest Truth will be joining the family of a major media company. I will provide details as soon as things are finalized.

Yes, if you're like me, you're so excited you can barely keep down the 2 1/2 pounds of bacon you had for breakfast!

The Balder Truth

For underdog lovers everywhere, it sure was heartwarming to see those freckle-faced lads Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter hugging and squealing like schoolgirls after they and the rest of their underpaid, no-name New York crew won the AL pennant.

THE BALDEST TRUTH

Sources close to Tony La Russa's ego say Jose Canseco will be the Cardinals' new strength and conditioning coach.