A Case of the Mondays

Hi there. I'm Tony, and I'll be posting about sports every Monday. To give you some background on me, I am a huge Chicago sports fan (Cubs, Bears, Bulls) and I'm a former high school basketball player. I play fantasy football and baseball every year, listen to KNBR 680 every day, and watch way too much ESPNews. It's in fact amazing that I have time to do all of this, while holding a job, and playing live music at least two nights a week (www.tonybataska.com).

So without further delay, here are the sports stories that caught my attention recently:

Cubs Win NL Central! - This is the 100th anniversary of the last time the Cubs won the World Series. Regardless of whether they win or lose in the playoffs, the Cubs have already had an amazing season that have seen a couple first in my lifetime:

This is the first time I've ever seen the Cubs win their division two years in a row. The last time they did this was actually three in a row (1906, 07, 08).

This is the first time I've ever seen the Cubs go to the playoffs two years in a row (once again, 06-08).

Carlos Zambrano threw the only Cubs no hitter I've ever seen. Milt Papas threw the last one in 1972. Apparently every year at the Cubs Convention, Milt would tell Zambrano, "You're going to be the next one to do it." Good call, Milt. You are correct, sir!

Week 3 of the NFL - There were many great games this weekend, and here's the quick recap:

The Bears blew another 4th quarter lead - For the second week in a row, the Bears have the lead going into the 4th quarter, and they leave the game losers. Luckily, this week I didn't go out of my way to watch the game. On the negative side, the Bears were beat by Brian Griese whom they traded to Tampa Bay in the offseason. Griese had over 400 yards passing. Way to welcome back your former teammate. A nice gift basket of fruit would've been sufficient, but letting him march up and down the field in overtime was a little too nice of the defensive unit.

The Giants beat the Bengals in overtime - The second overtime game of the week found defending champion NY Giants beating the hapless Cinncinati Bengals. Each week I'm more and more impressed with Eli Manning. He looks to have found his identity in the NFL.

Oakland loses to the Bills on last second field goal - I watched the large majority of this game and it wasn't half as bad as I thought it was going to be. The Raiders looked a lot better than the sorry, ridiculously terrible team they were in Week 1. The Raiders running attack looked great and their defense was tenacious until the end. On the flip side, the Bills are 3-0 for the first time since the early 90s.

Other games of note:

Jags beat Colts, Niners destroy Lions, Cowboys beat Packers, and Vikings beat Panthers. Sorry if I missed your team, I'll try to work in more teams next week.

US wins Ryder Cup for the first time since 1998:

I'm not a huge golf fan, but since the US hadn't won the Ryder Cup in a decade, I figured it was worth a mention. U-S-A, U-S-A!

So that's the first installment, come on back as I update the Cubs playoff results and the rest of the NFL season.