Kerry Wood of the Chicago Cubs pitches during the fifth inning against the Houston Astros 06 May at Wrigley Field in Chicago, IL. This was only Woods’ fifth major league start as he tied the major league record with 20 strikeouts winning the game 2-0. | DANIEL LIPPITT/Getty Images
Let’s all agree on this point: There are too many strikeouts in baseball and too few strikeout quizzes.
Welcome to the Sun-Times Chicago Baseball Quiz, All-Strikeout Edition. I am your quiz master, Bill Chuck. These quizzes are designed to be fun and can be played on your own, or you can test your family, friends, neighbors or colleagues. The questions are easy if you know the answers. Other than stats, there will be no math. There will be a nice mix of Cubs and White Sox and a blend of history and current events.
Let’s all agree on this point: There are too many strikeouts in baseball and too few strikeout quizzes.
Are you ready for the Chicago Nine?
Just remember what Yogi Berra said: “Ninety percent of this game is half mental.”
1. From 2010 to 2019, which of these pitchers led Chicago in strikeouts?
a. Chris Sale
b. Jon Lester
c. Jose Quintana
d. Kyle Hendricks
2. Who holds the Cubs’ record with three games of five strikeouts?
a. Sammy Sosa
b. Javy Baez
c. Geovany Soto
d. Corey Patterson
3. Ernie Banks had 32 games with exactly three strikeouts. Which of these Hall of Famers had fewer three-strikeout games than Ernie?
a. Willie Mays
b. Mickey Mantle
c. Hank Aaron
d. Frank Thomas
4. It took 17 innings, but one Cub became the only one to strike out six times in a game. Who was it?
a. Hobie Landrith
b. Kyle Schwarber
c. Don Hoak
d. Jody Davis
5. On Wednesday, May 6, 1998, Kerry Wood pitched one of the greatest games in baseball history when he struck out 20 Astros and allowed just one hit. Who got the one hit?
a. Craig Biggio
b. Jeff Bagwell
c. Ricky Gutierrez
d. Moises Alou
6. While playing for the White Sox, how many times did Frank Thomas wear a Golden Sombrero (strike out four times in a game)?
a. Eight c. Three
b. Four d. One
7. Fergie Jenkins, always one of my favorites, was tough against everyone. Which one of his fellow Hall of Famers did he strike out the most times?
a. Willie Stargell
b. Tony Perez
c. Lou Brock
d. Orlando Cepeda
8. Chris Sale has spent his career in Sox, pitching for the Pale Hose from 2010 to 2016 and the BoSox from 2017 to 2019. For which team has he had more 10-strikeout games?
a. White Sox
b. Red Sox
c. The same for each
9. Each of these Chicago players had a strikeout streak of at least 20 games. Who was the one who had a streak that exceeded 30 games?
Chicago Red Stars players celebrate after scoring a goal against North Carolina Courage during the first half of a NWSL soccer match, Saturday, June 5, 2021, in Bridgeview. | Shafkat Anowar/AP
The Red Stars have one of the most experienced groups in the league in terms of players who have played together. Dames was vocal about the value of keeping that core unit intact last year.
Ahead of the NWSL Expansion Draft in 2020, Red Stars coach Rory Dames said he plans for expansion years in advance.
As the league prepares to expand again next year with the addition of Angel City FC and a team in San Diego, owned by investor Ron Burkle, it’s safe to assume Dames hasn’t stopped planning.
Both Angel City FC and San Diego will begin play in the spring of 2022, which means an expansion draft will be held sometime following the 2021 season.
What does that mean for the Red Stars?
For one, it makes winning now with this roster even more critical.
Coming off a 1-0 victory against the North Carolina Courage that highlighted their defensive prowess, the Red Stars appear to be finding a rhythm at the right time. It was the first time the teams met in the regular season since the 2019 NWSL Championship match. Both team’s rosters bore little resemblance to the rosters they had in 2019.
The Red Stars have another week in the international break before returning to the pitch for a game against the Washington Spirit on June 19 at SeatGeek Stadium. They are currently tied with Gotham FC and the Houston Dash with seven points in the league standings.
“Our emphasis has been on us,” Danny Colaprico said.
Dames was able to secure roster protection ahead of the 2020 expansion draft by trading forward Savannah McCaskill, midfielder Yuki Nagasato, draft assets and two international slots. Neither Dames nor Red Stars’ primary owner Arnim Whisler was aware roster protection was a possibility. Upon presenting the idea to the league, it was established that this tactic could be used.
The Red Stars have one of the most experienced groups in the league with a lot of continuity. Dames was vocal about the value of keeping that core unit intact last year.
Assuming other teams use the same strategy, getting roster protection again will be a challenge.
Los Angeles and San Diego are both desirable markets, and Dames has said in the past he doesn’t want to keep players in Chicago who have an interest in playing elsewhere. Michelle Vasconcelos’ trade to the Utah Royals in September to be closer to her family in Utah was a prime example of that.
Ownership of the Royals was transferred to a group in Kansas City two months later, and the Kansas City women’s soccer club was formed.
When Angel City FC and San Diego join in 2022, it will bring the league to 12 teams. Former U.S. Women’s National Team coach Jill Ellis will be the president of the San Diego expansion team.
Ellis spoke about the challenges of building a team from scratch, but in a league like the NWSL, it doesn’t have to be a long process to find success. Because of the parity, she believes they could establish a winning organization right away.
Ellis also was candid about her desire to hire a woman as the coach. Freya Coombe, coach of Gotham FC, is the only woman who is a head coach in the NWSL. Ellis said she plans to have a coach hired by July.
“I’m committed to hiring a female,” Ellis said. “Early in this process, I was talking to someone and said, ‘I want to hire a woman.’ And they said to me, ‘Well, there’s not too many good ones out there.’ I said, ‘Yes, there are.’ ”
Masses of Brood X cicadas are out in Washington, D.C. | Lynn Sweet/Sun-Times
Masses of cicadas are in the trees, bushes and lawns around my home. Their rhythmic drumming, chirping, hissing and whirring is so loud it seems at times as if a bunch of car alarms are going off.
WASHINGTON — On my back patio at this moment are 41 cicadas, either dead, dying or alive. They are male and female and some whose sex I can’t determine since a likely fungal disease — not deadly — caused the back of their bodies, with their sex organs, to drop off.
Hundreds of thousands more cicadas are in the trees, bushes and lawns around my home. The rhythmic drumming, chirping, hissing and whirring of males looking to attract a mate is at times so loud it seems as if a bunch of car alarms are blasting at the same time.
A few days ago I forgot to turn off my home alarm when I opened my door and even though I was in my yard I could not hear it wailing.
Sometimes the sounds are less noisy and more nuanced, as if the males are wooing the females with concerts of classical music instead of heavy metal.
I’m living in the place where Brood X — known as the Great Eastern Brood — is peaking. Brood X is one of the largest cicada groups in the U.S., emerging every 17 years.
As Sun-Times outdoors writer Dale Bowman noted in a recent column about cicadas, some of them have appeared in the Chicago area this spring. Brood X may extend to parts of eastern Illinois. A different brood of cicadas will dig their way out of their underground homes in Chicago in 2024. Consider this column an advance report of what to expect.
The ground all around my house is pocketed with hundreds of holes – the evidence of the cicadas drilling up from the tunnels where they have been living since before I bought my house. Who knew.
At first, I had an attitude. There was an ick factor. After all, we are talking about insects.
I changed, leaned into this, once I read up on cicadas and learned they don’t bite, invade homes or carry disease. And any eggs they leave behind in the ground — I’ll worry about that in 17 years. So I’m here to report on my own metamorphosis about these critters with the fire engine red eyes and filigreed translucent wings.
Lynn Sweet/Sun-TimesA cicada, missing the back half of his body.
Living these weeks with cicadas as they rush through their short life above the earth I see as a privilege. I’m witnessing an incredible biological phenomenon — all right outside my home.
Let me tell you about the birds around my house. They laugh at my bird feeder now, though I know they’ll be back when Brood X dies off in a few weeks.
But for now, why eat my birdseed when you can dine at will on fresh cicadas? The birds are so plump, I’ve never seen them like this.
The rabbits are fatter. So are the squirrels.
I bought a net to protect the most fragile bush outside my home because the females lay their eggs in the branches and that can do some damage. Some in my neighborhood wrapped their shrubs fully in cheesecloth.
All I have to do is be careful when I open my doors. I am startled at times when one crashes on me.
My neighbor’s tree is a loud cicada haven. They fly all around that tree, like a scene from a benign version of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”
The empty pupal cases the cicadas leave behind as they grow stick to leaves and are annoying. I’m careful walking not to step on them since they don’t jump away from approaching humans. Some cicadas, I observed on my long walks, died while mating. It’s easy to spot the butt-to-butt attached couples who overdid it. But after 17 years, I get it. There must have been, for some, an excessive amount of pent-up demand.
Lynn Sweet/Sun-TimesCicadas on a tree in Washington, D.C.
One of the bright spots for the Chicago Bears this season was rookie cornerback Jaylon Johnson. While working without a first-round pick for the second straight year due to the Khalil Mack trade, General Manager Ryan Pace found a way to steal Johnson in the second round after he slipped due to injury concerns that plagued him at Utah.
ChicagoBears’ DB Jaylon Johnson was left off of Pro Football Focus’s list of the top CBs.
Jaylon Johnson’s emergence as a rookie proved crucial for the Chicago Bears last year as they had a hole to fill at outside cornerback opposite to Kyle Fuller last season. In fact, Johnson’s progression and development as a rookie is part of the reason why the Bears have been able to stomach the unfortunate loss of Kyle Fuller who was a cap casualty.
However, either PFF just never watched Jaylon Johnson play or they need to seriously reevaluate how they rank corners. He was tied for ninth in the NFL in pass breakups and he allowed a 56.4 percent completion percentage for quarterbacks when targeted which ranked 20th in the NFL among cornerbacks.
I ranked the corners PFF listed in their ranking (three did not have data available) and among those corners, Jaylon Johnson ranked 13th in completion percentage when targeted and 19th in touchdowns allowed. There are a number of other categories where Johnson ranked in the mid-20s range but I believe this speaks to where he should actually be ranked.
Jaylon Johnson is an up-and-coming corner in the league with a lot of room to grow. However, he has exhibited the traits that all coaches say are necessary for defensive backs to succeed, especially having a short memory after bad plays. He exudes confidence and based on his play last year alone he should have definitely been included on PFF’s ranking of the top 32 corners.
Where should Jaylon Johnson be ranked?
Realistically, Jaylon Johnson should be ranked around 25 but I could see him jumping into the top 15 and borderline top 10 if he continues to build on what he did well in 2020. Even Johnson’s counterpart, Kyle Fuller was arguably disrespected in these rankings as PFF has him ranked 21st on their list of corners.
It is important to note that Johnson’s rookie season was also impacted by COVID-19 taking out a lot of offseason activities and the preseason. With a full offseason this year and a return to a Fangio-like system under new defensive coordinator Sean Desai, Jaylon Johnson should have everything at his disposal to take a leap forward in his sophomore campaign atop the Chicago Bears defensive back depth chart.
The Bears hope Fields’ trajectory runs parallel to that of Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes. | AP Photos
The high end of Fields’ potential is far greater than what Dalton’s done throughout his career. But Dalton can still be a great tutor during Fields’ rookie season.
The Bears want Justin Fields to learn from Andy Dalton. They just don’t want him to become Dalton.
There’s a big difference between the two as coach Matt Nagy handles the tasks of getting Dalton ready to be his starter this season and developing Fields as the franchise quarterback the team has coveted for decades.
His template for this project is the one the Chiefs used with Alex Smith and Patrick Mahomes in 2017, when Nagy was the offensive coordinator under Andy Reid. In the same way that the Chiefs expected Mahomes to far exceed the high end of what they could get from Smith, the Bears need Fields — eventually — to be a lot better than Dalton.
“Justin’s going to be Justin, no doubt about it,” Nagy said when asked about the folly of trying to turn Fields into Dalton. “But they’re going to learn from each other, and the little things that I’m seeing in the meeting room and out here at practice, it really does remind me of [Smith and Mahomes].”
Nagy is confident that is the best path and would prefer to stick with Dalton for the entire season. It worked for Mahomes. It worked for Aaron Rodgers, who sat his first three seasons with the Packers. There are also examples of rookies — Justin Herbert and Baker Mayfield, just in the last few seasons — playing well right away.
Mahomes’ lone start as a rookie was a meaningless regular-season finale in which he threw for 284 yards with an interception and no touchdowns. He won the MVP the next season. Then he won the Super Bowl. Then he signed a $500 million contract.
“For him to be able to develop like that and learn from Alex and grow, he would probably tell you it was a pretty good thing,” Nagy said. “If he would have played sooner, would he have done what he did the following year? Maybe. We don’t know that. But I would guess it helped him.”
Dalton is a reasonable equivalent of Smith as the Bears try to replicate what the Chiefs did. He’s not great, but solid. Not explosive, but savvy. He’s trying to extend his own career, but happy to be a mentor.
The Bengals spent nine seasons trying to figure out if Dalton was good enough and, after a collective 87.5 passer rating and zero playoff wins, they ultimately decided he wasn’t. Even at his best, he wasn’t the dynamic threat that Fields is projected to be. Fields walked in the door with a superior deep ball and dangerous running ability, putting him miles ahead physically before his first step onto the practice field. Once he’s ready, the Bears want Fields playing a different game entirely.
Dalton, in his 11th season and a few months away from turning 34, is here to be safe and reliable. Those are useful qualities in a quarterback, but it will only take the Bears so far. Even if everything goes their way this season, it’s hard to imagine them doing better than a wild-card spot with Dalton starting.
There’s still purpose, though, in Fields studying his every move over the next several months. Plenty of Dalton’s knowledge is universal, and Fields can apply it in his own way.
“How are you responding to making a good play [versus] throwing an interception, per se?” Nagy said, beginning a checklist of rookie lessons for Fields. “The biggest thing that Justin can learn from Andy is just understanding the defenses that he’s seeing.
“So [Dalton is] going to help him grow . . . Justin, he’s got to see Andy’s cadence — what he’s doing with his voice inflection, the way he says ‘White 80,’ versus the way Justin says it at the line of scrimmage. And then, of course, how to handle teammates.”
Fields has already gotten a quick class on that last subject during organized team activities.
He and Dalton recently were in a meeting with Nagy and quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo as they broke down practice film. Nagy, DeFilippo, offensive coordinator Bill Lazor and various other assistants all have specific roles in the Fields project, as do Dalton and fellow veteran Nick Foles. DeFilippo zeroes in on mechanics, and on this particular clip, he disregarded a strong throw by Fields and harped on his faulty footwork instead.
When DeFilippo finished, Dalton turned to Fields and reassured him, “Hey, dude, that was a hell of a throw right there.”
That seems small, but it’s vital. Fields is 22 and spent the last several months hearing analysts and scouts nitpick his mechanics. It’s why he slid from being the consensus second-best quarterback in college football to being the fourth one drafted, going to the Bears at No. 11 overall.
To hear one of his new coaches pile it on, even if he’s correct, was probably daunting. To see Dalton — the man whose job he’s trying to take, no less — have his back had to help.
“For him, it’s all new,” Dalton said last week. “I’m trying to give him advice on certain things, how I would view certain plays, what I’d do with my eyes on certain things, different things that come with experience. I’m going into Year 11. I’ve had a lot of ball. I’m just trying to help him out as much as I can.”
All of that information is useful for Fields, and he’s capable of learning from Dalton’s play without mimicking it. He can take the tools Dalton gives him and build a completely different house, just like Mahomes did.
At least seven adults were shot early Saturday morning in an attack in Chatham on the South Side.
The shooting happened just after 2 a.m. in the 7500 block of South Prairie Avenue, Chicago police said.
Three people were transported to area hospitals in critical condition, according to Chicago fire officials. Another four people were transported in fair to serious condition, fire officials said.
All seven victims were adults, according to fire officials.
Police have not yet released any additional information on the incident.
This is a developing story. Check back for details.
A teen boy was shot June 11, 2021, in Washington Heights. | Sun-Times file photo
The teen was walking with a group of people in the 10400 block of South Aberdeen Street when someone fired shots striking him in the leg, Chicago police said.
A 15-year-old boy was hurt in a shooting late Friday night in Washington Heights on the Far South Side.
The teen was walking with a group of people about 11:50 p.m. in the 10400 block of South Aberdeen Street when someone fired shots, Chicago police said.
He suffered gunshot wounds to the leg and was transported to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in good condition, police said.
The “Declaration of Immigration,” left, and “Amor y Comunidad,” right, murals near West 18th Street and South Loomis Street in Pilsen, Wednesday, June 9, 2021. | Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Mural art in Chicago has a long, honorable and often politically potent history of lifting up communities and giving them a voice. To trash a mural is self-defeating. The best ones speak up for those who have it hardest.
Walk along Pilsen’s 16th Street, a showcase for the neighborhood’s public art, and you will see walls filled with years of eye-catching bright colors and artistic, cultural expression. You also will find crude graffiti tags on every other mural.
Most recently on Monday, just two blocks to the south on 18th Street, two murals with strikingly positive messages — “Declaration of Immigration” and “Amor y Comunidad’’ — were vandalized and tagged with graffiti.
Graffiti vandalism has always been a problem, as you might expect, but it has become even more of a problem since the start of the pandemic. And while we have no particular words of wisdom about how to fend off such attacks — this is hardly a matter easily addressed by the police — we want to call attention to the desecration, if only to prick the conscience of those doing the desecrating.
Mural art in Chicago has a long, honorable and often politically potent history of lifting up communities and giving them a voice. The best murals over the decades have introduced us to successive generations of accomplished Chicago artists.
To trash a mural is self-defeating. The best murals speak for those who have it hardest.
Consider the two murals that most recently were vandalized.
Provided“Amor y Comunidad” artist Herson Aldair, also known as 2MIL.
The “Declaration of Immigration,” which all but shouts pro-immigration messages such as “No human being is illegal” and features flags from Latin American countries hanging from barbed wire, was painted in 2009 by Salvador Jimenez, an assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Immediately to the first mural’s right is the second vandalized artwork, “Amor y Comunidad,” a life-celebrating weave of red vines, with a big, red heart and children wearing masks of bulls.
This lovely mural was completed less than a month ago.
“We knew that was always a possibility, but the vandalism happened way sooner than I thought,” the mural’s creator, 27-year-old Mexican artist Herson Aldair, told the Sun-Times in Spanish. “I thought it was going to happen in about two years, but not much time passed before people sprayed it.”
“Amor y Comunidad” was partially repaired just days after it was spray-painted. But “Declaration of Immigration” will be much more difficult to repair, Teresa Magaña and Pablo Ramirez, co-founders of the Pilsen Arts and Community House, told us. The repair work is to begin later this summer.
To see the desecration of murals in Pilsen is particularly sad because the neighborhood has had such a long and bold commitment to the art form.
One of the first murals created in Pilsen was by Latino mural movement leader and Pilsen-based artist Mario Castillo. The year was 1968, a time when our nation was in the throes of the Vietnam War, the Cold War and the modern civil rights movement. Castillo painted an anti-Vietnam War mural — “Peace” or “Metafisico” (“metaphysical”) — on the side of the Halsted Urban Progress Center at 19th and Halsted streets
Throughout the next 50 years, renowned artists such as Aurelio Diaz, Alejandro Romero and Marcos Raya left their mark and timely message on walls throughout Chicago.
Now, Chicagoans like Magaña and Ramirez at the Pilsen Arts and Community House are helping to introduce young artists such as Aldair, also known as 2MIL, into the larger Chicago art scene.
For almost two years now, the Sun-Times has been calling attention to Chicago’s great wealth of public art in an ongoing series called Murals and Mosaics. You can read all the past stories, catch up on the most recent report online at suntimes.com, and consult an interactive map of dozens of murals before setting out to see them for yourself.
We urge you to do so. And we urge you to consider the pointed subject matter. You will find murals commenting on the street unrest of 2020, on LGBQT rights and on Latino pride — in the form of an Aztec god. You will find great beauty as well, such as the mural by the great Tony Fitzpatrick now being installed on a wall of Steppenwolf Theatre.
Chicago is an art gallery, with free admission to all, if those doing the vandalizing only understood.
A party bus caught fire June 11, 2021 on the Kennedy Expressway. | Chicago Fire Department
About 20 people were celebrating a 50th birthday about Friday night when the party bus they were traveling burst into flames.
No one was injured when a party bus caught on fire Friday night in the Kennedy Expressway.
About 20 people were celebrating a 50th birthday about 8:30 p.m. when the party bus they were traveling burst into flames, Chicago Fire officials said.
The driver pulled over on the Ohio Street ramp from the inbound lanes of Interstate 90, according to officials. All passengers were uninjured.
Illinois State Police did not immediately respond to a request for details.
20 passengers on party bus when flames appeared. All passengers are safe. Was rolling 50th Birthday party! pic.twitter.com/O1ZQUUBgvM
A fireworks explodes in the air as Chicago police work the scene were a 20-year-old woman was shot in 4700 block of South California Ave, in the Brighton Park neighborhood, Friday, June 11, 2021. The shooting initially took place near the 4700 block of South Rockwell. | Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times
The 20-year-old woman was sitting in a vehicle with her boyfriend Friday night when the gunman approached them while yelling gang slogans in the 4700 block of South Rockwell Street.
A woman was critically hurt in a shooting Friday night in Brighton Park on the Southwest Side.
She was sitting in a vehicle with her boyfriend about 8:50 p.m. when the gunman approached them while yelling gang slogans in the 4700 block of South Rockwell Street, Chicago police said.
The 20-year-old girl was sitting in the passenger seat when she was struck in the neck and hand, police said.
Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-TimesChicago police work the scene were a 20-year-old woman was shot in 4700 block of South Rockwell Ave, in the Brighton Park neighborhood, Friday, June 11, 2021.
After the shooting, her boyfriend drove off and pulled over at a Shell gas station, 4658 S California Ave., where Chicago Fire Department paramedics arrived.
The woman was transported her to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, police said.
No one is in custody as Area One detectives investigate.
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