Joe Cool

BY RICKY O'DONNELL

On the day of the Home Run Derby

cst_sox Homer Derby thought: Only a Twins player could be out-performed all night and still win. 07:18 AM July 15, 2008 from txt

Ha, he's right! The Twins seem to always do it with smoke and mirrors and I have no idea how. As I mentioned in my weekly White Sox column at the Beachwood Reporter today, looking at run differentials is one of the best ways to tell how good a baseball team really is. Of course there is a lot of luck involved in baseball (it's why they play so many games and why the playoffs are really a free for all), but looking at how much a team outscores their opponents by is one simple way of telling if a team is outperforming itself. So far the Sox have outscored their opponents by 78 runs, good for second best in the American League (FYI, the Cubbies lead the Majors in this stat, outscoring their opponents by a ridiculous 111 runs thus far). In contrast, Minnesota has only scored 33 runs more than their opponents.

cst_sox Got my first recruiting violation on NCAA '09. Expect many more as I try and bring the FSU program back to where it belongs. 01:04 PM July 17, 2008 from txt

I used to love football video games and it's pretty sweet that the guy whose job requirement lists trying to decipher what cuss word Ozzie Guillen is attempting to spit out still finds time to play them. But Florida State? Come on, you have to run with Juice Williams, Arrelious Benn and Illini. My buddy Koster, of course, would go with Julie B.'s Spartans of Michigan State. I'd be willing to bet that both Kyle and Julie have either a Charles Rodgers or Jeff Smoker jersey hanging somewhere in their closets.

Joe-prah's Book Club book of the week - "God Save the Fan" about 3 hours ago from txt

God Save the Fan was written by former Deadspin editor Will Leitch. I enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone who is unfamiliar with Deadspin, which is probably the world's biggest sports blog.

Finally..

cst_sox "Dark Knight" is one of the best movies I have seen in awhile, by the way. Seldom does a blockbuster match the hype. 02:02 PM July 18, 2008 from txt

So I'm going to see the Dark Knight in imax tonight at Navy Pier, which is good because I feel like I'm the only person in the world who hasn't seen it yet. My expectations? Best movie ever. I feel as if it won't let me down. Do you guys want a review of that tomorrow (a post that may actually be more irrelevant than this one) or should we focus on lame things like sports? Let me know.

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If you like fantasy football- and seriously, who doesn't?- check out The Fantasy Factor, a new blog here at the Sun-Times written my Matt Olsen and I. We've been updating it daily with info on fantasy baseball, and now we are beginning to get into fantasy football. We are in the midst of previewing every NFL team, so check it out if you'd like.