Chicago Blackhawks' Patrick Kane missed Monday and Tuesday practice last week with 'flu-like symptoms,' yet reports of Kane partying Sunday night speculate a hangover more so than the flu. more ›

"If at first you don't succeed..." The Tribune seems to be trying again after all the grief they received for their much-maligned "Chrissy Pronger" photoshop work during the Stanley Cup Finals. Today's Tribune features a short report by Brad Biggs about the hoopla around foot fetish videos allegedly featuring the wife of New York Jets coach Rex Ryan. Take a look at how the Tribune laid out the story. That ain't no baby footprint. more ›

The good folks at Deadspin have put together a nice little compilation of dads catching foul balls while holding their kids. What could go wrong? [Bonus: Wrigley Field appearance!] more ›

Are We Winning?, the new book from former Deadspin chief (and Illinois native) Will Leitch hits bookstores today and Deadspin was good enough to post an excerpt. This excerpt, of course, focuses on the Bartman game. Of course a Cardinals fan would do that to us. Even still, Leitch is incredibly gracious and empathetic towards Bartman (pointing out the other fans going for the ball and placing some blame on an over-reacting Moises Alou). And if you're not sick of Bartman revisits yet, there's still that entry in ESPN's (pretty damn excellent) 30 for 30 series on Bartman coming later this year. more ›

Sports blog extraordinaire Deadspin reported earlier today that Jay Mariotti apparently got himself booted from Underground last night for a bit of a scuffle over a cell phone pic. The alleged incident was spread on Twitter last night and Deadspin got the story from a reader this morning. Mariotti (not surprisingly) hasn't responded to Deadspin and the photo hasn't surfaced yet, so we'll just have to make do with this one of Mariotti pulling a Tankboy on someone's couch after a big party. We wonder if Jay's gonna make a hungover appearance on Around The Horn. more ›

It seems one North Carolina church is Hell-bent on letting us know which professional athletes are getting into Heaven and which aren't. The Amazing Grace Baptist Church has a great list of Ungodly Athletes. Among them? The Bulls' Joakim Noah. According to the heathens over at Deadspin, the church had this to say about Noah: "Has long hair, which is disobedient to the Word of God." Ah. The Church has been in the news lately for their planned book burning which looks like it'll condemn every single book that's not the King James Version of the Bible. No, we're not kidding. Unfortunately, thanks to all the publicity, the church's site has been cast into the fiery inferno of Interwbez Purgatory so we can't see what other Chicago athletes are doomed, but we're guessing a certain legend's gambling issues probably ensured his damnation no matter how many rings he won. In the meantime, we'll be here praying for Joakim to get a haircut. more ›

• Gov. Quinn outlined today how he plans to cut $1 billion from the state budget, including job cuts and asking some employees to give up pay raises.
• A violent month is drawing to a close; so far, 225 people have been shot in Chicago in July with 42 of those being deaths.
• A suspicious package found this morning outside Oprah's Harpo Productions, Inc building was proved to be safe.

The Beijing Olympics are over, which means that Jay Mariotti has returned Stateside after being his verbose self for two weeks in mainland China. The summation of Mariotti's final Beijing-datelined column? "China is creepy!" It's worth noting that Mariotti filed the column just as he was leaving China on a jet plane and free from being detained for "re-education" by authorities. more ›

As the sometimes seemingly lone Cubs fan at the Chicagoist offices (or at least the most vocal one), I try and try to defend the Cubsdom. I promise others that not all Cubs fans are jackass frat boys or idiots picking fights...but you know what? Screw it. I give up after this next story. Apparently, some jackass painted in blue decided it would be HILARIOUS to douse an unsuspecting reporter for Mouthpiece Sports with a jug of water while she taped a report outside of Wrigley before one of this week's Cubs-Astros games. They were also classy enough to film and post it. more ›