So what's there to talk about?

It would appear that there would be plenty to say about the world of Chicago sports. After all, the Sox are in the hunt, 4 1/2 back of the Twins and playing well still. And the Bears' season is imminent, even though they went 0-4 in the preseason.

But there is no real Bulls news right now, and the Cubs are an afterthought to most people, though I'm still interested in what they might do for their manager next year and in seeing how the young players that they've brought up are doing.

I guess I could talk about acquisitions for our teams: The Sox have gotten starting pitcher Edwin Jackson from the D-backs for prospect Daniel Hudson, and also got Manny Ramirez in a waiver deal. These would seem to have addressed their two weaknesses: a fifth starter (after Peavy went down) and some left handed power. And they have been playing well with the new guys.

On the other side of town, the Cubs traded off Derrick Lee and Ted Lilly (big contracts) and Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot (smaller contracts), and come away with one major leaguer: 2nd baseman Blake Dewitt from the Dodgers. Apparently some pretty good pitching prospects came along with DeWitt from the Dodgers, and some decent arms came from the Braves for Lee. So we're seeing a combination of Micah Hoffpauir (the time to see what he could do was two years ago probably) and Xavier Nady at 1st base and we're seeing DeWitt and Darwin Barney at second. (They're stuck with Soriano and Zambrano, so may as well just sit back and hope for the best...)

And the Bears - well, what can I say? They don't look good. But they might surprise us. Fingers crossed.

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