Almost 3 months...

A lot can happen in 3 months.  And maybe it did.  But I didn't blog about any of it.  So here goes:

• The Cubs are still terrible.  Actually they were approaching respectable when the trade deadline showed up and several Cubs found themselves in new locations.  Gone are Soto, Baker, Maholm, Reed Johnson, and Ryan Dempster. Marlon Byrd was gone a long time ago.  In return we got...well, no one for the major league roster.  Since then they've only won 2 or 3 games.  Those guys were replaced by names like Castillo and Clevenger, Brett Johnson, Josh Vitters, Anthony Rizzo, Tony Campana, and a host of minor league arms vying for a major league tryout.  No one on the pitching staff to get too excited about.  But Rizzo is showing a major league bat.  There's always next year.  In the Cubs' case, though, it's looking like "next year" is two or three years away at the minimum.
• The White Sox are in first place, hanging in there against a good Detroit team.  Starting pitching, namely Peavy, Quintana and Chris Sale, have been very good.  Floyd and Humber, not as good.  Danks, injured.  Rios is having a great year.  Dunn is having a very good year.  I hope they can hang in there.
• The Bears look more loaded than I can ever remember on offense, with Forte and Bush in the backfield, Cutler at QB and Brandon Marshall and rookie Alshawn Jeffrey (sp?) looking solid at wide receivers.  Their defense looks solid, Brian Urlacher's health notwithstanding.  Special teams should be fine.  It could be a fun season.
• Lastly, the Bulls had to remake their bench, saying goodbye to CJ Watson, Ronnie Brewer, Kyle Korver, and Omer Asik, replacing them with Kirk Hinrich (hello again!), Vlad Radmonanov (sp again?), Nazr Mohammed, rookie Marcus Teague, and a bigger role for Jimmy Butler.  I actually like this bunch better.  Mohammed is a long time NBA backup who won't make dumb mistakes and who can score at least a little bit.  Vlad can shoot threes, and Hinrich will be an upgrade at point until D. Rose comes back.  He's better than Watson at defense and at running the offense.  And everyone says Butler is ready for the much bigger role.  He looked it to me, last year. 

So there it is...the summer of 2012 in a nutshell.  Or at least my take on it.  I know I didn't mention the Black Hawks, but I don't know what to say about them.  Did they do anything besides getting photographed shirtless in Madison Wisconsin? 

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