14 DARK WINDOWS is live on Amazon!

I'm happy to announce the publication of my short story collection, 14 DARK WINDOWS, on Amazon for Kindle.  It contains 14 short stories, 10 of which are available as pairs or trios in four different Kindle short books, and 4 more that have not been published before.  It is available for purchase for $2.99.

You can check out the title here:  14 DARK WINDOWS.

Thank you for any interest!

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Arrow pointing up or down?

Bulls:

Derrick Rose is back and looks to be pretty well recovered from his torn ACL from the 2011/2012 season playoffs.  Dunleavy is probably an upgrade from both Kyle Korver and the Italian guy from last year (I can't even remember his name).  Hinrich moving to the second unit is an upgrade from Nate Robinson, though Robinson was outstanding offensively last year, better than Hinrich likely will be.  Marcus Teague is a year better, and the frontcourt rotation of Noah, Boozer, Gibson and Nazr Mohammed should be similar to what it was last year.  Jimmy Butler was a revelation in the playoffs and should be solid at the two guard.  Undefeated in preseason. 

The arrow is pointing up.

Bears:

Cutler and Briggs both injured.  Melton already out for the year.  Peppers looking like his age might be catching up with him.  Tillman still looking good but fighting injuries.  Defense in general has gone the wrong direction.  O line looks improved, running game should continue to be solid.  Tight end is a 100% improvement.  But...Cutler out for minimum 4 weeks. 

Arrow pointing down.

Black Hawks:

All the stars back and healthy.  Some role players gone (I always liked Dave Bolland) but there are others to step in and take their places.  Corey Crawford locked up, hopefully he continues to perform.  Looking good so far. 

Arrow pointing flat.  How can it go up from a Stanley Cup Championship?!?!

White Sox:

Konerko a shadow of his former self, and may be gone.  Relatively young arms like Danks and Floyd and Quintana and Chris Sale are average to very good, but a couple (Danks and Floyd) are injury prone.  Defense was horrid last year.  Will it improve?  How? 

Arrow pointing down.

Cubs:

Figuring things out with their young "stars" - are they really star major leaguers or are they run-of-the-mill guys?  (I'm talking about Castro and Rizzo.)  Young stud prospects are still at least one season away.  Pitching is rough after Samarzidja and Travis Wood.  Edwin Jackson is an expensive journeyman.  Scott Baker might help.  Ryan Sweeney and Nate Schuerholz at least give them a little something in the outfield.  There will be a new manager, but we don't know who yet. 

For 2014, arrow pointing down.
For 2015, arrow starts to point upward, we hope. 

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I've published 2 short stories on Amazon!

Hi, anyone!   I don't know if anyone actually reads this blog but what the heck!  Just a quick note to let it be known that I finally got around to publishing my first two short story pairs. They are currently only available on Amazon. Each is a main story, with a second story paired with it (to add value, hopefully).   They are under the pen name "Scott Dyson". The first is SOLE OCCUPANT and it is $0.99 on Amazon. It contains the 2400 word main story SOLE OCCUPANT and the short flash fiction piece THE ONLY SOLUTION (~700 words). The second is ODD MAN OUT and it is also $0.99 on Amazon. It contains the 1600 word main story ODD MAN OUT and a second horror tale, HOUSE AT THE BEND IN THE ROAD (~1800 words). That's 3100 words (about 14 pages with author note) for the first pair and 3400 words (about 15 pages with short author note) for the second pair. Take a look at them if you're so inclined. Thank you!!!    (Find my website at ScottDyson.com )

Off Topic: Tom Piekarski, Chicago Bassist, passes away

(I also posted this at another blog...)

One of my favorite musicians in the Chicago bar band scene was bass player Tom "Pickles" Piekarski.  Besides playing with John Prine, he also played with the Famous Potatoes, Mike Jordan and the Rockamatics, Betsy and the Boneshakers, and finally, The Bad Examples.

I loved watching him, listening to him, and talking with him between sets and after or before shows.  Pickles always had time and interest in chatting with people.

Here's the obit from the Chicago Sun-Times:  The Tasty Force of Tom Piekarski


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And I didn't even mention...

The BlackHawks!

I know I haven't been very good at updating my sports blog, and I do tend to focus on stuff like deals and roster moves because that's often what interests me the most about Chicago sports.  It always has been like that for me - I was a stats junkie as a kid and even though I'm not really up on sabermetrics, the ideas behind it fascinate me.  I used to play entire seasons with my own version of the major leagues via baseball cards and a deck of playing cards.  (Aces were home runs, red kings were triples, black kings were singles, queens were doubles, jacks were singles, 10's were walks, 9's and 5's were sacrifice flies if there was a runner on third, and the rest were just outs.  I didn't mess with stolen bases or double plays or errors.)  I used to log trades in a notebook, then play games with my card deck, using my revamped rosters.  It was fun. 

Anyway, here I am writing about the trading deadline in baseball (which is something I always pay attention to in all sports) and I'm not even mentioning that:

THE BLACKHAWKS WON THE STANLEY CUP!!!

AGAIN!!!

Two Cups in four years is pretty darned good.  I have to admit, watching as they worked their way through the Detroit, LA and part of the Bruin series, I didn't think they could do it.  They looked less aggressive and slower to the puck, but when push came to shove, they put the puck in the net when they needed to! 

So congratulations, Blackhawks, and congratulations to all the die-hard Hawks fans.  And thank you, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, for finally capturing my son's imagination and making him into a hockey fan! 

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Baseball Trading Deadline...

So here we are at the All Star Break, and both the Cubs and White Sox are about 14 games out, thought the Cubs have the better record.

Both teams are sellers as we approach the deadline for non-waiver deals.  Both teams have a few chips.  The Sox have Alex Rios and Jake Peavy, both of who they would love to more.  The Cubs have Matt Garza, who may be the best available pitcher in baseball, if not for the fact that he is a free agent at the end of the year.

Others could go as well.  I've read that the Sox wouldn't mind moving Alexi Ramirez and of course they'd let Adam Dunn go at the drop of a hat, if there was a taker.  They've already moved lefty reliever Matt Thornton to the BoSox.  The Cubs have already moved Scott Feldman, and I would guess they would consider trading Edwin Jackson for the right amount of prospects.  Likewise with David DeJesus, Kevin Gregg, and Nate Schuerholz, if the deals make sense.  Like Dunn, the Cubs also would move Soriano provided they don't have to eat every last bite of his contract, and Carlos Marmol.

Here's how I feel about trade deadline deals.  There are a couple of reasons to make trades.  First, you want salary relief.  (See Alfonso Soriano.)  Second, you have a young player coming up the ladder who you want to make playing time for.  Third, you can get players who likely can help you in the future.

As a Cubs fan, I've seen too many of the "salary dump" types of deals where the players coming back are little more than minor league roster filler, no matter how management tried to spin them.  That was a different management team.  This year it's different.  It seems perhaps the Cubs have people in place who can actually evaluate talent.

Still, I wouldn't trade a guy like Kevin Gregg for nothing.  Cash in on him, yes.  He's been really good as closer since being signed off the major league scrap heap, and if someone wants to give the team one of those players who can help you in the future, not just minor league filler but a true prospect, by all means deal him.  But to trade him for this year's version of Micah Bowie, I don't think I'd do it.  First, he doesn't cost much.  Second, there is no young player pushing for innings in the closer role.  Third, he is helping the team win a few games.

See, I feel these two teams still have an obligation to their fans to try to put a major league quality product on the field.  This obligation will continue unless they slash ticket prices to minor league levels or something not much more than that.  If someone tells me that they are "building for the future but sacrificing the present", I will tell them that I don't feel I should pay premium prices for an admittedly inferior product, especially one that is inferior by design.  I'm all for getting better, but I still don't have to spend my money on bad baseball.

Right now Kevin Gregg makes the Cubs a little better.  If they can get a real prospect for him go for it.  But don't deal him just to be trading him, and have some B-level prospect come back to the organization in return.  I feel the same way about Schuerholz, Scott Hairston and others.  They are major leaguers and I'd like to see them stay around.

Unless they bring back real prospects in return, as we all expect Matt Garza to do.  Maybe not that quality of prospect, but still - guys with a major league future.

Let's see what happens now...

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Bulls Post-Season Wrap-up

So the Bulls season ended with one of their better games in the playoffs as they took the Heat to the final seconds and had a good look - no, two good looks - at tying the game with a three.  But alas, it didn't happen, and the Heat take the series in 5. 

Mark Silverman on ESPN1000 just asked what the big picture was for this Bulls team next year. 

I submit that it should be a fairly rosy picture.  Everyone should be healthy to start the season, and everyone should be in their proper places.  The starting point guard should be Derrick Rose, and Kirk Hinrich and Nate Robinson (if they resign him) should be playing the amount of minutes and against the players where they should have the better of the matchup.  Hinrich showed his worth this year, I think - he's not a scorer, but he does do a better job of passing and defending than most any other Bull.  Depending on matchups, he could start at the two guard or back up the point guard. 

Carlos Boozer seemed, to me, to play far far better when Hinrich was playing point guard than when he wasn't.  Would this be a way to get some real value out of Boozer?  What if he was putting up a double double a night in part against second teamers?  Start Boozer, play him 3 or 4 minutes, bring in Taj until the second team comes in and make sure Boozer and Hinrich get plenty of minutes together.

Backup center:  A weakness for this year's team.  Mohammed was okay in his limited minutes, but the Bulls ended up using Taj as the back-up center quite a bit, it seemed to me.  Or Boozer, with Deng at power forward. 

Jimmy Butler matured into a bonafide NBA player this year.  Is he the starting two-guard next year?  I think he's more of a small forward.  Would I rather have Deng at SF?  Sure, but Deng might also be the one guy on this team who could bring back real value in a deal.  It would depend on what they could get for Deng in a trade as to whether I would consider moving him. 

I'm not enamored with Marco Bellinelli, but I certainly wouldn't rule him out as the long range spot-up shooter and another backup two guard.  I'm certain that Hamilton, who appeared to be poorly used in the playoffs, is going to be bought out and I won't have a problem with that, though I wonder if Rip's lack of contribution throughout the latter part of the year was his problem or Tom Thibodeau's problem.  Thibodeau is a great coach, but he does seem to 1.) overwork his players a bit, too many minutes and too much pedal to the metal, and 2.) underutilize some players for whatever reason.  As examples of the second, see Rip, Marcus Teague, and maybe even Vlad Rad.  The guy ended up buried on the bench and really wasn't given any opportunity to contribute as far as I could see. 

There will be a somewhat higher draft pick this year, and that may translate into a useful player, but with Thibodeau's  tendency to sit young players, will it matter?  With Rip going, will there be a spot for a veteran PF or center who can back up in the front court?  Will some players look at the Bulls and say, now there's a team that can compete with Miami and I just might have a shot at getting to the Finals and getting a championship with this team, so I'll take the veteran's exception, or even the minimum, to play for them?  (So many players seem to do that with Miami.  There has to be someone who will do it with the Bulls...) 

The Bulls got some real experience in the playoffs this year for players like Butler, Bellinelli and even a little bit for Marcus Teague.  Can that translate to a much improved squad next year?  Let's hope. 

That's my big-picture view of the Bulls.  Now it's on to watch the BlackHawks on their road to the Stanley Cup, then focus on the Cubs' rebuilding efforts this summer...

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