Storify for White Sox vs. Twins – 5/14

After being made to conduct extra pre-game infield practice in 90 degree heat by their manager, the White Sox responded with a 4-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night.

A two-run eighth inning rally kickstarted by the unlikely duo of Dewayne Wise and Tyler Flowers gave Jake Peavy the victory after he worked seven innings, allowing only two earnerd runs. Adam Dunn and Dayan Viciedo also contributed back-to-back solo home runs in the second inning.

Review the whole game with commentary and video on Storify.

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Newly launched Lane Tech Hockey program earns first victory

Darien, Il–A tie-breaking goal allowed with 11 seconds left in their first ever game kept Lane Tech‘s brand new hockey program from a perfect start. Given the chance to redeem themselves Sunday, Lane Tech (1-1) didn’t leave anything to chance, downing Waubonsie Valley (0-2) by a score of 5-1 for their first win since re-adding hockey to their athletic program.

They haven’t been playing together enough for everyone to even know each other’s names, but Lane Tech dominated the action to the tune of a 35-15 shots on goal advanatage. For a new team, one victory goes a long way affirming they can compete with other schools in the Darien Sportplex High School Spring League.

“I don’t think anyone was really confident going into this, but now it’s an upbeat mood,” said Bill Todde, a Lane Tech junior who had been eagerly awaiting the beginning of his school’s hockey program.

Lane’s first victory was not without adversity. Despite spending much of the first period in the Waubonsie Valley zone behind the puck-handling of center Ethan Masunaga, a dominant penalty kill that produced a shorthanded scoring chance and owning an 8-4 shot advantage, they trailed 1-0 after the first fifteen minutes. A soft floater from the back end of the face off circle by Waubonsie forward Ryan Gosnell slipped by Lane goaltender Elijah Marder with 9:09 remaining in the opening period for the only score.

“His stick got stuck in his jersey,” said Lane Tech coach Chris Marzec. “Just a mental lapse. You bounce back for it.”

After losing their first game on what Marzec also termed a “mental mistake,” Lane sophomore Erik Lundgren was determined to not let another error determine the game. A minute into the second period, Lundgren stripped the puck from a Waubonsie rush, streaked along the boards past the Lane cheering section before cutting toward the crease at a right angle and pounding home the equalizer.

“We had to get that goal to get it back because that was embarrassing to let that in,” Lundgren said.

While he was blunt about his motivation, Lundgren, who chose Lane after his family scoured the city for which school could best manage his hearing impairment, couldn’t offer much insight on why the seas parted for him.

“I don’t really remember to be honest with you,” Lundgren said. “I was looking five-hole the whole time.”

From there, the workload piled up for Waubonsie Valley goalie Charlie Cockey. He recorded 30 saves but spent the second period scrambling to cover up rebound opportunities before Jordan Thoma put Lane up for good by pounding the puck off his chest protector for the first of her two goals on the evening with 5:23 left in the second period.

“Yeah, he didn’t get a lot of help,” Waubonsie Valley coach Tim May said of his goaltender. “He didn’t do too bad considering.”

Thoma, who scored again with 6:09 remaining in the third period, stood out as much for her speed and productivity as she did for being the only girl on the ice. Her coach hasn’t had to spend any time explaining why she’s there.

“They seem to accept it pretty well. She’s clearly a high-caliber player. They joke around with her in the locker room, they get along,” Marzec said.

Mitchell Hoffman converted Lane’s only power play with a goal at 12:15 remaining in the third period, while Masunaga closed the scoring with a goal with 3:36 remaining.

Traditionally, the Spring league is about player development in preparation for regular-season play in the winter. Despite the loss, May will have no trouble finding sources of encouragement for his players.

“Always individual positives. If a player had a good shift or a good pass, there’s always something,” May said.

However for Lane, their focus is developing familiarity with one another and a victory makes it easier to claim gains.

“We’re still trying to find our groove, you know, it’s our first year playing together,” Todde said, “We’re getting there.”

Four examples of great sports storytelling

“Shut Up and Pay” by David Forbes, NSFWCORP

More of a story of collegiate mismanagement that athletics looms in the background of, Forbes’ article tracks Appalachian State University’s history of under-prosecuting and ignoring sexual assault on campus through five vignettes of assaults, campus movements that rose up in protest and the administrative response that followed across a 20-year span. Appalachian State is a name that most in the Midwest probably only recognize from their 2007 upset of Michigan in football, and the continued rise in prominence of the school’s athletic department looms menacingly in the story as details of an administration already too willing to protect the image of its sports teams unfolds. The reading is long and demanding, but boasts the sourcing depth that only months of work can provide.

“Steve Taylor makes most of golden opportunity,” by Mark Strotman, Jake Flanagan, Matthew Zickus and David Kaplan, CSN Chicago

Strotman, who manages a Marquette basketball blog on the side, chooses to dive into the life of a highly-recruited freshman-turned-benchwarmer in Steve Taylor. Strotman’s affection for Taylor is very clear, but the writing is illuminated very well by the video produced by Flanagan and Zickus and narrated by Kaplan. The footage fleshes out the tale of Taylor struggling to adjust to demands of college ball by showing the rigors of his daily routine of class and practice. For an outlet that focuses primarily on day-to-day coverage, this piece is a rare labor of love.

“‘You’re not safe here’: The remains of a horrible day in Boston” by Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

There were a lot of Boston Marathon reaction pieces and most had a broader scope than Pierce’s tale of the paranoia and horror he found upon walking to the scene from his home. But it’s a marvel to read Pierce demonstrate the fear that taking police reports at face value creates–noting how the mysterious “secondary device” skirted around Copley Square depending on who he spoke to–while also fielding traumatic reports from an EMT who was on the scene immediately after the bombs went off and cajoling the reader to imagine being able to smell spilled blood from blocks away. He does it all in 500 words, punctuated with the most close-up video of the explosion as it happened available on the web.

“The future is already here: How the pistol offense is changing the NFL” by Chris B. Brown, SBNation

Anyone familiar with the blog “Smart Football” has come across Brown’s gift for synthesizing the strategic information stashed in All-22 screen caps for the layman. What makes this piece the most dynamic of the four here is Brown tracking the progression of the pistol offense through its originator, retired Nevada head coach Chris Ault, to the assistants he consulted with and the different organizations they touched. The transitions are signaled with captivating, high-resolution sliding background photos that are plenty of entertainment in and of themselves.

 

What ESPN Insider members are paying for during the Final Four

As is true for all of ESPN.com, most of their Final Four and men’s basketball national championship game coverage is free to the public. Any given slide image on their men’s college basketball home page provides two or three links to free content, with at most one article tagged with an orange flag to indicate that it lies behind a paywall.

The Final Four content tabbed for “insiders” only have consistent characteristics. Specific writers contribute exclusively to ESPN Insider, which makes the decision for college basketball fans reading the site a question of whether they are willing to pay to read the work of John Gasaway, Fran Franschilla, Seth Greenberg, Jay Bilas and Peter Keating.

The emphasis with Insider articles is giving a sense of access to privileged information. Gasaway, a product of the deep analytics site Basketball Prospectus, uses statistics largely unseen on the rest of the site, like usage rate and points-per-possession while drilling down his examination of shooting percentages to specific quadrants of the floor. Franschilla and Greenberg do not get as technical, but discuss strategy with the reputation of being former coaches rather than reporters.

The staff of Men’s College Basketball Nation, ESPN’s primary blog on the topic, are reporters and did what multimedia reporters do these days. A staff led by Eamonn Brennan, Myron Medcalf, Andy Katz, Jason King and others all reported live from the event, provided rapid-fire recaps of games and filmed video hits and quick interviews with players and coaches. Their next-day features focused on the stories and narratives around specific events of the games and if their analysis became at all technical, they directed readers to articles by Gasaway for explanation.

By contrast, one has little evidence in their written content to support the idea that ESPN Insider staff were even credentialed. Their production did not extend much beyond one long-form preview article per day and in the wake of the championship game, they shifted away from recapping to what they could prognosticate and used recruiting information–which is also behind the paywall–to identify next year’s top teams.

Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky cruises to re-election in Illinois 9th District

Rep. Jan Schakowsky addresses staff and colleagues at her election party in Evanston, IL. (Photo by Steve Wocjik, Nov. 6, 2012)

A few minutes after 8:40pm on election night Tuesday, Fox Chicago went ahead and called the election for the Illinois 9th District Congressional for Jan Schakowsky. The Democratic incumbent congresswoman was sporting 65.4% majority over Republican challenger Timothy Wolfe at the time, with over 70% of precincts reporting, so the decision was far from rushed.

Yet cheers for the dominant showing were subdued at Schakowsky’s victory party in Evanston, if they were present at all. After all, the guest of honor had departed an hour earlier.

Rather than revel in a victory that granted her an eighth consecutive term in the House of Representatives, Schakowsky offered a short statement of gratitude and encouragement to an audience composed mostly of staffers and colleagues, before heading out to President Obama’s reception at the McCormick Place in downtown Chicago. She barely touched the topic of her own re-election.

“I’m very hopeful my election will go just fine,” Schakowsky added at the end of an approximately two-minute long address before departing to celebrate a far more hotly contested race.

The party Schakowsky left behind was equally focused on other elections, as loud cheers rang through a crowded private room in the Prairie Moon restaurant in Evanston with every announcement of a state being called in favor of the President, or for a congressional victory for a Democrat. The official confirmation of Schakowsky’s triumph over Timothy Wolfe, which never hinted at a margin of victory under 30% from the moment the polls closed, yielded no such explosion

“I’ll be mad if we don’t get 70%” said one party attendee to another. As of  Wednesday morning, reports indicated that Schakowsky’s supporters will have to make due with 66.1%.

Rep. Schakowsky actually cleared 70% of the vote in her first six Congressional elections, and the 66.1% represents one of her weakest showings, despite the lack of political experience of her opponent. Yet her campaign does not see this as reason to think her string of overwhelming victories is coming to an end soon, especially not on a night filled with Democratic gains.

“We expect to continue to improve,” Alex Armour, Political Director for Congresswoman Schakowsky, said, “as these voters in this district get to know Jan, and get to know how well she represents her constituents.”

More blowouts like Tuesday’s can certainly be expected for Schakowsky if she continues to enjoy fundraising advantages like the one she held over Wolfe in the 2012 campaign. According to OpenSecrets.org, the more experienced Schakowsky organization raised over $1.2 million, whereas Wolfe, a CPA entering into politics for the first time in response to a vacuum of Republican candidates, failed to eclipse $50,000 in total campaign contributions.

A Jan Schakowsky campaign sign. (Photo by Steve Wojcik, Nov. 6, 2012)

That financial advantage contributed to a campaign that overcame an endorsement from the Chicago Tribune, which backed the Republican Wolfe ans praised his “fiscal restraint.” But to Schakowsky’s campaign, the ease of Wolfe’s defeat testifies to the irrelevance of endorsements from the famed newspaper.

“Whatever point [The Tribune was] trying to make fell upon the deaf ears of the voters of the state of Illinois,” Armour said, “Probably because of lot of them don’t subscribe or read the Tribune anymore.”

An unchallenging rout back to Washington allowed everyone to move quickly away from campaign-related drama. For Tuesday night at Prairie Moon, that meant tracking and cheering for other races across the nation while campaign signs reading “On our side.” sat idly against walls and on tables, but it also allows for Schakowsky’s staff to look forward to getting back to work in Washington.

“There are a lot of big issues that face this country that we haven’t been able to tackle due to Republican obstructionism,” Armour said, “Hopefully, if the President prevails tonight we will see a new spirit, and a new understanding.”

Election 2012: Q&A with Bruce Newman, Former Clinton White House Adviser

Dr. Bruce Newman, in his office at DePaul University (Photo by Vince Floress and James Fegan, Sep. 27, 2012)

A self-ascribed “student of politics,” Bruce Newman has been teaching others in the ways of political marketing for 32 years. He is editor-in-chief of The Journal of Political Marketing, and holds a Ph.D. in the subject.

Newman’s career has seen him tour internationally as a lecturer, and author over 15 books, many of which have been translated into multiple languages. Far from being limited to the academic world, Newman served as an adviser to the Clinton White House, and also to Lech Walesa during his term as President of Poland.

Newman, a professor at DePaul University, recently shared his thoughts on the upcoming presidential election.

Q: What are we analyzing when we talk about “political marketing”?

The effectiveness of the marketing of any politician culminates in an image that’s created for that person. The successful candidate is able to project a sense of leadership.

Q: How do Super-PACs play into campaigns?

My understanding–and I don’t have hard, fast evidence about this–is that the campaign organization is in charge of all monies spent.  [They're] in touch with, in communication with, the PACs, and work with them to ensure that monies are spent correctly.

Q: If you took over the marketing for Mitt Romney, how would you fix his campaign?

Develop a series of brainstorming sessions with leaders across sectors of society–political, social, cultural, economic, foreign policy [etc.] Use this as an advertising technique to convince the American people that [Romney] has the support of necessary leaders. By doing this, it would hit upon Obama’s great weakness, which is the promise to bring people together.

Q: You’ve been critical of Obama’s lack of a compelling slogan. why do you feel they’re so important and why has Obama’s failed?

Slogans capture the emotion in a campaign. “Change We Can” has emotion attached to it. The word “Forward”, his slogan now, has no emotion. Every commercial the candidates put up might be 30-60 seconds; they don’t have too much time to talk about too much. We know in advertising that there’s repetitive impact from using the same ideas over and over.

Q: What does selecting Paul Ryan do for the Romney campaign?

I think it was a mistaken choice because it pushes him farther over on the right. Certainly a moderate, as opposed to a right-wing conservative, could have allowed [Romney] to position himself in a better light to the key segment of swing-voters, independent voters, that they need in order to win the presidency.

Q: Is Obama’s marketing team superior to Romney’s?

Each [campaign] has had their challenges, but the Obama marketing campaign is clearly superior in their ability to deal with crisis on a day-to-day basis.  The Romney campaign is not able to deal with crisis as efficiently.  It’s a question of putting your opponent on defense, and taking the offense, because that’s what dictates and determines the message that comes out in the news every night.

Q: How much of a factor can the debates be?

Debates now matter for Romney because he’s so far behind in the national polls, so far behind in the swing states, his only ability now to win this campaign is to do well in that first debate. Obama’s a great orator, but I don’t know that he’s a great debater. I think he has a greater command of the facts, and better able to communicate that than Romney.  But Romney is a Harvard-educated lawyer, MBA. He didn’t get to where he’s at because of good looks.  He’s a pretty bright fellow.

Cook County Deputy Director of Elections sees easier path to voter registration in Illinois’ future

Noah Praetz of the Cook County Clerk’s Office talks about typical voting errors to a DePaul University journalism class. (Photo by Mike Reilley)

As new technology and data become available in the next few years, the voter registration process for Illinois citizens will become faster and less restrictive, said Noah Praetz of the Cook County Clerk’s Office.

Praetz said that Cook County intends to actively work toward making things easier for those eligible to register, and hinted at the possibility of major transformations to the process in the near future.

“Generally, our office is for moving toward a much less restrictive registration regime in this country,” Praetz said during a talk with DePaul journalism students last Monday that covered the Clerk’s office preparations as the Nov. 6th general election approaches.

“As the years go by, you will see things coming down like ‘automatic registration,” Praetz said, “or ‘online registration.’”

To achieve these ends, Praetz, the deputy director of elections for the county, gave the example of credit card databases as proof of the capability to track citizens without their cooperation. He termed the current setup where citizens have to confirm their own information as “ridiculous.”

“So much information about where we live is available,” Praetz said, “If we were smart about it, we could make sure our citizens could vote.”

While speaking for approximately an hour, Praetz said that the path to making registration easier may not immediately involve better uses of databases. He noted the methods used by other states, citing in particular the “same-day registration” process used by Wisconsin as a possibility.

What Praetz lacked was a specific timetable, and he acknowledged that the decision for these measures was out of his hands.

“It takes political will to make these large changes,” said Praetz.”There are entrenched interests in keeping people away from the polls.”

The comments made by Praetz contradict current pushes for voter identification cards that have been attempted or successfully completed in states such as Virginia, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Texas.  Praetz acknowledged the contrast between the positions of those states and his office, but dismissed the threat that such legislation is designed to combat.

“Voter fraud is serious,” he said. “But it is clear, that the degree to which that voter fraud is being used to propagate restrictive voter rules is out of scale with the problem.”

As far as he is concerned, those who seek to install voter identification laws in order to combat fraud, are barking up the wrong tree.

“People do not come in [posing to be] someone else,” Praetz said, “That’s what voter ID badges are supposed to combat.”

Turning away voters was way down on the list of topics Praetz covered as he seeks to maximize turnout for the coming election.  The Cook County Clerk’s office recently partnered with Operation PUSH to encourage registration in African-American communities, agreed to push the early voting period closer to the election, and made the mail-in voting program available to all registered voters.

“We don’t need artificial hurdles,” he said.