Now that the Chicago Tribune's Paul Sullivan is blogging at ChicagoSports.com's new Hardball blog (his first post, by the way, is a good one), will he be more respectful of bloggers?

Lou Piniella may not have had a consistent lineup this season, but the Chicago dailies have been running a consistent theme lately: lamenting the changing lineup. Tuesday's Chicago Tribune treats us to Dave van Dyck's "All Cubs know is who's on first." (Well, and third, and left, and catcher.) Why is it so important to the Chicago MSM to have a settled lineup? The Cubs entered Monday's games 6th in the National League in runs per game (4.9), and well above the league average (4.44), and rising. And that is with the outfield having shown almost no power during the month of April. It is not a bad thing that the manager mixes and matches to put forth the best lineup that day. It is not as if Piniella is doing things like putting Neifi Perez (or, as the case may be, Cesar Izturis) at the top of the order. And it is not a bad thing that the Cubs finally have some bench players worth playing. I don't blame Piniella if he is "growing weary and more than a little impatient with questions about his lineup choices." I'm growing weary with articles discussing the beat reporters' collective obsession.

Quote from the front page of the Chicago Sun Times...

Tribune on trial

On the cusp of a possible contract extension for general manager Jim Hendry, the Chicago Tribune's Paul Sullivan lists his five best and worst moves made by Hendry (clearly done looking in the rear-view mirror). In the best list, Sullivan rightly lists three trades that ended up being steals: 1) Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton for Bobby Hill, Jose Hernandez, and Matt Bruback in July 2003; 2) Derrek Lee for Hee Seop Choi in November 2003; and 3) Mark Grudzielanek and Eric Karros for Todd Hundley in December 2002.

Sullivan also includes the Ryan Dempster signing and the trade of Sammy Sosa, but I think you still have to include the Nomar Garciaparra trade in July 2004 as one of Hendry's best moves, even though Garciaparra ended up too injured in his tenure in Chicago to really contribute. In addition to Garciaparra, Hendry also received Matt Murton, and did so without giving up Matt Clement. In exchange, Hendry gave up just Alex Gonzalez, Francis Beltran, Brendan Harris, and Justin Jones.