Lincicome: Don't blame the Bears if the Sox take a tumble

I see by the calendar on my Fitbit it is time to play Pick an Alibi.

It has not escaped my attention that the local baseball season has turned pretty much into oatmeal, not counting unreliable spurts of merit.

Such an obvious redundancy ordinarily would not cause anyone to look up from his iPad in August. You can count the number of times on a tuning fork it has been the other way around.

However, the Cubs were excused early while hopes grew high for the Sox this year, about waist-high for much of the summer, high enough that excuses must be not only handy but fresh.

Sure, being in the most incompetent division in baseball, the White Sox may still make the playoffs and the Cubs may not lose 100 games, and there is surely an online bet for each of these possibilities.

As Christy Mathewson once said, "You must have an alibi to show why you lost. If you haven't one, you must fake one." I, of course, like to do whatever I can.

The following are numbered conveniently so all you have to do is hold up the appropriate amount of fingers to anyone who asks, "So, what happened to those Sox when our backs were turned?"

1. The Bears.

Like the rest of us, the baseball players looked up and noticed the Bears training camp had started, preseason games were on the menu, Soldier Field was being conceptualized and Justin Fields was explaining how challenging was the new offense, while vowing to be more judicious with the football, a promise worth watching.

2. The Media.

It is always the media's fault. We are always nagging and second-guessing and asking hard questions like, "Is La Russa sleeping?" And, "Did David Ross just flip a bird?" Worst thing we did was to pat the Sox on the back and make them feel better than they deserved to feel.

Less media the better. The teams ahead of the Cubs are from one-newspaper towns, not that such a measurement is important any more. Magazines, newspapers and road maps share a common attic.

3. Tony La Russa.

He being the only baseball figure of interest on either side of town, blame settles on La Russa for everything, including nodding off, much like the rest of us. Chants of "Fire Tony" are accepted "with one ear and one eye," says La Russa, using the open one.

Clearly now, Chicago is sandwiched between La Russa's Hall of Fame success in other places, making the White Sox the inedible ciabatta holding his career cold cuts in place.

4. Beer Cup Snakes.

Unofficial beer cup counters have determined that Cubs fans hold the world record for stringing together the most empty beer cups while the more practical White Sox fans tend to just order refills.

5. Dissension.

Not enough of it. It is a sports maxim that teams that play together stay together, in this case at the bottom of the NL Central. Acceptance of the flaws of others perpetuates tolerance and understanding, leaving Ozzie Guillen as the village scold, a position that would look better in either team's uniform.

6. Management.

Rather, mismanagement. Failure to make any player deals on deadline by Jed Hoyer of the Cubs or Rick Hahn of the Sox means that neither team has any player anyone else wants, leaving Willson Contreras and Ian Happ to wonder what all those goodbye hugs and tears were for.

7. The Hole in the Ozone Layer, the Greenhouse Effect, fluorocarbons and Stuff Like That.

Can't think of any other reasons why Patrick Wisdom is only able to handle every third ball hit to him at third base. Those fluorocarbons must be slippery little devils.

8. Seiya Suzuki. Marcus Stroman. Lance Lynn. Gavin Sheets.

One of those guys.

9. City Connect Uniforms.

Worst idea since the velour track suit. White Sox look like they are wearing pajamas (with an unreadable gothic font - try Times New Roman) and the Cubs could be a Panera Bread softball team, with neither Wrigleyville nor Southside reflecting an actual place as much as a marketing fantasy.

10. Iconic Wrigley Field.

Still the place to go before it is sterilized into a parked cruise ship, which seems to be the fate of Soldier Field, and this is where we came in.