
From The Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.
I don't know if you've been paying attention, but there are some things going on in this country right now that are far more important than whether or not the Cubs will win the World Series, or whether New York will collapse on itself should the Yankees miss the playoffs.
No, I'm not talking about the new Beverly Hills 90210 - though it's nice to see Lori Loughlin getting work - I'm talking about the upcoming election for President of the United States. Yeah, you've probably noticed in the last few weeks that all your favorite crappy sitcoms and celebrity dancing shows haven't been on in favor of a bunch of people giving speeches in front of sycophants. We call these the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.
For the first time in my life, I've paid pretty close attention to both of these conventions this year. You see, even though I've never been shy about my feelings about this country of ours, and those who have been chosen to run it, I've never actually exercised my right to be a factor in the decision.
That's right, at 27 years of age, I have never voted in a single election. Not for President, not for Governor, not even for Student Council President in high school. So when November 4th rolls around in two months, I will be stepping into a voting booth for the first time, and though I'm somewhat excited about it, I still face a pretty tough question.
Just who am I voting for?
Until he resigned this week, Jay Mariotti had been the second most famous columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times. The paper's most famous columnist, Roger Ebert, is the latest to tell Mariotti, "Good riddance."
If you read the comments here at FanHouse or at a lot of other sports blogs, you probably know a guy who posts under the name PeteJayhawk. Now hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans know him as well.
While most of the blogging world has been celebrating the resignation/firing of
There are some headlines I never expect to see when I'm flipping through the newspaper in the morning, or just surfing around the internet. It happened to me this morning in fact when I was reading the Chicago Sun-Times and found out that
Jay Mariotti, the Sun-Times columnist who for years has been Chicago's best-known sports writer, has
White Sox manager
There are lots of reasons for Cubs fans to feel -- even more than normal -- that this is The Year. The Cubs are in first place in a relatively weak NL Central; the team's offense is a finely-tuned OBP machine; and the first half's solid pitching is set to spike with the addition of 
Everyone's favorite cranky manager, 
























