50 years ago this week, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert made the first pilot for their TV show. In honor of this huge anniversary, I created my definitive “Best of Siskel & Ebert” article - 50 of their best reviews from across their entire career. 👍🏻👍🏻

OMG I remember this being in our house. I’m not saying it inspired me to get a master’s degree in magazine publishing, but I’m not saying it didn’t …

I had forgotten the note — from Patrick Reardon’s classic takedown of “Devil in the White City” — that Larson claimed Truman Capote as an inspiration. “In Cold Blood” has influenced so many “nonfiction” writers to … make up details they can’t fill in with facts. A terrible legacy.

I need "Stats are down but he played great" to make it into the lexicon.

Rob Manfred talks prop betting restrictions: "I’m glad we’ve done something about it" www.nytimes.com/athletic/682...

Last week, Suncoast Searchlight's four reporters wrote a letter to their board. Their editor-in-chief had secretly been using ChatGPT and inserting hallucinated quotes into their drafts. The next day, one of those reporters was fired. My latest for @niemanlab.org. www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/flor...

Leo has agreed in principle to throw out the first pitch at a new White Sox stadium. “Schedule permitting.”

RIP Randy Jones, 75, one of the most beloved players in San Diego Padres history and the 1976 NL Cy Young Award winner. Here's his SABR bio: sabr.org/bioproj/pers...

On women playing baseball outside the framework of "first" or "only," for Kelsie Whitmore, Mo'ne Davis and more in the fledging WPBL: www.si.com/mlb/mone-dav...

Thanks to Brant for letting me go deeper on the historical significance of the Cleveland Guardians pitch-fixing scandal — and why this one marks new terrain for baseball and gambling.

Almost every AL/NL team saw record attendance, and presumably record profits, in 1919, 1920, and 1921. Baseball did not need to be “saved” by Babe Ruth and/or Judge Landis following the Black Sox Scandal. Baseball was already thriving.

This is an excellent story. We got similar pitches from the same writer at Defector and if they had not been entirely generated by someone plugging prompts into The Fabulism Device they really would've been cool.

NEW — An investigation by a group of Chicago-area newsrooms and independent journalists found that federal agents used chemical weapons on protesters at least 49 times across 18 incidents across Chicago and the suburbs since October 1. thetriibe.com/2025/11/feds...

this is true and it’s shameful, so please go do some reading about the Great Migration www.smithsonianmag.com/history/long...

Some wonderful Bob Ufer clips linked in this Sully column, for all you Meeechigan fans out there. (And yes, mark me down as a big fan of Gus too.)

I'm going to be an editor on this, and I look forward to your contributions!

Main Street and Chicago Avenue in Evanston, Illinois.

Call for papers: SABR’s 2026 convention journal, The National Pastime, is accepting articles for stories about baseball in Cleveland and other locales around Lake Erie. Deadline for abstracts is Dec. 15. sabr.org/latest/call-...

Mo'ne Davis spent years telling people that she was done playing baseball. She did not want to be forever defined by what she did as a 13-year-old in Little League, a decade ago, and she did not feel like there was space for her to do much else. And then she felt differently. On Davis and the WPBL:

In 1968, the Los Angeles Dodgers drafted 11 future major leaguers—including six All-Stars—who combined for 11,231 career hits and 1,139 home runs. It's the best prospect haul of all time by a long shot.

Even though some federal immigration agents are leaving the city, arts and culture executives want to be sure of their rights and responsibilities when it comes to protecting staff and visitors.

This is how you know that it's not about the money. Because if it were, then libraries would not keep being defunded.

Today is my first day as a sports writer at @cnn.com. I'll be covering all sports, not just baseball (but also baseball, see you back at the ballpark come spring!) and I want to dig in especially on the weird, the niche, the nontraditional, and youth sports. So get at me with stories in that realm.

Hey, SABR hasn't put both its feet into bluesky yet (I know, a lot of its people have) but this is a good time to remind you that the SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards are open for nominations. When you have a few minutes, please nominate some of your favorite baseball research from 2025.

At the 1941 dedication for the South Side Community Art Center, Eleanor Roosevelt told a national radio audience this building was the former home of White Sox owner Charles Comiskey. It was not. He had lived across the street (and that old home is now torn down.) jacobpomrenke.com/black-sox/th...

I spent October traveling to schools throughout the South talking to students about American history. What I found were young people who understand we can tell a story that includes both the positive and the negative. As one 8th grader in Memphis said, “Doesn’t seem that hard, just say both things.”

The federal blitz moved to Charlotte, but the trauma and damage in Chicago are still with us—and DHS says 1,000 agents will hit our streets in March. I wrote about what this moment demands of us: care, clarity, and preparation.

Greg Bovino is leading a rebel cavalry terrorizing America—and it's important to recognize that it's in retreat. While the trauma and terror Bovino’s raiders instill is real and damaging, it’s remarkable to note how ineffective the force has turned out to be. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/trump-bord...

Bring on the ballots! The 2026 BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot features 27 former players, including 15 new candidates. Results will be announced live on MLB Network on Jan. 20. baseballhall.org/bbwaa

US citizen Maria Greeley, a Latina who was adopted, was walking home from work downtown when masked agents zip tied her. They said she “doesn’t look like a Greeley.” This is how the government treats people under current deportation policies. www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/15/l...

Editors have a really hard job, and the good ones can make something unreadable readable, and the great ones can make something unreadable into something good. But they're basically invisible, until someone tries to write without one.

if you know what this is you probably already bookmarked it and if you don’t know what this is you are in for a treat

Danny Casper, Luc Violette, Ben Richardson, Aidan Oldenburg They need to qualify the country in, but that’s the USA curling team for the 2026 Olympics Long live John Shuster

A legendary run ends tonight.

Why hasn’t anyone made a Michael “Nuf Ced” McGreevy biopic starring John C. Reilly? sabr.org/bioproj/pers...

Game 2 of the Olympic Trials final is a good one. USA Network.

It was great to see Bill on stage with Howl Owl Howl and @millsish.bsky.social at the Georgia Theatre Friday night. Thanks to @karenryanphoto.bsky.social for the photos!

Integrity monitors are responsible for flagging sports gambling-related corruption, so I was alarmed to hear two veterans of the field use the same expression to describe a fundamental defect in that oversight: "A fox in the henhouse." I get into why for @msnbc.com www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

ppl replied "Bears played there for 50y" so I looked up the last time there was a home walkoff loss in Wrigley Field and you know what? It never happened to the Bears. (gave up lots of late, losing scores, but never on the last play of the game) ditto the other teams that played at Wrigley

I do want to congratulate Northwestern on being the first *home* team to ever lose on a walk-off at Wrigley Field

Go Blue. Let’s never talk about this game again.

Important educational content

Very glad I didn’t shell out $200 for this miserable performance at Wrigley.

Here’s my piece on Fernando’s fairytale 1981 season, the ups and downs of his career, and his massive global impact “A strong argument can be made that he introduced baseball to more people around the world than any ballplayer who has ever lived”-biographer Erik Sherman bsky.app/profile/fang...

Can’t wait to ice skate under the Sandberg statue this winter …

As in all Michigan Northwestern games this is just a Michigan home crowd on central time.

Not sure all these people are going to make it inside Wrigley Field by kickoff. (I’m not going inside either, just want to soak in the spectacle.) #GoBlue

Fun fact: Michigan's first-ever game was played in a baseball park in Chicago. The 1-0 win over Racine in May 1879 was at White Stocking Park, which was located at the site of modern-day Millennium Park. So when it comes to football in ballparks in Chicago, Michigan's Bean there, done that.

For two months, the U.S. government has been racial profiling as masked federal agents hunted for immigrants throughout Chicago. They’ve repeatedly snatched up U.S. citizens while traumatizing communities. “I felt like a piece of trash.” Here is our story www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/15/l...

Stunning. Archives are everything.