The League: An Absurdist Comedy About Real Fantasy Drama

FX's "The League" represents everything that's funny and meaningful about fantasy sports, and that fact probably scares more than a few casual viewers. This isn't to say that the characters in the show are realistic characters, necessarily, simply that their caricature lives are somewhat close to the real thing and that's enough for anyone who's in a league with their friends to recognize each other in the group's inane, petty and occasionally obscene antics.



Focused on a bunch of friends in the Chicago area, The League manages to pack in as many inside jokes to bad trades, bad managers, bad luck and bad decisions as possible. While the UPL actually has few football trades of any value, The Leagueers actively seek out possible swaps via bribery or coersion - such as the episode when Kevin's wife blackmails Ruxin into a trade with Ruxin's sex life with his wife at stake. Off-handed mentions of "out of town" members simply serves as a foil and to keep the talent pool of players from becoming too stretched out to be believable. In fact, the first objection I had to the series was when the draft occurred and only 6 managers showed up. As someone who's participated in an 8 person heads-up baseball league, I can tell you that the happy range of managers in any fantasy sport is between 10-14, where talent gets stretched and you have to be a little more involved.



But that's all a tangent. What The League is really all about is the bonds of friendship, sport and dick jokes. Their first-place trophy is called The Shiva after a girl from high school they had a group obsession with, their last-place trophy is called The Sacco because its made from a skinned Buffalo's genitals. A league member called Taco wreaks havoc throughout the league by having fantastic luck despite clueless drafting and absentee management technique. The emasculating back and forth arguments and subterfuge that arise because Kevin's wife is much better at fantasy football than he is. Or Ruxin, who goes so far as to try to sabotage Christmas to get ahead in the playoffs.



All in all, as far as almost cartoonized extrapolations of the real thing The League succeeds despite the occasional comedic misfire or tangent into the too-far-gone. Solid show, embarrasing people, very entertaining - they just need more members to make the talent pool believable.

Chicago Book Review: "Family Secrets" by Jeff Coen

As a part of my goal of reading books about Chicago in February one of my goals was definitly to dig into some of the seedier sides of the city, the lurid tales of the underworld. Of all the things I was expecting to read, stories of the blue-collar mafia weren't on the list. But this wasn't just a story about a bunch of dudes on a corner - this was the Outfit, the group that arose from the ashes of Capone's takedown. At one time the Outfit was biggest organized crime group in Chicago and it's influenced reached out east and to the southwest, as fictionalized in part in the movie "Casino". But really, at its core, this is a story about how a split between brothers, between a father and his son, led to one of the biggest mass-arrests and successful organized crime trials ever.

Jeff Coen does a fantastic job of retelling the process that the FBI went through to pull in evidence on the killers, starting with interviews to forensics to the politics of persuading a mobster to turn state's evidence against his fellow mobster. The mafia's house of cards began to fall when Frank Calabrese, JR. wrote to the FBI to alert them that years earlier, John Feccarotta had been murdered on behalf of the Outfit by his father, Frank Calabrese Sr. and uncle Nick. From there some of the brutal history of the Outfit's influence and actions in Chicago are splayed out in a clear fashion, with plenty of entertainment value provided from the book's colorful cast of mobsters including "The Hook", "The Clown" and the Spilantro brothers who had previously provided the inspiration for Joe Pesci's Nicky Santoro character from "Casino". Well written, clear, entertaining and true. Solid book, highly recommended.

Oodles of Noodles!

A few days ago I got stopped by a bunch of students from the School of the Art Institute Chicago for a "man on the street" interview. They wanted to know what my local restaurant comfort food was, what I'd order if I had a crappy day and just wanted to relax. To even my own surprise, I said I'd want the Spicy Chili Noodles from Joy's Noodles. While I stood dumbfounded at this change of habits, the art students scoffed at my choice of something so simplistic and moved on to talk to some other people, probably someone who looked rich so they could get the hoity-toity answer they were looking for.

Until I moved to Chicago I wasn't a fan of any noodle that wasn't in mac and cheese or an Italian style. Every time I ordered from a Chinese or Thai place, I'd go back to orange chicken or sweet and sour chicken. I was a slave to those pieces of breaded and fried chicken, more often than not resembling oversized and misshapen chicken nuggets, that have been drowned in a sauce and served with rice. It was after I moved into the apartment on Bittersweet Avenue - a choice which netted far more bitter than sweet memories - that one of my roommates suggested ordering from Joys. And once I'd tried it, I was in love.

Joy's Noodles is a quaint little thai noodle byob place on Broadway just south of Roscoe, in the subsection of Lakeview called Boystown for reasons which are better experienced than explained. It has a reputation for being fast, delicious and cheap. Sadly for me, I've only been there once, and that's because they deliver and I'm lazy. My meal when I order are the spicy chili noodles, a stir fried egg noodle with spicy Sriracha-style sauce with beef on a bed of lettuce. The wide noodles are always just the right texture, the beef is always tender and never tough and the sauce gives the entire dish the perfect amount of burn. I've also had the Pad Thai with chicken and its a fantastic non-spicy dish. Thin rice noodles stir fried with crushed peanut, chicken, bean sprouts, cabbage and served with a lemon wedge. Joy's has a sister restaurant in Lincoln Park, named Noodles in the Pot, whose reputation matches Joy's in every way.

While I've tried several other noodle options in the city, I keep going back to Joy's and the simple yet flavorful offerings. And the art institute kids? They're missing out.

Why Spring Training Doesn't Really Yet Kinda, Sorta Matters....

Pitchers and catchers have reported, and games have begun.. Spring Training is not only here, it's exciting! The White Sox haven't had the best record yet, going 1-6 to start, but its not even close to time to panic yet. The White Sox starting pitchers, including Frankenpatient Jake Peavy, have all logged in scoreless innings and have reported that all are healthy so far. Fingers crossed that it stays that way: while the addition of Adam Dunn and (yikes) Lastings Milledge upgraded the offense quite a bit, it won't make up for the fact that Juan Pierre and Brent Morel will get 400+ at bats yet have no power to speak of. This is still a White Sox team built around potentially phenomenal pitching.

While I wouldn't compare the Flying Sock's arms to the Phillies quartet of aces, I'd argue that if healthy the White Sox have a top 5 rotation. The scary thing about all of the aggressive moves that the Sox have made in the past few years is that there's no depth in the farm system. Disaster looms large if Peavy suffers a setback AND another starter gets hurt too. The model for this? The St Louis Cardinals. When Adam Wainwright got hurt last week, it put the Cardinals back on the bubble. When Chris Carpenter got hurt, they would've shifted from "wait and see" to a forced decision to go all-out to compete or make some moves to set themselves up to get ready for the next year. Those aren't enviable decisions, and hopefully they arent choices that the Sox will have to make either.