Special sports competition stands out from the usual competition.
The Chicago Cubs last weekend split two games with the last-place St. Louis Cardinals in the special two games in London at the London Stadium built for the 2012 Olympic Games and for soccer.
This coming weekend, two NASCAR races will be held in Chicago, however, not at predetermined tracks, rather through the streets of the City, to include downtown sites along the DuSable Lake Shore Outer Drive.
The Cubs won 9-1 Saturday against the Cardinals and fell, 7-5, Sunday. The Cubs returned home to play a three-game home series against the Philadelphia Phillies, Tuesday through Thursday. Prior to the special trip to England, the Cubs were playing good baseball and had won 10 of the most recent 12 games. The concern raised was would the interruption of mandatory sequences offer problems to playing well? Baseball often provides streaks of both winning and losing. Where will the Cubs land?
NASCAR will provide street racing for the first time in its 75-year history. Consecutive weekend days, Saturday and Sunday, will provide the Xfinity Series the Loop 121 4 p.m. Saturday, July 1, and the second day the Cup Series Grant Park 220 will begin Sunday, July 2. Saturday will provide 2.2 miles,12 turns, and 55 laps. Sunday, July 2 will be 12 turns, 2.2 miles, and 100 laps. The Saturday race will speed more through downtown than the longer Sunday race. Lake Shore landmarks will be visible to those at the sites and to television viewers.
See page 10 for the Cup Series standings. William Byron was 30 points ahead of Kyle Busch, 558 to 528. The Cup Series playoff will include the top 16 drivers in points. Stay tuned.
- Baseball in the late Spring/early Summer is at a flourishing point, well beyond the Cubs and the Chicago White Sox. The College World Series ended Monday night with LSU (Louisiana State University prevailing in two of three games. In spite of the aluminum-bat sound prevalence, Florida scored 24 runs in game two to win, however, fell in games one and three, 4-3 in 11 innings and 18-4 in the finale. The College World Series is good baseball and a lot fun in Omaha each season. Teams from good-weather states have a decided advantage in a longer good-weather season.
- Other baseball promotes minor league teams in our immediate area, including the Kane County Cougars in Geneva, the Joliet Slammers in Joliet, Schaumburg Boomers in Schaumburg, and the Windy City Thunderbolts in Crestwood. They have been playing baseball for more than a month
The Cougars are in American Association and the other three are in the Frontier League. All are in the Class A level, lowest of the three major levels, AAA, AA, A. With June expiring and many more sporting events closing out and moving on there will be more space in The Voice in future weeks to include minor league standings and schedules, especially on the left-hand sports page with statistics the feature.
Through Monday this week, in the Frontier League an eight-team West Division, Schaumburg was in second place with a 13-7 record behind Gateway, in Illinois and in the southern part of the State near St. Louis. Joliet was in sixth place, 10-11, and the Thunderbirds were in seventh place, 9-12. The teams of younger players, mainly 17 years to 23, play an exciting brand of baseball, some with hopes and plans of finding a way up to Major League Baseball. We would say, we remember.
The Kane County Cougars were in fourth place in the six-team East Division of the American Association with a 20-20 won-loss record. The Chicago Dogs, near Rosemont were in third place, 21-19, and trailing the first-place Milwaukee Milkmen, 29-15.