I will be participating in the ESPN Zone Sports Spelling Bee on Thursday, May 28 at the ESPN Zone here in Chicago. And I will be gunning for more than $1,000 in prizes, but I mostly hope to win food. The action begins at 6:30.

50 contestants will try to spell the names of local and national sports figures, coinciding with the 82nd Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee in DC. I consider myself to be the favorite, because I once placed 3rd in a “Word of the Day” competition in 4th grade. And I think everyone else may be drunk.

If you want to take me on in the competition, just email SportsSpellingBee@espnzone.com and include your name, address, phone number, birth year and tag it with ESPN Zone Chicago. Or you can also register in-person by visiting the retail store at the ESPN Zone.

On to more important matters…What kind of PEDs should I take?

10. Lovie Smith

9. Tyrus Thomas

8. Tommie Harris

7. Derrek “6-4-3″ Lee. (My personal favorite)

6. Nick Swisher

5. Paul Konerko

4. Luol Deng

3. Charlie Weis. (I have warned them to never again include Notre Dame on any list that pertains to Chicago.)

2. Kosuke Fukodome

For number one, go click the link and see for yourself.

My additions, or dishonorable mentions, if you will:

• Marty Havlat
• Bob Howry
• Nate Vasher
• Bob Babich
• Javier Vazquez
• Joakim Noah
• Rich Hill
• Ken Griffey Jr.
• The Bears D

Have any more to add?

[tags]Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, Chicago Blackhawks[/tags]

January: Denis Savard may not be the coach of the Blackhawks anymore, but we will always remember his words from January of 2008: Commit to the Indian.

“I think they forgot last summer or two summers ago or three summers ago what we gave them (contracts). We committed to them. They were very happy when they signed it. Well, commit to us, commit to the jersey, commit to the people here. They don’t want to commit to the Indian, let’s go upstairs and get them out of here.”

February: February left me thankful for lots of laughs. As a Cubs fan, my favorite was this delusion from Tony La Russa, during an interview with Bryan Burwell:

“Wait a minute, Tony. You still don’t believe McGwire used performance-enhancing drugs?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on.”

“Absolutely not,” he said. “If you see Mark today, he still looks like he did then.”

March: This one is easy: Opening Day and the excitement of Fukudome’s homer.

April: The Cubs finally discovered the power of getting on-base. All of their regulars were near .400 throughout most of April, and it made a huge difference: in 2008 the Cubs scored more runs than any other NL team. Click the link to read the other 8 months!

May: Carlos Quentin continued to dominate, proving that his hot April was not a fluke. He became a “can’t miss” at-bat when the Sox were on.

June: The Bulls select Derrick Rose and the dawn of a new era in Chicago hoops.

July: Jim Hendry scores a major trade for the A’s Rich Harden.

August: Jim Edmonds homers against the Cardinals. What I wrote about it then: “He hit it, he knew it and he watched it for a bit before heading to first for his trot. After he began to trot he then did a bat flip toward the Cards’ dugout and took a measured stare at the bench and TLR. I replayed it about 50 times”.

September: Jam-packed month. Big Z’s no-no. The Bears beating Indy after a horrid preseason gave all of us fans some hope. And of course, the Cubs and White Sox both clinching their divisions.

October: The solidification of Kyle Orton as a true NFL starting QB.

November: Watching Derrick Rose continues to remind me of some other Bull that used to play here…

December: Hopefully it will be a Bears division title.

[tags]Chicago, Derrick Rose, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Bears, Denis Savard, Kyle Orton[/tags]

Look for Mike North and Dan Jiggetts to team up again.

Nothing is official yet, but a deal is in the works for North and Jiggetts to host a weekday morning TV show together on Comcast SportsNet, starting in January, sources said.

Known as “The Monsters of the Midday,” the duo spent eight years together on CBS Radio sports/talk WSCR-AM (670).

North, who left the Score in June, debuted Monday as host of a daily Internet talk show on WildfireRestaurant.com. Jiggetts has been anchoring and hosting for Comcast SportsNet.

For my money, there hasn’t been much better sportsradio in Chicago since the North & Jiggetts days on the Score. I’m excited to see them back together again and hope this project comes to fruition. Break out the cane! More sports articles to come here at Zoner Sports.

“Perhaps the only person outrageous enough to suggest that former WSCR-AM 670 mainstay Mike North has anything in common with Barry Manilow would be North himself, and guess who’s tryin’ to get the feeling again.

“What Rich Melman is paying me to do is what the Las Vegas Hilton pays Barry Manilow to do,” the hot-dog-man-turned-sports-talker explained Tuesday, in announcing his latest venture, a two-hour, five-day-a-week Internet program that will stream on the Lettuce Entertain You Web site of Melman’s Wildfire restaurants, starting Monday. “He wants people to visit the Wildfire Web site.”

Billed as “The Mike North Webio Show”, North begins next Monday–the day after the Bears season opener. You can catch him from 9 to 11 am at the Wildfire website.

“I am now done at the Score. I met with management this past Friday and since I wouldn’t accept the deal they offered; they told me I wasn’t allowed to be on the air anymore. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye so here goes…

I wanted to say my 16 1/2 years with the Score were awesome. When I was on the air, it was unreal. To be able to entertain, have fun, and sometimes get serious… well you never knew what would happen on a daily basis.”

Read the rest of the statement here.

I’m so not ready for the cold yet. But here are a few pics of this morning’s dusting.

Snow in Chicago

Technorati tags: Chicago / Snow

CHICAGO, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire/ — Paralyzed from the waist down in a high-wire accident in 1962, Mario Wallenda of The Flying Wallendas now uses a specially constructed “Skycycle”, allowing him to personally continue his famous family’s high-wire act. The death-defying feat will be conducted September 19th from The Merchandise Mart in Chicago, where The Loop Studios are located. The man who convinced Wallenda to come here and perform, Jonathon Brandmeier, will broadcast live from the site in front of the building where Wallenda will perform his tightrope act, crossing the Chicago River.

The stunt will take place approximately 9 a.m. this Tuesday when Mario will travel roundtrip from the Merchandise Mart river front to Wacker Drive atop a 5/8 inch steel cable hoisted nearly 100 feet above the river between two cranes from Imperial Crane Services of Bridgeview.

The Wallendas began in 1780 as a traveling circus family known for their expertise on the flying trapeze. They toured the world, headlining with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus during much of the 1930s and ’40s. In 1947, The Flying Wallendas created the seven-person chair pyramid consisting of four men on a wire 35 feet in the air, a second level of two more men, and at the top, a woman sitting, then standing, on a chair. Successfully executed from 1947 through 1962, the seven-person pyramid collapsed on January 30, 1962 and the Wallendas experienced tragedy. Two men from the pyramid fatally fell to the ground while Mario survived as a paraplegic. Sixteen years later in 1978, Mario witnessed his 73-year-old father, Karl Wallenda, die after a high-wire fall in Puerto Rico.

Still, the now 64 year-old Wallenda told Brandmeier why he wants to perform again: “I want to feel alive and productive. I just can’t sit around the house and not do anything. I’d rather be a live hero than a dead martyr.” He first performed with the Skycycle in 2001 and set a Guinness World Record for the feat. This stunt will be just his third attempt, and his first in more than two years.

Technorati tags: Wallenda / Chicago