By now most of you have heard the rumblings that the Chicago Cubs may be calling U.S. Cellular Field home during the 2013 season. If the Cubs want to renovate Wrigley Field and make the necessary repairs to bring the stadium into the mid-20th century, they're going to need to shut the place down for at least a season. Which leads to an interesting dilemma. Where will they play?

The fans who honestly think it's feasible for the Cubs to play in Milwaukee are lying to themselves. That's far too much of a headache for the schedulers and not entirely realistic for the fanbase. Even more humorous is the "Let's play our games at Fifth Third Ballpark (home of the Kane County Cougars)" contingent. Do you know how many seats there are? 14,000! That's a lot of money that the team would lose playing in such a tiny stadium. There is only one realistic option for the Ricketts if they finally decide to stop trying to "fix" every problem with duct tape and actually update their shrine to mediocrity: become temporary tenants of our Chicago White Sox.

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The Kosuke Fukudome signing makes so much sense that it's barely worth talking about. So watch me blaze through 10,000 words! In your face, obvious need-addressing transaction!

The Sox had an opening for a left-handed fourth-to-fifth outfielder with some major-league cred on the cheap, and in comes Fukudome, who will be making $1 million ($500,000 salary for 2012, $500,000 buyout on a $3.5 million club option for 2013). He's good enough to start for the duration of a typical DL stint, which is really the biggest concern for a team that will start unproven entities from left to right.

So it should work out. But if it doesn't, there's no overwhelming commitment to a $1 million may-as-well player. After all, $1 million is what the Sox paid Ben Davis after outrighting him to Charlotte before the 2005 season. Shrugging away $1 million can't stop a champion.

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Your NL standings:

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Buehrle is 42 years old and entering his 22nd season. He is 2-0 and sports a 17 IP, 12 H, 2 BB, 12 K, 3 ER line at the moment. He is 14 wins and 164 K's away from becoming only the 12th pitcher to enter the 300/3000 club (Pedro entered the club while last pitching in 2015). Buehrle is currently the spot starter on the Brewers and is not likely to reach either summit in that position. Man up and put him in the rotation, Hazy! He's a proven winner!

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In other news, the NL East is a tight 5 team race 2 months into the season, while the NL Central and West are becoming inaccessible to Houston, San Francisco (last year's NL Champion), Los Angeles, and Robo-Rado. St. Louis and San Diego are a little bit of a surprise here, as the Cards finished with 86 wins last season, missing the playoffs, and San Diego finished 4th in the West with a mere 66 wins. One-third of the way through the season, the Fathers are on pace to win 105 games. That'd nearly be a 40 win improvement over last year's squad. Can they keep it up?

(By the way, if someone can tell me how to resize the above photos so they are readable here, that'd be great.)

Not long after hearing that they were the only team to not sign a free agent this winter, Kenny Williams and the White Sox went out and signed former Cub Kosuke Fukudome (h/t to 67WMAQ for knowing about this before anyone). The lefty will earn $500K in base pay this year with a $500K buyout or a $3.5MM club option for 2013. This move all but ensures Jordan Danks will start his season in the minor leagues again this year. That being said, I do find this move a little bit puzzling.

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While writing about Zeke Bonura last week, I had to do a little bit of research on early White Sox sluggers, since he was among the select few who could regularly reach the faraway fences of Comiskey Park.

That required stringing together some milestones in order to give him some context. Which then led me to piece together the rest of the home-run record's timeline out of curiosity.

As you'll see, the White Sox were skeptical of the baseballing craze known as the "four-bagged hit." They stopped writing it off as a fad after a few decades.

1901: 5, Sam Mertes

Let's start at the beginning. Mertes changed leagues without changing towns, jumping from the Chicago Orphans (now known as the Cubs) to the White Stockings of the newly formed American League. He led the inaugural edition of the team we root for with five homers. That's fitting, since he was given the nickname of "Sandow," a popular circus strongman at the time. "Popular circus strongman" is an awesome phrase that doesn't come up enough.

Anyway, his Baseball-Reference.com Bullpen page has a little more on him:

Prior to the 1901 season, he jumped across town to the Chicago White Sox of the new American League, and he started in the circuit's first game on April 24th. On May 9th of that year, he broke up a no-hitter by Cleveland Blues pitcher Earl Moore in the 10th inning. The next year, he played every position for the Sox, including pitcher (he was 1-0 and only allowed 1 earned run in 8 innings on the mound).

1903: 6, Danny Green

Green, like Mertes, starred for both Chicago teams, and he's got to have an interesting story. He had an OPS+ above 110 every year, but his major-league career was over after 1905 at 28. Total White Sox says he retired, but his Bullpen page says he went to the minors. While playing for Minneapolis, he was drilled in the head, and he never recovered. He died at age 39 in "an institution."

At any rate, Green hit more homers in 1903 than some later White Sox teams, including 1908 (three!) and 1909 (four!).

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