The Catbird Seat is a White Sox blog by White Sox fans that focuses on intelligent and humorous baseball commentary. Brought to you by ESPN's SweetSpot Network.
James Fegan
This is my third White Sox blog marriage, but probably the easiest one to explain to my friends and family. After running White Sox Observer for Chicago Now and Southside Showdown for FanSided, I couldn't be more excited to have our own baby with The Catbird Seat....for ESPN.
Four years ago, I started White Sox blogging as a way to mediate my struggles to find time to write comedy with my excessive baseball writing. Now, after falling in love with sabermetrics, falling out of love with sabermetrics and staying friends, and a journalism degree, the site and writing looks very different. Yet the goal is the same: make thinking about the White Sox enjoyable.
I'm a Chicagoan born and bred, and if I wasn't a White Sox fan I don't know how I would have dealt with their noisey fireworks being audible in every room of my parents' house. I recently relocated to Elkhart, IN to do the news in a town that doesn't have that much. It's slow and lonely, but my wife is here.
Nick Schaefer
Growing up where I did, the southern portion of Connecticut, in a vacuum there would have been a 70% chance I wound up a Yankee fan, 20% a Red Sox fan, and the last 10% would be apportioned to "Mets et. al." However, given that I was raised by a transplant from Elmhurst, Illinois, I was raised watching the White Sox and trying to explain to people that they totally would have won the World Series in '94 if only it had happened.
From fantasy baseball, to arguing with other kids on the playground about why Frank Thomas was better than Tino Martinez, I have always wanted to better understand what is happening on the field. Over the past two years with Southside Showdown the learning process continued in earnest, I am extremely excited to keep figuring out what is going to happen in this bizarre, intricate, and fantastic sport.
I currently practice as a lawyer in New York City by day and perform stand up comedy by night.
Matt Adams
The first time my parents left me with a babysitter was so they could attend the 1983 All Star game at Comiskey Park. I’ve allowed my priorities to fall in line with this sort of thinking into adulthood, and spend nearly all of my free time watching, talking, and writing about baseball. Most recently I was a part of Southside Showdown littering the web with my thoughts and descriptions about White Sox activities. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and after years of regular relocating I’ve found myself back there, spending my summer months trying to log as much time as possible at US Cellular Field to enjoy the team first hand.
Collin Whitchurch
As the son of a St. Louis Cardinals fan growing up in northern Illinois, my dad quickly came to terms with the fact that there was a chance I wouldn't follow in his fandom. Knowing this, whenever his young, sports-crazy son wanted to watch baseball he was careful to ensure the team playing on our TV was always the White Sox instead of his Cardinals' arch rival — the Chicago Cubs. Thus, a lifelong fan of the south siders came to be.
Growing up about two hours outside of Chicago, I've always tried to get to as many White Sox games as possible but when it was not, my passion never wavered. As I grew from a kid obsessed with playing baseball to an adult obsessed with writing about baseball, finding an outlet to do just that was always the goal until 2013 when I joined the team of Southside Showdown. The history of the game has always fascinated me and it's been a joy to grow as a fan and writer while continuously learning the ever-expanding intricacies of this great game.
I graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 2010 with a BA in journalism and currently work as a newspaper copy editor and page designer in Austin, Texas.
Chris Lamberti
I write about sports beyond the playing field. Mostly I'm interested in the social and cultural impact of the White Sox on the local community, past and present. I've written for White Sox Observer, The Third City, and my own blog, Chicago Sport & Society. I'm a trained historian focused on Chicago and I’ve contributed essays in books about sports history and social issues, including a chapter on sixteen-inch softball in Rooting for the Home Team: Sport, Community, and Identity, an essay on Golden Gloves boxing for the upcoming Cambridge Companion to Boxing, and I’m co-writing a chapter on the "blue-collar" myth in Chicago sport for the upcoming Neoliberal Chicago (working title). Otherwise, I work as a researcher for a labor union, fighting for workers in low-wage jobs. And I've lived in Chicago for sixteen years, which makes me a qualified skeptic.
ETHAN SPALDING
I am not a White Sox fan by birth, being born to two Cubs fans who are largely apathetic towards sports. As long as I can remember, however, I have been a Sox fan, spending many summer days of my teenage years taking the long trek south on the Redline from Howard to 35th to enjoy a game at the Cell. Among my highlights of games attended are Mark Buehrle's No-Hitter in 2007, the Blackout game in 2008, and a litany of awful games for the years after that. I am currently looking to major in statistics with minors in mathematics and computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, chasing a possible dream job in baseball or more likely giving myself fodder to best enjoy a hobby of mine. This is my first time blogging at a level that has any audience at all. I look to take this opportunity to provide thought-provoking and entertaining posts here, utilizing my statistical skills and baseball knowledge to provide the best analysis I can.