Pittsburgh Pirates righthander Tim Alderson has already taken the hot seat at Baseball America this morning, and three more Major League Baseball prospects will follow.

In a live chat with fans from across the country, the Pirates' No. 7 prospect answered questions about being the centerpiece of a major trade right down the line to his childhood heroes.

The rest of today's lineup (below) includes Kaneland High School's Casey Crosby, a left-handed pitcher and the No. 2 prospect for the Detroit Tigers. Ask him anything you want, beginning at 2:30 p.m. at Baseball America's Web site.

• Red Sox center fielder and No. 1 prospect, Ryan Westmoreland (1 p.m.)

• Marlins first baseman and No. 2 prospect, Logan Morrison (2 p.m.)

• Tigers lefthander and No. 2 prospect, Crosby (2:30 p.m.)

May want to ask Crosby how he became a fifth-round draft pick in 2007 or how he recovered from Tommy John surgery to become the Tigers' minor-league pitcher of the year in 2009.

For the West Michigan Whitecaps last season, the 6-foot-5-inch, 200-pound Crosby struck out 117 batters in 104 2/3 innings. Chat 'em up about what kinds of pitches he's throwing and how to deal with troubling finger blisters.

"I've just got to build a callous on it," Crosby told The Beacon-News last year, "soak it in pickle juice."

Jim Zebrowski, offensive coordinator at highly successful NCAA Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater the past three seasons, has joined the staff of Northern Illinois football coach Jerry Kill.

Zebrowski will coach the Huskie quarterbacks, taking over for assistant Pat Poore who will now coach NIU wide receivers. Receivers coach P.J. Fleck left DeKalb last week for the same position on the staff of Rutgers.

Zebrowski also coached quarterbacks and wide receivers at Whitewater, which won national titles in 2007 and 2009 and finished second in 2008.
The Warhawks were 42-3 during his time in Whitewater, including 15-0 this past season, when the offense averaged 42.5 points and 489.6 yards-per-game.

His quarterbacks completed 71.1 percent of their passes with 30 TDs and seven interceptions. He ws named the 2009 Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Assistant Coach of the Year and Division III Coordinator of the Year by FootballScoop.com.

"We're excited about adding Jim Zebrowski to our staff at Northern
Illinois," Kill said. "He brings a tremendous amount of knowledge
and experience as the offensive coordinator for two national
championship teams. It is great to bring in a guy that has accomplished the things we want to do here, who also has recruited the Chicago
area"

The Strongsville, Ohio, native played football at Mount Union College and served on the coaching staffs at Southern Illinois and Millikin University and was head coach and DIII Lakeland in Sheboygan, Wis., for four seasons. He was at SIU before Kill took over that program.

Tom Wittum, a two-sport standout in football and basketball at Northern Illinois University who went on to be a Pro Bowl punter for the San Francisco 49ers, passed away Friday in Antioch.

The 60-year-old Wittum was a native of Berwyn who grew up in Round Lake. He was drafted out of high school by the Chicago White Sox but went to Northern, where he was a four-year letterwinner (1969-72) in baseball as a power hitting third baseman and three-year letterwinner (1969-71) in football as a punter and kicker.

He was inducted into the NIU Hall of Fame as an individual in 1987 and was a member of the Huskies 1972 baseball team enshrined in 2008. That team went 24-8 and was the school's first to qualify for the NCAA Baseball Tournament.

A memorial celebration of Wittum's life will be held at The Chapel (25270 W. IL RTE 60, Grayslake, Ill.) on Tuesday, January 26.
Visitation will begin at 10 a.m. with the memorial service starting at
12 p.m. Visitation to follow until 3 p.m.

Wittum was a member of NIU's first three teams to play in the "major college" (now Football Bowl Subdivision) era. He held 10 school kicking records when he left.

He was drafted in the eighth round of the 1972 National Football
League draft by the San Francisco 49ers, who made him the 200th overall
selection. He proceeded to rank fourth in the NFL in punting average in
1973 (43.7) and 1974 (41.2), leading to his selection to the Pro Bowl
each of those seasons. He was honored by Pro Football Weekly and The
Sporting News both years as their first team All-NFC punter. He led the NFC in punting in 1973, was second in 1974 and '75 and third in 1976. He played from 1973-77).

On the baseball field he was a two-time team MVP for the Huskies who hit .393 in the 1971 season and had a career batting average of .367.
He ranks third all-time at NIU in batting average, sixth in runs batted in with 114, tied for third in home runs (23) and is the school's all-time leader in triples (11) and slugging percentage (.620).

Wittum became the first Huskie baseball player
to be named a first team Academic All-American by the College Sports
Information Directors of America, graduating with a 3.41 grade point
average in education.

After retiring from the NFL, he returned to Illinois and spent more than 30 years as a teacher and coach.

When the Daily Dose returns from vacation on Feb. 3...'

* Tiger Woods announced a return date...
* The Chicago Bulls pull a sign & trade for Chris Bosh...
* The Bears have real, live offensive and defensive coordinators...
* The Eagles traded Donovan McNabb for two second round picks (and a partridge in a pear tree)...

* East Aurora gets over the hump and beats a top rated team....
* Frank Boenzi didn't change his verbal to NIU and signs there on Feb. 3....
* People have stopped wondering if the Geneva girls hoops team is "for real"...

and finally...
* Conan O'Brien has signed with FOX, or ABC, or another network for late night...

and most importantly...
* That the people of Haiit have been getting enough aid...

my favorite part of this video is not that the former Dodger punched an umpire, but that the announcers really didn't seem to mind it all that much (at least by tone of voice).
The punch is about the 55 second mark

Thank you.

Now you can help protect against knife violence not only to yourself, but to others as well!

I gotta give LaDanian Tomlinson credit for this. Unlike many of today's current athletes, who want to venture into "real" hip hop and make "real" videos, LT flipped the script and brought the 80s back - big time.

It's a fun video, it's ridiculous, and it's wonderful.

I highly recommend checking out the new Beacon News Basketblog.

You can read exclusive blogs by Northwestern's Nick Fruendt (Batavia) and Wisconsin's Teah Gant (Oswego) as well as the musings from Jim Owczarski, Rick Armstrong and Jon Kerr.

Thanks to this guy for bringing back this video...

Walking the treadmill and watching ESPNews, I just learned that the Seattle fired Jim Mora Jr. today after one season leading the Seahawks. Understand the network's Chris 'Mort' Mortensen is reporting that Southern Cal coach Pete Carroll is the top choice to take the job and a deal is close to being done.

Then came the shocker.

John Clayton, discussing the story during his daily NFL report, said it was possible that Carroll wanted to prove himself after failing at two NFL stops (New England, NY Jets) before his amazing run of success at USC. Lost a lot of respect for Clayton. How could he discuss this story without even mentioning the cloud that hangs over the Trojan program with the never-ending (it would seem) NCAA investigation of alleged violations concerning former Trojan Reggie Bush (he just finished his, what, third NFL season?).

First thing I thought of when I heard the story was Michael Jordan's first retirement that was followed by whispers of him giving it up to avoid being suspended by David Stern for his involvement with gambling.

Still don't know if there was any truth to that or any of the questions surrounding SC, but I'd be willing to bet (not much mind you), that as soon as Carroll is good and gone, the NCAA investigation of Bush will soon be wrapped up.

and if it were up to the NBA, soon you won't.

The league is trying to get this picture pulled, because, well, it's doesn't put the Association in a very good light.

So here it is!

Sophomore setter Kristin Hoffman of Batavia is one of three NIU volleyball players named to the Mid-American Conference's All-Academic Volleyball Team. It's the most honorees the program has had in a single season.

Receiving the honor for the second year was senior outside hitter Megan Shoenrock (Sylvania, Ohio) and sophomore outside hitter Allison McGlaughlin (Morton).

In their first year of eligibility for the award, Hoffman and
McGlaughlin own two of the three 4.00 GPAs from the 19 selections.

Hoffman set career-marks nearly across the board as the setter in 2009
with 748 assists (10.11), which ranked third in the MAC during league
competition, 161 digs (2.18/set), 27 kills, 25 blocks and 14 aces for 55
points. The history major tallied a career-best five double-doubles and
also set individual match-highs with six kills against Western Michigan
on Nov. 5 and 16 digs against Buffalo on Oct. 16.

To receive the honor athletes need to have a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or better and compete in at least 50 percent of their team's contests.

Two Northern Illinois women's soccer players who are products of area schools have been named to the Mid-American Conference's All-Academic team.

Lindsey Curnock, a senior from Batavia, and Annie Wyer, a junor from Geneva, have been honored. It's the second time for Curnock, the Huskies' record-setting goalkeeper.

"We as a staff are very proud of Annie and Lindsey's accomplishments academically," head women's soccer coach Carrie Barker said. "They work very hard and it's great to see them get recognition by the conference."

Selection for the honor is based on athletic and academic performances. Those selected must have a cumulative GPA of 3.20 or better and have participated in at least 50 percent of their team's competition during the season.

The award caps a successful senior season for Curnock, who also received the award following the 2007 season. The psychology major has a near-perfect 3.935 grade-point-average. This past season Curnock started every game as NIU's goalkeeper recording 75 saves and four shutouts, to place her as the all-time MAC career shutouts record holder. Curnock also holds the NIU record for career shutouts with 29.

Curnock was also named female Scholar-Athlete of the Week during the week of Sept. 28, 2009 after her stellar performance against MAC foe Toledo. She also received recognition when she was named to the CoSIDA/ESPN the Magazine Academic All-District First Team (Oct. 30, 2009).

Wyer is a physical therapy major who holds a perfect 4.0 GPA. During the 2009 season Wyer started in eight games while seeing action in all 18 contests. Wyer registered an assist in NIU's 1-0 win over SIU Edwardsville (Sept.11, 2009), before recording a goal in the Huskies' 1-1 draw against MAC foe Bowling Green (Sept. 25, 2009).

Great, great stuff here...
you've got Ditka, Singletary, Parcells, Buddy Ryan,... a lot of fire and passion if you ask me..

I would have loved to have been a fly on the golf bag for this round:
From SI.com: Making good on a pledge a week after winning the PGA Championship, (Y.E. Yang) played with former President George W. Bush.

Yang met Bush in August during a trip to the TaylorMade facility in Carlsbad, Calif., and since they live relatively close to each other in Dallas, they arranged to play.

The round took place at Brook Hollow, and it turns out Bush is very much like his father when it comes to pace of play.

"Very fast," Yang said. "We had a fivesome and played in three hours."

Yang said Bush played off about a 12 handicap and said he shot 85.

"He was a nice guy, very fun to play with," Yang said

Well, no news is bad news for the Bears.

It was just announced that head coach Lovie Smith and GM Jerry Angelo will return for the 2010 season, but almost all of the offensive coaching staff will have to be replaced. A new d-coordinator will also be hired, as Smith is stepping down from that role.

I have mixed feelings on this.

Lovie has proved he can win with good players, and this year's Bears team was definitely lacking talent.

But - can't any coach win with good players? Is a really good, if not great, coach able to win with mediocre talent?

I dunno.

I lay most of the blame for the Bears recent woes at the feet of Angelo. His drafting has been poor at best, and his trade for Gaines Adams will go down as one of the worst in Bears history. So did Smith really get the best out of these guys?
Or is Angelo right in thinking there is more potential to be tapped?

This is why both had to go together, and it's is why neither of them went. Despite all of Sweaty Teddy's grandstanding about how mediocrity cannot be tolerated, the bottom line at Halas Hall is always more important than the winning percentage. There is just too much money involved.
Throw in the fact that the McCaskey's may be paying Angelo and Smith to do nothing in 2011 anyway, a house cleaning just wasn't going to happen.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I'm glad I'm not a Bears fan. 2010 should be another difficult year.

Jerry Rich, fresh off hosting the most successful Solheim Cup in LPGA history, is looking for more.

Rich told the Beacon in the summer of '09 that he was hoping to land an NCAA men's championship and in the run up to the Solheim, he said he'd love to have that tournament back.

This report repeats all that and adds that Rich might want to host a Presidents Cup-style event as well for the LPGA Tour.

why not ring in the new year with a stories about how teammates and coaches love and respect one another.

Getting 2010 off on the right foot!