Preview: Devils-Blackhawks

Puck drop is set for 7:30 p.m. at the United Center.

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Jet’s Pizza & 670 The Score Holiday Hookup

Win a Jet's Pizza gift card. It's a gift that keeps on giving, brought to you this holiday season by Jet's Pizza and The Score. Enter now for your chance to win!

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Man Shot And Killed In East Garfield Park

CHICAGO (CBS) — A man was shot to death early Thursday in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side, according to Chicago Police.

Officers responding to reports of shots fired at 1:16 a.m. found the 19-year-old man with gunshot wounds to the head and chest in the 300 block of South Whipple, police said.

He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police. The Cook County medical examiner’s office could not immediately confirm the death.

(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2016. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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November Ends As Third Deadliest Month In 2016 In Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) — Crime statistics released by the Chicago Police Department on Thursday showed November was the third deadliest month of the year, with the city on pace to have the highest number of murders in nearly 20 years.

There were 77 murders in Chicago last month, compared to 37 in November 2015, according to police. Only two other months saw more murders: October, with 78, and August, with 90.

Police said the vast majority of murders have been concentrated in five police districts on the South and West Sides.

Chicago is on pace for more than 700 murders in 2016. The city has not had that many murders in a single year since 1998.

There were also 316 shooting incidents and 389 shooting victims in Chicago last month. Overall, nearly 4,000 people have been shot in Chicago this year.

Johnson said criminals have become more brazen. The superintendent said a new report from the Justice Department revealed shooting attacks on police are up 300 percent compared to last year.

“That just goes to illustrate how people out there now are willing to shoot at police officers. In Chicago, just over the past week, we’ve had four incidents. A few of them, guys were committing shootings right in front of marked squad cars, right in front of them. So if they’re not afraid to shoot at police, then imagine, you know they’re not going to be afraid to shoot at other gang members,” he said.

Johnson acknowledged the number of detectives in the ranks of the department is too low, and police are not solving enough murders.

According to published reports, about 8 percent of the police force in Chicago are detectives, compared to about 15 percent in Los Angeles and New York City. Chicago also lags in solving murders, with a 46 percent murder clearance rate last year, compared to 63 percent nationally.

Johnson said the Chicago Police Department is committed to adding about 350 detectives to the payroll over the next two years as part of the push to hire nearly 1,000 more officers in 2017 and 2018.

“Once we increase the number of detectives, that’ll help, but once we restore the trust that the community has in CPD, that’ll also help. So I think we can fix that,” he said.

The department began accepting applications for a new entrance exam last week. Applications can be submitted through Jan. 31, 2017, and the hiring exam will be held at McCormick Place on April 1 and April 2.

Johnson said he is “very encouraged” by the response the department has had so far.

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The Bernstein Brief: MLB Ends The Stupidity

By Dan Bernstein–
CBSChicago.com senior columnist

(CBS) As news trickled in early Thursday morning of what was contained in the newly agreed-upon-to-agree MLB collective bargaining agreement, there was at least one reason to celebrate amid the arcane descriptions of luxury tax thresholds and draft rule changes.

The All-Star Game will no longer determine World Series home-field advantage. The unfair, shortsighted and indefensible Bud Selig brainchild is finally dead after 14 years, and the team with the better record will now be rewarded properly.

Commissioner Rob Manfred was a guest on the Boers and Bernstein show back in May and was pressed directly on amending the rule in exactly this manner.

“I guess that I understand the proposition that using the record over the entire course of the season, maybe, intellectually, is a more satisfying rule,” he said then. “But the fact of the matter is the rule we have now is a lot better than the rule we used to have, which was we rotated it.

“I clearly understand the argument. It’s a question of balancing the need to protect one important piece of our product against a little intellectual purity. I happen to think that on this we got the balance correct.”

Except they didn’t, and he knew it. Teams will still be incentivized to win the All-Star Game by a simpler motivation, now — a big pool of money. He gets them caring enough to play that night with a little something on the line but disconnects it from affecting the game’s biggest stage.

Intellectually satisfying, indeed.

(Even if the old silliness may have happened to benefit a certain recent World Series participant.)

Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score’s “Boers and Bernstein Show” in afternoon drive. You can follow him on Twitter  @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.

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All-Star Game No Longer Decides Home-Field Advantage In World Series

NEW YORK (AP) — The league that wins baseball’s All-Star Game no longer will get home-field advantage in the World Series, which instead will go to the pennant winner with the better regular-season record.

The change was included in Major League Baseball’s tentative new collective bargaining agreement and disclosed early Thursday to The Associated Press by a person familiar with the agreement. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the deal, reached Wednesday evening in Irving, Texas, had not been announced.

In addition, players and management agreed the minimum stay on the disabled list will be reduced from 15 days to 10.

Home-field advantage in the World Series generally rotated between the leagues through 2002. Baseball, led by then-Commissioner Bud Selig, and Fox television promoted the “This Time It Counts” innovation after the 2002 All-Star Game in Milwaukee ended in a 7-7, 11-inning tie when both teams ran out of pitchers. Selig was booed in his own Milwaukee backyard.

“This energizes it. This gives them something to really play for,” Selig said after owners approved the change by a 30-0 vote in January 2003. “People pay a lot of money to see that game. They deserve to see the same intensity they see all year long. Television people pay a lot of money for the game. It was not and should not be a meaningless exhibition game.”

What began as a two-year experiment was extended. The American League won 11 of 14 All-Star Games played under the rule, and the AL representative won eight World Series in those years.

“It will put back a little of the sizzle,” San Francisco Giants executive Larry Baer said in 2003.

As part of the changes for next year, players in the All-Star Game will have the incentive to play for a pool of money.

The DL change will allow teams to make quicker decisions on whether to bring up a roster replacement rather than wait to see whether the injured player would be ready to return to action in less than two weeks.

An international play plan is part of the new agreement that includes a payment schedule for potential games in Asia, Mexico, Latin America and Britain, plus U.S.-based special events such as this year’s July 3 game between Atlanta and Miami in a specially built ballpark on a military base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.

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Woman Shot During Robbery In Gresham

CHICAGO (CBS) — A 22-year-old woman was shot Thursday morning during a robbery in the Gresham neighborhood.

Police said the woman was shot twice in the abdomen during a robbery near 77th and Green streets shortly before 6 a.m.

After she was shot, the woman made it to 77th and Halsted streets, where she was found slumped over in a bus shelter.

The woman was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, but her condition was not immediately available.

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