LAKE FOREST—Ot was a landmark day for the Bears who are notede for never going “hog wild” in a free agent market. Remember? Bears President Ted Phillips said a couple of weeks ago that the Bears would not be doing as such. But the signing of free agents Julius Peppers(DE from Carolina),RB Chester Taylor(from Minnesota)and TE Brandon Manumaleuna(away from San Diego)could be called hog wild for sure. The Bears had a rare chance to do stuff like this on the first day of the new NFL “NO SALERY CAP” statis. The Bears need lots of help and Peppers should help their weak pass rush, Taylor gives the Bears running back help since Matt Forte had a blah 2nd season, and Manumaleuna is a better blocker than Greg Olsen who may want out after Maike Martz was brought in as offensive cordinator.Peppers,the key signing, got a $42 million guaranteed deal in which he’ll be earning $20 million in the first year and $40.5 million over the first three. The deal includes incentives for sacks, making the Pro Bowl and winning Defensive Player of the Year.He has 81 sacks in eight seasons with the Panthers, including 10½ last year. The signing of Taylor weakens the division rival Vikings. He also does’nt fumble as much as his more noted ex teammate Adrian Peterson.He had 42 catches for 389 yards and 94 carries for 338 yards in 2009.

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The Bears are banking on Julius Peppers, who had 10 1/2 sacks last season, to improve their pass rush. (AP)

The Blackhawks had no trouble with Olympic gold medal-winning goalie Roberto Luongo and the Vancouver Canucks.Andrew Ladd, Duncan Keith, Troy Brouwer, Kris Versteeg and Jordan Hendry scored first-period goals to chase Luongo in the Blackhawks’ 6-3 victory Friday.Marian Hossa added a goal and assist, and Jonathan Toews had two assists to help the Hawks win for the sixth time in seven games and pull into a first-place tie with San Jose in the Western Conference.Keith and Toews, along with Brent Seabrook, also played on Canada’s Olympic team. On Friday, the Blackhawks pounced on the Canucks’ coverage mistakes, as well as miscues by Luongo, to take early control against the conference foe they eliminated from the playoffs last spring.The game included ongoing skirmishes, but the Blackhawks made their point on the scoreboard by buzzing and cross-circuiting the Canucks defense.Luongo, making his second start since backstopping Canada to the Olympic title Sunday, was replaced by Andrew Raycroft to start the second. He exited the game after allowing the five first-period goals on 14 shots and slamming his stick on the bench.Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows and Mikael Samuelsson scored for the Canucks, whose two-game winning streak ended.Cristobal Huet stopped 20 shots. He made his second straight start after Antti Niemi started five in a row for the Blackhawks.Luongo and Vancouver’s defense struggled in a chippy first period, and the Hawks built a 5-1 lead.Luongo made three tough saves during an early 5-on-3 power play, then allowed a soft goal to Ladd at 3:48. Ladd shoveled a backhander on goal from the right boards that deflected off the shaft of Luongo’s stick and wobbled in. After the Blackhawks killed a 5-on-3 Vancouver advantage a few minutes later, they took charge.Keith’s power-play goal at 10:22 made it 2-0. With Luongo down and a wild scrum in front of the net, Keith aimed in a high shot from 40 feet out in the slot.Brouwer made it 3-0 just 31 seconds later. He drove to the net and rammed in the puck after Luongo deflected Niklas Hjalmarsson’s centering pass.Kesler fooled Huet with a screened shot from right circle with 5:51 left in the first to cut it to 3-1. But Versteeg replied 59 seconds later when he skated unchecked from left wing, cut across the crease and beat Luongo high on the glove side.Hendry, a defenseman, scored his first goal of the season with 43 seconds left when he took a centering pass from Toews and drove down the slot to the net. Burrows cut it to 5-2 at 2:05 of the second. He blew past the the defense fired a shot that went in off the post.Hossa scored on a screened shot late in the third — a second after a power play expired — to make it 6-2.Samuelsson completed the scoring on a screened shot with 2:51 left in the third.

NOTES—The Canucks played the 11th game of the NHL-record 14-game trip interrupted by the Olympic break. They’re 6-5-0 on the trip, which ends March 10 at Phoenix…..Vancouver D Andrew Alberts, acquired from Carolina on Wednesday, played his first game with the Canucks. He fought Brent Seabrook midway through the first period…..The Hawks evened the season series with the Canucks at 2-2-0 in the final regular-season meeting between the teams.

***So the pariah named Milton Bradley is blaming CHICAGO for his lousy 2009 season with the Cubs. Is he blaming the group Chicago? The Hancock Building? Perhaps the Vines at Wrigley Field? No, he is blaming everything and everyone EXCEPT the man he sees in the mirror. Bradley was suspended for the final two weeks last season for his “last straw” outburst. When told he was suspended,the Cubs players all applauded!

***He Milton, perhaps it was the media’s fault that you couldn’t remember how many outs there were in an inning. You remember this…..you caught a fly ball for the second out,then two two runners on base,you tossed the ball into the right field bleachers,allowing the runners to keep….ugh….RUNNING!

***Basically………..DING DONG BRAD-LEE IS GONE, WICKED MILTON BRADLEY’S GONE.

DING DONG NOW MILTON BRADLEY’S GONE.

HE’S SEATTLE’S PROBLEM NOW, HA HA, YOU DIDN’T LAST,

DON’T LET, THE DOOR HIT YOU IN YOUR BIG ARROGANT ASS!

DING DONG BRAD-LEE IS GONE, WICKED MILTON BRADLEY’S GONE,

HIT THE ROAD, AND DON’T COME BACK NO MORE!!!!”

***The Bears will be meeting with Julius Peppers,and Chester Taylor among others as the NFL is now officially UN-CAPPED. This free agent type of move has been un-Bear like in the past, but just a year after they traded for Jay Cutler,the Bears are trying to show they have a pulse.

***Now that Cactus League play is under way, the Cubs and White Sox are playing against other teams instead of having intersquad games.

***We’ll be broadcasting SCORE OVERNIGHT(On 670 THE SCORE) this coming Wednesday night(at 10:30pm Chicago Time)and Thursday(at 1pm CST)from DON AND CHARLIES in Scottsdale during our Spring Training trip.

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Zach Randolph scored 31 points and grabbed 18 rebounds.More important, the Memphis Grizzlies rallied from a big first-half deficit to beat the Bulls 105-96 on Thursday night. Randolph figured to show up in some highlights anyway, considering he helped his team rally from 17 down in the second quarter before tying it in the third. The Grizzlies finally took control with an 8-0 run late in the fourth that gave them a 97-90 lead.O.J. Mayo scored 10 of his 20 points in the final quarter, and Rudy Gay finished with 17 as the Grizzlies extended their franchise-record road win streak to six and sent the Bulls to their third straight loss.The Bulls wasted solid performances by Luol Deng (23 points) and Derrick Rose (20 points), who have been playing with sore knees. That didn’t stop Rose, who banged one knee in each of the previous two games, from driving for a poster-worthy right-handed dunk in the third quarter over Randolph.Still, Randolph got the last word. He finished two points shy of his season high and started the decisive run with a free throw that tied it at 90 with just over five minutes left.Marc Gasol (12 points) added a three-point play on a feed from Mike Conley and had a chance for another one with 4:01 left. He missed the free throw, Gay grabbed the rebound and Mayo put it in to make it a seven-point game with 3:50 left.This painful loss comes at a time when the Bulls have little room for error. Leading rebounder Joakim Noah is out with plantar fasciitis in his left foot, and the Bulls still have seven left in a tough nine-game stretch in which they must face division leaders Dallas (twice), Orlando and Cleveland.A healthy Noah might have helped on the glass, where the Grizzlies outrebounded the Bulls 46-31. Then again, his foot has been bothering him since mid-January, which is why the Bulls decided to shut him down for three weeks on Wednesday. A day later, they appeared to be in decent shape with a 49-32 lead with about five minutes left in the second quarter.They were still looking good in the third even after watching it dwindle to four.Rose’s big dunk got the lead back up to nine about four minutes into the quarter, and the Bulls were up 65-55 before it all went away.The Grizzlies ran off 10 straight, tying it on Conley’s driving layup with 4:33 left in the quarter before the Bulls called time, and they briefly went ahead midway through the fourth on a floater by Conley that made it 89-87. The Bulls’ Kirk Hinrich answered with a 3-pointer before the Grizzlies went ahead for good.

NOTES—The Grizzlies had 62 points in the paint to the Bulls 42……The home team had won nine straight in this series…..Blackhawks star and U.S. Olympic silver medalist Patrick Kane got a nice ovation when he was shown seated at courtside late in the first quarter.

TEMPE—A.J. Pierzynski hit a two-run homer to highlight a three-run third inning, and Los Angeles catcher Mike Napoli also homered as the White Sox and Angels played to a 4-4 tie Thursday before the Cactus League opener for both teams was called after nine innings.John Danks played his first professional game with brother Jordan Danks, who started in right field, and worked two scoreless innings in his first spring start. Jordan Danks went 0 for 2 with a walk. He was caught stealing in the ninth.Angels’ right-hander Joel Pineiro worked two innings and allowed three hits and one run with a walk and two strikeouts.



MESA—Randy Wells pitched two perfect innings, Derrek Lee homered and Marlon Byrd also homered in his first game with the Cubs, leading to a 9-3 victory over the Oakland A’s on Thursday.Wells, coming off a surprising rookie season in which he went 12-10 and had the NL’s 10th-best ERA (3.05), struck out two and didn’t let the ball out of the infield.Byrd, who signed a three-year contract to play center field for the Cubs after getting 20 homers and 89 RBIs for Texas last season, also singled. Tyler Colvin, who has an outside shot at being a backup outfielder, homered and doubled twice as part of a 16-hit attack. Brad Snyder and Sam Fuld also homered.Trevor Cahill, who is trying to earn the No. 5 spot in Oakland’s rotation, allowed two runs and three hits in two innings.

The Blackhawks needed two periods to get up to full speed against the lowly Edmonton Oilers. Niklas Hjalmarsson, Dustin Byfuglien and Jonathan Toews scored in the third period to help the Blackhawks beat the Oilers 5-2 on Wednesday night for their fifth victory in six games.Marian Hossa and Dave Bolland also scored for the Blackhawks, who increasingly dominated as the game progressed. Patrick Kane added two assists as they wound up outshooting Edmonton 47-14.The Blackhawks were flat in a 5-3 road loss to the New York Islanders on Tuesday night, their first game following the Olympic break. Six Blackhawks including Toews, Kane and Hossa took part in the Vancouver Games.Hossa, who played for Slovakia in Vancouver, added an assist, as did Toews.Robert Nilsson and Shawn Horcoff scored for Edmonton. The Oilers have lost three straight and seven of their last eight.The Oilers, who made two trades before the deadline Wednesday, skated with a largely inexperienced group of defensemen, including recent AHL callups Dean Arsene, Taylor Chorney, Theo Peckham and Johan Motin.Cristobal Huet made 12 saves in his first start in nearly a month. Antti Niemi had made five straight starts for the Blackhawks, but Huet replaced him early in the second period of the loss to the Islanders.The Blackhawks failed to make a long-rumored trade to upgrade their goaltending before the deadline.After Wednesday’s win, Chicago coach Joel Quenneville called Huet’s performance “OK.” Huet, who faced just three shots in the third period, didn’t want to read much into his victory.Edmonton backup Devan Dubnyk stopped 42 shots. He was recalled from Springfield of the AHL on Monday after playing there during the Olympic break.Earlier, Edmonton sent veteran defenseman Steve Staios to Calgary for defenseman Aaron Johnson and a third-round 2010 draft pick. The Oilers also dealt Lubomir Visnovsky, their top-scoring defenseman, to Anaheim for defenseman and U.S. Olympian Ryan Whitney and a sixth-round pick this year.Also, Edmonton claimed forward Ryan Jones off waivers from Nashville. Jones was in the lineup, however Johnson and Whitney didn’t arrive in time for the game.Hossa put the Hawks ahead 1-0 during a 4-on-4 at 3:26 of the second when he ripped in a high shot from the top of the left circle. Nilsson and Horcoff scored a 52-second span late in the second gave Edmonton a 2-1 lead.Nilsson jammed the puck under Huet from the edge of the crease with 4:29 left in the second after Sam Gagne had driven to the net. Horcoff beat Huet with a screened shot from the top of the slot with 3:37 left in the period.Bolland tied it at 2 with 1:57 remaining in the second when he batted in a loose puck from the left side of the net. The play was set up by Hossa, who intercepted a pass from Edmonton’s Tom Gilbert.Hjalmarsson scored on a screened shot from the left point 20 seconds into the third to give the Blackhawks the lead for good, 3-2. It was only his second goal this season, and first since Oct. 17. Byfuglien made it 4-2 with a power-play goal midway through the third when he tucked in a shot from the edge of the crease.The puck was accidentally deflected straight to Byfuglien by Edmonton’s Patrick O’Sullivan who tried to cut off Kane’s pass from the right boards.Toews completed the scoring with 3:44 left on shot from the right circle.

NOTES—The Blackhawks honored their six players who participated in the Winter Olympics in a pre-game ceremony……Next up for the Hawks are gome games with Vancouver Friday at 7:30 and Sunday at 11:30am with Detroit.

EVANSTON—John Shurna scored 16 points and Alex Marcotullio added 15 points on five 3-pointers to lead Northwestern to a 72-49 non-conference win over Chicago State on Wednesday night.Northwestern, which had lost four of its previous six games, was slugglish for most of the first half.Leading 27-25 with 3:19 left in the half, Northwestern (19-11) pulled away with a 10-0 run. Marcotullio and Jeremy Nash made back-to-back 3-pointers and Davide Curletti hit a pair of free throws to give the Wildcats a 37-25 lead. Christian Wall made a runner for Chicago State as time expired in the first half to cut the Northwestern lead to 37-27.Antonio Lofton and Kabangu Tshinga Kasamba led Chicago State (8-22) with 12 points each.

UNIONDALE—Blake Comeau notched his first NHL hat trick and sparked a four-goal second-period rally to lift the Islanders to a 5-3 victory against the first-place Blackhawks on Tuesday night.Comeau, Jon Sim and Richard Park scored three goals in a 4:39 stretch in the second, helping the Islanders win for the only the third time in 12 games.Comeau scored twice in the second period, including an insurance goal with 17 seconds left that made it 5-2 and marked the Islanders’ first three-goal game since Jeff Tambellini accomplished the feat on Oct. 31.Kane, who helped the Americans win a silver medal, had his 19th multipoint game this season. Chicago wasted a chance to tie San Jose (89 points) for the league’s best record.Blackhawks starting goalie Antti Niemi allowed three goals on only 12 shots before getting pulled. The Hawks lost their fifth straight against the Islanders and hasn’t beaten them since Dec. 23, 2002, at the Nassau Coliseum.U.S. Olympian Patrick Kane had a goal and two assists. Brian Campbell and Dustin Byfuglien also scored, but the Blackhawks lost for the first time in five games.Dwayne Roloson, who could be moved by Wednesday’s trade deadline, made 41 saves in his first victory since Jan. 21. Roloson also stopped 20 first-period shots to keep his team in contention.The Hawks initially looked rejuvenated off the two-week Olympic break, firing 22 shots in the first period to take a 2-1 lead.Campbell opened the scoring 10:44 in for his 17th goal. Roloson knocked down Kane’s shot from the right circle before Campbell slammed home the rebound at the right post.Despite the shot disparity, Comeau tied it after stopping a sideboards-bound clearing pass and beating Niemi on his glove-side 1:32 later.But the Hawks quickly regained momentum off Richard Park’s slashing penalty. Kane’s wraparound rebound goal off Duncan Keith’s off-target shot came only 63 seconds after Comeau’s tally. The Blackhawks fell two short of tying their season high of 24 shots in a period, accomplished in the season opener against Florida.Momentum shifted coming out of first intermission when Comeau and Sim scored 25 seconds apart to force Niemi to the bench 2:52 into the second. Comeau’s drive from the left circle hit just under the crossbar and Sim followed with a point-blank rebound goal a half-minute later, prompting Chicago coach Joel Quenneville to insert Cristobal Huet.

NOTES—The Blackhawks host the Edmonton Oilers Wednesday night…..The Hawks previous road loss came Jan. 30 in Carolina…..The Blackhawks have allowed 16 goals in their past four games but are 3-1 in that stretch…..The Hawks acquired defenseman Nick Boynton from Anaheim for future considerations and assigned him to Rockford.

ROSEMONT—Dominique Jones scored 20 points and made a go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:58 left to lead South Florida to a 63-59 victory over DePaul on Tuesday night.Chris Howard scored 11 of his 13 points in the second half for South Florida (18-11, 8-9). The Bulls host Connecticut on Saturday with a chance of getting a first-round bye in next week’s Big East tournament.Mac Koshwal scored 24 points and had 11 rebounds for DePaul (8-21, 1-16), who has lost 44 of its last 47 Big East regular-season games. The Blue Demons led 27-22 at halftime but trailed 54-46 with 5:30 left before rallying. Will Walker added 16 points for DePaul.The Blue Deomns have now lost 11 in a row and 16 of 17.