CubinNY

Excellent post Blizzau - I like how you point is based on experience and knowledge. It's a ridiculously stupid post. This dude sat on a Federal Grand Jury. That doesn't mean that there is no state or local grand jury. Here is a link to the Grand Jury of Glenn County CA. Just as a for instance: http://www.glenncourt.ca.gov/court_info/grand_jury.html Here is a link to the State of NY Grand Jury process: http://campus.udayton.edu/~grandjur/recent/hnygjw.htm America is the only liberal nation that still uses a Grand Jury system and it is so arcane that only some states still use it. However, can we stop this nonsense of pretending like lying to the Feds is any worse than a lie to your local police officer or in traffic court.

Except that job way way way beneath him. Yeah. Better than unemployment, right? Wow, I had no idea no one had picked him up. He works "free-lance" and has started an academy. I think he's too smart for most managers to handle. You do realize that he was the driving force behind the Kazmir for Victor Zambrano trade, right? So what? He didn't like Kazmir's mechanics and thought he was an injury risk and Kazmir wouldn't listen to him. It was a pretty stupid trade but he didn't make it. I'd take Peterson over anyone else every time.

We already did that by depending on a injury prone pitchers like rich harden, Carlos Zambrano and Ted Lilly and trading for Kevin Gregg and Aaron Heilman. Meanwhile the Cards traded for the greatest SS ever. You don't know how close to true you are. Things could go very bad very quickly for the Cubs Harden pulls a Prior Z is a shell of himself after all the Dusty innings pile up Dempster becomes Dempster Lilly stays the same Kevin Gregg couldn't throw strikes last year and Lou hates relief pitchers who cannot throw strikes Marmol had a terrible winter in the Caribbean If Bradley goes down Fukudome moves back to RF and we have The Car Hopper and Facial Hair manning CF It's a worst case but it's not that far outside of the realm of possiblility

No but he allegedly lied to congress and his case is under review by a federal grand jury. If he lies to them too will he be prosecuted?

Almost all of them. People lie in court all the time. It's just not big enough to go after unless the govt. wants to send a message. You know a lot of people that have lied in front of a Grand Jury? Court and Grand Jury are not the same thing. So someone is going to lie to a grand jury but not in court or vice versa? I don't know anyone personally whose even testified before a grand jury, but it pretty much stands to reason that someone would lie to both. A grand jury is simply a fact finding body in which the prosecution must show that there is enough evidence to go forward to a trial, there is nothing special about it. People can go to jail for lying in court too. When a U.S. attorney is considering charging someone with a federal crime, he or she convenes a grand jury. There's a much greater chance that a U.S. attorney will file perjury charges against someone for lying under oath in a federal proceeding than the local D.A. will file a perjury charge in a local matter. Therefore, there is also a much greater chance that an individual will go to jail for lying to a Grand Jury than a local court. Lying to any court has risks. Lying to a Grand Jury is just plain stupid. No there is not. Grand Jury is not specific to Federal cases. All defendants charged in felony cases are entitled to a grad jury (or preliminary hearing, same difference). Most of the time this right is waved. Sometimes people want to know what evidence the state has so they want a grand jury. Stop trying to make it out that Bonds did something that no one else would do in his shoes. And stop pretending that they aren't going after him b/c he's Barry Bonds. We'll have to wait and see what happens with Roger Clemens, but my guess will be nothing.

Almost all of them. People lie in court all the time. It's just not big enough to go after unless the govt. wants to send a message. You know a lot of people that have lied in front of a Grand Jury? Court and Grand Jury are not the same thing. So someone is going to lie to a grand jury but not in court or vice versa? I don't know anyone personally who's even testified before a grand jury, but it pretty much stands to reason that someone would lie to both. A grand jury is simply a fact finding body in which the prosecution must show that there is enough evidence to go forward to a trial, there is nothing special about it. People can go to jail for lying in court too.

when you said this, were you planning on wieters dying or something I'll still hold to it and own up if I turn out to be wrong. No one is going to remember it. If he stays at C I'll agree with you as catchers skills expire quicker than whole milk in leaky fridge. If he moves to another position, no way.

Almost all of them. People lie in court all the time. It's just not big enough to go after unless the govt. wants to send a message.

Provus sounds like Thom Brennamen to me. Fortunately the content is different but the delivery and cadence are very similar.

Except that job way way way beneath him. Yeah. Better than unemployment, right? Wow, I had no idea no one had picked him up. He works "free-lance" and has started an academy. I think he's too smart for most managers to handle.

Those "stats" are horrible. They are especially horrible for OF.

They don't care about the baseball records. They care that he lied to in an attempt help Victor Conte get off the hook on the case they really cared about. Sets a bad precedent if they let people lie to a federal grand jury to save their friends in a high profile case like this and then don't punish them for it. If Barry Bonds was Marvin Benard, the feds wouldn't give a Veterans Committee. They're nailing him to the wall cause he dared to break the HR record. This just isn't close to true. No, it's 100% true. They didn't need Bonds to convict Conte. Baseball exerts an enormous influence over the govt. I think they went after Bonds b/c he broke the HR record. He's a symbol for what took place in baseball for almost 15 years. They went after him just like they went after Joe Jackson and some of the others who knew the White Sox were mobbed up, to show that they were cleaning up baseball. He's guilty and he'll probably serve as much time as Marion Jones, maybe a little more.

I still don"t like that guy.

Ryan Theriot is not young in baseball age, neither is Heilman. We do have to hope that one of our prospects steps up to the plate (or mound). I want to be the #1 Shark fan this year. If he can do well in Iowa for a month or two as a starter I think he will be huge for the Cubs b/c I don't see this rotation doing well with injuries and inept performance.

he was hustling, lol? he was trying to steal, he should've been "hustling". that doesnt mean it wasnt an idiotic play. It's not an idiotic play. Suppose Molina airmails the ball and Ronny ends up scoring. Who made the idiotic play Molina or Cedeno? I mean Molina threw the ball down to second when he shouldn't have. it was a freakish play with a bad result. Please, stop the nonsense. so if it wasnt stupid, what was it? unlucky? A mistake? I mean, it's not like the only 2 adjectives you can use to describe a play are "idiotic" and "unlucky". It's one of plays that sticks out in memory because it was weird and ended badly. I'd call it an error. The thing about Cedeno is that supposedly he liked the night life, missed signs, and made throwing errors. When you do those things you don't have a lot of room for freakish errors. Lou and Hendry are both old-school baseball men and stuff like this pisses them off to a much greater extent than the actual outcome of the play.

he was hustling, lol? he was trying to steal, he should've been "hustling". that doesnt mean it wasnt an idiotic play. It's not an idiotic play. Suppose Molina airmails the ball and Ronny ends up scoring. Who made the idiotic play Molina or Cedeno? I mean Molina threw the ball down to second when he shouldn't have. it was a freakish play with a bad result. Please, stop the nonsense.

is this is a competition of who made the most stupid plays? i think cedeno would blow the competition away if so. I think he was being sarcastic and saying that throwing errors don't mean a player is being dumb We are all arguing degree of deficiency here. Some say "idiotic", some say "dumb", some say "not the smartest"...... Its all a matter of the adjective that you want to use. And how many players in professional sports actually get thrown out sliding past second base on a walk? I'm guessing the odds of it happening during a ballgame are pretty astronomical. And then to admit that you didn't know there was a rule that you couldn't pass 2nd base? That is getting into Michael Barrett territory. How about, none of the above. He was hustling and overslid the bag. He slid without knowing the result of the pitch, If it's not ball 4 nobody remembers it even happened.

If Heilman is the answer I don't want to know the question unless it is "Who did we trade to get Jake?" Hendry's infatuation with players is really, really, really, weird.

Abolish it. If the team is not intending to offer a contract, trade the guy or risk loosing him for nothing. I've never really understood it in baseball since the draft is such a crapshoot anyway.

Aaron Miles, he saved them last year. That's a win/win in my book.

Didn't that happen to Todd Walker a few years ago? Then he was cut in ST. sidebar: I will never forget auggiedoggie's irrational hatred for Walker and IMB's photoshop job. Those were the days.

This became more true when they made the move to Petco. Qualcomm got decent enough attendance even when the team sucked. You're always complaining about Petco, but man, I like that place. No smoking rules. I liked Petco too. Great sight lines and mostly good seats anywhere. The gaslight district is nice, but pricey.

What does the amount he paid have to do with his commitment to winning? Nothing. Too many people still equate size of payroll to commitment to winning. It's become kind of an outmoded idea, but one that lots of people still carry around. I guess watching lower payroll teams have success regularly just doesn't register. I think the sentiment has to do with the opposite scenario, where a lack of spending equates to a lack of committment. As far as our team goes, think of the 80s and 90s Cubs teams where the trib was making money hand over fist, yet they never would go after any high priced free agents, nor would they trade for any high-priced superstars. Nomar in 2004 was really the first time they went out after a premier player in a big trade, and Soriano was the first top-notch free agent they really pursued during the Tribs tenure. That's not necessarily true. Sandberg was the highest paid player in baseball for a time and Sosa was given a huge contract. That was kind of the issue, they would pay for one big celeb and surround him with caca while marketing "the Wrigley Experience".

That's pretty ridiculous. What's so ridiculous about it? We are talking about profit not investment. You can't just decide that the money invested doesn't matter. It only matters from the standpoint of rate of return and not money in the bank.

that's not true at all. you cant just assume that you'll make profit on the 80m that you're investing elsewhere. There is a definite value to the money not spent. I'm no finance or economics guru, but I'm pretty sure spending $40 million to make $60 million is much better than spending $120 million to make $80 million. just looking at that sentence, and not knowing anything else, spending 120 to make 80 is a great move vs. spending 40 to make 60. The idea is that the two are different and mutually exclusive. So you could spend 40 x 3 and make 180 vs spending 120 and make 80, but again it's just some hypothetical.