CubinNY

Does he have a twin? and what's with all the Nazi hair cuts?

How does a city hate another city? This doesn't make sense to me. Chicago and NY have always had a huge rivalry in many things, financial markets, architecture, art/museums, sporting teams, etc. Paris and Berlin had a pretty big rivalry a few years back. A city isn't just the land it occupies. It's the people and attitudes that shape it, and history is littered with cities that hated one another. Athens v Sparta, now that was a rivalry.

Karma is on our side this year.

An out is an out. If you want to look at something look at how many times he doesn't make an out. He gets on base nearly 40% of the time he comes to the plate. We've all seen this movie before.

Whogivesacrapaboutstrkeouts?

What makes you predict this? Position they play?

The only team in the playoff hunt that could've claimed him before Arizona was LA. Dunn's a Free Agent after the year. Does the team have to be in the playoff hunt to claim him? I thought any team could claim him but the team with the worst record gets him.

Last year some guy came and posted some pictures he took at Wrigley. the picture was a wide angle shot from the visitor's side of the field. I was using one for my desktop and stupidly put the photo in the trash. Does anyone remember the thread or have the pitchers. Thanks,

I can't believe another team didn't put in a claim on him. Baseball "people" are so myopic sometimes. The guy is a game changer almost every time he makes contact with the baseball. I am laughing so hard at the Reds. Dusty Ball, catch it! He's going to have the worst punch-and-Judy-no-walk-line-up in baseball. They've already quit on him, according to "the Cowboy". Maybe they're getting rid of the malcontents.

I'm agreeing with this. He's still playing good defense. He looks lost at the plate. It's hard for me to analyze his swing as I have a hard time understanding how he ever makes solid contact, but he seems to be really off balance and is expanding the strike zone.

That's awesome writing. I love it. You can taste the jealousy. It's another page or two in the rivalry.

I want some lotto numbers, staat.

Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Trevor Hoffman, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling probably also fall into "that era" of people worthy of being in the HOF. Curt Schilling should only get into the HOF if he buys a ticket. The rest of them, yes.

No offense to Bruce Miles, but the BWAA sometimes behave like middle school girls. They see themselves as the gatekeepers, but they sometimes act like jilted lovers. I think they send a message to all the sluggers who put up good enough numbers for consideration and not vote them in for awhile. They should probably do the same thing to all the pitchers too, but they won't. I think it would be fitting to wait and put all of the steroid era players in at one time and have a special section of the Hall for them. If Smoltz, Glavin, and Maddux retire this year that will pretty much be everyone from that era. Bonds Sammy Mac Palmerio Clemens Glavin Piazza Maddux Smoltz --------- It sucks that everybody gets tarred with the same brush but I believe they all knew what was going on, so many are accessories. The only other person I can think of who is worthy from that era is Jeff Kent, but I'm sure I'm missing some (Jr. Griffee and Visquel). People like A-Rod and Jeter kind of fall in the middle and will have to play significant time outside of that era.

That's crazy talk. The Dodgers are 5 games and 4 teams back. The next closest has a worse record than the Pittsburgh Pirates, yeah those guys.

Not for you, for whatshisface who always bitches about us bitching about Lou: -Every super hero has one weakness, Lou's is the proper use of a bullpen.

That show must be great to listen to. Max Kellerman is tough to take seriously.

i'm not so sure. he tends to get painted this way because he grew up in the burbs and went to Northwestern I am pretty sure he grew up in NY; he was certainly born there. Stuyvesant is a prominent private school located in Manhattan. My stepfather attended in the 60's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Greenberg Thus he is a Jets fan. He covered the Bulls and to a lesser extent the Cubs while working here back in the early and mid 90's following his graduation from Northwestern. I doubt he grew up loving Chicago baseball, but he doesn't seem to mention it on-air. Stuyvesant is not a private school, but it might as well be. It's one of the best public high schools in the country. It is supposedly a "math" and "science" high school but almost every kid that goes to that school has some serious brain power. You might be thinking of Horace Mann, which is a very expensive and very private high school in Westchester County.

That doesn't really make much sense. Whomever finishes in second has the highest odds of winning the WC. The Yankees clearly don't have the highest odds of finishing second, Boston or TB do.

Meph, I think you give far, far too much value to chance. Competitive sports like baseball is not the same thing as rolling a six sided dice and looking at variance and probability. There are far too many variables in play to chalk victory up to luck. It's my one big gripe with the saber community. They have a weird fetish to want to chalk up any unexplained variance to luck. It's really a piss poor way to do behavioral analysis. A manger making a poor decision that cost his team 1 game in April can have a big effect in September if his team loses the WC by one game. That's not bad luck. We could go round and round on this one but I think luck is a default position, one only used when all other possibilities have been exhausted.

Clearly, right now there are no deserving non-in-first teams to make the playoffs than the Brewers, Cardinals, Mets, and Marlins (I have those guys). If I were a betting man I'd take the Phillies/Marlins first, then the Brewers. The inevitable hand of sample size is catching up to the Cardinals and the Brewers are managed by Ned Yost. The Phillies have the offense to overcome their middling pitching and the Marlins are getting back Johnson and Sanchez.

Brenly's sniffing something alright.

The Cubs shouldn't be afraid of facing anyone. The Division should be the goal. It's the only sure way to get in. The "Wild Card" is just that.

Fight, fight, fight. Para vs. Prince after Para gives up 6 in 6.

But to be fair, the Red Sox are thinking "Nomar part 2" with this deal. They got rid of a franchise icon, Nomar, and replace him with serviceable players like Mientkiewicz (at the time) and Orlando Cabrera, and in a separate deals Dave Roberts and Mike Myers and they went with the "team" concept the rest of the way. Now I understand that Manny was on that team, but I remember Nomar becoming a distraction that yr, because A: He turned down a contract extension and B: He pulled himself out of an Red Sox/Yankee game in which we saw that DJ "overrated catch" into the stands. They got rid of a distraction and it proved dividends. They're hoping history repeats itself with Jason Bay. But I do think this trade will definately hurt the Sox chances of getting into the playoffs. You don't get rid of a talent like Manny and only settle for Jason Bay. I like Bay, and I am glad he is no longer in Pittsburgh, but I could see him struggle under the burden of replacing Manny in LF. Can you really replicate those kinds of counterintuitive trades though? Isn't that sort of like pulling off a Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik like swap and saying it'll work out with a World Series victory like it did in 2005? I don't know. Bay strikes out a little more than Manny (I think, I'm eyeballing the numbers) but hits a much lower line drive percentage for a lower BABIP. He seems like a .280-.285 ish hitter which will keep the OBP and SLG lower. They're going to miss Manny's production when he wasn't pouting, but I think Bay can make up about 2/3 or 3/4 of the non-pouting Manny. That's more than they were getting out of the pouting Manny.