For the love of CHRIST. Our lack of fundamentals lost that game, not covering first, not catching the ball. Not the frigging umps. All pitchers were getting some calls and not getting others. first, see the first half of the first sentance I wrote. for that matter, see my rants throughout the thread about the second inning and the Cubs terrible hitting approach, which went directly against Baker's instructions for the game. as far as I know, there can be more than one intervening cause in any outcome. second, that's very noble of you, but you're wrong. aside from a couple corner calls Rusch got, identify one generous strike the Cubs pitchers got tonight. I can name you no fewer than eight very questionable strikes the Phils got, almost all of them in very key situations of the ballgame. and as I challenged you to do before, get back to me when a Cubs batter has a borderline pitch called a ball. fact is, the Walker AB in the middle of our big two run rally was simply taken away by DeMuth with two called strikes that were not strikes, and weren't called strikes on any other batter besides Lawton (with two on and two out) and Burnitz (with one out, the go ahead run on first). the same pitch was called a ball instead of strike three on Lofton right before he moved Rollins to third. fact is, if Walker draws the walk, like he earned, the Cubs go ahead that inning. in one sense I admire you for trying to be such a stand up guy, in another I pity you for your inability to observe.