FergieJ31

I think He fell asleep at the switch and woke up with a start in the 8th inning, game 6 2003 NLCS, Castillo at the plate: "Huh wha ... what the ... whoa!! What's going on down there?!"

I actually wouldn't be surprised to see the Cardinals deal Marquis for a corner OF if Ponson proves effective (effective = stays off the sauce, out of jail, and throws strikes). Two things I didn't know about Ponson til now: (a) born in Aruba and (b) has been jailed twice for two separate incidents. The Cards signed him fresh out of his second trip to the big house.

Wow that is SUCH a Dusty attitude: "The horses are the horses dude. You know, Reyes is just a young colt who wants to be a horse." Then again, as a Cub fan, I think TLR is VERY VERY wise to hold him back. Send him down to AAA for more conditioning, just like Tim said :D

1 year, $6.5M and worth every cent ... God bless big Z.

The Edward K reference is brilliant (am I the only one who got that?)

Great tune - thanks for the link Aramis Fan. There are two times a year when I wonder if I ever will see a Cubs championship in my lifetime: Now, just before ST (hope springs eternal and all that sheah), and whenever the Cubs fall out of contention. And year after year, that imaginary TradeSports contract Cubs Championship Before FergieJ31 Kicks Bucket just keeps ticking lower and lower :(

I have a real hard time seeing the Braves, Mets, or Phillies finishing in last. NL East, but I agree. In the West ... clearly the Dodgers. I'm not sold on any of the moves the Giants made this off-season.

I think that's the point Wolf was making. The Cards were ranked third in the division by most of the pundits in 04. They're returning their starting rotation with the exception of Morris who can no longer be regarded as an anchor to any staff. What exactly have the Cards done to downgrade that significantly vs. other teams moves in NL Central? Yeah and Anthony Reyes penciled in to be the guy to replace Morris... if he comes close to the numbers he put up in 14 IP last year ... ugh :( I don't wanna think about it. (And just when the Cubs finally solved MattyMo last two years, pounding the stuffing out of him -- great, he has to leave and go to SF.) The Cardinals are the only team in the NL Central that I cannot imagine finishing last under any realistic scenario.

I hate these stories about how THIS is the year the Cardinals are supposed to falter. This is the third straight year now. I think rumors of their death have been greatly exaggerated, judging from their on-field performance. And someone always uses the same tired "falling Cards" pun :roll:

Personally I don't give a rat's behind about the knothole (I was lukewarm on the idea from the beginning), and I don't believe the Cubs lied about anything. There's no bait and switch here - no conspiracies - just bumbling ineptitude and lack of foresight.

>> pat is probably one of my favorite people. Me too. I think I'll always associate Pat with the wild 1998 ride, which was (I believe) his first year doing Cubs PbP on WGN. I love the way he calls the game. Relaxing with a cool drink and listening to Pat & Ron is my ideal way to spend a summer evening. Incidentially, I have to admit I also really like Ed Farmer, who will start doing White Sox radio PbP in 2006. Absolute opposite of Hawk: he has poignant observations, interesting comments, isn't a homer and is very easy to listen to.

The random "look out" always made me laugh. The funniest part for me was that I rarely ever listened to him on the radio -- he did it for the TV audience as well. There wouldn't be any action on the field whatsoever, and he would blurt that out I always assumed someone in the booth nearly knocked over his beer.

Will Farell's imitations of him were gold. I thought they were crap. Will Ferrell was doing an imitation of a guy doing an imitation of a guy doing Harry Caray. I have seen far, far better impersonations. I have to say I agree -- the best by far I've ever heard was Ed Volkman's imitation. He does Harry better than Harry; just spot on, right down to essential details like random throat clearings.

often followed by "that wouldn't be a home run in a phone booth!". I also remember Harry often over-enunciating last names w/3+ syllables: "here's Luis Vis-guy-ee-no" or "Ken Cama-nee-ti .. good lookin young ballplayer."

Harry would (poop) a brick if he saw this sorry-ass bunch of losers today, calling up to the booth and blaming the announcers for their poor play. Anyway, I wish I would have heard this live, but I guess one of Harry's most memorable quotes was this: The WGN camera focused on a young couple sitting under a blanket on a cold day in the bleachers. Harry commented "They have a system worked out. He kisses her on the strikes, and she kisses him on the balls." Uproarious laughter could be heard as everyone in the booth busted up. Harry finally realized what he said, simply replied "Oh" and went back to announcing the game. In a similar vein there's the famous blooper: "Heyy we see Marla Collins(*) for the first time without shorts on", followed by hysterical laughter in the background. Luckily WGN Radio has preserved that audio clip and others for posterity: http://wgnradio.com/history/75th06.htm R.I.P. Harry ... we all miss you. (*) Cubs ballgirl in the mid 80's who was eventually fired for posing in Playboy.

I'm astonished Pujols' has as much blue as it does.

Yeah but notice he's holding his left shoulder - probably a rotator cuff injury.

11 of the top 25 teams won the pennant; only 6 won the WS. Which would seem to corroborate Billy Beane's famous line: "My job is to get my team into the playoffs; what happens after that is a blankety-blank crapshoot." Top 50 below (sorry bout the misaligned column headings): Rank Team Year OBPDifferential WinningPct WCWin DivWin LgWin WSWin 1 SEA 2001 0.06502 0.716 N Y N N 2 NYA 1998 0.05754 0.704 N Y Y Y 3 BAL 1971 0.05718 0.639 Y Y N 4 LAN 1974 0.05490 0.630 Y Y N 5 BAL 1970 0.04989 0.667 Y Y Y 6 NYA 2002 0.04953 0.640 N Y N N 7 ATL 1997 0.04911 0.623 N Y N N 8 BAL 1973 0.04841 0.599 Y N N 9 BOS 2004 0.04660 0.605 Y N Y Y 10 NYA 2003 0.04659 0.623 N Y Y N 11 LAN 1975 0.04652 0.543 N N N 12 ARI 2002 0.04636 0.605 N Y N N 13 HOU 1998 0.04602 0.630 N Y N N 14 CLE 1995 0.04593 0.694 N Y Y N 15 CIN 1976 0.04536 0.630 Y Y Y 16 PHI 1976 0.04393 0.623 Y N N 17 ATL 1998 0.04384 0.654 N Y N N 18 CLE 1996 0.04327 0.615 N Y N N 19 OAK 2001 0.04287 0.630 Y N N N 20 NYN 1986 0.04237 0.667 Y Y Y 21 NYA 1999 0.04189 0.605 N Y Y Y 22 BOS 2002 0.04160 0.574 N N N N 23 SEA 2002 0.04125 0.574 N N N N 24 BAL 1979 0.04098 0.642 Y Y N 25 NYA 1997 0.04082 0.593 Y N N N 26 CIN 1975 0.04061 0.667 Y Y Y 27 BOS 1988 0.04057 0.549 Y N N 28 NYN 1988 0.04014 0.625 Y N N 29 BOS 1999 0.03983 0.580 Y N N N 30 SLN 2004 0.03941 0.648 N Y Y N 31 DET 1984 0.03840 0.642 Y Y Y 32 OAK 1990 0.03833 0.636 Y Y N 33 LAN 1985 0.03830 0.586 Y N N 34 NYN 1999 0.03829 0.595 Y N N N 35 BOS 2003 0.03799 0.586 Y N N N 36 SEA 2003 0.03774 0.574 N N N N 37 LAN 1973 0.03747 0.590 N N N 38 NYA 1981 0.03744 0.551 Y Y N 39 PIT 1991 0.03741 0.605 Y N N 40 CLE 2005 0.03674 0.574 N N N N 41 LAN 1978 0.03660 0.586 Y Y N 42 SLN 1985 0.03608 0.623 Y Y N 43 CIN 1974 0.03547 0.605 N N N 44 ARI 2001 0.03529 0.568 N Y Y Y 45 ATL 1996 0.03521 0.593 N Y Y N 46 HOU 1999 0.03490 0.599 N Y N N 47 HOU 1981 0.03489 0.555 Y N N 48 PHI 1993 0.03485 0.599 Y Y N 49 ATL 1993 0.03474 0.642 Y N N 50 TEX 1977 0.03469 0.580 N N N

Thanks for the feedback - the '84 Tigers were #31 on the list, right below the 2004 Cardinals and right above of the 1990 A's. I'd like to do some kind of analogous oppSLG or oppOPS run, but unfortunately the pitching table in the Lahman database doesn't include all extra base hits; it only has HR allowed. I would assume some of the recent Cub teams would place considerably higher (but still nowhere near the top) in a OPSDifferential ranking. Also, I did a regression of OBPDifferential against winning pct: the correlation coefficient came out to about 88%.

Amen. I think what deuce and #22 reported sounds far more plausible (yes, even from Dusty).

I had an hour to spend this afternoon with the new Lahman database (includes final 2005 statistics), and I've always wanted to see more attention paid to OBP against as a pitcher stat. For the very same reasons why OBP should be valued more than BA as an offensive stat, I've always wondered why a pitcher's OBP against (which I'll call oppOBP) isn't cited more as a pitching stat, instead of BAA. There isn't quite enough info in the database to define an exact oppOBP, so I used a proxy(*): oppOBP = (H + BB + HBP) / BFP where BFP is batters faced by pitcher. Next I aggregated oppOBP and OBP across all players that played for each team and each year into a single measure of team performance: the OBPDifferential: OPPDifferential = TeamOBP - TeamOppOBP What I like about this stat is that it allows us to "compare apples-to-apples", across time and across leagues. That is, the average AL team OBP should naturally be higher than the average NL team OBP, but the differential adjusts for the DH effect by assigning equal importance to team pitching and batting. For what it's worth, here are the best 25 teams in the past 36 years according to OBPDifferential: Team Year OBPDifferential SEA 2001 0.06502 NYA 1998 0.05754 BAL 1971 0.05718 LAN 1974 0.05490 BAL 1970 0.04989 NYA 2002 0.04953 ATL 1997 0.04911 BAL 1973 0.04841 BOS 2004 0.04660 NYA 2003 0.04659 LAN 1975 0.04652 ARI 2002 0.04636 HOU 1998 0.04602 CLE 1995 0.04593 CIN 1976 0.04536 PHI 1976 0.04393 ATL 1998 0.04384 CLE 1996 0.04327 OAK 2001 0.04287 NYN 1986 0.04237 NYA 1999 0.04189 BOS 2002 0.04160 SEA 2002 0.04125 BAL 1979 0.04098 NYA 1997 0.04082 Surprises (to me at least) - the relative dearth of NL teams. - 2002 D'backs and 1998 Astros (a big unit common denominator there). - no STL entries: top entry was the 2004 Cards at #30 - the '75 Reds (whom I've heard some people cite as one of the greatest of all time) would have been #26, the first team not shown above. Since 1970, out of a total of 936 team-years, the '72 Cubs placed the highest of any Cub team, at a depressing #122 on the list (0.2696 OBPDifferential). The next Cub entries: '70 Cubs, #183 '01 Cubs, #200 '71 Cubs #298 '84 Cubs #302 '04 Cubs #339 '77 Cubs #390 '89 Cubs #413 '78 Cubs #450 '98 Cubs #461 '05 Cubs #485, and finally (amazingly) the '03 Cubs #487. Comments, questions & criticisms welcome of course. (*) I think this measure misses errors: if a batter reaches on an error, the next one walks, and the pitcher gets the next 3 outs, the oppOBP stat for that pitcher in that inning would be .200 where it should be .250. Reached-on-errors isn't available in the Pitching table, so this oppOBP definition is the best I can do.

I agree, and I'd be happy if Kerry came back to throw at least 3/4 of the year. Expectations are low enough for him that if/when he comes back, it's like trading for an ace. I predict Guzman will be brought up for the stretch run, and he is the real deal when he's healthy. More cause for optimism: the enthusiasm and talent of the kids ... I'm sure a lot of folks here remember 1989: (but let's not mention Walton's & Smith's ho-hum careers post-'89) 11/8/1989 IN THE NEWS: Cubs OF Jerome Walton wins the National League Rookie of the Year Award, collecting 22 of 24 first-place votes to defeat teammate Dwight Smith. They are the first NL teammates to finish 1-2 in the voting since the Phillies Jack Sanford and Ed Bouchee in 1957. Walton is the first Cub to win rookie honors since Billy Williams, in 1961.

Great interview - what a hoot. I believe it's genuine.

To manufacture optimism, I look no further than the Cub's starting position players in 2003: 1/2 year of no one significant at 3B, below average production out of 1B, a weak hitting catcher (strong defensively of course) and 1 full year of Agony. Baseball is a funny game: studies put the W-L standard deviation over the course of an entire season at a little over 6 games. It wouldn't take much luck, plus 550-600 healthy innings from the horses, to put the Cubs in playoff contention.

Yes and what's even more astonishing is that if Hendry succeeds in trading Walker he'll have turned over the entire positional roster as it stood a year ago today save for Lee, ARam and Barrett (+ Whitey and ... oh yeah how could I forget Neifi!)