Cubfanintheknow

I think this thread should be renamed "Deep Thoughts by sontensei". It can be his catch all for whatever random thought crosses his mind.

When I saw the title to the thread, my first thought was that the Cubs had sold the naming rights to the Wrigleyville to British Petroleum. It would not have surprised me one bit.

http://mrwgifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Saved-By-The-Bells-Mario-Lopez-Thumbs-Up-MRW.gif Why am I laughing at this?

They may need to get a variance on the zoning for that. It'd be kinda funny if it were declined.

Bigger question… who gets dropped from the 40 man to bring up Bryant?

In the NHL, teams don't have to specify the injury. If a player has a sprained knee, the team only has to report it's a "lower body injury." Edit: changed "injury" from "issue."

1973 Atlanta Braves: Davey Johnson-43, Darrell Evans-41, Hank Aaron, 40. Three guys accounting for more than half of the 206 they hit for the season. edit: left out an L in "Darrell"

Looking forward to the first weekend of games. I'm escaping the cold of Chicago for three games March 6-8!!!

His enthusiasm and optimism for all things Cub made you forget how old he was. What a great man. He will be missed.

I'm not hung up on the Philips situation and I do not think others should be. A quality GM/coach combo can easily win with this ownership/president set-up. Ted is effectively the business guy. Agreed. The fact that they're bringing in Accorsi to be the voice of football reason makes me feel better about the situation. I have no idea how qualified he is, but the fact that the last coach he hired has been in the job as long as he has tells me he has a decent idea of what he's doing. That Accorsi will be leading the search for a GM/HC and not Phillips speaks volumes about McCaskey's faith in Phillips to do this job correctly.

Garza to the Rangers was talked about a lot because it made sense for both teams, not because it was something that was going to happen because the Cubs were talking about it beforehand (though admittedly it would make sense for the Cubs to leak something to perhaps draw in another team and drive up the price). It was widely known the front office was trying to trade Samardzija and Dempster because it was the M.O. of the front office, not because there were any "leaks." I'm not saying the Cub's front office is tight-lipped or anything, it's just that with all the speculation out there (emphasis on your word), it's tough at times to say what's been leaked and what's media chatter.

So is my hypothetical conversation a "negotiation" or a "dealing." Please help me. A dealing. I'll disagree, which now leaves us with another internet pissing match.

Hey, I didn't make up the definition. No, you just made up the source you chose to take it from. Yup. I hastily threw together a website with business definitions in order to confound you. You got me.

Look, I spelled out a hypothetical conversation. One in which no deals were made, no dollar figures tossed around, no terms, nothing. The kind of conversation that happens all the time in the sports world. Players who are under contract are always talking about teams they'd like to play for before they hit the open market. They openly admit it to the media. Shouldn't that be tampering? Agents have been working the phones before a player's contract is up, defining a market for their representatives and perhaps lining up potential suitors in the process. If your agent isn't doing that, then he sucks. Should't that be tampering, too? You honestly don't think managers do the same thing? Really? If you truly want to go by your definition of tampering, that's fine. But then I think you'd see these types of charges being leveled all the time. This type of thing happens every year when NFL free agency comes around. Lots of teams circumvent the rules. The point is, there is tampering, and if somebody actually goes through the effort of not turning a blind eye and lobbing an accusation, it can and does get discovered and punished in the sports world. If your hypothetical occurred and can be proven, it would be considered tampering. So is my hypothetical conversation a "negotiation" or a "dealing." Please help me.

Hey, I didn't make up the definition.

Look, I spelled out a hypothetical conversation. One in which no deals were made, no dollar figures tossed around, no terms, nothing. The kind of conversation that happens all the time in the sports world. Players who are under contract are always talking about teams they'd like to play for before they hit the open market. They openly admit it to the media. Shouldn't that be tampering? Agents have been working the phones before a player's contract is up, defining a market for their representatives and perhaps lining up potential suitors in the process. If your agent isn't doing that, then he sucks. Should't that be tampering, too? You honestly don't think managers do the same thing? Really? If you truly want to go by your definition of tampering, that's fine. But then I think you'd see these types of charges being leveled all the time.

That is the very definition of tampering. Except that it kinda isn't. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/tampering.html You aren't familiar with sports are you? You aren't familiar with reading, are you?

That is the very definition of tampering. Except that it kinda isn't. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/tampering.html

Nobody can say, cuz it's a pretty uncommon circumstance. Ultimately, Maddon had every right to opt out without Tampa receiving any compensation. So my best guess is that it'd be a fine. It's pretty unlikely that tampering is proven, imo. Well yeah but it would be a bit more punitive if they can prove Maddon opted out because he knew the Cubs were offering him their job. When Maddon opted out, the Twins were the only team with an open managerial spot, so it immediately seems fishy that Maddon would opt out of his job when there was only 1 team that was definitely looking for a manager. Especially because like a week before he stated how he was dedicated to staying with Tampa Bay long term and abruptly changed course. I don't think the Cubs tampered at all (based on Theo's extremely confident remarks and the promise of full cooperation), I'm just saying why the Rays might get more compensation than a fine if the Cubs were caught tampering. Also, considering their willingness to give the MLB investigators full cooperation, if they maintained their innocence to the investigators and were later found to have tampered, the MLB could suspend Theo and Jed and/or take away draft picks/draft and IFA pool money. It's been reported that Joe Maddon made an offer to re-up his contract in Tampa and Rays management declined. http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/jon-heyman/24782084/before-taking-big-cubs-deal-maddon-made-olive-branch-offer-to-rays Even if Theo had a conversation to the effect of, "If you're ever available, we'd love to talk to you about managing the Cubs," it wouldn't matter. Maddon legally opted out. The only reason the opt-out kicked in is because Friedman left. If they had kept Friedman, none of this would have happened. It's going to be impossible to find any tampering charges given all the dominoes that needed to fall for all this to happen.

Yesssss. Is there some sort of macro that will automatically replace "kaplan" with "screaming dildo"?

The title of the thread is the only way the true subject gets to a second page of posts.

Well said. It's crazy that the National Park Service is even involved. But if you're the Cubs and you're going to have to work around the landmark status, you might as well take advantage of it if you can. It would have been one thing if the Cubs had asked for landmark status just so they could take advantage of the tax credit. But that was done long before Ricketts bought the Cubs.

That's because he's Biff. He's not our kid. And if he was, he doesn't have the potential Starlin has. Uhh, Rizzo is ours too. Sorry I didn't make the biff=Rizzo connection right away. Then I'll simply say biff's screw-ups aren't as painfully as obvious as Starlin. And that's a huge part of the problem. Starlin does have a way of making his mistakes stand out like a sore thumb. Rizzo's mental lapses get glossed over because many people don't even see them. Rizzo not covering 1B was worse than anything Castro has done and should've stood out like a sore thumb. The media sure didn't cover that play like they covered Castro today. I view both those transgressions as being equal. One is not worse than the other. And I'll just go out and guess the media does not view them as equal because it doesn't see Starlin's mistake for what it was--a mental mistake, like Rizzo's. The media--Kaplan in particular--sees it as more of a judgment call. Starlin should have been running right out of the batter's box. And because it has happened on a couple of occasions before, it's perceived as a lack of good judgment. Not saying it's right, mind you. But that's what it seems to be boiling down to. Back to the original analogy--Kaplan's only doing this to make himself better. He's probably insane enough to believe that if this is the last "bad judgment" call out of Starlin, it'll be because if his hard-nosed stance on the incident.

Huh? Is he invisible to the camera or something? When he screws up it's on TV just like Castro's. Yep, he's on TV all right. But again, they're not nearly as obvious. Rizzo's never been isolated on camera making his mistakes like Starlin.

But he's the adopted brown kid and biff can make the same mistakes without getting yelled at. That's because he's Biff. He's not our kid. And if he was, he doesn't have the potential Starlin has. Uhh, Rizzo is ours too. Sorry I didn't make the biff=Rizzo connection right away. Then I'll simply say biff's screw-ups aren't as painfully as obvious as Starlin. And that's a huge part of the problem. Starlin does have a way of making his mistakes stand out like a sore thumb. Rizzo's mental lapses get glossed over because many people don't even see them.