Illini Iceman

If he turns out as good as Travis Wood that would be a win.

I still hate Will Clark.

None until tomorrow so get some rest, you have a big day of complaining ahead of you.

"What year is it?"

Bingo

I am guessing Eifert to give the new HC a weapon.

Could the Cubs just claim him back? Sure, if they want to put him back on the 40 man roster.

Clevenger and Gonzalez

They might have to wait longer than that. 10 teams is ideal for basketball (18 games, true home and home with everyone). Yeah, I hope the new Big East sticks with 10. They won't, of course. SLU and Dayton are probably going to the Big East in '14-'15. I wonder why they preferred Creighton over SLU for the 10 team league.

EVEN THE EMPLOYEE RESPONSIBLE FOR GETTING THE SEVENTH-INNING STRETCH SINGERS!?!? WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END!?!? IS NOTHING SACRED!?!?

schilling is so full of [expletive]. he's such a fame hog, if that really happened, he would have mentioned it already. "OH YEAH I JUST HAPPENED TO REMEMBER THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME WHILE WE'RE IN THE MIDST OF ANOTHER STEROID SCARE." [expletive] you, idiot. i wish i didnt root for them in 04. he was a glory hog jerk in 04 also. Not sure why you would have cheered for him And even if it is true it is such a cowardly thing to say "someone" in the RedSox organization. If you have something to say then name the person, don't just leave it hanging out there and make everyone else that was in the organization at the time deal with speculation they were involved.

Of course the players union is supporting them. They want to help one of their members to increase his chance to get paid big money. Plus they probably realize that they messed up big time with this new FA compensation rule in the CBA and are going to try to find ways to limit the damage as much as possible. The rule was specifically re-written in the new CBA to allow for this - don't think for a second it was just some oversight or slipped through. The rule doesn't say the first round pick of teams with the 10 worst records are protected, it says the 10 top picks are protected and the Mets don't have one of the 10 top picks. I really don't see what the Mets have to complain about other than that they just got unlucky.

Yep. I feel for the Mets here and think it should be protected, but I'm pretty sure it won't be. Why would you feel for the Mets? You have to be in the top 10 and they are 11th so what do they have to complain about other than being really close to having had the pick be protected. And why "should" it be protected if the CBA specifically states it won't and was written for a purpose in a way to change the previous rule where it would have been. If anything it is doing the Mets a favor by pushing them toward not signing a guy who they probably really shouldn't be spending a lot of money on anyway considering the current state of their team.

Winners by school in the last 24 years. ND: 0 I've never disputed that there was an ND bias. It's long since swung the other way. Holding on to this belief as if we're stuck in the 70s when very few teams traveled as much as ND with the amount of success and popularity of ND is foolish to put it gently. I feel your pain, Illinois also has none in the last 24 year and I personally am sick of the haters holding us down.

I give him a slight nod over Bob Avellini

He probably had more than 2 seconds of protection.

Pity

This is like watching a University of Illinois football game.

Don't hold your breath. The NFL is willing to stand pat. They feel that the short term pain is worth the long term gain. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/peter_king/09/25/nfl-referee-negotiations/index.html?sct=nfl_t2_a3 Good idea - a lot of the regular refs suck as well and should be accountable.

Please bring the regular referees back so we can just go back to instead hearing about how much they suck. You know, the guys that once got a coin flip wrong.

In Dusty we Trusty

Why on earth would he concede that? I agree you could probably take a few weeks and get these guys (and gal, as it were) up to speed, but today I saw blown calls that I've never seen from an NFL crew before. It was absolutely terrible. Sure, nobody "got hurt" and I'm sure that's the weird standard people want to apply, but it shouldn't be. When incredibly blatant false starts aren't noticed, it's obvious the officiating isn't up to par and needs to be addressed (and that's just an example). And I for one don't want to wait until week 8 for it to get better. I didn't mean to suggest I agreed with him. I saw terrible work by the refs in several games today. But I do admit it's tough because even with the regular refs there would be plenty of gripes. I have seen terrible work by refs in just about every game I have watched in the NFL and college the last couple years. This whole idea that the regular referees were awesome is laughable. At some point maybe the dinosaurs running the leagues will figure out that with today's technology it is ridiculous to do things like have a human randomly put a ball down on the ground and then two guys with a chain come out to confirm within millimeters whether or not it is a first down and act like there is any accuracy at all to that process. It is almost as asinine as having home plate umpires call balls and strikes in the MLB when there is perfectly good technology used on every telecast that would make the strike zone fair and consistent but can't be used in the game because fans supposedly love the "human" element.

Not going to make a difference if the defense doesn't make a stop at some point.

This looks like the same crappy offense the Illini had last year under Zook.

It will look like Rizzo ripped a line drive RBI single to LF in the box score.