biittner77

Agreed re: interleague play. They also need to do away with player stats "resetting" when they're traded between leagues midseason. Hopefully this is just posturing for the sake of looking like they are making a concession when the actual negotiations start.

This deserves the full Fire Joe Morgan treatment but this line is the best: Except for having a better catcher and a better SS, the 2 hardest positions to be better at, the Giants were the same as the Sox.

Celebrate the small victories. I have a friend who is 5'0" and whenever she meets someone shorter than her (which has happened maybe twice) she's like "Oh I towered over that bitch".

With the increased emphasis on interleague play, how does having 2 different rules make any sense? "this time it counts" hasn't made the all star game any more relevant. It just means that one team is getting screwed every year.

Do teams ever take into account reverse splits when making a lineup or looking for match ups? It seems like they don't do it very often or not often enough.

Who has the advantage in games 3-5 if Schwarber doesn't get medical clearance? Cleveland loses their DH and having their pitchers bat is more disruptive to their lineup and game plan. Does that offset the drop off from Schwarber to whomever else will play RF? Hopefully this turns into a moot point but I can't help but feel like the Cubs will still be ok if Schwarber is just a PH in these last 3 games.

Particularly when it doesn't involve any teams that we care about.

So, where do you fall on the Rossy scale?

It's kinda cute how this implies the Bears have any kind of agency over their inevitable sucking next year. You don't think a couple crappy draft picks will help win next year?

I'm not so sure. If the compromise is to add the DH in the NL but not expand the roster, that has a smaller impact on a number of teams. If rosters expand, all teams would be obligated to increase payroll. The poorer teams would not like that. While a full time DH makes more than the 9th position player/ first guy off the bench, the cheapskate teams wouldn't be required to pay a DH a lot of money. At the same time, richer teams would pretty much have to spend more money for a full time DH which gets them closer to the luxury tax or makes other players available from internal budgetary concerns. More available players drive down the price of mid level FAs. Those are all positive outcomes for the poorer teams. Finally, a lot has been made over baseball's glacial speed with regards to change and breaking tradition. However, the implementation and relative success of replay demonstrates that the owners are more willing to listen to new ideas than ever before.

My oldest brother, who had his early childhood dreams shattered in 1969, moved to New York and eventually became a Yankee fan. He always followed the Cubs but over the years became more of a Yankee fan. I'll never forget when the Cubs hired Theo Epstein, he basically said that it wasn't going to do any good and that Theo basically won with what was already there and the usual Yankee fan bitterness about all things Red Sox. He passed away 2 years ago and I'm sorry he's not around to see this. Not to eat his words (that would have come last year) or anything like that but because I think that he'd be very happy that the Cubs finally made it to the series.

I'm not sure what he'll be able to do but if anyone could come back after 6 months and do something great it would be Schwarber, who has pretty much risen to every occasion that he's encountered so far. I think the measured response is to consider that anything he does do is a bonus. It's not like the Cubs are counting on him as some sort of savior.

I thought I heard last night that the franchise record for most consecutive games allowing a PP goal is 14 so we have that to look forward to.

ESPN did this interview with my Grandfather back in 2008. http://www.espn.com/espn/eticket/story?page=cubs100&num=3578266 Wish he was here to see this now.

Have they said he's batting 2nd? Didn't Schwarber make his MLB debut at Cleveland?

To put that in perspective, the worst PK in the league is around 75% ish by the end of the season.

Uggg... That just sounds mentally exhausting to have to deal with. Any chance you can go back to your original school? Season ended today. We wound up finishing the season 11-2-1 allowing 6 only goals or the entire season. Crazy parent got her meeting and everyone sort of sat there wondering why they were there. The coach's goalie daughter was named as the conference player of the year which probably stings for crazy assistant. As much as all the drama sucked, it was a fun being able to coach my daughter again. It was especially satisfying since my daughter didn't get to play much as a freshman but started every game this season.

Should probably offer Heyward for Harper or Turner. No thanks on Harper. He hits too many HRs and HRs are real rally killers. Or as Dusty would have said when he was in Chicago: "If you're fishing for striped bass in a lake, you don't use a fly reel with a bobber, you use a spoon in case there's a lot of Crappie. You know?"

"I don't care about the record as much as I do." +

I don't think it's bad. There is talent just a lot of new young guys. There will be growing pains. Don't base an opinion on playing 2 teams that are legit contenders in the west. Also they didn't have a real training camp due to late arrivals from their" national" teams. I think this would affect the Hawks more since they are working in a lot of young guys.

Your point stands, although I'm not sure I'd say Bochy is the one that made them contenders. Fair enough. Bochy has been a pretty effective manager wherever he's been. But, like any manager, he needs the players to perform in order to win games.

"What has Bruce Bochy ever done for us?" "led us to our first world series in 70 years?" "and again, 2 years later" "and then again 2 years later" "ok, but apart from that, what has Bruce Bochy ever done for the Giants?" "made us a legitimate contender every season?" "OH SHUT UP"

those tech nerds are probably hiding out on the dark net somehwere i will never waste an opportunity to post this

I hate to sound like a spoiled fan but yeah. I'll get invested in January when its cold outside and nothing to do. Hopefully they will be better by then. The last few years, as sad as it sounds, has taught me that the regular season is pretty meaningless. Nothing wrong with being a spoiled fan when it's true. Conversely, April baseball games fall short of attention levels compared to hockey. No one should blame anyone for not playing close attention to October hockey. Mid November for that matter.

Here's a new spin on the crazy parents story. I've been coaching field hockey at the HS level for 6 years now at the school where I teach. Last year, my daughter entered 9th grade and played for her school which is not the school that I coach/ teach at. At the end of last season, her coach asked me if I wanted to coach at my daughter's school and I said yes. I wouldn't go so far to say that I regret that decision but it seems to have come at a price. The head coach has 2 daughters on the team. One is the goalie, the other is the best all around player on the team. The assistant coach from last year has a daughter on the team that is probably our second best player on the team. Her mother, the assistant coach is crazy. All three of these girls play on a local travel team. They're all chasing scholarships which is tough in field hockey since the sport, while it is growing, is still pretty much an east coast thing. There are schools like Iowa, Indiana and Michigan that have programs but quite a few of their players don't get full scholarships. Bigger programs like Maryland do a lot of their recruiting overseas. To give an example, I had a player a few years back that was the regional defensive player of the year who wasn't offered any scholarships. So what it comes down to is that there's a lot of jealousy between crazy assistant coach and her equally crazy daughter and the head coach who is less openly crazy but still makes some "poke the bear" type decisions. Before the season, the coach asked me who should be captains. This team has 2 seniors, 1 junior, 9 sophomores and 4 freshmen. Crazy asst. daughter is a sophomore as is the coaches best player on the team daughter. The goalie, her other daughter, is a junior. I told her I'd make the 2 seniors captains and just have 2 this year. She said she has always had 4. I told her to have the team vote and they voted the 2 seniors and her 2 daughters to be captains. This hasn't sat well with crazy mother or her daughter. The other day at practice the coach asked me if I can run practice Friday because she and crazy coach have a meeting with the athletic Director. I can't say for sure but I think that crazy coach is going to accuse the head coach of doctoring the stats in favor of her daughter. My daughter told me yesterday that crazy daughter is saying that coaches daughter is getting credit for assists on any goal that we can't tell who, if anyone, set up the goal. For the life of me, I can't figure out what crazy coach is trying to accomplish. The scary thing is this is the short version of all the drama we've had this season- a season where we are currently unbeaten.