Electron Blue

Not to mention that the most popular Cubs(Zambano, Lee) are minorities. Interesting how no one sends racist hate mail to players who don't suck. I'm not psychologist, but it seems to me that these morons are going more along the lines of "hey you suck, AND you're black." Wouldn't a true racist hate anyone who was not in their preferred ethnic group, regardless of how good they were? Yes, the ones that sent death threats to Hank Aaron as he approached the Babe's homerun total were true racists. He was good and they still hated him. As far as I know, and I could be wrong, but I don't remember hearing of Banks, Williams, Jenkins, Dawson or Sosa getting any death threats. Well, Sammy might have after he fell out favor but you get the point. So it's ok to send these letters and use racial slurs if they only do it to players/coaches that suck and cheer players they think are good? I'm sorry, but in my book, if you send letters to people that include racial epithets, you're a racist. And just b/c all those guys were loved by many/most Cubs fans doesn't mean they didn't receive some racist remarks in the mail and on the field too. I have no idea if they did, but I sure wouldn't be surprised. I think his point is that people who wrote to Aaron were truly racist, thus "worthy" of a story in USA Today. In comparison, today's Dusty-writers are just morons reacting moronically to a bad baseball team. Granted, no one is excused ("true" racist or not, it's all despicable), but at least a story about Hank Aaron's struggle with racism could actually address the issue. Nightengale's article, like everyone around here has opined, is BS.

yea, now how do I send it to him? lol. I'd try sending it to one of the addresses on http://www.usatoday.com/marketing/feedback.htm?POE=FOOTER I don't see any way to explicitly contact a specific writer, but add "ATTN: Bob Nightengale" and maybe he'll get it. And just because you don't get a response back doesn't mean he didn't get it ;)

Don't you remember all the times Sosa was booed back when he was hitting the hr's. We just couldn't stand that he had the audacity to challenge a white-boy like McGwire. Cubs fans really rallied around Mark in 1998 and let Sammy have it. But our inherent racism isn't all bad. It helped Todd Hundley feel right at home when, as a fanbase, we all supported him through his struggles soley because he was white. Boy, I'm dense at times. I was getting ready to bash you for this ignorant post when suddenly my sarcasm detector light clicked on. :D In light of that, well said.

I agree with everything said here.

Baker sets the lineups. We're 19 games below .500 and we're not still not playing rookies as much as a team in this situation should. Big deal or not, there definitely seems to be a difference.

I've heard that he (and Dempster) are the light-hearted jokesters of the clubhouse - the best and most notorious for pranks. Either he has gotten more crueler/annoying in his fooling around, or the perception of his antics changes when the team is failing. How's that sound, Bruce?

Joe Morgan speakin' the truth!

I don't want Aramis traded for anyone who couldn't realistically put up Aramis-like numbers next season. I see no other reason to trade the long-awaited return of Great Cubs thirdbaseman.

...and lots of bad luck. I hate the word "curse" cause I think its a copout, but I can't ignore the string of bad luck with injuries. Doesn't it seem odd that everyone is always hurt? Bad luck is an acceptable reason, but curse is a copout? Yes. Bad luck is simply a string of unfortunateness (for lack of a real word). It already happened and has no bearing on the future. It could have happened for any number of reasons. It, in and of itself, is not the Causer of unfortunateness. A curse assumes, not only that the bad luck happened for a reason, but will continue to happen unless the evil magic is broken, perhaps by unicorns, three-leaf clovers or blowing up the bartman ball. There's a big (though, by some people's definitions, arguably semantic) difference. But IMO, the curse is a copout b/c it preemptively uses Bad Luck as an excuse for things that haven't yet gone wrong. I don't love Bad Luck as an excuse, but I don't know what else to call our string of injuries, Bartman, etc . . .

Sure we suck, but we're Watching the Games Nonetheless

CBS says 38 So does MLB I might have miss read. I thought it said 34. I recall because it was the same pitch count as Petites at the time I looked. I could be wrong or they corrected. Just checked Maddux ERA is lower too... what the hell is going on? http://www.northsidebaseball.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=33906

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-060719cubsmaddux,1,5003999.story?coll=cs-home-headlines Maybe you were just being facetious (if so, proceed :)), but I really don't see any opportunity to criticize the Cubs here.

What was it he said about Mariotti again? Isolated incident, probably. Wait, was there something about Magglio? Probably just twice. Huh? ARod and Nomar too? If you think Ozzie was insinuating that Jay was gay, you are mistaken. This subject has been beaten to death, so I find it hard to believe people still think Ozzie was calling him gay. It's a word people use nowadays. It doesn't even mean gay anymore. The people who were the LEAST offended by this was the gay community. Players, coaches, and White Sox fans all love the guy. It's the fans of every other team that seem to hate him. Must be ring envy. Go figure. You gotta love people trying to justify bigotry and hate speech based on fandom. :^o :) Post of the day, lol. And using a word as offensive and malicious as the one Ozzie used may actually be made worse by the fact that he didn't "mean" it by it's apparently arcane definition of "offensive homosexual slur."

Nobody WILL ever be better then Sandy Koufax, as much as I like Santana/Liriano, they prolly don't deserve to be mention in the same sentence. At least not right yet. And we all know the history of how the Twins got Liriano and Santana, much to the dismay of the Astros (Santana original team) and the Giants. Now the Astros, imagine if they had choose to hold onto Freddy Garcia, Bobby Abreu, Carlos Guillen, where would the Astros be with those guys? Baseball is strange, sometimes. How do you know nobody ever will be better than Koufax? Have you been to the future and come back? Nobody will have win more games than Cy Young. I don't need a time machine to bet all my money on that. The game changes and evolves in a way that make guarentees like these fairly believable.

Nobody WILL ever be better then Sandy Koufax, as much as I like Santana/Liriano, they prolly don't deserve to be mention in the same sentence. At least not right yet. And we all know the history of how the Twins got Liriano and Santana, much to the dismay of the Astros (Santana original team) and the Giants. Now the Astros, imagine if they had choose to hold onto Freddy Garcia, Bobby Abreu, Carlos Guillen, where would the Astros be with those guys? Baseball is strange, sometimes. 'Course if we're playing What If, the Astros never get Jeff Bagwell, a huge part of any success they've had the last fifteen years. They got the better of that steal.

Here's an update from SI.com Like most others in this thread, I really don't see the Cubs as having the slightest chance at Zito. On another note, "so he could sell his music" ? Never heard that as a negotiation point. :)

I agree with Nomar (of course), Bill Mueller, Jon Lieber (my favorite Cub when I first became a fan), and Matt Stairs. Also Randall Simon and Kenny Lofton circa 2003

Maybe, but so? I think the 2003 season gave Cubs fans a taste of the playoffs, which is certainly a reasonable expectation.

Dusty doesn't trust anyone with Red hair...nor do I! I like Murton, although I'm not convinced you can have him and Pierre in the same outfield along with Jones. I like that he gets on base, maybe the power will come around I don't know. Because of defense or production? If it's defense, can anyone give me a brief idea of how Pie's defense is?

Pretty good, except for: If you're saying what I think you're saying, I disagree Bruce. Our payroll, in and of itself, is not the problem. We've given too much money to the wrong people, I know . . . but spending $26 million more isn't going to make problems go away, especially if you're just trying to catch an AL team in the Payroll Standings. But, really, other than that, great article.

Without an all-star break, how could Jim Hendry possibly find the time to assess the team's situation. He needs these four days so he can . . . check the standings, I guess.

Florida Marlins team OBP: .333 Chicago Cubs team OBP: .314 I'm not a big fan of Girardi either way, but I mean, he's young for a manager, he knows the game, and he seems to be a guy who has some fire and is able to get the best out of his players. First: the stats in the original posts aren't necessarily indicative of a good manager. Second: (and maybe this is what you meant, obp is pretty interesting. Girardi has coaxed a similar/better hitting team out of less talent.

espn news now saying his season's over. Not a huge difference, especially since the season's already "over." But here's the end of Kerry Wood as a Cub.

:shock:

It's been said countless times, but I'll say it again: Todd Walker should not be traded for the sake of trading him.