10man

I'd love to see Wrigley with a big ole Jumbrotron scoreboard with fancy things like that Kent Mercker in the Hot seat feature. :lol:

I'll go with Cuban, just because his name has Cub in it.

I agree here. Take the players for instance; how many of those in the current 25 man roster grew up as Cubs fans? I don't think they will play with less effort just because they weren't. If Cuban were to buy the team then winning would be his priority since that would benefit his ability to maximize on the investment.

Good thing we have Angel Pagan who supposedly beat Reyes in a race one time :roll: Pagan is in Iowa.Wow! Pagan is all the way in Iowa and he still managed to outrun Reyes? That kid be fast :)

Meh. 9 is too high to begin with to make a good over under. I'll take the under.

Even TIME may not be able to tell...

I think because Zell has already stated openly that he doesn't want anything to do with the Cubs. He is only buying the Media interests of the Trib. Because of this, it appears that the Trib will then sell the Cubs before Zell acquires the Trib assets.

have you been hiding out under K-Rod's bill? ew And since when did Raisins become white? :lol:

i think it probably had more to do with being hit in the head by an errant fastball. or it could have something to do with him just getting old. This season will definatly test that theory. He could very well be aweful as some people surmise. Or he could rebound and do well as he's mentally fresh, ready to play, and happy to be playing baseball again. We'll see what happens there. BTW I did take him in the last round of my fantasy draft on the off chance that he does rebound. If not, it's no big loss. How will this season test anything relative to your point about Sosa succumbing to distractions in 2004? Most of those distractions are gone, or are old news. He seems upbeat, happy, and of positive mind. If he bounces back and has a good season it means that it wasn't nearly as much a physical thing as mental. Not necessarily. You're making assumptions left and right. There's not a causal relationship that you can point to. As I said earlier my entire argument is based on opinion and speculation. If you're looking for me to "convert" you to my opinion :) that is neither my intent or desire. I simply have a point of view that people under distraction do not perform their job to the best of their ability and in sports, can be beaten by teams who are focused on the task at hand. Not that talent is 100% irrelevent, but focus can be just a big of a factor IMHO. If all you need is physical evidence that distractions can hamper a talented team, you don't have to look very far. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you your 2004 Chicago Cubs!

That's not allowed anymore. Green Bay is grandfathered in. Oh, I didn't realize that. Is the rule the same for NFL and MLB? Pardon my ignorance, but how does this rule work?

Now it looks like the Cubs have 2 "employees". Z is on the bandwagon too.

Cuban, Colangelo, Bill Murray..... Assuming vance does win the powerball, i think you'd have to throw his name in there too...

lol. i could just imagine the next winter meetings having to be scheduled in an open field just to accommodate all the Cubs owners :D

But the $300 million in debt is spread over many years. The fact remains that our payroll is very reasonable for a big market team. Why would this be bad? If people are willing to spend upwards of $600 - 1 billion, I hardly think a 100-110 million dollar payroll would matter... Actually I would disagree that the $300M is a debt. What it actually is, is a liability. But the fact is that this franchise's assets more than make up for all the liabilities put together and so the Cubs as a franchise is most definitely NOT in DEBT. This team easily earns more than it spends every year even with a big market payroll and that is what any potential buyer/owner will look at.

Just a little mental exercise here: * The Cubs have a yearly attendance of 3 million * I think it is safe to say that worldwide there is a whole lot more than 3M Cubs fans * If we can get 3M fans to donate $300 each, then we would be able to raise $900M * Surely that would be enough for us fans to BUY this ball club, right? * If an idea like this would even have a chance of pushing through, I think we would have to get vance to head the fund-raising. :)

I'm not sure whether the lineup "says volumes about what type of manager Lou is going to be" or whether it says volumes on what king of manager we had here the last few years. BOTH

The way the 25 man roster is set up, the Cubs back up CF is Jacque Jones. No one else is capable of manning a decent center. The Cubs have no defensive replacement for the outfield. They are both in Iowa (Pagan, Pie).

Top 10 Strikeout SP's in 2006 (Pitcher/K/BB) 1) Johan Santana - 245 / 47 2) Aaron Harang - 216 / 56 3) Jake Peavy - 215 / 62 4) John Smoltz - 211 / 55 5) Carlos Zambrano - 210 / 115 6) Jeremy Bonderman - 202 / 64 7) John Lackey - 190 / 72 8) Brett Myers - 189 / 63 9) Bronson Arroyo - 184 / 64 10) Chris Carpenter - 184 / 43 As you can see, pitchers who go for strikeouts DO NOT get a lot of BB's. Z is the exception and is the only one in the TOP 30 who had more than 100 walks.

Yeah I think ST has shown that Floyd is not physically capable of playing a credible OF.

The lineup alone already says volumes about what type of manager Lou is going to be this season.

BCB is to blogs as the cubs.com forum is to message boards.

I don't know who Gerald Perry is but I love jumping on these bandwagons :lol:

The manager talks to the pitching coach? I guess it's been so long since we've seen that in Chicago that I've forgotten. I think the last manager talked to the pitching coach - however I do not believe he ever listened to the pitching coach :wink: Oh he listened alright, but no matter what the pitching coach said, all he ever heard was, "He's ok. Leave him in there for another inning."

This is the reason that an engine put in a race car going at max speeds all the time will blow out much much earlier than the same engine put in a car going at the freeway speed limit.

Who's avatar? Seriously, how hard would it have been to crop that pic of yours around Lou's giant noggin? Yes, we know he managed Tampa Bay. I don't think the mysterious contours of his jacket/poncho/whatever are telling us anything new about his "intensity." So now we're critiquing my lazyness? I linked to that pic way back when we first got Lou. I didn't crop it or anything. Unlike my avatar which I did crop. But if we are critiquing the size. I don't even have the largest avatar in this thread, and the sig not by a longshot. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/Navinda/davidpricedh2.jpg Hence my "giant sig pic, meet giant avatar" post. Oh darn. :oops: sorry. Man, I really hate it when people have large sigs and large avatars at the same time ;)