BigbadB

And whose fault is that, exactly? Obviously, Bud Selig's. No reason to be a smart aleck about it. It's posts like this that ruin the discussion. I'm done with it.

First of all, I said nearly. Secondly, every time I go to a game with my family, that's how much it costs. Here is a breakdown: $40.00 a seat x 4= $160. $20.00 to park Now we are in the stadium and haven't bought a thing to eat or drink. A hot dog is $5.00 at Petco. So are drinks, peanuts and anything else you want to eat or drink at the game. Multiply that times 4. It's pretty easy to spend that, actually.

It's just another big corporation sticking it to the man. If you don't see that, I don't know what to tell you. Many, if not most, of those fans are in debt up to their eyeballs. They bought their tickets with credit cards that are maxed out, they pulled up to their parking spot that they are making monster monthly payments to drive, and their jobs don't pay enough to cover all that debt, so the debt keeps going up. It's great that YOU can afford to go to a game with your bottle of water and your bag of peanuts and sit in the nosebleed section. A very large percentage of America still cannot afford to take their family to a game, and that percentage is climbing everyday.

We probably shouldn't complain about gas prices either. Afterall, it's not criminal for a company to make money off their product.

You don't see a problem when it costs nearly $300.00 for a middle income family of 4 to go to a single baseball game (done the right way, of course)? To each their own, I suppose.

Haha! Good question.

While he did hustle nicely on the steal, he didn't even attempt to slide at home and was tagged out easily. In the 4th inning, Bonds let up on an easy fly ball, electing to catch it on the first bounce. A run ended up scoring.

This season? Bonds hasn't had the 159+ hits necessary for 3000 in a season since 1998 Yeah, I expect to see Bonds walk rate elevate even more as he gets closer to the HR record. No pitcher will want to be "that" guy that gives up the magic HR. I'll bet he doesn't break that record this year.

That does seem like a lot.

Brandon Webb is going to lose some points tonight, too. And boy did Jose Contreras stink it up today. :shock: I'm sad my 2 aces had to square off against each other. (Halladay/Bonderman)

ESPN.com usually shows the XM channels for each game on their schedule page.

Reason #47 to ride the Lou Piniella Bandwagon! Matt Murton batting 2nd. Matt Murton batting 2nd for 2 years under Dusty Baker: 16 Plate Appearances. Rey Ordonez batting 2nd under Dusty Baker in one season: 24 PA's. Jose Macias batting 2nd under Dusty Baker in two seasons: 49 PA's. I won't list all the other horrible #2 hitter options under Dusty Baker. It would make you all cry.

AL East Boston New York Baltimore Toronto Tampa AL Central Cleveland Detroit Minnesota Chicago Kansas City AL West Seattle Oakland Anaheim Texas NL East New York Philadelphia Atlanta Florida Washington NL Central Chicago Milwaukee St. Louis Pittsburgh Houston Cincinnati NL West Arizona Los Angeles Colorado San Diego San Francisco World Series: Cubs lose to Boston in 6 games.

I remember that. They brought in Roberto Alomar that year, and Alomar offered nothing.

I'd stay away from Cantu. He seems to think he's a whole lot better than he really is.

Meaningless game thread post to boost my post count. Go Cubs!

Will we be seeing So Taguchi on web gems tonight? How is that guy starting on a major league team?

I actually felt bad for Hawkins on more than one occasion, for the way he was treated by the fans. However the 'Destroy LaTroy' shirts did make me laugh. I felt bad for LaTroy also, but for a different reason. He was signed on to be a set up man, and he did that job pretty well. His history as a closer was not good, and Dusty just kept feeding him to the wolves.

Note that I said A LOT less money in that statement. I didn't specify what was a lot less. Would you consider it foolish for him to except a 100K contract with Chicago if the Yankees are offering 100m? Yep. That would be pretty foolish. Without defining "a lot less", you really can't make the claim that it is or isn't foolish to sign for a lot less.

Moises Alou. Oh wait, the fans were screaming ALOOOOOOUUUUUUUU. Nevermind.

And there is a small handful of players that are loyal to the teams they play on. I believe I mentioned that early on in this thread somewhere. But, just because a few are willing to do that doesn't mean everyone else should follow their lead.

:w00t: I'm on the board with HBP!

Goodbye Tomas, we hardly knew you. We wish you well.

Nope. Didn't need it. Diminishing marginal utility really doesn't relate to this discussion. Let's say Zambrano has been informed by his agent that he could get $20m a year on his next contract with a team like the Yankees or Red Sox, and the Cubs are only offering 16m. Is Zambrano giving anything up to pitch for some other team? No. His job title and responsibilities would be pretty much the same no matter what team signs him, just wearing a different colored uniform in different surroundings. Not every team is going to offer up the same price for his services. So, it's up to Zambrano and his agent and any other significant person in his life that he trusts major decisions with to decide what amount of money will satisfy his needs and wants. It would be foolish on his part to accept a lot less money to stay in Chicago (a big market team that has proven it will pay big market dollars (Aram/Soriano/Sosa) to it's stars) than what other big market teams will be willing to give him on the free agent market. Besides that, Zambrano has been given one opportunity to see the playoffs in his career. While the fans in Chicago have always been great to the players, other organizations that consistently make the playoffs might be quite enticing to Zambrano. You take what you can get when you can get it for as long as you can get it. It's pretty simple. It makes me mad that I have to pay ridiculous prices to see a baseball game because of how much money these guys make, but you can't blame them for trying to get as much as they can from the owners of these baseball teams. It's not the baseball player's fault that contracts spiraled completely out of control.

I am to. I did purchase MLB.TV already, but I get 5 days of free trial. If no deal is done within those 5 days, I'll just go ahead and allow MLB to charge my credit card for computer baseball.