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Illinois just isnt a very good half court offensive team when the other team is really pressuring the 3. They seem to never penetrate just pass it around hoping someone will eventually come open. When they were able to get on some runs tonight it was with transition and defense, very little half court offense. I think MSU with Trajon back may be a NCAA sleeper. They will probably be seeded lower than 6 and may be able to upset a team in the 2nd round

to me it would be like someone writing a book about the crimes the mafia committs. I already knew it and probably dont need to spend a lot of time looking more into it. of course that is just me.

I really dont like to get too much into the personal lives of ballplayers. We are not fans because these are nice people. In reality there is probably a lot about a lot of these players we as fans are probably glad we do not Know. I really enjoyed Kirby as a player and Minnesota was probably my second favorite team during the mid 80s to mid 90s. I am also not trying to make false accusations here or anything I just am going to state something that I really think to be true. If Kirby Puckett played today or his career was 10 years later than it was he would be a player that is widely accused of steroid use by us fans. I havent looked at his stats but if you do he had a unbelievable jump in power after his 2nd or 3rd year in the league. Again I really am not accusing him it is just that an earlier post had mentioned a more innocent pre-steroid baseball. I am also saying that he would probably be widely accused if he played now. I am not saying he was a user

I would be super excited if the Cubs made some kind of bold smart move like having greenberg and theriot on the team instead of grissom, mabry or perez. In my entire history as a Cub fan though they have always went with the grissom, mabry and perez type of player. Of course this may help explain why they havent been very good in my lifetime

I think on every tuesday game they ought to pick a season ticket holder to do it. this would be way cooler than Bea Arther or some other actor/singer who has no idea who Harry was or anything else about baseball

Is Kaufman where the Royals play? Hate to sound stupid, I did go to a couple of games there back in the late 80s. It was really nice, alot better than Busch at the time. Busch Stadium did improve over the last 10 years but I would still say it was the worst place I have gone. I also liked old Tiger Stadium. Sitting in the upper deck in lf was just cool.

I agree. In interviews he does seem to be committed to Murton and Cedeno also. Last year he was basically saying from day 1 that Hollandsworth was the starting lf. Maybe it is a new enlightenment. Possibly Dusty is learning from past mistakes. All this being said lets wait until the season starts before we give him too much praise though.

It wasnt just holla starting over dubois last year. lenny harris taking half of bellhorns abs, neifi starting in front of cedeno last year. dusty has proven that he doesnt always u;se logic. As bad as bellhorn was in 93 lenny harris was hitting like 110. so just because murton is obviosly better I dont feel comfortable with dusty running the show,

Did you see the replay on Sportscenter? It was hilarious.

I dont think it is going to be completely done until 2007. They are still going to be working on it during this baseball season. I dont think you will be able to sit in the lf bleachers until late summer

I agree about the future looked bright. Good and young. It just so happened that the Cubs got career years out of Smith, Walton, Mitch Williams, Mike Bielecki, Lloyd McClendon and Paul Wilson. I am doing this just out of memory but didnt Vance Law have a really good year that year at 3rd also? Jerome Waltons biggest problem was he played way over his head as a rookie. If I remember correctly he never hit over 275 in the minors and was moved from AA. Didnt someone get hurt? He got the job by default and did great. The rest of his career was more what you would have expected from his minor league Numbers. Dwight Smith was a terrible "ballplayer". Lousy defense to go with his lousy baserunning. He and Lloyd made a good platoon tandem though. Lloyd was a 2nd string catcher and still was a better outfielder than Smith. Smith was a good hitter though. I always thought he would have done well to become a Yankee where he could DH and use that short RF porch. My brother always said that Dwight Smith was Lonnies little left handed brother. Probably true except Dwight was probably a better outfielder and Lonnie was a better baserunner

To throw a little more optimism in the pot. i thought that the moves that the White Sox made last year were poor. Look what happened to them. I think we get upset over our off-season moves but this team will be better than last years team and IF the pitching stays healthy can be a real contender. We are improved at LF,CF and SS. Will probably get more from ARam this year. I dont think we are worse at any starting position than last year and also still not great but have a better bench. The one thing that bothers me the most is that we keep throwing a ton of money at the bullpen when the biggest problem out there is that we have a manager who is probably the worst handler of a bullpen in baseball history. I am happy to add eyre and howry but if Dusty missuses them to what avail is it. So I say Go Cubs let the season start and hope the Cards fall on their butts

I will say this about weber, he hasnt proven to be a big time recruiter yet but he is probably one of the 5 best(in the nation) at coaching bb to his players. Now that he is landing some bigger recruits I would say look out for the Illini for years to come. So let dukeyv talk up the coach ks and williams, I am glad that the Big Ten has musberger to talk up Big Ten coaches. About the biggest whinners in the Big Ten it has to be Davis by far. Remember last year when he came out on the court under the basket in the game against Purdue and wasnt even called for a technical foul. In reality though I think all head coaches in most sports play the officials, it is almost part of the job. I dont hold it against them but when you go as far as Davis did last year that was too much

funny how it seems like most here do not hate neifi they just hate how dusty used him. also could be said about hollandsworth, rusch and batting burnitz cleanup. I actually like dustys quote about neifi saving the team. just look at what he saved them to. 79wins that is almost like a miracle or something

I do believe the first player he commented on losing the ball in the sun was jorge orta. who was a lousy 2nd baseman. so i think it was kind of harrys way of calling out a player for not being very good in a humorous sort of way. probably my all time harry qoute came when he was still with the white sox. chet lemon(who was probably the worst baserunner in the history of baseball when he was on the white sox) was caught in a rundown between 2nd and 3rd and harry says "crimony, he looks like a squirrel on the freeway" I have to say as great as i always thought harry was with the cubs, he and peirsall were just about as entertaining of a broadcast as i have ever heard when they did the white sox games

back in the late 80s when ken phelps had a break out year with the mariners, bill james did an article in his abstract called the ken phelps team. it was basically a bunch of players in there late 20s early 30s who james thought were never given their chance for some reason or another. most of the reasons were like KOs to much, not fast enough, some other player with more potential was blocking them, things like that. they however were productive in their small samples of play. The one thing none of them probably had were high BA. I dont think none of the players on this ken phelps team ever became an everyday player anywhere besides ken phelps. anyway to make a long drawn out thing short I think that jason micheals is probably a modern candidate for the ken phelps team. Iagree with the poster that said it is hard to judge what philly was thinking by choosing to play bird over micheals when all the statistical data proved it was just plain stupid. all this being said i dont think he fits into dustys idea of a player and we are probably better off not trading anything for him. also on the coco crisp trade. it does look like cleveland did fleece boston, however since crisp has established a good level of play in the majors and marte hasnt this may turn out to be a great trade for boston. all that being said i really think this is a good trade for marte. he is going to a team that is working on becoming a power that also doesnt seem to a have a problem letting young players develop

a quick couple of comments. Also one question. first comment the 76 Reds were better than the 75 version. They lead the NL in every offensive category. Still they didnt have great pitching so the obp diff wouldnt be that high. Second, I think this just helps point out what a lot of people on here already know, the 2003 Cubs were not a great team. They were lucky to play in a division that was down that year. they got hot pitching to beat the Braves and in reality they were beaten by a better team the Marlins even though they came close to winning that series. One Question. Where did the 84 Tigers place on this list? They also seemed to be one of the most dominant one year teams that I could remember. just wondering

I remember when Sierra, Pete Incaviglia and Odibee McDowell were supposed to be the next George Bell, Jesse Barfield and Lloyd Mosebly

i am at lunch and didnt read all of the posts so if this is said I am sorry. I am not sure the Brewers will be better than the Cubs next season. I am pretty sure is they are prepared to be better in the future. They ARE developing young players, some of which may work some wont, while placing solid veterans to fill in the gaps. The one thing that really sticks out with the Brewers is they seem to have a plan. I am guessing they hope to be in the WC chase this year and maybe really step up next season as the other division foes hopefully come down. Personnally I think I would almost rather be a brewers fan right now than a cubs because I dont really see any solid direction in what the cubs are doing, the cubs seem like they are just throwing things against the wall and hoping something good sticks.

so those 43 days he sat on his butt last year cost cedeno any chance of roy. i dont really concern myself that much with personnel awards but this just goes to show again how stupid hendry was to have himon the roster not playing and dusty for not playing him. if perez is projected as the starting 2b i am projecting myself being a full-time Indians fan by june 1st

the gonzalez ball was not a catch. when transferring the ball he never had full control. If he would have caught the ball and held it above his head for 2 steps than it would be a catch but. in the act of taking the ball down and tucking it away you lose the ball you never really had control. I probably didnt explain it correctly but I hope you get what I mean. I long ago quit caring if announcers have some sort of bias. they are fans just like us and alot of times their passion makes them better announcers. so if some of that passion comes at the stack of being bias, so be it. with musberger and the smith thing you have to realize that on a national perspective quinn was considered the better qb. anyone who seen smith play the last 4 or 5 games already knew that smith was better and musberger probably was just trying to get the rest of the nation up to speed. One last thing, i know there is alot of controversy about osu with money and grade and graduation and all, but does any coach get his players better prepared for a big game then jim tressel. in reality they really hammered nd yesterday, i knew they would win and probably cover the spread but was really shocked how one sided the game really was. the only thing that kept nd in the game was osu mistakes. the only mistake that nd forced was probably the blocked fg

It may have been mentioned already but I would have to consider Troy Smith a Heismann front runner next year over Brady Quinn and though OSU is losing alot on defense they probably have a better offense returning next year with a head coach that is more proven. So for the ND fans that already have ND in the championship game next year that would be OSU and LSU already on my list of teams that will probably be better than ND next season.

One last thing on Neb-Mich I think Dave Parry who I believe is the head of Big Ten Officials said that there should have been off-setting penalties. They would not replay the down with off-setting penalties so in all the play turned out to be ok.

I was just toying. I know that several players a couple of years ago were run off the psu team for some sort of infractions with the law. I am just pointing out that it does happen in other places besides tthe 3 florida schools. I also think that the gators do not have a bad track record for players getting into trouble probably no worse than psu

hasnt penn sts starting qb also had some runins with the authorities? Is my memory not serving me correctly? just wondering