thedaymen

Playing out his contract? He'll be in his contract year! Can't penalize a dude trying to make a living in his contract year. Incidently, its raining here in New York...and all my stuff is wet. It sucks that water is so wet.

How can everyone forget Damon Berryhill...man, now there was a pretty bad catcher. I've posted a couple of times that I don't particularly like Barrett as a player because he ticks me off behind the plate...many of the things that were mentioned in the first post about how he seems to be out of position to make a tag on throws to the plate...(but of course that's probably a result of bad throws to the plate). But I will say that Michael Barrett did make the worst defensive play I've ever seen in person last year in Philadelphia when in a tie game with the bases loaded and one out he dropped a strike three, then threw to first while the winning run scored. If I recall, the play at the plate wasn't even close. It was a shocking way to end the game, and completely dis-spiriting for the team. It was one of the 8 games I saw the Cubs lose last year, and with the exception of Maddux stealing a base, and Z taking himself out of the game in disgust in New York (oh wait, he was "injured") thats probably all I can remember. Oh wait, flashbacks of a Derek Jeter grand slam...oh...yuck.

Because that is where LoDuca normally hits, and baseball people give an inordinate amount of respect to Paul and his contactability. The Mets network's truck lost power, so they are doing playbyplay and analysis from the studio and showing, what I assume, is ESPN's feed. And with the type of hitter Beltran is at Shea Stadium he's a natural for the two spot. Poor Jon Lieber.

My first thought was Griffey...Nomah was second.

I was actually planning on catching the Nats-Cubs in DC just to see Sammy get his cut at baseball's highest paid middle reliever, Kerry Wood. I was never sold on Super Sammy but I was never sold on Steroid Sammy either. He was a great rf'er and the best player on the Cubs from 1994-2003. He should go in the hall and I bet the Cubs are retiring 21 before the Cubs are polishing their WS rings.

I think the return of Rex puts another TD on the board both ways as compared to the first dance. While he'll make more plays, I expect the Carolina D to get a TO out of him. Bears 20 Panthers 10

McGwire leads Dawson in HR, SO, BB, OBP, and SLG. Keep in mind that Dawson played 750 more games than McGwire. If you level the playing field that way, McGwire would also have a commanding lead in RBI and runs scored. I get that, but Mark stopped playing because of a series of injuries (cough, cough ) that kept him constantly on the shelf while Dawson played through knee surgery after knee surgery. Of course, if he didn't play forever, career singles hitter with no glove Paul Molitor would have never gotten to the hallowed 3,000 hit mark and wouldn't even be an option for the HOF. I will never go to Cooperstown as long as its a place where the Baseball Writer's of America decide who goes...that group of dunces mangles the regular season awards every year and no surprise, mangle the HOF inductions excluding the Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson's of the world.

I was actually at both of those games. The Pirates one is worse then you remember it...after the Cubs were shut out at 3-0 all game, he hit a two-out, pinch hit, first pitch grand slam to give the Cubs' the lead. Then Dave Smith came in and blew it. Man, I hate that guy. Later in the same series, he hit an extra-innings grand slam to give the Cubs a five run lead. That was the same game Zim brought in Bilecki (in the pen doing his day-before-a-start workout) to pitch when whoever was ineffective which led to a Cubslapse. A couple days later Popeye was gone.

Thanks to everyone for their help on this...its good to get some information. The problem with the Yankees plan is they're going to add 5-10 k new parking spaces but are claiming it won't produce any more traffic...those suburbanites someone mentioned? Yeah, they're the problem. When I came to work one day and a copy of one of the Cubs' reports (logo and all) was sitting on my desk, I was stunned...we were going to hold up Tribune Corp as the good guys? Needless to say I wanted some background before we did that. This thread was very helpful to me, and I do really appreciate it. The Cubs themselves actually offered to mail me the stuff they mail to the community members... Thanks again.

Thanks, uhm, I think.

I posted this in Social, but only got one hit. Thought I'd put it on a higher traffic'ed board. If the mods decide this isn't "Cubs-related" enough and move the thread I understnand: Hi everyone. I work for a smart-growth advocacy group in NYC, and we're concerned with the traffic impacts a new Yankees Stadium (with 5,000 more parking spaces) will have on the community in the Bronx. In looking at what other teams have done for their communities we discovered that one of the communities that has the best relationship with their team (in terms of traffic and zoning) is none other then the Chicago Cubs who produce an annual report on a community protection plan. Does anyone here know anyone that worked to get the Cubs to agree to do this, or know anyone that lives in the community that might be able to help? We'd like to see the Yanks do what the Cubs did, and I'm hoping some of you might be able to tell me the Cubs were made to do this. Any help would be appreciated.

If it were that easy to beat the Bears, they wouldn't be 8-3.

Current players: Moises, Barry, Oswalt for reasons given Edmonds and Pujols because damm, I hate those guys The New York Yankees for obvious reasons, but especially the Giambino Past Players: Eric Show (Threw a pitch into the Hawk's jaw on purpose) Kevin Mitchell (1989) Will Clark (1989) Don Baylor (I hated him from before he was Cubs manager, my opinion didn't improve during his years here) Rob Dibble (threw at Dascenzo)

Maybe they meant SF? \ If the Bears win the next two, they got a brutal stretch with GB in the middle. In short, win the next two, win your division games against terrible teams and the Bears are 9-7. The Lions would have to go 7-2 to get to 10-6 and the division.

Vizquel got it by name as Jack Wilson was more deserving. Wilson had Vizquel by high margins in Range Factor and Zone Rating. He also was involved in a whopping FORTY-FIVE more double plays than Vizquel. My ballot at SS would have been: 1. Jack 2. Neifi 3. Vizquel I would have given it to Khalil Greene. That guy is a human vacuum cleaner whenever anyone hits a ball between 2nd and 3rd. What about Reyes? He seems to take away a hit every game I see.

I'm sure this has been posted somewhere else and I missed it...I did look around before posting this. Is there a link to the 2006 schedule on the Internet somewhere?

Almost every article in the NY area thats been written about Girardi leaving the Yankees to become a manager has mentioned he wanted it to be with the Cubs, but the Cubs had their manager of the present/future. Now, I don't know how they're sourced, it could be one of those things that "becomes true" because its been mentioned over and over again.

I think the Astros will be fine, I'll bet on a team up 3-2 in a seven game series with two aces everytime. Sure, occasionally there will be a 2003, but I'll take the numbers and stick with the Astros.

This whole thing is completely stupid. The ump called him out, then changed his mind after something else happened. Its not like he called him out then immediately called him safe, he called him out then once the batter reached first he was called safe. The umpire calling him out directly lead to the Angels not throwing the ball to first, either the catcher or pitcher. Lets put it another way, change sports to make it clear. It would be the same thing if in football a runner is stripped of the ball while being tacked, the ref comes in and signals down by contact. As the offense goes back to huddle, a corner back comes in, scoops up the ball, and runs the other way down the field for a TD. There is no signal from the referees between "down by contact" and "TD." Or basketball, a defensive player is called for a foul. The offensive player tosses the ball to the ref who moves out of the way and calls the ball out of bounds and gives it to the defense. Its not whether it was as strike or not that has people upset; nobody cares whether the ball hit the ground, and attempts to frame the debate that way are distractions. The point is the ump made a call that if he had called another way, the Angels still would have gotten the out. The play was only reversed AFTER the oppurtunity to get that out vannished.

They "conventional wisdom" in this area is that Cashman wants out and if he can get a job with another team, like the Phillies, he will.

uhm... NO. What are you talking about!?!? Prior has developed from the next Pedro Martinez to the next Steve Trachsel. Wood has developed from the next Roger Clemmons to the next Scott Shields. And Zambrano has went from, well, the next Bartolo Colon to the next Bartolo Colon.

Do you mean to the Cubs, or the Bears? The Bears followed the Cubs for obvious reasons. The Cubs, well my first game was a Cubs-Phillies game my friend Steve took me to. (First exposure to probaseball at any time, all my sports rooting was for Penn State football) I rooted for the Cubs to be irritating. Sandberg hit a homer, Scmidt hit a homer for the Phillies...great game, Cubs just barely win....I was hooked.

What about the year the Bears had the first round bye. 13-3 season under Juron in 2001. I think he's saying if they host a dome team in January they could win, which would make them the more accomplished than the 2001 team that lost it's only playoff game. But really, that team had a bye, and this team would be playing the bye week before losing in the divisional round (assuming they even got there). If this year's team finishes worse than 13-3, and doesn't win in the divisional round, I can't see how we could call it more accomplished than 2001. Fair points, both of you. I graduated high school in 1995 and while I rooted for the Bears, I was primarily a baseball (Cubs) -basketball (Jazz) guy. My college roommate (he was from TN I was from PA) was a Cubs-Bulls-Bears guy (how's that for coincidence, to huge Cubs fans from non-ILL parts of the country paired together in Baltimore.) Since then I became a much larger Bears fan. But, since then the Bears haven't won even one playoff game. I don't care how it happens, when they win one it will be their biggest win since I've went from 'casual' to 'big' fan.

Unless the word "optimistic" has some weird definition I'm completely unaware of, that sentance pretty much has me ready to give up on 2006.

If you lived around armies of Yankees fans, you would know.....they act like overbearing jerks when they don't win a Series, its 1000x's worse when they do.