thedaymen

Don't you remember, the Mets were going to get him to replace Tom Glavine. They're both left-handed. :roll:

That should read, "tied for the National League lead in wins with ex-Cub Steve Trachsel, the luckiest man alive,

Part of the reason behind that is the old Cubs' site was much better then the "mlb cookie cutter" sites that exist now. The old site had the cool replica of the Wrigley scoreboard and a link to audio (which is verbotten these days) of the games. Most importantly, they had a "press room" section to all of the articles about the Cubs in the THREE major papers, adding the Daily Herald to the Trib and Mariotti Rag.

what? how? Bases loaded. Pitcher (Dempster?) strikes out Philly for second out in Bottom of ninth. Barrett drops ball. Batter takes off for first. Barrett throws to first even though runner from third is on his way home. Winning run scores.

I think that is exactly what the Mets just did. They traded for Green and essentially turned Cliff Floyd into their DH.

We did lose a game last year while striking out the last batter of the game. Haven't done that this year.

Literally. I remember going into that 9th inning with Bonds and big game Joe Carter coming up and being convinced the season was over.

VROOM!

It still baffles me the love Cubs' fans have for Maddux....I think we saw more great starts out of Kerry Wood in Cubs' blue then we did Maddux, yet the collective we holds him in higher regard then the fans he won those four cy-young awards for.

I think you all are missing the point on whats truly sad here. Its that this offseason, the Cubs aren't going to get guys that will increase either OBP or SLG. We already know Barrett, Lee, Izturis, and Jones are back. We assume Murton, Cedeno, Aramis and Pierre will be back....whats that leave? Nothing. Here's the Cubs' plan for next year. Assume Cedeno and Murton improve. Assume Barrett and Lee's career years are the norm. Assume Pierre and Jones are the players they appear to be when they have a good month. Drive in runs with the gloves of the middle infielders.

Why does this sound so familar?

I forgot that....so they can sign Trax and Floyd without having to give up anything. Then how do they get rid of Murton? It must be hard to be Jim Hendry and have so many issues with which to deal. Maybe they can trade Murton back to the Red Sox for Clement....hmmmm... edit: Incidently, the money mentioned to sign aramis and clee was supposed to be the money saved by dumping Barry and losing Schmidt, not just dumping Barry.

A lot of people talk about adding a big arm (Zito, Mulder) and a big bat (Lee, Soriano) but I think we have to remember what we're dealing with. Post your scenario for the offseason here. 1) Aramis announces his decision to opt out of the last year of his contract. 2) Hendy declares the top priority is resigning the Cubs stars. 3) While negotiating Pierre's 3 year/$30 million contract, the Giants net Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Lee for a combined salary that resembles Barry Bonds. The Yankees sign Zito. 4) The Cubs' now move to address the problem at third base and hammer out a deal with David Bell (3 years $24 million.) In the meantime the Red Sox sign Jason Schmidt and the Nationals resign Soriano. 5) The Cubs announce its cool that they didn't get any of the big stars in the offseason because the early word on Prior and Miller is they'll be 100% by spring training. But to be safe they trade Matt Murton to the Mets for Steve Trachsel because Steve "won almost 20 games last season." 6) Kerry Wood signs with the Astros for $1.5 million and incentives and will compete in ST for the closers role. 7) To make up for the new hole in left, the Cubs sign Cliff Floyd, a known power hitter who will close the hr gap at Wrigley to start in left and replace Ramirez's power. Rotation: Zambrano Prior (replaced in May by Marmol) Miller (replaced in ST by Williams, replaced in June by Guzman) Trachsel Marshall Lineup: CF - Pierre SS - Izturis LF - Floyd (spends 100 games on DL replaced by Pagan/Mabry) 1B - D Lee C - Barrett RF - Jones 3B - Bell 2B - Cedeno/Theriot edited because I had Wood signing with two teams.

My wife, who does the transportation planning for the Mets, had a meeting with Dave Howard, the #2 guy in the organization in the morning. She asked if the Mets were really trying to bring Rusch back, and he said they "all got a good laugh out of that one."

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.

I remember in the 1980's guys would line singles in to right and Dawson would gun them down at first. Happened like 1-3 times a year, but everytime it was awesome.

No, instead of paying 7 million for historically bad OPS, the Cubs are only paying 4.5 million. Better, but hardly enough to boost the performance of this GM in the past 365 days past an F.

I don't have anything to add, I just wanted to join the party.

Lets put it like this, when I grabbed my Newark Star Ledger I couldn't find a mention of the word "Mets" until page 4...that's page 4 of the sports section.

I thought it was funny at the groundbreaking how all of the politicians wore Yankees hard hats and the boss didn't. A great visual for how all these politicians really work for the Yankees.

Check out this story from the Newark Star Ledger. http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/politi/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/115587999754860.xml&coll=1&thispage=3 Two innings later, scorer Howie Karpin -- perhaps noticing the number of sportswriters who were furiously flipping through Shannon's handy guidebook -- changed his ruling and gave Jeter the error for impeding the catch. Which came as quite a shock to Jeter after the game. "I was? Really?" he asked. "I didn't touch it." Jeter said if he called for it -- and replays clearly showed he did -- that it was his play to make. Manager Joe Torre agreed with his shortstop, explaining that on a pop-up, "the shortstop is the No. 1 guy, the second base is the No. 2 guy, then third base, then first base, is the order of priority." and later So, in review: 1. Jeter bumps into A-Rod to cause the dropped pop-up. 2. Jeter is indignant that he got called for the error when he should have just shrugged it off, or maybe even deflected some of the blame off his beleaguered teammate. 3. A-Rod is one who looks bad. daymen's personal view: AROD came to NY thinking here was his chance to take over the baseball world and to do that he first had to takeover the Yankees. He's failed at that for a number of media-created reasons and Jeter is enjoying piling on. As AROD has "struggled" this season, Jeter has never really took up for him and instead does these suttle things to throw him under a bus. Jeter's "leadership" is myth. edited to include link to story

I think the Mets should wear Cubs' uni's for the rest of the year so I can fantasize while being forced to watch them against my will. Ok, more on topic I like the uni's without the names. I remember being annoyed when they switched over to uni's with the names, happy when they took them off, and annoyed again. I'm sure its the market thats dictating this. Why would I need a John Mabry jersey when I already have a blue-pinstriped jersey with a "17" on it. Ok, maybe "8" is more accurate for this story. I always liked the blues. For awhile I know the team wore blues everytime Lieber pitched home or away because he claimed he could see the plate better.

In the offseason the Cubs are going to have to figure out what to do with the rotation, but its not something that can be figured out PRONTO. Right now is the evaluation time. We got the 4 kids and Z out there with Prior, Marshall and (shudder) Rusch lurking on the DL. That's eight guys. If you consider that Z is a lock to be a stud in the rotation and Rusch (shudder) is a lock not to be that gives the Cubs six guys to fill four spots. They'll probably only need to get one arm this offseason. Hopefully its a big arm and not an inning eater.

Dusty Baker = Admiral Stockdale? Nice reference. Extra points. The admiral was old and run down from being tortured excessively. The ones being tortured here are us, not Dusty.

Thats not possible to know given we aren't 100% sure who's starting tomorrow or whether Prior is going to make his next start.