Sammy Sofa

Jimminy Christmas, fellers.

Didn't see what happened. Did Reed make a nice play? He was playing pretty deep in RF in had to run a long way to catch a bloop pop by Konerko into shallow right.

OK, I can breathe again.

Heart of the lineup, so I can see why they'd make the decision.

Santo never bugged me because he was just the color guy on the radio broadcast so I could enjoy how goofy he was because he was backing up a pro like Pat. Harry honestly ticked me off much as Hawk does for the Sox now; it's absurd that such a mess could be the PbP guy for the TV broadcast. Though to be fair to Harry he was a hell of a broadcaster before health issues and the drinking took their real toll. Unfortunately that was pretty much all before his time with the Cubs.

Historically bad trumps unremarkably bad.

My dislike mostly stemmed from my dad's dislike of him. Granted, my dad was young then, but still, he taught me well.

Didn't Neifi Perez have a historically bad season (like, maybe the worst ever) as a Cub?

I grew up listening to Stone in the 80s. Hearing him "root" against the Cubs is just wrong. Also, either his announcing ability has gone down hill or my memory is really bad. . . :-k While many here will disagree I always enjoyed Stoney when he was with us. As for his announcing ability going down hill, perhaps poor announcing ability is contagious. Even when I was younger I couldn't stand Harry and Stone. Stone just came across to me like he'd be the most hate-able baseball coach you could ever imagine having.

Everything about this post is great.

Uh, it isn't exactly easy to do. Damn lazy Latin Americans. Bravo.

GETOUTOFMYTHREADORIWILLENDYOU

It's insane how excited how I am over this. God, you better [expletive] make this happen.

His slugging is so powerful it magically translates over to infinite defensive prowess at all positions!

LaHair is slugging 167 points higher in June than Barney and 159 points higher YTD. OPSs' are 1.029 compared to .781 YTD against righties. Give LaHair the chance to add to his stats if you're trying to sell him (like they probably are) because Barney is someone I assume we'll hold onto. Anyway, I think the best decision to win the game and to increase LaHair's value was to let LaHair bat. You say unremarkable, I say bad. I know I'm nitpicking, either way, my point is that I hope he's gone when we start competing. Over the last month (4 weeks) their OPS is practically identical. Couple that with pulling Barney's defense from the game and I have zero problem with not using LaHair over Barney.

I understand the bullpen is [expletive]. But, I feel like he doesn't put the team in the best chance to succeed sometimes, with regards to his handling of the bullpen. Case in point, last night Svuem leaves Camp in the game to face Saltalamacchia, who struggles against lefties in his career, instead of bringing in Russell, who wasnt even warmed up yet. And low and behold, Camp serves up the game winning hit. Sveum has done this numerous other times this year, whether that is leaving Russell in to face a lefty-killer or a righty in to face a righty-killer instead of not having the appropriate reliever warmed up and ready. Its like he cant think ahead with the bullpen. I dont know, these are just my observations. He does the same thing with LaHair. He sits him against lefties and then in important late game situations with runners on base he won't bring him in to face right handed relievers. He doesn't hit lefties, he doesn't play great defense, he's on the team to hit right handed pitching. It makes no sense. He does the fancy 'newfangled' shift stuff (hey, if the math says it works, I'm all in favor, let's try it) on defense yet he ignores other obvious uses of statistical data. Ideally you want to bring in LaHair when people are on base, so when we see people griping about him using Baker or Johnson or whoever as a pinch hitter instead of LaHair with nobody on base they're just not thinking. Last night you've got people clamoring for him to pinch hit LaHair for Barney, nevermind they're both hitting at about the same clip over the last month and nevermind you'd be pulling Barney's defense from the game. Sveum is an unremarkable manager. You're looking too hard for things to be bothered by with a team this bad.

I understand the bullpen is [expletive]. But, I feel like he doesn't put the team in the best chance to succeed sometimes, with regards to his handling of the bullpen. Case in point, last night Svuem leaves Camp in the game to face Saltalamacchia, who struggles against lefties in his career, instead of bringing in Russell, who wasnt even warmed up yet. And low and behold, Camp serves up the game winning hit. Sveum has done this numerous other times this year, whether that is leaving Russell in to face a lefty-killer or a righty in to face a righty-killer instead of not having the appropriate reliever warmed up and ready. Its like he cant think ahead with the bullpen. I dont know, these are just my observations. It's not a video game; you don't always play a strict match-up like that, especially with limited bullpen resources. And all you're doing is highlighting how bad the bullpen is by making Russel and Camp as your examples. They're the Cubs' best relievers and you're talking about them like they effectively need to be treated as specialists. Sveum IS thinking ahead; he's thinking, "[expletive], my bullpen is [expletive] is this is one of the few reliable guys I have so I can't afford to pull him so I can use my other good reliever as a LOOGIE on Jarrod [expletive] Saltalamacchia."

The bullpen is [expletive]; there's nothing to manage.

Yeah, I was so pissed when they didn't get Schmidt.

Glad you broke out of the funk of inexplicably being humiliated by how many Fox broadcasted-games the Cubs have lost.

Jesus Christ, just relax. Can you not enjoy a game at all unless they win?

Why do you say these things? Can you not control yourself?

LIKE NINJAS AND [expletive].

I just had assumed that Dempster was on one of the WS Marlins team, but apparently his career with them was bookended by both wins.