Sammy Sofa

Are you kidding me? Then what the hell happened? He was there, under it...do you honestly think he just had a mental collapse and couldn't handle it? It was obviously lost in the sun. oh my. Oh my, what?

Are you kidding me? Then what the hell happened? He was there, under it...do you honestly think he just had a mental collapse and couldn't handle it? It was obviously lost in the sun.

Fixed. With Tampa Bay....WTH?? And for the final F U from the baseball gods, the Cubs will lose the World Series to the Rays this year and their 10,000 fans. DAMN YOU, BACK TO THE FUTURE II!!!!! (almost)

I heart Sori.

Come on, Sori.

The Yankees don't play their best SS at SS either. You wanna argue with all their rings? And since they've played him away from SS, no rings. LOGIC WAR. By this logic, the Cubs have won the last 3 World Series. WOOOO!!! And by THAT logic... Gah... Er... BAH.

The Yankees don't play their best SS at SS either. You wanna argue with all their rings? And since they've played him away from SS, no rings. LOGIC WAR.

Oh, hey, look...Theriot and Cedeno both in and guess who is playing SS?

I will no longer be running for President after the 2008 election.

That sassy devil. I'll bet Zambrano is on the other side of the camera.

No kidding. It bugs me that the tipping point for this is him losing a ball in the sun, something that can happen to any fielder out there. The St. Louis game was rough, and he definitely gave up on the faux-HR in Pittsburgh...he also had that crappy outing when Wood had one of his blown saves against the Brewers. Nothing to brag about, obviously, but I'm just not seeing this defensive butcher that people seem to be worried about. You can start listing off a few really bad instances. It's not just the sun. But the sun game directly blew a win, and it followed another bad play. Soriano's been bad out there, no reason to gloss over it. but he hasn't been that bad. not so bad that articles need to be written about it or that wrigley23 needs to literally cry tears about it. Nevermind that he lost the game...DUE TO THE SUN. There's absolutely no way to know that anyone else being out there would have been able to catch it instead, especially since the main factor for the missed catch WAS THE GIGANTIC FIREY STAR IN THE SKY WE CALL THE SUN. Did I mention that he missed the catch because of THE SUN? People are talking about him like he's almost as likely to not make a catch than he is to get it done.

I remember my brother and I actually getting Ryan Church to shoot us dirty looks in the LF seats a couple years ago at RFK just for chanting "Chuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrch" as annoyingly as possible for a few innings. That's by the least I've ever seen anyone have to do to get a reaction from a player during a game.

No kidding. It bugs me that the tipping point for this is him losing a ball in the sun, something that can happen to any fielder out there. The St. Louis game was rough, and he definitely gave up on the faux-HR in Pittsburgh...he also had that crappy outing when Wood had one of his blown saves against the Brewers. Nothing to brag about, obviously, but I'm just not seeing this defensive butcher that people seem to be worried about.

Fine, then we can also subtract his worst performances so far this season in evaluating him.

Felix? He's fast, but he's not a good basestealer. Which just reinforces my point that this team stinks at stealing bases, and should basically never do it.

If I ever talk about "hating" a player that produces, please kick me in the head.

Can we please stop acting like this team is good at stealing bases and clamoring that they do it more often? They can barely lay down a decent bunt. I think that's one thing we all agree on... being fast doesn't equal being good at stealing bases... but when the first baseman isn't holding you, and the pitcher isn't checking (and is basically giving you 2nd base) and you don't take it... that's different. And you're spotting this exact no-doubt situation over and over again? My guess is he's referring to last night. The fact that he didn't steal 2nd with Broxton on the mound, runners on the corners, and 1 out seems to indicate that he's not that close to 100%. That is the scenario that I was "spotting" again. And it didn't end up costing the cubs that time... And also, I don't believe stolen bases are as valuable as they were in the past, but if the game is close and you have the opportunity to get into scoring position... then do it. Be smart about it, but do it. Don't pull a Corey Patterson and try to steal 3rd with 2 outs and get thrown out to end the game, but at least try to get yourself into scoring position to give your team the best chance to win. But what if you play on a team that as a whole really, really, really stinks at basestealing, but is suprisingly very good at hitting? At this point, the only person I'd tolerate attempting to steal on this team is Fukudome. Too bad the best basestealer by far is wasting away in the minors "fixing his swing." I do agree with you for the most part. In that situation, just hit the runners over, manufacture the runs, etc. Speaking of our best base stealer who is fixing his swing, how's he doing back in Iowa? Awful.

Can we please stop acting like this team is good at stealing bases and clamoring that they do it more often? They can barely lay down a decent bunt. I think that's one thing we all agree on... being fast doesn't equal being good at stealing bases... but when the first baseman isn't holding you, and the pitcher isn't checking (and is basically giving you 2nd base) and you don't take it... that's different. And you're spotting this exact no-doubt situation over and over again? My guess is he's referring to last night. The fact that he didn't steal 2nd with Broxton on the mound, runners on the corners, and 1 out seems to indicate that he's not that close to 100%. That is the scenario that I was "spotting" again. And it didn't end up costing the cubs that time... And also, I don't believe stolen bases are as valuable as they were in the past, but if the game is close and you have the opportunity to get into scoring position... then do it. Be smart about it, but do it. Don't pull a Corey Patterson and try to steal 3rd with 2 outs and get thrown out to end the game, but at least try to get yourself into scoring position to give your team the best chance to win. But what if you play on a team that as a whole really, really, really stinks at basestealing, but is suprisingly very good at hitting? At this point, the only person I'd tolerate attempting to steal on this team is Fukudome. Too bad the best basestealer by far is wasting away in the minors "fixing his swing."

Fixed.

Can we please stop acting like this team is good at stealing bases and clamoring that they do it more often? They can barely lay down a decent bunt. I think that's one thing we all agree on... being fast doesn't equal being good at stealing bases... but when the first baseman isn't holding you, and the pitcher isn't checking (and is basically giving you 2nd base) and you don't take it... that's different. And you're spotting this exact no-doubt situation over and over again? My guess is he's referring to last night. The fact that he didn't steal 2nd with Broxton on the mound, runners on the corners, and 1 out seems to indicate that he's not that close to 100%. Fair enough. I typically don't notice these things because I'm of the way out view that stealing bases (outside of defensive indifference) is usually a worthless throwback anachronism. Besides, if we're furstrated that he's not scoring on hits by Lee, do we really want him stealing bases? I know a lot of people are hung up on speed, but for me, so long as he can produce with the bat, I don't care if he never steals another base again. Hell, I'd be happy if this entire team never stole another base again.

Can we please stop acting like this team is good at stealing bases and clamoring that they do it more often? They can barely lay down a decent bunt. I think that's one thing we all agree on... being fast doesn't equal being good at stealing bases... but when the first baseman isn't holding you, and the pitcher isn't checking (and is basically giving you 2nd base) and you don't take it... that's different. And you're spotting this exact no-doubt situation over and over again?

Can we please stop acting like this team is good at stealing bases and clamoring that they do it more often? They can barely lay down a decent bunt.

"Robbing" a HR when the wall isn't brick and is only about as high as the top of your head and the ball lands on the front of the top of the wall is more routine than many catches OFs make. Soriano just did a horrible job (not finding the wall, bad timing on the job, etc). That's a play he should have made. Yeah, in the long run, I'm much more pissed about that play than the dropped catch. The dropped catch had basically nothing to do with his routes or speed or effort out there (though I'm sure wrigley23 is going to start screaming "HIS EYES ARE GONE!!!" any day now) and everyting to do with the sun, but that "HR" he just gave up on. That's unacceptable.

So the month of May is now just "a few days?" So I guess when he ends the season with 30ish HR's and a .290ish average, it'll have become just "a few weeks," right? And stop with the "his legs are gone" gnashing and wailing. You sound like a histronic old woman.

Lilly giggling like a schoolgirl and trying to hide it cracked me up. When Lou was talking yesterday about it, it sounds like everyone was clowing around loudly in the dugout then and the ump thought it was directed at him.