A New Era

where's marshall IL btw? I have family near carbondale and when I travel down south I'm suprised at how long 720 actually stays on the radio. It's great because I can time it with a game, and listen to a full 3 hour game before it starts to go out. Makes the trip easier.

I predict Jones continues to look good (god please let him be truthful when he said he aims to bounce back this year )

God I wish I was there, able to watch them play, like you are Bruce. I really envy anybody in the media or announcers who get to follow the cubs like this. .

That'd be OK, except it's "losing" and the Cubs finished approx. 17 games out in the Central? I can see why Buster would side on the team with that degree of margin. Honestly, do Cubs fans themselves feel they've made up the margin with their offseason moves (vs. ours)? It seems like it, once again, comes down to the health of the Cubs starting pitching. I hate to sound like Dusty Baker here but. Hey man, that's why we play the games. Honestly, I do not beleive we will run away with the division. Do I beleive we have a shot? Yes. I'm just going to make a couple quick points with why I think we are better. We start the year with dempster and an improved bullpen. I don't have the #'s but I know we must have lost a dozen games in the late innings. . We now will have no more "experimenting" with leadoff. And Pierre has just a good chance of reverting to carreer norms than he does regressing. Which means an improvement of over .050 OBP in the 1 slot. I also have alot of faith in Murton and Cedeno. Every time these guys were up to bat last year they showed patience and quality at bats. I have faith that Jones (without the pressure) can atleast improve vastly from last year. And if we platoon him with grissom for LHP, then we get decent production from RF. I also beleive that between Prior, Wood, and Miller, we will beable to put together atleast 2 complete quality pitchers out of them. Added to Zambrono, Maddux, and Williams, we have a solid starting lineup this year. And finally some arms to fall back on when we need them! I'm just excited to see baseball season, and all of us as baseball fans can agree, it should be a closer battle this year, and be some good baseball. Here's to the best sport ever! Let the season begin!!

I can spin it just as easily for the Cubs. Not necessarily. The Cardinals would have a good chance to win the division but the only team that has a chance to 'run away' with the division in 2006 is the Cubs. Look at their resume -they didn't win the division last year, but had 2 "key" loosing streaks. Which I think happened when the pressure to win returned (IE as soon as they were right back in it, BAM, another 8 game loosing streak). Hopefully those "key" players that played a major role in this, are no longer on this team. And that the new guys added to our core, will create a much stronger group this year. -they have a 1-2 starting punch that is as good as any in the league with Zambrono and Prior -they have a solid closer with Dempster, who seemed to find his niche with closing, and lead the league least year with 33 saves. -Kerry Wood only started 66 innings last year, and stunk it up when he was pitching. He could return to form this year. -they still have Lee and Ramirez as well.

I agree, this is something BBB is overlooking. Now I am just a casual fan, haven't been watching alot until I got back into it 2 years ago. But I beleive in the thought that a pesky guy at first can cause the pitcher and middle defense to make some mistakes. Because they are thinking even a little thought about him taking off, their concentration then is divided. Causing them to possibly loose concentration, and not throw the ball as well. I don't have years of experience "observing" this, but I look foward to seeing if it really is true by watching Pierre this year. Derrick Lee beleives the same thing and he has said that in different interviews. (about pierre disrupting the picther/defense). You need to put more credit into this element Pierre brings. .

How many sample games is that, over how many years. Because that is interesting.

I can't imagine how many blown steals Pierre will have when Neifi fouls off a pitch in the dirt after Pierre is almost standing on second. There is still no doubt in my mind Perez will be the starting SS. Are we all talking about the same Juan Pierre? Or are some of you assuming he's going to all of a sudden start stealing at an 80% success rate? I won't mention that he needs to also improve his OBP for any of this concern regarding the #2 position to be relevant. I loathe the idea of Perez starting at second, but if neither Walker nor Hairston clearly beats him out statistically then that's more of a slam on Walker and Hairston. I'm not a big fan of Baker to say the least. But I'll give him a little more of a chance since he'll have no excuses this year. After all, he finally has more speed, a leadoff man, a good bullpen and better defense up the middle.... something he's been crying about since the end of 2003. Now he has no excuses to fall back on. How is Walker/Hairston/Neifi 2B - Cedeno SS - Pierre CF all that much more better "defensively" than Walker/Hairston 2B - Perez SS, Patterson CF It's a wash, at best. Now if he had some GOOD defense at 2B, I'd agree with you. The only way it's BETTER is if we sacrafice OF to a huge degree and put Neifi at 2B for better defense.

Once this team never goes into an 8 game loosing streak this season, then I'll be pumped. Rusch (and someone else) admited the pressure was getting to some players (last year), and that is maybe why they had those loosing streaks. So right now, to me, pressure is not a good thing for this team. Hopefully the new faces create a spark and the different "mixture" this year, wields different results. I mean as "horrible" as last years team was (according to some). . If we didn't have those 2 long loosing streaks. We were the wild card, easy. This year we can have NO long loosing streaks (more than 4 games), and they have to PLAY TO THEIR FULLEST every day! That includes against the Pirates and Rockies.

That's kind of rude. He's quite thin actually. I saw a pic atleast 3 days ago, but I'm not going to post it due to your rudeness. G'bye.

they all look good in cubble blue, don't they? I'm liking the new faces we have this year (this includes FULL years from our boys, cedeno and murton).

It's nice to see the new guys: Jones, Pierre, Mabry, Eyre, and Howry all together with everybody. It's good to see them all together in Cubbie Blue.

Woah, hold your horses. No, I'm holding my hopes in Murton. . If this kid can hit 7 HR in 140 AB, he can certainly come CLOSE to 30 HR in 600. Murton and Jones will both hit around 30 HR. Why trade "patient power" in Murton for "strikeout power" in Sorriano? We can get close to the same amount of HR from Murton. And he is overall a far better player (not to mention, we'll only be paying Murton ~$350k, why pay ~$8mil). I guess my point is, there is not $7mil of difference between what Sorriano gives you, and what I know Murton will give us. I'd rather Hendry save that money until mid season and bring in a real GOOD guy. One without Sorriano's defensive defficiency.

Dusty and Hendry really like the kid Murton. I hate to burst anybodies bubble but Murton is staying. And I say THANK GOD. This kid shows the patience at the plate, the ability to post good OBP, and will hit 30 HR for us in 2006. Why the freak, trade that for a simular "power" type guy, and also STILL terrible defense at 2B? If the Cubs make any kind of trade, it better be improving defense at 2B without sacraficing too much offense. We should be thanking Hendry for giving us Murton, not wanting to trade him away!! Any time I hear his name in these stupid trade rumors, I think who's dumb enough to think we'd ever get rid of an underpaid/overperforming GEM like Murton? It's ridiculous. .

a.k.a. proof that len = god. Cause he keeps notes? :-k

Anybody? Bueller? Someone already answered. 175. And I guess that answers my question. I don't have the package required.

What channel is the MLB one on XM radio. Anybody?

That song was on X Country? I just had a brain freeze, I just EXPECTED it to be the MLB channel. BTW what is the MLB xradio channel on Direct TV? I've NEVER checked to see if maybe my package carries it, I want to now. .

810 is X Country, I just checked. .

You forgot the part where he was hulked up on flaxseed oil those two seasons. Goodbye in advance, Barry, and thanks for not ruining the most hallowed of all baseball records. Thanks also for charging the mound on Prior when he dared throw somewhere near your 10 pounds of body armor. Hulked up on flax seed oil or not, the mere fact that he has hit so well and with so much power makes him the best player of our lifetime. he is up there with Ruth, Mantle, Gehrig, and Mays on the Mount Rushmore of Baseball. One of the things that most people don't or won't understand is his bat speed. He has always had incredible bat speed. I've never see a guy wait as long as he does and still hit the ball with authority. People can say whatever the want about him, but he is the best pure hitter I've ever seen. Sometimes it is hard to seperate the person from the baseball player. Yeah it's hard. Hitler was a very effective leader, should he win any awards? Barry Bonds (the person) doesn't deserve any kind of reward. JMHO.

Or a couple decades. .

Astro's pitchers think they're gonna get away with just oswalt and petite!? So? We have Zambrono and Prior. But we're not going to get very far with just 2 very good picthers either. We need one of either wood or miller to come through for us just as much as they need clemens to be considered a "serious" contender.

The cardinals should release ponson now. .

Thanks!! Here's also some videos on comcast sports net! They have numorous new ones too! http://chicago.comcastsportsnet.com/video.asp?category=cubs We should create a thread where we link all videos and audio pertaining to Cubs and Cubs spring training. .

I love how just in my time here, you've gone from Darth Vader war veterans to squirrels with lightsabers to Conan O'Brien to Bush and Bono to murderous cats to Viggo Mortensen with a guitar in your sigs and avs with no real rhyme or reason to the changes. :D It's Sean Bean, Borimir! Don't you know your lOTR man!? :D (and BTW I know I probably spelled his name wrong, so don't bother making that joke. . Atleast he isn't as bad as vance the Cubs fan. His avatar changes every week! I want the old yoda with the cubs hat back on!!