apete6

SEASON G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI TB BB SO SB CS OBP SLG AVG SOSA 40 153 19 41 10 0 10 36 81 13 39 0 0 .329 .529 .268 SORIANO 36 153 24 44 14 1 4 9 72 9 35 6 1 .335 .471 .288 Bludgeon me over the head with a blunt object now...

I'm fine with all of this. Why not recognize the greatest players in your team's history? Anyone who is in the hall of fame and those that should be (Santo) should get the recognition. They should put the Ernie statue on Waveland, along with statues of Santo and Williams. They need to put a statue of Fergie near the corner of Waveland & Sheffield. They need to put statues of Sosa and Sandberg along Sheffield and leave room for a future statue (hopefully DLEE can hit .350 for the next 10 years and fill that void). They need to retire #21 (after he retires) and put it on the Right Field Flagpole, retire #31 for Fergie (not Maddux) and put it on the Left Field Flagpole and then we're set with celebrating the 6 best Cubs of the "modern" era with statues and jersey retirements. Unfortunately, there's no one else on the horizon to have anything built or retired for them and I have a bad feeling that everyone's favorite $136 million dollar man will not even be in the discussion when his career is over.

Allegedly Zambrano and his agent are meeting today in New York to plan their strategy. Buster Olney says they may finally halt negotiations with the Cubs...or they could get the deal done. No word on whether Hendry will be present during the meetings. Hopefully Hendry has an official answer on if they can or can't spend any more money with the ownership situation. However, I can't imagine any potential owner being angry that the Cubs have Zambrano for 5/85. Let's get this thing done Jimbo...

Why didn't they just fire him and let one of the minor league guys like Quade manage the team? He would have listened to everything the GM or president told him. The way the 2nd half of last season was handled was terrible. If we would have just given up and played young guys, we would have known that Theriot was good and wouldn't have wasted money on DeRosa. Also, could have gotten Murton a few more at bats. Brutal job, MacPhail and Hendry.

I've only got 6 one run games. According to my calculations, at least 2 should have been wins, and 2 additional could have gone either way. One of those was against MIL, so it is essentially a 4 or 5 game swing already this year. Here is the breakdown: Friday 4/13 vs. Reds, lost 6-5, (Should be win, Zambrano blew 5-0 lead) Sunday 4/15 vs. Reds, lost 1-0 (Should be Loss, Lohse owned us) Tuesday 4/17 vs. Pads, lost 4-3 (should have lost, Pads could have won in about 5 innings in a row, we made several solid defensive plays) Friday 4/19 vs. STL, lost 2-1 (could have won, many boneheaded plays and LOB) Monday 4/23 vs. MIL, lost 5-4 (should have won, Eyre gave up 2 in 8th) Monday 4/30 vs. PIT, lost 3-2 (could have won, Hill gave up run in7th, Wuertz blew it in 9th) Good teams don't lose games like the 1st Reds game and the Milwaukee game. Oh well, hopefully we can leave that BS in the past.

You summed it up with your first 5 words. I'm still waiting for the Cubs to "buy" anything besides overrated players and square pegs for round holes. Baseball's competitive balance isn't the problem right now. There was a study done saying that a higher percentage of baseball teams have made the playoffs the past 5 years than in Football, which was hard to believe, but true. If they ever do anything radical to upset that balance, it would have to be the institution of a salary cap and a salary floor. Maybe like $65M-$100M or something? There would be only 3 or 4 teams over that upper limit, but several below that limit. So, put AROD on the Royals and suddenly things would be a bit interesting. But to put teams in divisions by payroll would only encourage people to not spend any money and try avoiding having to play Boston and the Yankees.

I think contraction would be a great idea, but you would have to give the players association something back in return. Say you eliminate those teams, thats 120 players without a home (three 40 man rosters). You would have to raise the rosters of all of the other teams by 4 to make up for it. Maybe have a 27 man roster (adds 56 spots) and a 44 man roster (adds 56 more spots) so that the players have almost the same amount of guys getting a big time paycheck. The teams that should be contracted are, unfortunately, the Devil Rays and the Marlins. Leave Florida with Spring Training. I am not including the Athletics (because of a strong tradition), Royals (because of a solid fanbase), or the Pirates (great stadium and tradition). Although the Marlins have won 2 titles (yuck!!!), they have absolutely no fanbase, and no one seems to care about their stadium problems. They're playing in a freaking stadium named for a football team for God's sakes. The Rays are harder because they COULD have a great situation with nearly 3 million people in the area and a decent young core. But, with their stadium problems and the fact that everyone there is a Yankees fan already, it's not going to happen. What the heck was MLB thinking letting a team in one of the nicest weather areas play in such a dark, crappy stadium?

I just was not impressed at all with GABP. It was nice and all, but had nothing really great about it. I like the tailgating at Miller as well as the Friday's area where you can catch an inning. Also, I found the concessions at MP better than GABP. As far as the Cell, it used to suck big time, but I love the brick that they added to the columns on the concourse. Also, the center field fan deck trumps anything that GABP has to offer as far as "novelty seating" from what I was able to see when I was there. I wish the stadium still sucked because I hate the white sox... Overall, I could see why someone would like GABP better than the two above stadia, but I don't. GABP is a nice place to watch a game, but nothing special--although the enormous replica of the 1990 WS trophy in the gift shop outside of the stadium was sweet.

Shea is a craphole. I went to a Mets game in August of 2004 and it sucked. You can tailgate, which is nice and they have a million parking spots. I went in the bathroom 90 minutes before the game and there was already 2 inches of standing water all over the floor. Awesome. We sat in the upper deck right behind home plate, and the view was great. The seats were very cheap, but we had an awesome view which included the US tennis center, where they were having the US Open at the same time. One plus about Shea stadium is that they use the "Mr. Met" character on all of the directional signs and telling you where to go. Mr Met rules and it made me happy to see him all over the place. Unfortunately, the Mr. Met mascot didn't make the trek to the upper deck. The food was average and the beer was more expensive than Wrigley, but usual for New York. Here are my all time park rankings (of parks I've been to) if anyone cares: PNC, Pac Bell, Wrigley, Fenway, Camden, Coors, Miller, Petco, New Busch, US Cellular, Great American, Dodger, Angel, Yankee (a huge disappointment), County, Old Busch, Tropicana, Shea, Old Comiskey, Veterans, Metrodome

At the risk of sounding like a dick to one of my favorite posters (Vance). How in the hell do you have that much time on your hands? I mean, 3,000 votes in a week? Also, am I the only one who is sick to death of All Star Balloting? I mean, seriously, is it really that cool to see a .197 batting Mike Piazza start or something like that. Give me a break. With the amount of idiot fans and ways to screw the system (like voting 3,000 times per week), does it even matter anymore? Also, voting starting in April. That's just stupid. If they keep the voting, limit it to a two week window before the selections are made, so that the ridiculous voting comes to an end. Keep the "vote in the 25th guy" thing, because either way a deserving player will make it. Maybe add a "vote for the starting pitcher" thing also, because then a guy who is already on the team will get the honor. But as far as all star starter voting. Keep it.

Sure, blame this on Jones. My dead grandma could have wheeled home from 2nd on that one with Roberto Clemente playing right field. It's all Eyre's fault, not Jones. I hate JJ too, but he did absolutely nothing wrong.

League Leaders 2007 • Ranks 2nd in AL in BA (.389) • Ranks 1st in AL in HR (13) • Ranks 1st in AL in RBI (32) • Ranks 1st in AL in R (24) • Ranks 7th in AL in OBP (.446) • Ranks 1st in AL in SLG (1.028) • Ranks 1st in AL in OPS (1.474) And this was BEFORE his 4/5 2 homers, 3 RBI, 4 Runs tonight!!!! They seriously need to stop pitching to him. This is getting into 2001 Bonds territory, no matter who is batting behind him.

Don't know the reason as I am watching the game on mute. Looks like everyone who still has a Mark Grace man boner can relax and continue the (hopefully) fruitless crusade to get his number retired.

quote] I recall Gooden taking "a lot more coke up his nose after success".[/quote] Fixed

Irving Park sucks, but it's better than Addison. Irving Park is 4 lanes all the way from the expressway to past Southport. I live just north of Irving Park on Kenmore and I've tried Addison before and it definitely took longer. Parking is cheaper by me as well ($10-$15), but you have to walk 3 or 4 blocks.

=D> =D> =D>

Is Felix Hernandez the Spanish translation for Kerry Wood or Mark Prior? Please assist, I am an amateur in Spanish.

I think you should save yourself the driving time and sell the tickets to watch these losers lose on TV. Looks like our season tickets will be going on sale in a month or two for the September games. Face value...gotta love it.

Anyone going to the Cell to watch Sammy take on the White Sox?

Got picked off again today. Sweet baseball IQ. At least he got an infield hit after that. Very Juan Pierre like day for the Fons

Wilson Chandler from DePaul has officially abandoned the rebuilding project, sending my beloved Blue Demons from a likely NCAA berth to a possible losing record. Thanks pal, have fun playing in Europe. Paul McPherson says hello.

Why should we boo...it's not like we have 7.95 more years of watching this impatient hitting, butching fielding, bad baserunning clown make $136 million dollars of season ticket payer's money. Oh wait, we do. I'd be smiling as I was leaving the park (like Soriano did today) if I knew that I just cashed in a winning lottery ticket and don't have to do anything to justify it for the rest of my career. Our GM and guaranteed contracts are a lethal mix for crappiness in the near future. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

He struck out the side with the bases loaded today. Gave a pretty sweet fist pump as well. Hopefully he doesn't keep this up, although I always liked him as a player and person. The Sox can make me hate someone easily...

FIXED

Can we stop having at least 2 Adam Greenberg threads every week? It's too bad what happened to him, but my god, its getting old. He's not in the Cubs system anymore and, frankly, I don't really care anymore. I hope he becomes an all star, but I don't have to hear every time he has an at bat, an article, takes a dump, or is in rehab. Feel free to move this to rants...