imb

"They hate me," he said. "I haven't even been the mascot one day and they all already hate me." He'd grown up, like most kids in his neighborhood, with dreams of manning third base for the Cubs. The cover of the diary he kept as a nine-year-old was now almost completely worn off, and some of the pages threatened to fall out of the spiral rings. But, in this moment, he found himself turning the pages. He'd dared not open it for years, afraid of losing some of the priceless mementos of his past. In it, he found he'd charted his career path as a Cubs minor league. "'Triple A by 20,' what a joke," he said, aware that when he was 20, he had actually been a D-student with a steadily growing ponch above his belt. The Freshman 15 had gotten him at least twice, appropriate, considering he'd repeated many of the classes he'd taken those first two semesters. But the thought struck him that, at just 25, he was still tasked with going to Wrigley Field every day. Sure it wasn't on the hot corner, but he was still in the park. And yeah, the adults would hate him, throw beer on him, hell, probably piss on him. But the kids would love him. And wasn't that the point? Who dreams of being a pro athlete as a child with the goal being the adoration of adults? He'd always envisioned himself taking pictures with little kids, signing autographs, tussling their hair and calling them "champ" or "sport." Suddenly he discovered he was no longer dreading the job, he was actually looking forward to it. Running his fingers across his chinstrap beard, he looked one last time into the Tupac poster above his bed, "Hail Mary" playing on his iPod. "Now, do you want to ride or die?" he asked.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/prospects/watch/y2014/#list=ss Baez ranked as 2nd best SS prospect in the minors by MLB.com (take it for what it's worth) Bogaerts, Baez, Correa, Lindor. They gave the top 3 identical hit/power grades, which seems ... off, considering Baez outhomered both of them in 2013.

you serious, clark?

Almora, Edwards and Soler are my 3, 4, 5.

they ARE inscrutable

lets get some more of your hot sports takes then

Is this actually a thing? That's pretty damn cool. probably hard to have read anything about that while pretending to be outraged about the team you haven't paid any attention to

i almost hope that's true so new era feels like an anus but i also want you to have a house, [expletive] sophies choice over here

Soooooooo nobody should talk about it unless it's just posting news updates? not at all what he said and i dont see any way you could infer that unless youre just trying to be a stupid [expletive] up like usual

yeah gray's gonna look real good in 2 years in a 9-man rotation with a 60-pitch pitch count

Not sure why anyone who is a Bears fan would be rooting for them to lose. ETA: Oh, you're intentionally trolling. Never mind. Until Cutler came back you had tons of people here rooting for the Bears to lose out to improve their draft position. It's hardly like I'm making it up that people have been rooting for Chicago teams to lose more in the hopes of getting better a LOT in recent years. It's a crappy situation, but yeah, I'm somehow "trolling" for pointing it out that it sucks because...ah, [expletive] it, I don't even care. Some of you have taken the "I'm gonna be the most analytic, least emotional fan in the room" thing to such an extreme it's like a bizarre version of Stockholm Syndrome. [expletive] off kyle, jesus christ

can i send you a [expletive] load of nickels in a box to that address cause that would own what do i need to do before the season starts, i already forgot. also im not trading the number 1 ammy pick tim so give it up

every awesome dewd is actually a miserable [expletive], that's why mojo and goony won the best poster tournament

I went with Bryant. I think he's going to show plate discipline this year that Javy never has or will.

The police quote said he had been released from jail, not that he had posted bond, and went on to say that they didn't think he was involved, so I dont really see why everyone is spazzing out. Other than just another case of a guy being too stupid not to be in a vehicle with a guy selling weed. He probably sold the guy out to the cops when they said "well i guess you can go to jail for it and throw away your nfl career and millions of dollars."

that dude has a pretty baseball mogul name

God he really is the proto Utah player. He's gonna play 20 years there

A jar of change that an intern brought in to donate to the payroll. I'm assuming the Convention is a telethon format this year? sad pictures of eloy jiminez with sarah mclachlan songs played over them "you can feed a cubs prospect for just a dollar a day"

This is a ridiculous post. One, you'd do everything humanly possible to lock Javy and whoever else up early, ala Castro and Rizzo. Secondly, in case you hadn't noticed, we appear to be in a legit money crunch, due to ownership. Whether it's because they can't or won't spend.... That is up for debate, I suppose, but it's beyond obvious they aren't, either way. I seriously doubt anyone here wouldn't love to have a 150 mill+ payroll right now. But it's not happening anytime soon(new TV deal/renovation money) and it's quite allright to be cautious currently, when we MAY have the money to go after one relatively large contract. Tanaka makes total sense, based on age and upside. A guy like Ubaldo? He's got neither of those things going for him. And even if you didn't lock him up early (which is what I foresee happening with most of these guys if/when they show something in the majors), an actual superstar hitting free agency for the first time in his mid 20's is a completely different story. I don't think anyone here would be opposed to backing up the Brinks truck for Mike Trout. I fear Javy's attitude is exactly the type that would say, nah I'm good when we go to him with a pre-FA extension. I think people read too much into that badass baseball attitude he has on the field. He seems like a pretty normal dude in the limited interviews i've read. Something tells me if the Cubs say "let us buy out your arb years" he's just gonna say "yeah sounds great" like every other player in baseball the last few years.

If Kaepernick had shredded the SEC for two years, he would have been the no. 1 pick in the draft. He was a 2nd rounder because he played for east popcorn state.

thats truffle

Will he be the earliest Red Raider draft pick of all time? How early did Crabtree get picked?

What annoys me is voting in LaRussa, who watched over Canseco and McGwire, and then treating McGwire like a [expletive] terrorist. I'm sure someone has written that column, and I want to read it.

I like to wish upon a star, too, but more than likely he's going to walk about 6-7 percent of the time, strikeout 25-30 percent of the time and still be a questionable defender.