Jon

Yet another less than inspiring effort by the U-23 team, but they walked away with a 1-0 victory. And Adu walked away with a punch to the stomach.

Thompson went from keeping the 'Cats alive in the beginning of the half with three big baskets to committing three very costly turnovers under full-court and half-court pressure. whatever happened to the other michael thompson? He looked promising in his debut against DePaul late in the non-conference season in 2004 (I think). After that, he looked more like a McDonalds employee than a McDonalds All-American. He left the team early during the following non-conference season and stayed on campus to get his degree. I'm not sure anyone has really heard from him since.

Thompson went from keeping the 'Cats alive in the beginning of the half with three big baskets to committing three very costly turnovers under full-court and half-court pressure.

No doubt. Soccer is one of the only ways that Europeans are allowed to express their nationalism these days without being labeled as neo-nazi's. No, that's still a large part of it in some places.

I'm more stunned about the draw.

Yeah. They actually announced it last April.

Unless you want to be surrounded by a sea of green and red, I wouldn't hang around Soldier Field on June 8. Mexico will be playing Peru. It would be nice to get the national team back here this summer...

Wow. That doesn't sound good.

In 10 days he'll be talking about how the guys are ready to go and that spring training is too long.

Adu missed a potential game winning free kick just outside the box in the 90th minute by only a foot or two. A disappointing 1-1 draw.

Dwayne Jarrett has been charged with drunk driving. It hasn't been a good start for his NFL carrer.

He's going to hold quite a grudge when King George's son fires him.

No semi-tasteless Bill Murray to the Cardinals jokes yet?

U-23 men's CONCACAF olympic qualifying begins tomorrow night: Date Match Time (ET) Television Tuesday, March 11 United States vs. Cuba 8 p.m. Fox Soccer Channel Thursday, March 13 United States vs. Panama 8 p.m. Fox Soccer Channel Saturday, March 15 United States vs. Honduras 7 p.m. Fox Soccer Channel Thursday, March 20 Semifinal #1 6 p.m. Fox Soccer Channel Thursday, March 20 Semifinal #2 9 p.m. Fox Soccer Channel Sunday, March 23 Third Place Match 3 p.m. Fox Soccer Channel Sunday, March 23 Final 5 p.m. Fox Soccer Channel

Could this finally be it in the BTN/Comcast negotiations?

It sounds like a real mess down there regarding KO. They named him Olson's successor way too soon.

Was the site down for a couple of hours late this morning or was that just me?

Kellen Lewis has been suspended indefinitely by Indiana.

In a so-called base clogging situation, you'd either have a fast runner at first with a slow runner at second or a fast runner at second with a slow runner at third. There is a runner in scoring position in both situation. In the former, if you want to steal a base, it would have to be a double steal, so the speed of the runner at second doesn't hinder the runner at first. On a base hit, the runner on second will either stop at third or try to score. If he stops at third, the ball likely would not have gotten far enough for the runner on first to try for third if there was no runner in front of him. If he tries to score, the fast runner can advance as far as possible. In fact, he may be able to take third base on a throw home. Either way, there's no situation in which having a fast runner on first is better than having two men on with one in scoring position. Not with the players on this team, at least. Very, very few base runners have been able to steal both 2nd and 3rd at a high enough rate to even make that a strategical option. Even then you'd be focusing on scoring just one run, whereas having two men on gives you, well, two men on. In the latter scenario, or with runners at the corners, the only way having a slow runner on third would be a disadvantage is if the fast runner can steal his way to third and score on a sacrifice fly which is too shallow to score the slow runner. But again, picking the non-base clogging situation over having two men on would statistically be the wrong decision. In certain situations it may pay off to have the fast runner in position to score on a sac fly, but over the course of a season, you'd be much better off clogging up the bases. Base clogging exists in theory when focusing on the abilities of one base runner instead of the overall situation in the game, but it has no real practical presence in baseball. Managers can refer to certain situations as base clogging all they want, but as long as having that base runner in front of the fast runner is better than having the basepaths clear for the fast runner, it's not actually base clogging. As for the not having an effective base-stealing leadoff hitter comment, Piniella stated that he'd never want a catcher batting 9th to clog the bases, which means he wouldn't want a slow runner in front of the leadoff hitter. That implies to me that he's more concerned about hindering the speed of a leadoff hitter and not having back-to-back fast base runners batting in the 9th and 1st spots in the lineup.

He may not have been referring to walks directly like Dusty does, but I still don't like the reasoning: -Getting on base is NEVER a bad thing -Having a pitcher make outs in front of a leadoff hitter is not better than having a slow baserunner get on base in front of a leadoff hitter. The middle of the order needs all the guys on base they can get. -We don't have a speedy leadoff hitter who provides a significant enough contribution by attempting to steal bases -We don't have a speedy leadoff hitter who gets on base good rate -If you want the look of an "American League lineup," how about not trying to steal bases and hit more HRs? -And most of all, there's no such thing as clogging up the bases

I only saw highlights of the first half, but they sure had some great chances early.

Good luck.

The replay after the first x-mo replay pretty clearly shows that he wasn't going straight up. Had the defender not jumped out to meet Collison, it never would have been a foul. It wasn't even necessary since he did it at the last second. I'm surprised they called it, but it's technically a foul, so I don't have a problem with it.