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I can slightly understand the sentiment behind this point. It does take quite a long time to adopt a baby in this country. If you are willing to take an older child (typically 2 or over) you usually have a pretty good shot. But adopting an infant can be quite difficult because while there are only a certain percentage of children that need to be adopted that are infants, that's what most people who start the adoption process are looking for. This is one of the biggest reasons why so many people have turned to international adoptions because they can get an young child in a quicker amount of time. However, this is all talking about going through some sort of adoption agency. And even with an adoption agency, they shouldn't turn away the Banks family. Should they have to wait the same length of time as other couples? Sure..but they shouldn't be turned down at an agency just because of their age. If you read the story though, it screams that it was a private adoption, and the final "approval" wasn't through any kind of agency. Essentially, the mother chose them..possibly over other couples. Are you going to say that a mother shouldn't be able to give her child to an emotionally and financially stable home where the child will be loved and cared for and have plenty of advantages? I would say she absolutely should be able to do that. Who are we to say that she should have to hand her baby off to somebody she is less comfortable with just because of a simple factor like age, especially when one of the parents is not that old, and both are reportedly in good health? So while I can at least sympathize with the sentiment, the circumstances show that the Banks family have every right to adopt this baby, and there is no reasonable reason to go away from what the mother wants for her child. Congratulations Ernie and Liz. May little Alyna bless your lives as you pour into her your time and love.

Their field goal kicker is now 6 of 16 on his career. They've got a better chance going for it just about every time.

Here is the line for Bengie Molina last night 3 AB's, 0 R, 1 H, 2 RBI, 1 HR I think Molina is officially the first person to ever hit a homerun without scoring a run. How did it happen? Molina hit a ball that was questionable on if it was a homerun or single. The Giants pinch-ran for him after he got to first (with Burriss). They then argued the call, and the umps decided to go to replay. The umps came back out and ruled it was a homerun. The Giants protested that they should be able to keep Molina in the game. But after a few minutes, the officials ruled that Burriss was legally substituted in and that Molina was done for the day. So how did it go down in the book? Molina gets the home run, but Burriss his pinch-runner officially scored the run. Absolutely absurd.

IU throws a 97 yard TD pass, but a safety call in the end zone means that there is a 9 point swing on the play. Michigan State up 36-29 with a couple minutes left to go in the 3rd. This has been one of the craziest games I have ever seen. At least 3 long TD plays, 2 safeties, and penalties on nearly every play it seems like.

If the starters do their jobs and go into the 6th at least, I'd play the 7th inning LaRussa style (in how quick he's willing to change pitchers, not necessarily just on L/R matchups). I'd probably start with Gaudin (Lou will start with Howry most likely) and I'd have a right-hander and a left-hander warming up at all times during the inning. I don't think any of them have been consistent enough to truly be our 7th inning guy that will work out of their own jams.

Lee's is surely worse. Per PA, not per opportunity. Where did you find per opportunity numbers? He's probably looking at PA with runners on first with less than 2 outs. Wait, do they actually provide that stat? BP actually provides DP percentage per opportunity. Here is the link: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=414603 When I sorted it using 100 plate appearances as the min standard, Theriot ended up hitting into a double play at the 82nd highest rate in the majors (18.1%). Lee was 103rd (17% of the time).

I thought the article did a pretty good job of justifying it. I don't. That makes no sense. Why does that mean the NLCS must start first? I guess because that means if both series went 7 games, the ALCS would end a day later than the NLCS. Which would make both teams even..they each would have 2 days "off" before the WS, with the NL team having 2 days off and a travel day and the AL team just having the 2 days. But with that many days between the end of the ALCS and the start of the WS, I don't see what the big deal is about keeping the two situations exactly even.

Baseball is not a game of specialists. You can't substitute in for offense/defense or when you need a power or an on-base oriented hitter very often. So every player has to be evaluated on at least 4 things: their ability to get on base, their ability to hit for power, their baserunning, and their defense. All of those come together to form the total package of a player. They aren't all weighted the same, but that's another argument entirely. If you have a player that contributes more overall over those 4 categories, then he should be the one starting. That's why looking at one category can cause invalid results. Yes, the Cubs don't need 8 power hitters. But that doesn't mean Theriot's major deficiency in power isn't a big problem that needs to be looked at when comparing him to other shortstops. The Cubs don't need everybody to be perfect on the basepaths. Theriot has had a deficiency on the basepaths this year though, and that shouldn't be ignored. Theriot's mediocre defense should not be ignored either. Now I happen to agree with you that when adding up all 4 categories, Theriot still comes out ahead of Cedeno. But choosing Theriot because of 1 skill is dangerous, because it doesn't help you figure out where you need to upgrade. Wouldn't it be nice if we could find a Theriot with a little more power and better defense? For enough of the first two, I'd sacrifice some of the OBP. So I agree with your conclusion that Theriot should be the starting SS until a better option comes along, and that right now there is no better option. But we should care about his power..because then we know what to look for to find players who are better than Theriot. I happen to think we're going to have a hard time finding one freely available when looking at how bad SS's have been in the majors this year. But only if we're honest about both a player's assets and limitations can we truly evaluate if we can upgrade and continue to make this team better.

No way they pitch to Delgado here.

i'll go out on a limb and guess it won't be played in West Lafayette Duke is coming to Purdue this year.

Nope, we want Mets v.s. Brewers in a Wild Card playoff game. The day after two playoff games between the Mets and Phillies, and the Dodgers and D-backs. If this happened amd there were two days of play-in games, would they move the first round back a day? I don't know who has the coin flips for home field in those games, but I wouldn't think it would be fair to make the Mets and Phillies fly to the other team's stadium, then to Milwaukee (or back to their own stadium) and then to Chicago for the first round all in three days. Theoretically (again, I don't know who has home field) but the Mets could fly from New York, to Philadelphia, back to New York or to Milwaukee and then to Chicago all on consecutive days. Last year there was a theoretical scenario where San Diego would have had to fly to different cities on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday including at least 2 cross country flights and play 4 games, and then they would have had to fly across the country again to start the playoffs on Friday. They are going to make the playoff disruption as absolutely small as possible. If that means a team like the Mets have to play 4 games in 4 days in 4 different cities, then that's what happens.

My fantasy news says that Lou is going to give Soto the next 3 games off. He also says that he plans to rest Marmol for a few days. Those are 2 of the most important to get rest, so between that and moving Harden back I'm mostly satisfied with how they're handling this last week.

Couldn't get it to work earlier. It would get about 80 percent loaded and then just sit there. I've had to work off Sportsline tonight.

Did they not call illegal contact? I was groaning and didn't hear the call. Also, it was extremely stupid to throw twice before running in for the score. You run -- especially since the ground game was working -- and either score, run clock or make them burn timeouts. Surprisingly poor clock management for the Colts. They called interference and gave the Jaguars 11 yards..from the 29 to the 40. I have no idea where they came up with the 40 though..that certainly wasn't where any interference happened. Then I'm at a loss too. By the way, I completely agree with you about running the ball at least on 1st down. You either get a TD or get the clock down, which are both good results. To throw on that down made no sense. It was a classic case of the Colts putting too much trust in one of their units that are struggling (defense today, special teams on other days). Unfortunately, a few things went wrong, and it cost them the game today. It's a losing strategy overall for Jacksonville to essentially be playing for a tie, but it does mean they pull games out like this sometimes.

Did they not call illegal contact? I was groaning and didn't hear the call. Also, it was extremely stupid to throw twice before running in for the score. You run -- especially since the ground game was working -- and either score, run clock or make them burn timeouts. Surprisingly poor clock management for the Colts. They called interference and gave the Jaguars 11 yards..from the 29 to the 40. I have no idea where they came up with the 40 though..that certainly wasn't where any interference happened.

I honestly am perfectly fine the Colts lost to the Jaguars. But I would like to mention one critical thing that went completely unnoticed, changed the game, and shows the decline of refs: On 4th and 1, the Jaguars threw the pass, and the Colts got called for defensive pass interference. The contact occurred at the 35 yard line (the only time the 2 players in question were within 5 yards of each other). When the refs spotted the ball, it wasn't at the 35. It wasn't at the 36. It was at the 40 yard line! 5 yards off of spotting the ball, which is a big difference when the team in question is trying to drive and kick the game winning field goal. So am I wrong, or is that just a horribly blown call? Pass interference is spot of the foul in every situation in the NFL (besides the end zone of course), isn't it? Like I said, I don't care about how it impacted the game. Scobee could have made it from 60. But I'm not sure I've ever seen the refs spot a ball that badly, and so I wanted to clarify the rule.

The Colts have some injuries on the O-Line. Yup. Now that Saturday is back, there are only 3 missing starters on the o-line (and a backup or two missing). Left tackle and both guard spots are filled with backups. Jacksonville is doing what they normally do against the Colts. Dominate about 3/4 of the plays, but yet still have trouble winning.

That wasn't Carlos Zambrano though. First, he only threw 110 pitches in the no-hitter. Second, the velocity yesterday on his fastball? It was his 3rd highest all season, and the highest velocity all year when he was on regular rest. It wasn't even close to low.

As much as I'm unsure about Edwards, you have no #2 wideout right now. You have 4 RB's worthy of starting on a week to week basis and can only start 3 of them. Edwards is going to help you a lot more than Forte will the rest of the year, even if Forte ends up scoring more points. As for is that too much to give up, you can ask a couple of owners who are loaded at wide receiver to see if you can get a better receiver. My guess is that buying low on Edwards will be worth more than getting a middling guy from somebody else, and I can't see anybody giving up a top tier guy for Forte or Graham. I see Edwards having a good second half even if he struggles for a couple more weeks. I would definitely do the deal unless another trade comes up that is even better. This is a very good deal though.

Bradley is a good bet to miss half the season in year 1 and possibly more in the years after that. He has struggled staying healthy this year even while playing DH most of the time and had significant injuries playing the field for 3 years before that. He's been in the league 9 years and he's played even 130 games exactly once. He's played in less than 100 games 6 of those years. He has a huge home/away split this year and would probably be closer to a .900 OPS hitter in Chicago than a 1.000 (that's what his away splits would tend to indicate over the last 5 years). Then you add in the defense factor, which is questionable with all the leg problems and will probably progressively get worse. Let's say you give him 50 million over 4 years. Is getting 2 1/2 seasons of at-bats in those 4 years at a .900 OPS and quickly declining defense worth 50 million?

wth?? Yeah, gotta make a man out of him at some point. They've been very strict on his pitch counts all season at 90 or so and then they let him go 115 2 weeks before the playoffs? Especially after his recent discomfort...I don't get it. Sorry for being behind..they haven't been quite that strict on his pitch counts though. This was his longest start with the team in number of pitches , but he also has had starts with the Cubs where he threw 112, 109, and 105. They've mostly been careful with him, but they've also let him get up there a couple of times. This 115 matched his season high that he threw in a start with Oakland earlier in the year. Again..not agreeing with it, but it isn't that far out of line with some other starts he's had.

I think the Brewers are having to use their scheduled starter for tomorrow right here. I guess they'll put Parra back in the rotation tomorrow and then bring McClung back if Sheets misses a start?

Don't they have the best avg with RISP and 2 outs in baseball? If they do, it doesn't seem like it. They don't..they're 26th out of 30 in AVG with RISP and 2 outs, whatever value that stat holds for each person. And chalk me up as one who doesn't believe they were trying to get Harden the win. Instead, I think Lou just loves to have his starters get themselves out of jams when he feels they still have it. If you look at the top 4 starters (Z, Harden, Dempster, Lilly) most of their high pitch outings were because they got into a jam, and Lou allowed them to try to pitch out of it. If that had been the 6th instead of the 5th, Lou would have done the same thing. I do agree though that especially at this point of the season with Harden, winning this game is a lot less important than the risk of him not being healthy. So I don't agree with Lou, but I doubt it was because he wanted to get Harden the win.

Lineups Cubs Soriano LF Theriot SS Lee 1B Ramirez 3B Edmonds CF DeRosa 2B Soto C Fukudome RF Harden P Brewers Cameron CF Durham 2B Braun LF Fielder 1B Hardy SS Hart RF Counsell 3B Kendall C Bush P

Ehhhh, not all that interested. I'd rather Lou start a lineup that isn't all RH against a LHP, leaving Cedeno on the bench as well. Which still leaves Blanco as your top pinch-hitter against a LHP. But he's been pinch-hitting Blanco with only 2 catchers all season. I don't see why the Cubs would have to suddenly carry 3 catchers during the playoffs in order to pinch-hit with him.