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Not anymore! :D 10-3 Cincy with 6 minutes to go in the 1st half. (Reason for Smiley-I'm looking for one of WV or Lousville to lose, and then for the loser to beat the other team when they play each other)

Indiana wins! A great win for their program. Georgia misses a field goal-1 point Georgia lead, Vandy ball on the 20, 5 minutes left.

That was one unbelievable INT by the Indiana linebacker-3 minutes left, I'd love to see them hold on here! No timeouts for Iowa.

Yeah, Indiana is slowly starting to become more competitive. Lewis, the QB, is a redshirt freshman I believe-so he really has a chance to be good. James Hardy, their 6-7 star receiver, is a redshirt sophmore. The only thing is that he missed 2 games with personal reasons this year which has hurt him so far this year until this game, and since that is unknown what they were there is a possibility of them recurring. Terry Hoeppner has really instilled a different kind of attitude at IU right now though, and their young players will be fun to watch.

Yeah, I heard that the Navy QB broke his leg. That's terrible for them as he was probably the key to their season, and of course how terrible it is for him personally.

17-14 WV after a Syracuse TD now. Syracuse has to at least pretend that they are trying to stop the run though-WV has 200 yards on the ground already, and it's 3 minutes before halftime.

Well, WV responds immediately with a Pat White 69 yard TD run. 7-7.

I've been really hoping that Syracuse can challenge WV today-Syracuse takes the early 7-0 lead.

My biggest concern with Lou is not so much how he handles the offense - I don't think he views base clogging as a negative - but how he'll handle the pitching staff. As far as rookies, if the Cubs are 10 games out by next September and he still insists on playing, say, a Mabry-like player ahead of someone like Scott Moore...well, then, hopefully he'll drag Jim Hendry into the voidless MLB purgatory which he so richly deserves. By hiring Lou, I hope the Cubs mean business and are willing to take the steps necessary to go all out. PS: Please hire Chris Chambliss for hitting coach. I was talking to a big time Mariners fan the other day, and I got a scouting report on Lou. (This friend is also admittedly a big-time stats guy). He said that: 1)Lou picks his spots carefully when to lose his temper, and really does a good job motivating his players and working the umpires. 2)He has a good lineup construction, and that he knows not to bat people second who have no business batting 2nd (knowing I'm a Cubs fan, he quickly brought up that Lou would not leave a guy like Perez in the 2 spot). 3) As far as the pitching staff goes, Lou has shown an inability sometimes to know when a pitcher is done. He said that Lou did not have a tendency towards a short or a long hook, so he wasn't per se an abuser of pitchers, just that he struggled when to pull a pitcher if the pitcher was starting to struggle. 4) Lou expects everybody to respect him. He will play the most talented player available even if they are rookies, but if the player has the wrong attitude he will ride them very, very hard (he brought up the example of Bret Boone coming up and thinking he was just going to be the man as he was in previous stops, and Lou did not take very kindly to that). That along with some comments that Lou has made on the air elevated him to the Girardi level for me (as a manager with some things I liked and some things I really didn't like). Bochy would have been preferred by me, but apparently the management only gave Hendry the choices of Girardi or Piniella-and IMO, this is the right choice of the two if they are committed to winning now, and sign some high-impact players to back up that committment.

Oh, I'm not a fan of bunting normally either. Late and up or late and tied make it a little bit better I think because the big inning is not quite as important as that point as early in the game. Still though, it would have to be a hitter who knew how to put down a bunt and who was not a very good hitter otherwise.

Is there something wrong with that? I dont have a problem adding more runs to your lead. Why give away an out? You're winning the game. You're not trying to play for one or two runs. Why not just let the guy hit? Plus you run the risk of a poor bunt and the runner getting thrown out at third and then you still have runners on first and second but with one out. Best case scenario when you bunt in that situation is ending up with second and third with one out. The best case if you hit away is the bases are cleared and there are still no outs. I would bet that teams would misplay a bunt just as often as they would get the lead runner on a bunt-people misplay bunts all the time. I'm not sure if that would make it right to bunt (although when leading late, 1 to 2 runs becomes more important relatively than they are normally, especially when a team is up by only 1 or 2), but it is something that happens pretty often.

I'm not sure Tejada will be had for anything. I mean, at the deadline remember the deals offered? There were rumors that the Angels offered Santana and one of their top prospects, and that the Astros had offered Oswalt and another good player. The Orioles have rejected everything. If you add Prior to your deal, I think it would start to get closer to Tejada, but I still doubt they trade him. Angelos overvalues him like crazy, and has supposedly vetoed several deals to trade him.

Before I get to my picks, allow me to direct your attention to the Colts ESPN.com page. Indy was 17 point favorites at SF, 14 point favorites at Houston, and 16 point favorites at Jacksonville (absolutely insane spread considering the Jags were 12-4 last year) in 2005. If the Colts hadn't played prevent in the last 5 minutes of the Jacksonville game, then they would have covered all 3 spreads too unbelivably. They were up 26-3 with 5 minutes left against Jax. That was one great run-the Bears run is reminding me of that.

It's quite possible there will never again be a healthy Izzy. He didn't just break a finger. He's had very serious injuries, and apparantly has some sort of degenerative issue on top of things. I would agree with that distinct possibility. That's I think one of the main reasons that the team needs to go out and sign a second baseman and let Theriot be the top sub so that there will be depth in case that reasonable possibility becomes true again. To go into a season with Izturis and Theriot with no depth but Cedeno behind is just asking for trouble, IMO.

Yeah this couldn't possibly be why I'd want to see ND beat that overhyped conference. I actually think ND would match up better with SEC teams because ND's weakness is their defense and the SEC isn't known for having potent offenses. ND-Florida and ND-Auburn would be good games. I think Tennessee would pose a bigger threat to ND than any other SEC team. SEC teams that I think would beat ND: 1. Florida 2. Auburn 3. LSU 4. Tennessee 5. Arkansas 6. Georgia 7. Alabama Here's the thing. Sure, ND hasn't looked nearly as good as their hype (I've been disappointed by their inconsistency). How have they looked any worse than say Auburn though? Here's the breakdown: Both have one big blowout loss at home-Notre Dame to a top 10 team, Auburn to a top 20 team Both have had one scary game against a mediocre to poor team at their place where the other team had to make mistakes in order for the team to win-Auburn at SC, ND at MSU Both have a close win over a top 20 team-ND at GT, Aub home against LSU Other then those 3 comparisons, ND has beaten Stanford, Penn State, and Purdue comfortably Auburn has done the same to Wash State, Mississippi State, and Buffalo. Looking at that-how is Auburn supposedly so much better than ND?

Indiana's got an interesting team this year. The focus on the offense will be D.J. White. As most people know, he only played 5 games last year with the broken foot that he broke twice during the season. That appears to be healthy, and he's up to 260. He should contend for Big 10 player of the year with Alondo Tucker. After D.J., it gets a little murkier. Earl Calloway at point guard really came on during the tournament last year-can he establish consistency? A.J. Ratliff and Rod Wilmont are two guards who have huge potential that I.U. fans have only seen flashes of during their time at I.U.-can the coaching change really spark them to who they can be? A couple of JUCOs, Mike White and Lance Stemler-what kind of an impact especially early are they going to have? Ben Allen, their Austrailian center-he supposedly is going to play in the post this year, where he was terrible as a freshman. Can he play better inside? There are lots of questions, but the potential is great. Look for Indiana to get better as the season goes along, and they are probably 3rd to 5th in the Big 10 right now. They will probably be a team that relies on great defense more than anything else, as they have some defensive talent combined with Sampson's style of coaching.

That's not too surprising. That's actually why early BCS standings have to be seen as only guides. For example, if Florida beats Auburn next week that will probably be enough to push them higher in the computers and pass USC. ND will start to drop closer to what the polls say as they continue to play the easy part of their schedule (although as teams lose that should counterbalance that effect). WV is getting killed in the computers because of their schedule (their opponents have a 5-19 record so far). As the weeks go on, look for most of the strange things to settle out-the interesting thing will still be WV. Can they rise in the computer rankings? They will definitely rise a lot higher than they are now in certain rankings, but they might even be ranked behind a couple 1 loss teams at the end in some computer rankings that award SOS so highly.

Hmmmm, highly productive player headed to the HOF or old manager with a checkered past? How could a team possibly consider making a decision like that based on whether or not they could convince Lou Piniela to manage them. If that last sentence would be accurate at all with the Giants feelings, then I don't think they would be making the decision based on wanting to have Piniella. Instead, Piniella coming would be the Giants excuse for not signing Bonds. Unpopular generally or not, plenty of Giants fans probably still like him and would love to see him break the record with the Giants. If the FO doesn't think that's best for the franchise, they can essentially blame Piniella for not re-signing him, which would allow them to do what they want while not having to take the criticism for it. So, they won't make the decision to sign Bonds or not based on Piniella, but he's a nice handy excuse for them why they wouldn't re-sign him.

I think your reasoning for not going after Schmidt could easily be applied to Matsuzaka as well. I think the difference is there for him is that Schmidt has better choices than Daisuke. Schmidt can sign with any team (and so in his mind probably will want to go to a better situation) while Daisuke has the choice of signing with the team who gets his rights or going back to Japan (which if they offer him the money he wants, he'll probably sign with just about any team, and especially one with high exposure like the Cubs).

Without going into the rest of the post (which I agree with the spirit of, if not the intensity), Pierre had 699 AB's this year, not 799.

I meant more from a national interest perspective. NBC wants everyone to be interested, not just Bronco fans. But you're right of course. If the Bears were playing the Raiders, I'd sure be tuning in. :) Raiders and football fans may still watch for a while hoping for an upset. I'm rooting for Oakland and against Detroit the rest of the way this year. Big weekend for the Panthers. Luckily, they get a Monday night team from last week for the 2nd time in 3 weeks. Let's see if Peppers can break McNair's sternum. I've said this a lot already this year (I'm going to say it a lot more) and I'm going to say it again now. Brady Quinn is going to look good in Silver and Black next year. :D I think the Raiders would pick Troy Smith over Quinn. They really liked Vince Young last year, and Smith will remind them of him. The Raiders really wanted someone with some mobility (I'm starting to understand why when seeing their line) and I'm guessing that will probably continue.

They are actually giving the Bears a great deal of credit with this statement. They are assuming the Bears will continue to be dominant, and the Rams will start to fall off. I think most people are projecting St. Louis to be either 8-8 or 9-7 at the end of the year. They did better than expected by 1 game in the first 5 (which might in best case push them to 10-6), but their schedule hasn't exactly been hard so far. They probably will only win 2 out of their next 5, and they have a chance of only winning 1 out of their next 5. If they do that, it won't be that big of a game at all.

Are you talking about Ceda, the 14th ranked prospect in the AZL this year (the highest Cub). He did pretty well for Boise in limited time at the end of the year (he gave up a couple of runs one game in his last inning when they were trying to lengthen him out, but otherwise his innings were very good). If Ceda continues to develop his secondary pitches, he could become very good. Right now, he's one of our good very young pitchers (not great like Veal or Gallagher, but in the next level down). I don't know why we would want to just give him away.

Maybe in your world. Not in the baseball community... The baseball community is second only to politics in taking reputation over substance. Exactly. So even if you assume he has no value actually, he has perceived value, and therefore would be worth something in another trade.

Why, Jim, why? The sentiment seems to be that Dusty would not let Larry have free reign over the pitching staff, and overruled many of Larry's decisions, and many times Larry was proved right.