jersey cubs fan

What the hell? He's 29 freaking years old. This is not essentially his rookie year. He's been garbage for well over a month now.

The network(s) carrying the games charge so much to the cable provider to carry their channel in their packages. A large draw of many networks which broadcast baseball is the exclusive rights to those games. Right now, if you live in Chicago, the only way you get non-WGN/WCIU games is to subscribe to a cable package which includes Comcast Sportsnet. If you have the option of buying mlb.tv to get your Cubs fix, cable subscriptions go down, CSN cannot charge as much because they're not drawing in subscribers, and if CSN can't charge as much, they aren't making as much on the Cubs, thus they won't pay out the same for their TV contract. ETA: shut up TT I get that for in-market, but what about for areas that don't have access to cable providers who carry said networks? Wouldn't they stand to make MORE money if they didn't black out those weird blackout zones with no access to baseball? I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of people blacked out of MLB.tv and Extra Innings are capable of getting that team's channel from their cable provider. It might cost an arm and a leg, but it's available. I don't think that is true. My problem is the blackouts that occur when you already pay for the GD channel.

There's hope for the organization but the team itself hasn't been the least bit interesting. Lahair has a ceiling he hasn't hit? Garza? I'll give you Castro, and now Rizzo, as well as Shark. But 2 of 3 of those guys were here last year and Rizzo just showed up. Recent teams weren't bad because Zambrano was throwing tantrums. This team is bad because they have a bunch of bad baseball players, not a bunch of guys who just aren't at their peak yet. The product on the field has not been interesting. There's hope for the future because of the people who are in charge and some of the talent they have brought to the system, but you are deluding yourself if you try and pretend this baseball team has been interesting. They just suck at baseball.

Well that's not true. Which part of it isn't true? That the deal officially killed baseball in Montreal.

http://deadspin.com/5921685/stray-bullet-falls-through-tropicana-field-roof-hits-fan

so interesting

He's played exclusively 3 different positions?

I will be very happy not to watch that one.

Sullivan getting snippy. I mean, he sucks, but his line against LHP this year is .275/.373/.412. And everybody else sucks anyway. Not sure why now is the time to ridicule Sveum for putting Mather in the leadoff spot.

Sveum talked before the game about hoping that Rizzo is in the lineup every day for a long time. I don't think he's going to be looking to get him many days off, unless he looks overmatched or somehow frazzled.

Speaking of the Mets announcers, they are some of the most colossal douches I've ever heard, and I listen to a lot of the announcers because of EI. The best is Keith Hernandez, he's basically just like he was portrayed in Seinfeld. Their announcers use a condescending tone about the Cubs every time they meet, which is funny because they work for the Mets, one of the most dysfunctional organizations in sports the past 10 years.

what the hell has been interesting?

By people like you.

Aside from the Seinfeld episode, a slogan totally unknown outside of people who lived in an area in NY and around NYC in the 90s and late 80s What an odd way of saying New York area.

That article and the comments are a little depressing. The implication is that some scouts are worried he can't hit advanced velocity. It seems to me like that's exactly the kind of hole AAA, full of marginal MLB veteran arms, would suck at exploiting. That article doesn't imply that at all. There is an implication that people worried about his ability to turnaround on fastballs.

The question isn't if they will still suck or not. But rather if they will fill the roster with nothing but homegrown players. That's why I said "mostly"; if he's arguing the Cubs will have twenty-five homegrown players, which I don't think he is, he's obviously wrong. But I think he's right that additions to the roster will mainly be recycled crap and/or unproven youngsters. I don't doubt someone the likes of Ian Stewart, or even David DeJesus is brought in, but I'm expecting another punt. Management punted this year because they believed the team was not ready to contend; I suspect the same logic will be used next year. Hopefully that death cycle isn't interminable. The discussion started with somebody posting a lineup littered with guys already in the system all getting shots to sink or swim at once, including Bryan LaHair starting in LF. It was awful. People started commenting on how horrible the roster was and what a terrible decision it would be to do such a thing, and then kyle came in and kyled it up. Nobody claimed they'd be going after big time free agents left and right. Kyle had nothing to be arguing about because he didn't even disagree with what most people were saying (that the original concept of fielding a team of prospects was a horrible idea), but he found a way to disagree anyway.

The question isn't if they will still suck or not. But rather if they will fill the roster with nothing but homegrown players. I already agreed that of course they won't do that. Only after you were shown how ridiculous that stance was when you first agreed with it.

The question isn't if they will still suck or not. But rather if they will fill the roster with nothing but homegrown players.

It's not official until the 5th

Jizzo ropes

It's 2 things for me. My default with her is I think she's pretty hot. But her voice makes me question that, plus, when I stare too long I tend to over scrutinize. My wife finds her very pretty but tough to listen to. She also finds Bob Rohrman to be disgusting.

I didn't hear any Chicago accent there I think what he's hearing is a lack of a terrible jersey or ny accent. No, seriously, she's got a very strong Chicago accent that is obvious to anybody who is not in the midwest, at least compared to your typical tv personality who do their best to eliminate any regional accent so as to further their career potential. The terrible Jersey accent is actually south jersey, which is a philly/delaware valley accent, and it is abominable. Staten Island/Long Island is a much stronger land of accents around here. I was actually surprised when I first started meeting Jersey people who didn't really have noticeable accents. Kustok sounds like a slightly toned down version of all my female cousins.

I like Kustok because I can't make up my mind about her looks, she has a ridiculous Chicago accent and her dad shot her mom. I find her to be delightful though I don't recall ever hearing her speak. She does a lot of the "sideline" stuff for Blackhawks games, right? Yeah, I think half the players are trying to get with her. Kane surprised her with a bday cake once and the sexual tension was palpable.

You mean like spending six months saying it would be inexcusable for the Cubs to slash payroll and rebuild, and now saying it was understandable given the circumstances? It was unnecessary. I disagree with it. Did then, do now. But it's understandable given the circumstances they walked in on last fall. Now it is not.

I hope you guys are right. That reads an awful lot to me like some sort of Stockholm Syndrome rationalization. Stockholm Syndrome would be them actually doing such a stupid thing and then people agreeing that it was the right thing to do.