jersey cubs fan

But PIM is always cited for the guys that have a lot of them. I think it might be largely a media thing, but it's definitely a thing.

This is what is right about soccer

He's probably pissed knowing there is a good chance he won't make the big club for salary cap reasons, and wants to beat up anybody who makes less than him.

Seriously, what a cheap shot to begin with. Why is stuff like that going on in a team's camp? i have no idea, i watched another video of beach fighting brannon and no one really made any effort to break it up. maybe they see it as part of camp and the evaluation process, which would be idiotic. They definitely do, and talked about it not being uncommon to see a fight a day, or maybe more. I still think it's absurd that they talk about players with high penalty minutes in a positive light, given the importance of power plays. It's a very odd mindset. I see wanting your chippy guys to be a little chippy, but crosschecking from behind and fighting serves very little purpose. If a guy needs to learn to fight, he can do it during the season.

How's Saltalamacchia working out for the Rangers? Not well, but Neftali Feliz and Elvis Andrus are doing very, very well. Casey Kotchman also has a .670 OPS as a 27-year-old first baseman for the Mariners right now. Yeah, Salty was the guy most media picked up on and he may have been the #1 target, but Andrus and Feliz are an incredible pair of young players. Was Wren the one that made this move or was it right before he took over? That trade happened in July of 2007, and according to BR.com, Wren was promoted to GM 10/11/2007.

I watch most of these with the sound down, at least until late Saturday and late Sunday.

Seriously, what a cheap shot to begin with. Why is stuff like that going on in a team's camp?

When I first watched the NFL show he did on Sunday nights, I did not mind it. But I was probably 17 years old at the time. He has been this bad in baseball events for as long as I can remember him doing them. He's only annoyed me on that show in the last 3-4 years or so. Tom Jackson went downhill around the same time too. I just don't watch it anymore, and really haven't watched it much since I starting getting Sunday Ticket. Don't need to see the same highlights I've seen repeatedly all day long (but I'm usually always wasted by that time of night so I pass out).

When I first watched the NFL show he did on Sunday nights, I did not mind it. But I was probably 17 years old at the time. He has been this bad in baseball events for as long as I can remember him doing them.

And that would be a mistake. You don't trade away guys because you think they are cancers. Trading away a cancer doesn't make the team better. You trade away a guy when you can get better value in terms of play on the field. But that is exactly what the Cubs would be doing by trading Lilly for the guys mentioned. And I disagree with trading him for those players, as they would not provide any value financially for the future of the Cubs or on the field (which I believe I already said). So, why are you disagreeing with me, when we obviously agree. Are you just in the mood to disagree? Wait a minute.....are you my wife? I'm just stating that there is no reason to qualify the statement "don't trade Lilly away for nothing".

And that would be a mistake. You don't trade away guys because you think they are cancers. Trading away a cancer doesn't make the team better. You trade away a guy when you can get better value in terms of play on the field.

Only meatheads would have been all excited about that.

Whey even make the trade? If that is all Hendry wants, the Mets would be morons not to make that trade. I hope Chris De Luca's just talking out of his arse. Not only will none of these guys help us in the near future, they will most likely never help this team. Unless Lilly has suddenly become a club house cancer, a Lilly trade for only the list of prospects above would be a terrible trade. Why "unless he has become a clubhouse cancer"? Why else would you trade him for nothing? You shouldn't trade him for nothing, regardless of some mythological cancer.

Whey even make the trade? If that is all Hendry wants, the Mets would be morons not to make that trade. I hope Chris De Luca's just talking out of his arse. Not only will none of these guys help us in the near future, they will most likely never help this team. Unless Lilly has suddenly become a club house cancer, a Lilly trade for only the list of prospects above would be a terrible trade. Why "unless he has become a clubhouse cancer"?

I remember it being about the most important stat listed in the sports section.

Who is going to provide these resources to build a new stadium? The Cubs, the city, or a combination of the two. Just like every other franchise that builds a new stadium and the Cubs have more cash than most. I know Illinois is broke as a joke but new stuff is going up all the time isn't it? The new wing of the Art Institute was designed by arguably the world's most famous living architect. I'm sure it can be done. The new stadium era ended when the real estate bubble popped. It is going to take a long time before that sort of funding becomes available again. Also, the type of architect that works on museums isn't building cash machines, which is all a baseball stadium is.

Actually it's the opposite of that. We want criticism to come from an educated point of view instead of someone who just takes a quick glance and draws conclusion. So basically, jersey is Joe Morgan. If he knew a lot about the sport and still drew the same conclusion, I'd listen. Screw you. All I did was defend somebody who made criticisms against your arrogant BS. I never once pretended to know more about the sport than anybody else (criteria number 1 for comparing somebody to Joe Morgan).

That's still ridiculous. Just because the person isn't as passionate/knowledgeable about the sport as you, you can then decide their opinion doens't matter? At least you aren't hiding your arrogance. People wouldn't be talking about what they'd like to see different if they didn't care about the sport at all. Stop taking criticism of a freaking sport so personally. I don't give a crap if a friend from London hates football. If they actually take the time to say something about what they don't like, other than, I just don't like it, then I take it as a sign that they've actually spent some time watching it and don't just dismiss it out of hand.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_935wAgojuqw/SYp75VGZVzI/AAAAAAAAArM/VSHcXUseLrI/s400/86+topps+back.jpg But here's a Strawberry from the 80's with SLG. I vaguely remember seeing SLG, but not OBP, and that is the era when I collected cards. So it must have been on most I saw.

Good question. This looks like a 1990 Sosa card with BA, G, AB, R, H, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, SB http://keymancollectibles.com/baseballcards/images/wpe6c.jpg

I think your premise is way off, unless you're talking about sports that people don't follow at all rather than sports they only follow superficially. Just look at how much complaining there is about the BCS and tell me that hypercritical eye is reserved for soccer. You really don't see people tying their frustration with the BCS as some sort of inherent flaw in football that implies it's less worthy of your time and fandom. Same with inconsistencies/frustrations in other sports like balks/leaning into pitches/instant replay in baseball, late game fouls in basketball, holding/pass interference(takedowns) in football, etc. Are you freaking serious? That is absurd. There are all kinds of people who like pro football but not college football or vice versa and they cite things like the BCS. Same with basketball. People are more than happy to list the reasons why they don't like hockey or baseball or track or golf. People bitch about the sports they like and the sports they don't like. Soccer isn't some unfairly singled out sport that gets an undue level of criticism. It's just not that popular and more than most second tier sports has been struggling to get a stronger foothold, so the topic of why it hasn't yet is going to come up. I know plenty of brits who talk about the things they find odd and/or annoying about baseball and football. It's what you do when you talk about a sport you don't understand as much. It would be stupid of me to accuse them of being overly critical of those sports just because they have some sort of disgust for it. Sports are games and games are made up competitions with silly rules and practices. There's never a perfect way to run any event and therefore they are all subject to critique. To act as though soccer should not be judged with a critical eye because of it's global popularity is incredibly arrogant.

How on earth so? People look at soccer with an critical eye they don't look at other sports with, and American don't understand that the sport has evolved and is popular elsewhere? It's a stupid claim on both parts. People are constantly bitching about the ways all sports are played/run. The status of soccer in the American sporting landscape is a constant topic for several decades, and therefore the concept of why it's not as popular here, or what makes it less popular is going to come up. You can't try and make a sport more popular without addressing why it isn't yet.

I think it probably has a lot more to do with the fact that they emphasized developing pitchers in the minors at the expense of hitters. The explicitly said they would put most of their efforts into pitching and then sign/trade for hitters later when Andy MacPhail came aboard, and that's what happened.

Same here. The same evolutionary refinement that applies to other sports that have been played for decade upon decade with significant fan interest and giant revenues applies to soccer and sometimes Americans don't understand that concept. I think both of you sound ridiculous trying to make this claim.

Sorry about the word nobody. I'm sure one out of every 500 kids may have looked at it once. The number may have grown for kids of the 2000s, with all the information about stats readily available to everybody. But the vast, vast, vast majority of kids never looked at a baseball card and subtracted AVG from SLG to determine which players were power hitters.