jersey cubs fan

http://www.pjstar.com/stories/083007/MLB_BE7EKG3B.080.php He's actually at AAA. And today would be his day to start on 5 days rest but Ryan O'Malley was called up from AA and bumped him. :-k Bruce says

I definitely feel the whole system is highly flawed.

Soriano was really bad before the injury.

He was introduced as the Milwaukee Brewers announcer, and most everybody probably knew he was going to say Brewers. Seriously, there's no story here.

That sounds familiar. I began brainwashing..eh..."training" my kids at birth...My wife was born and raised here...but she's to the point where she'd rather the Cubs win because she knows I'm easier to live with when they do. <----- That was at 9 months. My wife corrected one of her friends that other day when they said "...so from April till September, you have to deal with the Cubs?" My wife said, "No, its a full year thing, but the season starts in February when pitchers and catchers report." Never been so turned on in my life. that's hot

It's huge, but I'm really down to a point now where every game is the biggest game of the year. Last night was by far the most nervous I've been watching a game all season, and I know it's only going to get worse. x2 I think part of it, a large part of it, has to do with being here in St. Louis....every time they win a game now I hear how the "spunky" "scrappy" "heart of a champion" do gooders are just ready to take the division...it drives me nuts...and with them taking an early lead last night it was just...well...as someone said...ulcer city. Thank God I don't like in St. Louis, I just work in an office with 3-4 of them. I work in downtown Chicago and my office is 50% Tigers fans, 25% Cubs fans, 15% Cardinals fans, 5% Brewers fans, 5% other (Reds, Pirates, Mariners). Note: not one White Sox fan among the office. So you aren't a corrections officer.

Exactly. I like Uecker a lot as well, but don't try to tell me he didn't deserve to be booed last night. His team is in the middle of a pennant race against our team in one of the biggest games of the year. The fans had every right to boo him and I probably would have booed him if I were at Wrigley as well. I don't get why this is a story. There was no reason for him to avoid saying Brewers, and there's nothing wrong with booing him.

Neither funny, nor very accurate. disagree and disagree Agree. With truffle. That is, I think it was funny, and accurate.

I truly enjoyed the 70's. Cardinals were 13 games under .500 for the decade, with no playoff appearances. i liked the 70's because of The Electric Company and preschool Don't forget Land of the Lost. That show freaked me out.

Could this foreshadow how the Cubs handle Marquis next year?

Probably very high. And if/when the Cubs lost, people would have said at least they were playing the game the "right way". I definitely enjoy Lou's go for the big inning mentality.

It's hard hitting analysis like that that shows why ESPN is #1. I had an argument with Stark in my head after that statement.

Hopefully this will kill all that "Aram is lazy" crap certain Chicago writers like to spew. The AZ announcer shredded him for not running all out on a groundball to 2nd. Rozner still takes a potshot whenever he can. This isn't going to kill any of that. People have known he's not 100%, but they don't care.

Why do you constantly focus solely on his splits vs RHP?

You're right. People booed because they all hate Bob Uecker and think he's the devil. It had nothing to do with the fans wanting to uphold a tradition and think it's wrong for a competing team's broadcaster to sing the stretch. it's only a "tradition" because the Cubs marketing department fooled most cubs fans into thinking it is. it's usually just a stop on "celebrity X's" press junket or politician's campaign trail. it doesn't honor Harry at all anymore (if it every did post-1998) It's tradition to say "root root root for the Cubbies," which he didn't say. In the Cubs' home ballpark. And he said the name of the team we were playing that night. With whom we were in a close division race. And he's the announcer of that team. I don't see why this is hard to understand / how it's classless / why anyone cares. Uecker didn't cry himself to sleep that night for any reason other than his team blowing yet another 3-run lead. Are you saying what Uecker did was classless? The "tradition" of outsiders inserting their team's name over Cubbies has lasted as long as the "tradition" of allowing outsiders to sing the stretch. Cubs fans routinely yell out root root root for the Cubbbies in road stadiums, and it typically drowns out the home crowds cheer. Is that classless? Ummmm where did I say that? I asked because that bolded sentence was unclear.

I really enjoyed the little smirk he had after they lost the lead. It was either a fake smile trying to pretend everything was okay, or him laughing at his own team's floundering.

You're right. People booed because they all hate Bob Uecker and think he's the devil. It had nothing to do with the fans wanting to uphold a tradition and think it's wrong for a competing team's broadcaster to sing the stretch. it's only a "tradition" because the Cubs marketing department fooled most cubs fans into thinking it is. it's usually just a stop on "celebrity X's" press junket or politician's campaign trail. it doesn't honor Harry at all anymore (if it every did post-1998) It's tradition to say "root root root for the Cubbies," which he didn't say. In the Cubs' home ballpark. And he said the name of the team we were playing that night. With whom we were in a close division race. And he's the announcer of that team. I don't see why this is hard to understand / how it's classless / why anyone cares. Uecker didn't cry himself to sleep that night for any reason other than his team blowing yet another 3-run lead. Are you saying what Uecker did was classless? The "tradition" of outsiders inserting their team's name over Cubbies has lasted as long as the "tradition" of allowing outsiders to sing the stretch. Cubs fans routinely yell out root root root for the Cubbbies in road stadiums, and it typically drowns out the home crowds cheer. Is that classless?

Goony, you can take the fun out of almost anything; do you like ice cream and pizza? :wink: I don't see how I'm taking the fun out of anything here. I just don't buy into the "deserves praise" thing. Praise is a pretty strong word. I'm not going to praise any player who has a hot streak. I'm going to enjoy it, and be happy it happened, but why does it mean the player deserves praise? It's a bit melo-dramatic if you ask me. What matters is what the guy does over a full season, and in the case of free agents, the full, or at least most of, the contract. I didn't praise Alou for what he did in 2004 because it was too little too late in my book, as he crapped the bed in his first free agency year, when he was making what was at the time really big money. And he was, in my opinion, also a bit disappointing in 2003 (especially when compared with what he did before and after being a Cub). If Jones were to somehow significantly outperform my expectations for him, then I'd be all for praising the guy. But the fact remains that as a Cub, Jones has basically been a .280/.330/.455 guy. His overall OPS is weak, especially in OBP, and the SLG hasn't come close to outweighing it.

Yeah, if we didn't have Pie, I'd be perfectly fine having Jacque as our CF for the last year of his deal. Being that Pie is here and has little left to prove in AAA, I hope Jacque gets traded in the offseason. I wouldn't be shocked though to see the Cubs move Jacque back to RF, have him platoon with Murton, and have Pie play full-time in CF. That wouldn't be awful, but it would be far from the best option. If they can't find a legit RF, then it might be the only option. I think the Cubs are going to have to trim some fat where they can, but ridding themselves of some mid-tier contracts, like the ones Blanco, Jones, Eyre, Howry, DeRosa and even Marquis have signed. The first three I listed are probably the ones I'd deal first, with Marquis also thrown in. I would also not hesitate to include Pie in a deal for a true difference maker, and just run out Jones there for one more year in center. Then you can probably go with Colvin in center by 2009, and even if he's lacking you could have some serious production out of your two corners.

His OPS in the second half is .851. Please find me CF'ers we could have had with a better second half OPS. His OPS over his last 30 games is .924. It's clear that his abhorrent start is affecting that OPS greatly, so comments like yours are clearly disingenuous because they look at his numbers in a vacuum. It's clear he's been a different Jock since the break. Posting those numbers wouldn't help you though.l So only posting his good numbers is more genuine? Jones has been awful this year. But he's been great for much of the 2nd half. Good for him. It's always fun to see a hot Jacque, because hot Jacque really hits the ball hard and can rack up the XBH. It's just unfortunate that he's so rarely hot. It's just that we're in the middle of the season right now. Jacque got criticized plenty for his play in April-June. There was even a 50 page thread where everybody was really happy he got traded, and rightly so. At the same point, he deserves to be praised for his recent play. Let's analyze the full season after the year-right now Jones deserves praise because he has kept this team in first place the past month. Let's put it another way-did Marquis not deserve criticism in June and July because his overall numbers still looked quite good? Of course he did, because he was struggling. By the same token, Jacque deserves praise for his recent play even though the full season numbers still are slightly below average for a CF. btw-this post isn't a complete direct reply to you, it's more of a general reply to a few posts in the thread. I don't really buy into your "deserves praise" theory. Jacque's job is to produce. He has done so at a very good rate for a fair amount of time, and at a very poor rate for a longer period of time. Personally, the fact that he regularly shows the ability to produce like this, but is unable to maintain it over the long haul provides me with more frustration than justification for praising the guy.

Maybe if he was 25. The problem with your theory is JJ has been around long enough, and has a long enough track record that people know there isn't any upside to his game. So unlike with Pie or Murton, where we expect significant improvement, and therefore can accept some short-term struggles, there's no room for error with JJ. At his age, you know what you are going to get, and that's unacceptable OBP and overall too little production for a corner OF.

He could be right, but Mike Golic knows exactly 0 about baseball. He was saying we'll win the Central when we were hot too. Before that it was the Brewers. He just rides the current hot team and says they'll win it all. Eventually, at the end of the season, he'll be right -- and he'll ignore the 10 other predictions he made before that were all wrong. Golic is the epitome of the "I know more because I'm an athlete" commentator. He is a relatively smart guy, but he's so close minded and uninformed it's ridiculous. That being said, I'm all for the media falling all over STL.

His OPS in the second half is .851. Please find me CF'ers we could have had with a better second half OPS. His OPS over his last 30 games is .924. It's clear that his abhorrent start is affecting that OPS greatly, so comments like yours are clearly disingenuous because they look at his numbers in a vacuum. It's clear he's been a different Jock since the break. Posting those numbers wouldn't help you though.l So only posting his good numbers is more genuine? Jones has been awful this year. But he's been great for much of the 2nd half. Good for him. It's always fun to see a hot Jacque, because hot Jacque really hits the ball hard and can rack up the XBH. It's just unfortunate that he's so rarely hot.

no. The way he looked at the plate tonight, I have to disagree. His timing seemed off. I think a few games in the minors might have helped. Isn't that pretty much how he looked at the plate before he went down? Soriano wasn't doing much of anything in the 2nd half.

I would think so. By the way, I've read a lot of comments that the Cubs would like to see Vitters get up to Boise (they finish a week after Mesa and they have a chance at the playoffs too). I think the Cubs will change their mind on that given how Vitters struggled in Mesa. yeah someone said something about that but doesn't look too good. He's batting what .045 or something with 3 errors? 30 AB: .067/.094/.067, 1 BB : 9 K, 3 errors. He supposedly hasn't played since June which hopefully explains a lot of his struggles. What would be the possible benefit of getting him a week in Boise.