jersey cubs fan

Wow, Jacque has really faded fast after that brief hot streak. Sub 700 OPS right now as he's just 5 for his last 32.

You mean "I love the Bears, and want to finish my career here, so I'm seeking a trade" doesn't make total sense to you? this points to another problem with the NFL salary system, which is it fosters a complete lack of team loyalty (on both sides of the equation) with owners constantly cutting vets to try to get cheaper production and players constantly chasing the next big paycheck Unlike the MLB and NBA that's all about team loyalty. There's nobody in the NBA who purposefully tanks a season so they can leave and go somewhere else. Yeah, that's a great system. name me the last player in the NBA who tanked a season to go somewhere else Chris Webber.

Besides last night he's been fine. Besides the final score and Rich Hills pitching line, I have no idea what happened last night...way too late. I fell asleep listening to Ron Darling tell Keith Hernandez the benefits of pitching limp wristed. I remember some futile swings and what looked to be the proverbial "pitcher fighting himself" outing from Hill. But that's about it. Oh, and Ramirez making some nice plays.

You mean "I love the Bears, and want to finish my career here, so I'm seeking a trade" doesn't make total sense to you? this points to another problem with the NFL salary system, which is it fosters a complete lack of team loyalty (on both sides of the equation) with owners constantly cutting vets to try to get cheaper production and players constantly chasing the next big paycheck Unlike the MLB and NBA that's all about team loyalty. There's nobody in the NBA who purposefully tanks a season so they can leave and go somewhere else. Yeah, that's a great system.

This is such a one sided blind view of the story. Owners can't just cut on a whim. If they do, most players are just going to sign another bigger deal. The only guys who might lose out in this system are the guys that aren't worth what they are being paid. Being cut in the NFL is not necessarily a bad thing. You can get cut by one team and sign an even bigger deal with another, as long as you are good. But why should a player have to go through that? why sign a 7 year deal if you're going to get cut after 2? Go through what? Free agency? Players love free agency. What are they going through? They should "have to go through that" because the concept of a 7-year contract in anything is absolutely ridiculous. The NFL is a meritocracy, unlike baseball, which is a ageitocracy, or the NBA, which is a hypeitocracy. The fact of the matter is if you play well in the NFL, you get paid. Guys like Lance Briggs choose to gamble and wait for an even bigger payday, and I say good for them. But don't come crying about unfairness in the contract structure. These guys aren't "going through" anything unfair. Even though contracts aren't guaranteed, the fact is owners can't just cut anybody whenever they want, competition from the other teams would destroy them. We're talking about a 52 man roster in a sport that plays 16 regular season games a year, that's twice as many players as baseball and more than 3 times as many as the NBA, and 10% and 19% of the number of games, yet there's still plenty of room for 20-30 guys per team to make millions every year and the sport is run in such a way that unlike the NBA and MLB, they've had no work stoppages or threat of a work stoppage for two decades, plus they have had nothing but constant growth. The pie just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

This is such a one sided blind view of the story. Owners can't just cut on a whim. If they do, most players are just going to sign another bigger deal. The only guys who might lose out in this system are the guys that aren't worth what they are being paid. Being cut in the NFL is not necessarily a bad thing. You can get cut by one team and sign an even bigger deal with another, as long as you are good.

The NFL salary system is the best in sports, by an extremely wide margin. It's not very often that guys pull this with 3 years remaining on a deal. Occasionally you'll get a former superstar like Ray Lewis who is trying to negotiate one last signing bonus early. If you're an NFL owner yes. It's the easiest sport to make huge up front money as a rookie. No other sports allows you to make as much money as soon as they do. The best players get paid the most. It's the fairest system for all. Baseball requires 3 years of service at minimum wage before you even sniff arbitration, and 6 years before free agency. NBA has slotted contracts that don't stack up to NFL contracts, and then it's filled with a bunch of guys making a ton of guaranteed money who aren't any good. Every sports fan complains about athletes who get paid a lot when they aren't any good anymore, yet the NFL actually has a system that takes care of that problem and people pretend it's unfair to the player.

The NFL salary system is the best in sports, by an extremely wide margin. It's not very often that guys pull this with 3 years remaining on a deal. Occasionally you'll get a former superstar like Ray Lewis who is trying to negotiate one last signing bonus early.

Mazzone and Duncan couldn't straighten out Marquis. Didn't he pitch well at the beginning for both and then unravel?

i don't care. the bears overpaid him in the first place based on 2 or 3 games. he should feel lucky that he's starting, i doubt anyone would give us anything for him. Is he playing the Giants this year? No? Oh, so he wont have his usual 4 sack game against them? The Bears are playing the Giants. This story pisses me off. He's got 3 years on a contract and he's looking to get an extension or find a trade? I completely understand doing this stuff with 1 year remaining, but this is just nonsense. He's basically trying to be a free agent, getting permission to talk to every team so he can find one that will overpay him and give the Bears something in return. This can't sit well with Angelo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_and_the_Mad_Dog Annoying, but entertaining radio hosts on WFAN 660, the Mets home network and the only sports radio in NY until ESPN arrived 2-3 years ago. They simulcast on YES every afternoon. Francesa is a big fat stereotypical Yankees fan know-it-all. He's got a weird fascination with the past, horse racing and boxing. He loves to say the word huge without even hinting at the H sound. Mad Dog is Chris Russo, and he's a skinny obnoxious high energy psycho. He's a SF Giants fan. The sports guy has done a couple write-ups on the show. I used to listen frequently in college. They are one of the few hosts who regularly interview players, coaches, management and others, and actually stick to their guns and give people a hard time. A couple quirks about the show is they regularly go through the tv listings and guess what kind of ratings games got in what market. It's absurd, but weirdly riveting. They also play bits and pieces of the local broadcasts and rip apart the announcers when they get goofy, and that is really easy with the Yankees announcers (Susan Wolman and the Clemens thing). They are the type of guys who say the Yankees will win because they are the Yankees, pitchers should only be judged on their record, ARod "has to hit when it matters" and all that stuff. But by and large they are the focal point of the NY sports scene. Everything seems to cycle through them as far as media goes.

FYI, we've had about an hour of relative calm, but looks like its' about to start back up soon. Mike and the Mad Dog are talking up the likelihood of a DH tomorrow.

If he is damaging livers, he must be doing something wrong! Like spreading hepatitis?

And what I'm saying is the "get him over" aspect is vastly overrated and doesn't compare in importance to getting them on.

Have you not watched him in other games? Like last year when he acted like a four year old against the Cardinals? For a guy who's been in the league five years, he really doesn't deal well with adversity Yes, I've seen him act weird. I just disagree that its his emotions that cause him to struggle. It's his inconstency that causes him to struggle. He's always emotional. Blaming it on his maturity is just a convenient answer, but it doesn't appear to be the least bit accurate when you seem him pitch well and emotional.

There's a small window between Philly and Trenton, but there's a huge amount of stuff right behind it. They'd be lucky to throw the first pitch by 9pm.

By the way, I'm just rooting for the rain out so I can go to a DH tomorrow. I don't really have any idea if they'll get it in. For all I know there's some rule against scheduling a DH on the last day of a 4 game series or something and they'll wait it out. I've seen the Mets cancel early when it looked like they could get it in, and I've seen them stick it out through an entire night of crappy weather. I'm guessing the decision will be based on money, whether they think they can make more game day revenue by playing tomorrow.

How is Jones going to be traded? That leaves us with Floyd as the only LH threat. Not going to happen. The so-called need for a LH threat is grossly overstated. The Cubs hit better vs RHP than LHP. They aren't in need of more LH bats, and it wouldn't kill them to lose Jones (who, by the way, is way down the list of Cubs hitters vs RHP this season).

The rain is tracking from the SW to the NE. The stuff that is currently over Baltimore is going to hit NY in the coming hours. The area that has broken up, in NE PA and NW NJ is going to travel well north of NYC. We're going to be getting rain until at least 8/9 pm, and there will be pockets of rain the rest of the night. I'm not sure they will want to wait it out, when they can easily fit in a day/night DH tomorrow and have many more people show up.

And stick around until tomorrow.

It went from bright and sunny/hazy to blue/grey in about 3 minutes. There's an 80% chance of rain through 9 and 50% through midnight. The chances of getting this game in aren't good.

The problem is worrying about the running game. Top of the order should be about OBP, first and foremost. The running game is vastly overrated. I think the point is to have guys on 2nd and/or 3rd when Lee & Ramirez come up. The point is to get on in the first place. Getting to 2nd/3rd is a bonus. Theriot can get on and score on a Soriano double. Theriot's value is his ability to get on base, more than anything else. Having Soriano in the two hole does not make Theriot less valuable.

Agreed. It would not surprise me if Perry is shown the door after the season ends (a la Terry Shea with the Bears) assuming that the hitting doesn't become more consistent. The only reason it wouldn't surprise me is because of the ownership change. I'm guessing a new owner is going to overhaul the front office, unless the Cubs go really far this season. Not sure what that will mean for the coaching staff. I'm guessing Lou can withstand any housecleaning this first year, and I would be his coaching staff stays intact, unless one of them finds a different job first. This would give the new President/GM/Personel people one year with the current staff, and allow him/them to decide what to do about 2009.

I'm hoping for a DH tomorrow and I'll go see both.

If Bruce is hanging out in NYC right now, he should get his outdoor activities wrapped up, because we are going to get hammered with storms in an hour or so.