jersey cubs fan

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.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh

It's ridiculous that they are building one, or ridiculous that they are getting public funding? Yankee Stadium and Shea both suck, so I'm looking forward to new ones. I'll be interested in going to DC to watch a game. I'll probably never visit the others.

The runs scored total is down because they've played fewer games. The runs scored/game is right in line with the other rankings. But just for giggles, the Cubs have the highest AVG in the league with RISP and the 3rd highest OPS. They have the 5th highest AVG with RISP/2outs and 6th highest OPS.

It is true-they are 4th in the NL right now. 1st in May, after being 10th in April. Not a surprise that this coincided with their climb back up the standings, and 8-5 record.

And then a bad week could bring them right back down. I'd be fine with this offense if it managed to finish the season in the top 5 across the board of OBP/SLG and Runs scored. But all evidence so far suggests they are maintaining the feast or famine problems that have been so troubling.

Really? Seem's to me that he's doing a good job with Marquis and the other starters. Well, minus Z. rothschild may have "fixed" marquis, but he's about the only success story he's had. wouldn't bother me if he got canned. The timing would bother me. I haven't been satisfied with the work he's done, but putting him on the hot seat now, or firing him now, tells me they aren't focused on the big issues.