jersey cubs fan

The Blackhawks had some great teams in the first half of the 90's.

So Gammons did say this, but there was a lot more too it, and it didn't sound like it was nearly a done deal when you listen to the actual audio clip. They just played it on the Score. Care to elaborate on what he did say? Sorry, had to do actual work for a little bit. Here's the full quote: http://fullcount.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/2014/11/18/peter-gammons-on-dc-on-jon-lester-i-get-the-feeling-the-cubs-think-hes-going-to-go-back-to-boston/ I think that is somehow less helpful than your original comment.

there's no strawman, it has been the same story for 3 years now. stop lamenting the Cubs not signing guys because there are so many other options until all those options dry up and it really wasn't the time to do it anyway. If you want to acquire talent you have to aggressively pursue talent. You can't wait for things to fall in your lap and then congratulate yourselves for not being the silly team that overpaid.

You are way more certain about the performance gap between Lester and the 'hipster alternatives' than I am. Just the opposite in fact. I don't know how many times I can say 'make the team better, whether it involves getting Player X or not or whether it involves spending a bunch of money or not'. But you consistently qualify that by eliminating the best options off the list and pretending that it is a good thing. This team has to get a lot better and you don't accomplish that with waiver claims. I want them to make the team better but I am all for avoiding the most expensive free agents and not trading for available guys who might be too expensive. Make up your mind. If you don't want to sign the talent and don't want to trade for the talent you don't want to go get talent. You want to worry more about efficiently acquired marginal upgrades as opposed to the most wins possible.

No more imaginary than the "next 15 months" nonsense.

Plus waiver claims!!!

Only if he underwent a nostril shrinking procedure.

And we can keep saying that every time we don't sign someone good. If the Cubs have an offseason like last year, feel free to be upset that they didn't add anyone, I'll be there with you. In the meantime, arbitrary lines in the sand that Jon Lester represents a 'commitment to winning' are silly. What was your stance on trading for Hamels?

I think things worked out quite nicely for Carlos. 9 year career, all star, over $23 million earned, I'd say most minor league prospects would take that career in a heartbeat And all that after washing out as a position player after signing in '99.

I know who Butkus, Sayers, etc. are and I don't really give a [expletive] about them. I'd give you a blank stare too if you started talking about Bears players from 40 years ago for some reason. Greg Lloyd played throughout the 90s. He's not talking about dudes from 40 years ago.

I think things worked out quite nicely for Carlos.

immigrant?

The takeaway is not signing free agents is bad.

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/101721304/chicago-cubs-theo-epstein-mlb-offseason-starlin-castro Kasper calls this dumb "don't sign anybody and keep plugging in mediocrity" article smart but it is actually just more if the same dumb conservative nonsense that always pushes off the time to spend beyond the present.

I assume the fist only travelled half a foot and did very little damage.

CapGeek ‏@capgeek 21s22 seconds ago #Blackhawks moves today got them within ~$30K of cap before putting van Riemsdyk on LTIR. This maximizes their LTIR cap space going forward.

I don't think that is really all that true. Fair weather fans take off when things aren't going well, but actual hardcore fans will abandon a perennial dumpster fire eventually. Still, plenty of Blackhawks fans actually stuck around during the worst of the worst.

I think of bandwagon fans for perennial champs as different from fairweather fans. Fairweather fans are fans that support a specific team, but only do so when times are well. They are people with better [expletive] to do with their lives than sit through pathetic play.

I can understand someone being a fair weather fan to Packers/Pats/Ravens/Colts/Steelers and then just jump ship right before they start sucking. Bears in the past 14 years don't have that kind of track record. Fair weather fans also aren't gonna go to the Jags/Raiders/Bucs/Lions/Bills either. Like you said, they been consistently close to .500 for a lot of those years. They're not bad enough for fair weather fans to abandon them because their worst was 7-9 (which isn't even that bad) in the past 10 year and not consistently good enough to attract them. 2005/2006 was the last time they won 9 or more games in back to back seasons then you have to go back to 94/95 for the next time they did that. One way I can see it is if you're not really a fan of NFL so you don't watch it much and you're from around Chicago or your family are Bears fan so you'll watch them when they're good and don't care when they're bad because you're not a fan of pro football anyway. Maybe it's just where I'm at. I don't hear things like "Oh I'm a Bears fan this year because they're good! or Bears suck so I'm a ____ fan now". Then all the Colts fans around here didn't jump ship when they went 2-14 in 2011 or went with Peyton and became Broncos fans. I don't think anybody admits to being a fair weather fan, or says the things you say you haven't heard said. The fact is the Bears have been good at times over the past several years, which will draw in "casual" fans, but they have also disappointed quite a bit, which will drive those fans away. Either way, this started when people talked about fans not showing up to games and I have no idea why somebody would be surprised about empty seats at Soldier Field. Fans hold onto season tickets because they want to be there when they are good, and some don't show up when things look bleak. Life happens.

Chris Kuc ‏@ChrisKuc 19s20 seconds ago Keep this in mind about #Blackhawks' moves: Some likely procedural as they manage salary cap. More moves to come in next day or so. Chris Kuc ‏@ChrisKuc 30s31 seconds ago #Blackhawks recall Stephen Johns and Antti Raanta from Rockford of AHL. Reassign Joakim Nordstrom and Scott Darling to Rockford.

volatile real estate market and the difference in upgrades to the buildings, plus the potential that other properties not related to Wrigley Field are involved? Those are all obvious reasons that still seem like a stretch to account for $12M difference per building (a 200% markup). Height of the market in 2008 until now might make for what 50% difference generously if all else was the same? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Houston and Directv created a new network. http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2014/11/root-sports-southwest-on-the-air-airs-rockets-game-tonight/#28475101=0

volatile real estate market and the difference in upgrades to the buildings, plus the potential that other properties not related to Wrigley Field are involved?

I don't get what that means. It would seemingly be very easy to be a fair weather Bears fans. I think he means, that how is he still a fan if he's just fairweather? The Bears have had more bad seasons than they've had good seasons. AKA where is the "fair" weather part that makes him a fan to begin with. They haven't had many great seasons, but they've won more than most over the past decade. They've been in a Super Bowl, another conference championship and despite only one other playoff appearance, they were in playoff contention very late almost every season. They haven't finished more than 1 game under .500 since 2004. That seems like an opportunity to have lots of fans get excited about things looking good and then abandoning them at their worst.

Probably doesn't help that he mostly hit 6th and 7th and the Cubs 8 hole spot had the 2nd lowest production while their 7 spot production was better but due largely to Castillo's own 900 OPS hitting there. Most of the time he had really bad hitters coming up behind him.