Gmoney08

Sort of answered your own question there, didn't you? Sure I can do a vast research project on it if I'd like, but some guys here might already be pretty in tune to what is going on with the Ricketts. I could also just look up all the Random Cubs musings, or the thread Cubs Prospects in the news, but I'd rather discuss it with fellow Cubs fans. Not to mention some people may be more connected to information with more details than a random blurb in fortune that the family wealth is up, down, or neutral.

Does anybody know how the Ricketts wealth portfolio is doing besides for the Cubs situation. I know he started InCapital? (might be mispelled) Are they still involved with TD Ameritrade? Any other interesting companies they own or run? Any good, bad, or significant news about his other companies over the last few years? Whats a current snapshot of Toms and the family's wealth right now? I'm just curious to hear more about the family than #PoorTomRicketts... (although it does seem to be incredibly accurate right now). Obviously this is a pretty detailed question to ask about another person but typically the super wealthy, and especially billionaires wealth information can be fairly easy to find. Plus its typically reported on by Forbes and Fortune, etc.

Doesn't this process of team building lead to higher variation from year to year and make it more difficult to build any sort of sustained success? The opposite, I think. If you have stars and scrubs and a star goes in the tank or gets hurt, then you're more or less screwed. With "no bad players" that risk is distributed across a larger pool. Of course, I think there's a little bit of a difference in perception too. No bad players doesn't mean no good/great players. The A's got an MVP season from Donaldson and had 4 players above 3.5 fWAR(Cubs had 0), plus they had an elite bullpen and platooned the bejeezus out of people. I think no bad players allows you to stay in the race every year and prevent horrible seasons. It also allows for flexibility in terms of which players from the outside they can target, whereas black hole positions force you to address specific players. Diversification of Risk...

Adults; everyone did their drinking the weekend before. Yeah, sure, I did my drinking. Halloween on Thursday sucks. Every party and/or night out does it the weekend before, but then there are kids costume things all week long, and there will be carryover into the weekend. Anyway, it's a perfectly reasonable night to schedule a potential game 7. Its a terrible night for it - either you're out with the kids or you have to keep answering the damn door. Most adults aren't 20-25 without kids btw. Trick or Treating hours are so damn early now though.. wasnt that pretty much over by the time of the first pitch?

He's busy being drunk. He was too busy looking up the Cubs wOBA and the defensive pbp to drink last night. And now he's dead of alcohol poisoning...

My high school team was 90% absolute baseball nerds. Some might be more of historian trivia nerds than others but all of them pretty much were huge MLB fans and lived the game. I went to a huge school though and most the team were only baseball players (highly specific athletes at the school compared to smaller schools). I guess I could see going to a small school where its the same kids on the baseball, basketball, and football team, and some of them dont necessarily live baseball though. My school was relatively small for the conference, but 1600 kids led to plenty of supply. This was the early 90's and baseball was well into its ebb away from being the sport that kids followed. This was also the suburbs of Chicago. Cardenas went to school in Florida and time has shown us that nobody in Florida cares about professional baseball. The first problem in everything is always Florida.

He forgot the part to celebrate that Koji cant open his eyes and that they lost with dignity because Ortiz is a gorilla. That was the main Cardinals fan narrative.

That makes me way too happy. Maybe they will have to amputate it ;)

My high school team was 90% absolute baseball nerds. Some might be more of historian trivia nerds than others but all of them pretty much were huge MLB fans and lived the game. I went to a huge school though and most the team were only baseball players (highly specific athletes at the school compared to smaller schools). I guess I could see going to a small school where its the same kids on the baseball, basketball, and football team, and some of them dont necessarily live baseball though.

That was, indeed, an interesting read. But... How can you grow up with a love of the game, surrounded by nothing but people who live the sport, and not know this? I think it makes a lot of sense that somebody would love playing a sport but not know where one team played during the Eisenhower Administration. He wasn't "surrounded by nothing but people who live the sport", considering he said his parents knew nothing about baseball. He knew who Wally Pipp was though?

Well, to be fair, it is (seemingly, at least) much harder to be and stay a healthy major league starting pitcher than it is to be an everyday position player. Isnt there a difference in durability as well.. Edwards durability isnt tied just to not being injured. Its also being durable enough to go deep into games without losing your stuff, and being able to pitch 200+ innings without losing a little zip on your pitches. That being said is there any evidence supporting shorter pitchers not being durable. I know you see these guys in the bullpen usually but is it just that alot of the shorter guys cant go as deep into games? If its purely injury wise, then I dont understand. Seems like tons of 6'5 flame throwers tear their arms up every year.

Your spotted one run on a race to two (the minimum for a multirun inning). This is a pretty tough choice... Or, you can have a man on 1B with 0 runs yet produced, with the ability to be picked off, caught stealing, doubled up, or thrown out going for the extra base. Not to mention pretty much any sequence of events that happens with the hitters hitting 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, etc in that inning that produce two runs in out of a leadoff walk would assuredly produced a second run had the leadoff homer took place instead.

Well then your arguing over two different things. Your verbiage is wrong, not our fault? If you meant Rizzo cant be your best bat, your "main stick," your Sultan of Swat, your number 1 OPS hitter on a championship team.... then why didnt you say that? Most here would probably agree we will likely need to get a bat or few that are better than Rizzo. But, when you use a term like middle of the order and whine because people argue effectively he could be a decent middle of the order guy, it is your fault for not using the proper words. Rizzo can definitely be a decent 4, 5, 6 hitter on a championship team. Hopefully he reaches that potential.

That would be a very cool spot. You could position it so left field allows homers to be hit into the Chicago river, a view of the railroad tracks, and an amazing view of the Chicago skyline.

That's an incredibly old story. It doesn't sit all that great with me but it's not really a big deal. I never understood why this was a big deal. I bet you this happens every year. Even if it doesn't, them buying tickets doesn't mean they don't care about the result, or are resigned to losing. It just means they are planning ahead. I'm sure they wanted nothing more than to cancel those tickets. I'm not outraged by it like some meatball fans would be. I just dont understand the point. They could have got tickets the next day either way without reserving them before game 7. And what the hell is Sammy Sosa doing to his skin and hair. I'm all for retiring Sammys number and I think the Roid monsters should be in the baseball hall of fame. But, looking at Sammy like that makes me cringe and less inclined to want to retire his number.

Moises and Aramis reserved there flights home after game 6. Kind of a lame thing to do. http://www.csnchicago.com/cubs/moises-alou-answers-all-nonstop-questions-about-2003-cubs

Yeah, forget the stupid Playoff Series That Shall Not Be Named. The real hurt is how amazingly horrifying the last decade has been when *everything* seemed to be pointing up. Some of it was bad management, but a lot of it has been flat-out bad luck. Most of it was bad management. If Prior, Wood, Zambrano, and Guzman stay healthy we could have batted the janitor 3rd and Neifi cleanup and still ended up with a couple rings.

http://images.wikia.com/epicrapbattlesofhistory/images/3/32/Crying-black-man-o.gif

I want Connie Mack!

Cant Ricketts just fund someone from NSBB's campaign to become the new Alderman and replace Tunney? Or make Sammy Sosa the new Alderman, that would be great.

Hell of a swing..

Well I highly doubt they are hiring him just to be the manager for next year. Dont you think this might be a longterm approach where the guy they hire may manage in 2015, or 2016 when Theo is eyeing to hopefully be a contender. By your thinking we could just say well the team is going to suck next year anyways why not just make Starlin Castro player manager. Hell with it they are going to suck.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/rankings/top-100-prospects/all-time/#2002 2. Prior 6. Cruz 40. Choi 45. Kelton 48. Hill 68. Jackson 80. Zambrano Where is Andy Sisco?!

Thats just not true. Talent rises to the top. I played at one of the top baseball programs in the state (ranked nationally multiple years) and I'm friends with alot of the top HS and travel coaches. Plenty of talented Rec kids or kids from partial travel teams or inferior travel teams end up making the HS teams over fulltime travel kids every year. One HS coaches could care less what travel program your kid came from as an 8th grader, the varsity coaches dont care who you are till maybe freshmen year but more often then not until you prove something on the sophomore level (whether its as a freshman or a sophomore). The varsity coaches also know that a good percentage of these travel teams are ran by dads who created the team just to get many times his inferior son in travel ball, or to get his inferior son off some other dads travel team that wasnt playing his kid alot. There is so much travel talent that comes to high school each year that truth be told they werent even better than the top Rec players or the small time travel players when they were 11, let alone now at age 14 and 15. These kids think oh well i played travel so I'm a guarantee starter on the freshman team and then end up cut from the team because of better kids who either didnt have the money to play travel ball, didnt want to play travel ball, or were just late bloomers.

Part of the reason Almora being on the taxi squad I'm thinking is because of the recovering groin injury. They want to get him AB's but they also dont want him to rush into a ton of games and hurt himself again.. The Wednesday and Saturday schedule of games is about damn near perfect for that.