Sammys Boombox

On the lightning/tornado game. I was there on my honeymoon...

Every time the Cubs lose to somebody other than the Cardinals I like to think that we improved the chances of the Cardinals not playing in October.

That was fun.

I'm not trying to be a smartass, but are you surprised by this? I had much better luck last year. I was selling mine at face value almost every game up until about July. This year has been really bad so far. No, not surprised. The wife and I thought long and hard before buyin them again this year. Still, it's much worse than last year.

I am taking an absolute beating on the resale market. Anybody else having any luck at all?

I wish I shared you optimism. I got 79 wins...

Royals looked good today :good: Haha. Yeah. I love how 610 and 810 were both spazzing out 36 hours ago. "What if they come back to the K and are 1-5 and Hochevar gets booed during player intros! Oh, the horror!" A lot of my friends were freaking out, theyre conditioned to expect the worst I guess. I'm stoked for the Toronto series next weekend though. I generally hate sports radio here. They rarely have intelligent baseball discussions. Toronto series should be fun. Hopefully they win another in Philly and pound on the Twins before Toronto gets here.

Royals looked good today :good: Haha. Yeah. I love how 610 and 810 were both spazzing out 36 hours ago. "What if they come back to the K and are 1-5 and Hochevar gets booed during player intros! Oh, the horror!"

Yeah, win or lose these games have been mostly tedious. I've been forcing myself not to switch the MLB.tv to another game.

This season is going to be so boring. This lineup is awful.

On Monday and today: Cubs pitchers not named Marmol 16.2 IP 3 H, 3 BB. Cubs pitchers named Marmol: 0.1 IP 4 H 2 BB. Edit after the miracle: Cubs pitchers not named Marmol: 16.2 IP, 3 H, 3 BB, 0 ER. Cubs pitchers named Marmol: 1.1 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 3 ER.

This is what I think as well. I don't think the ad cost the Cubs any money, but if it did I'm not upset with the Cubs. I'd be upset with Rahm.

What counts as a win here? Every other team gets public funding and we were looking like we were heading that direction too, until the Joe Ricketts crap came out. For that reason alone, its already a loss, isn't it? Negotiating win against Tunney? Thats not a win for me. Beating our chest because we're the business that keeps everything else booming and they're allowing us to fund everything ourselves while capitalizing bigtime from us? Sorry, but the minute the 150 mill public funding waived bye-bye, the chance for a win waved bye-bye too. Most teams can manage to get help, but we couldn't. Loss. It shouldn't matter how off the wall Joe Ricketts' ads were. Rahm should be doing what is best for the city not using city funding to slap a business owner on the wrist because they don't like their dad's choice of presidential candidate and made a stupid ad. Rahm believed that giving that money for the renovation was either good or bad for the city before the ad came out. That ad should not have changed his opinion. If that ad truly cost the Cubs renovation money then be mad at Rahm, not Ricketts. Can you really be upset with the Ricketts because they apparently aren't playing dirty Chicago politics? Sure it would be great for the team if they could get public funding to improve their stadium, but it looks to me like A) nobody was going to get that money from the city or B) nobody was going to get that money honestly or ethically from the city. The Ricketts are victims of Chicago politics. You can't blame the landmark issues that were contrived in 2004 by Tunney to protect the people giving him some sort of kickbacks on Ricketts. You can't use the fact that every other team gets funding to knock the Ricketts. No other team has the ridiculous restrictions placed on them by their municipal government. That was done before the Ricketts bought the team. Oh come on. Should? What does "should" have to do with political reality? If business owners cannot operate under the obvious political constraints in place then they aren't good business owners. Outside of buying Rahm/Tunney, how do you know that any other owner would have been able to receive public funding from the city?

What counts as a win here? Every other team gets public funding and we were looking like we were heading that direction too, until the Joe Ricketts crap came out. For that reason alone, its already a loss, isn't it? Negotiating win against Tunney? Thats not a win for me. Beating our chest because we're the business that keeps everything else booming and they're allowing us to fund everything ourselves while capitalizing bigtime from us? Sorry, but the minute the 150 mill public funding waived bye-bye, the chance for a win waved bye-bye too. Most teams can manage to get help, but we couldn't. Loss. It shouldn't matter how off the wall Joe Ricketts' ads were. Rahm should be doing what is best for the city not using city funding to slap a business owner on the wrist because they don't like their dad's choice of presidential candidate and made a stupid ad. Rahm believed that giving that money for the renovation was either good or bad for the city before the ad came out. That ad should not have changed his opinion. If that ad truly cost the Cubs renovation money then be mad at Rahm, not Ricketts. Can you really be upset with the Ricketts because they apparently aren't playing dirty Chicago politics? Sure it would be great for the team if they could get public funding to improve their stadium, but it looks to me like A) nobody was going to get that money from the city or B) nobody was going to get that money honestly or ethically from the city. The Ricketts are victims of Chicago politics. You can't blame the landmark issues that were contrived in 2004 by Tunney to protect the people giving him some sort of kickbacks on Ricketts. You can't use the fact that every other team gets funding to knock the Ricketts. No other team has the ridiculous restrictions placed on them by their municipal government. That was done before the Ricketts bought the team.

If this renovation deal turns out favorable for the Cubs will any of you no voters change to yes voters?

Back when the MLB.tv ran through Quicktime on Mac that was pretty good. Reliability got worse, in my opinion, when they took that option away. However, streaming on the PS3 seems to be pretty reliable with a good connection. I just upgraded to 18 Mbps for the season. I'm pretty excited.

The game was on last night here in KC. I was pretty excited to see the Rizzo/Crow matchup because I watched Crow in college and Rizzo in Des Moines. Rizzo had a pretty good reason to be upset about that AB. Crow was pitching him pretty well, and he was laying off some pretty good breaking balls. He swung over one of them but eventually worked the count to 3-1. He took a pitch well off the plate and maybe low for strike 2, then he checked his swing on 3-2, definitely did not go around and was wrung up by the 3B ump. Even in a ST game that sequence made me yell at the TV, which I have not done all spring.

If I were Ricketts I would have some sort of April Fools press release prepared, like the Cubs are moving to Carbondale or something.

IIRC on the WGN broadcast intro that day they did a mashup of each of his home runs with a big "40" scrolling across the screen. Although I don't remember this my mom tells the story about how we got home from school the day after his hand was broken and she told my brother and me that Sammy was out for the rest of the year and we both cried (7 and 8 years old at the time).

Got my email with the FedEx shipping at 9:20 this morning. Kind of weird that they're spread out like that.

For some reason I always remembered Sosa hitting his 40th HR after he had broken his hand. He did in fact bat twice after getting hit by the pitch, but did not reach base either time. He hit his 40th the day before.

How do you know when they're supposed to arrive? I haven't received anything from the Cubs about shipping my tickets. They emailed me last year ahead of time.

Furcal out for the year.

I'm no expert. I was just an ok high school hitter on a very good high school team with a very good coach, but I thought the goal was to make his swing more compact and not so long? The only compact swings I saw he was setting his foot down closer to the plate (closed finish) and was cutting off his power. The swings where it looked like he actually finished his swing and still had power were the swings that were not very compact (and supposedly the source of his K rate last season). These swings are not very consistent to me. The only thing that seems consistent is the beginning of the swinging motion looks similar to Rizzo's motion. Edit: It might help if I added the video link. http://www.bleachernation.com/2013/02/15/brett-jacksons-new-swing-in-action-video/ Keith Law's assessment. When you cut your power off by closing your stance you tend to roll your foot over. I want to believe in Jackson's performance in ST to this point, but I think once pitchers adjust to him again it could be even more ugly. He's going to see a heavy diet of pitches on the inside corner, or he'll move off the plate to compensate and will not be able to reach the outer half effectively. Again, no expert, and I would much rather be wrong and eat crow, but this is just what my untrained eye sees.

I have your same fears. I can practically see the Royals video board when I pull into my neighborhood. That board draws 50% of the fans' attention at all times, but there are some parks that do not do the garbage. I would argue that San Francisco was not distracted by the board whatsoever. Also, Detroit was not distracting when I went there in 2011, but they got a much nicer one for 2012 so I don't know. Also, it's been a few years since I've been to Cincinnati, but I remember the video board not being a distraction but a huge enhancement for the park. The video board at Yankee Stadium was not distracting. Minnesota isn't too bad.