Ryne Ween

Jordan Spieth not really getting the love he deserves. Dudes 20 and is unquestionably one the best players in the world. The guys on the cut line are 7 back of the pentultimate group so i think everybody has a chance still, including rory and rose. Jimmy walker has 3 wins on tour in the last 6 motnhs and 3 wins on the web tour, I could see him breakng through. I just dont see Bubba holding a lead. Hes just not that kinda player. He got run-down at TPC scottsdale. Will be pulling for Couples but wont be able to deal with a Turberry-like heartbreak this week.

If framing is as real as people are pretending to think it is catchers who are great at framing should be getting double what miguel cabrera got because their impact on the game dwarfs that of any other player.

Of all the fads I think this framing one is the most irritating.

The Pacers are getting beat 57-23 at home vs ATL. They must be asleep or something. Bad day for the Knicks.

They could issue preferred shares and have a call provision that would allow them to repurchase the shares at a negotiated price. I dont know how attractive an investment this will be, but there are ways for them to do this in a way that wouldnt dilute their ownership any more than the City or State financing. I honestly believe that we can look at this step as a positive. And honestly nice that TR doesnt appear to be bullheaded if he actually was willing to be creative like this.

Id go to a bunch of fire games I they played at wrigley too bad. Maybe he could do a sale lease back for 100 years and require the buyer to do the renovations themselves. By the time the lease runs up tom and everybody he loves will be dead and perhaps by then the fabric of life will change to the point that these concerns are trivial. Are there Cubs in Divergent or did nobody think to ask?

Can they get the Fire to play at Wrigley? Is it big enough? Can it be made big enough?

The whole reason the rooftops are good is because they are actually really good corporate outing venues. They just are. Entertaining clients in a box, nobody watches the games anyway. So not being able to see the action is not a big deal when you have room to not be cramped, and an open air outside slash indoor venue. It just works really well in that purpose. Also bachelor parties or big group outings work pretty well on a rooftop. Nobody can afford a mezz suite for that stuff and the batters eye is absolute trash. 100 a head for 4 hours all you can punish is a pretty good deal on the rooftops. The rooftops have no leverage. The cubs could render them valueless in a few years when the agreement is up. Everybody knows this. The situation with this group of rooftop owners did not work and the deal they signed was a bad one. Ok they get another bite at the apple. The rooftops can be a huge positive for the cubs. Find a way to get a mutually beneficial agreement with a new owner. It shouldn't be that hard. The rooftop owners need a retirement check and they know that the clock is ticking on their business. Get one of your rich philanthropy pals to make them a good offer under he understanding the cubs will sign a new evergreen deal with the new owner provided the signage concessions are made up front and a fair percentage of the bottom line is remitted to the team. Ask for 40mln up front and that will amortize off the split of the bottom line. In turn te cubs could do a ton to make the rooftops more profit ale with their cooperation. Players can stop by before the game or after. Give the rooftop ticket holders a tour of the field. They really aren't direct competitors. You dont get a baseball experience in the rooftop and you don't get the wrigley experience. The rooftops are good at the one thing wrigley sucks at. Skybox stuff.

If you are theo Epstein. The premier non-athlete in all of sports, would you not do a little due diligence on the financial viability of the franchise you agree to run? I don't know what to say because I refuse to believe that they have no money. But if that's been the problem the whole time than absolutely please sell a minority stake. That would be great they could have some cash and start the renovations yay. Hopefully the minority investor doesn't want to own a team that sucks ass. Why is this in the paper? How is this in the paper? Does the media just guess at stuff like this and run with it. Something like this they don't tell a lot of people until it's done. Like 3 people in the organization would know about it and an investment bank the buyer and a couple lawyers. Maybe 20 total people would know about this and 15 of them are people who do these transactions as part of their job and wouldn't leak it to Kaplan. So how is this out there. Personally I don't buy it. My solution if they have a money problem is to source a very rich person or group to buy the rooftops with the understanding of where the planned signage needs to be and changes around the park. Get a friendly operator in there. Let them put up signage let them do whatever. Tell them that Baez will come around and shake everybodies hands and hour before first pitch. Send Kerry Wood around and Dempstrt will do impressions and Clark will fly around in a hot air balloon and land in the rooftop. Make the rooftops a good thing for everybody. There is so much money out there private equity money or rich dude money with no home right now. Source a friendly buyer.

Double

No. Hypothetical was: with the benefit of hindsight would you agree that a plan that requires historically bad baseball for nearly a decade and results in a WS is a good plan.

Well, it's been four years since "Nobody knows where the puck is ... it's in the back of the net!" and it still feels pretty darn good. I am not a fan of hockey at all. Was not alive for the 85 Bears and the Bulls were winning before I knew what it meant so I was sort of water birthed into a championship environment. So i dont know. But to me you sound like a sox fan talking about 2005 and I simply dont believe that it still feels good.

How long do you expect the joy of a championship to last? They are still trying to fire Tom Coughlin. I think you guys have unrealistic expectations for how great a championship would make you feel versus taking four or five full seasons of baseball, literally hundreds and hundres of potentially meaningful and enjoyable baseball games, and destroying them as a source of entertainment in order to MAYBE better position the team for a World Series. My contention is that a World Series is not worth this. In other words even if this thing is successful its not successful. Don't a lot of you guys have season tickets. I can't imagine how pissed I'd be if I was pourin thousands of dollars into Theo and Tom's grand experiment.

I have an honest question for you folks. Especially those who are supportive of the long-term plan. Considering they are leveraging the entire franchise on a handful of promising young prospects whose MLB impact is far from certain; at what point is a world series championship not enough? How many years of this bs is too many for a world series to cure it? Is it 7 years? Infinity years? This is year 3 for Epstein. How many more years of sub 80 wins is too many for you?

Looks liek we spilt so we should get the tiebreaker. Apropos to our spirited Ben Wallace HOF debate. Mitch Richmond just got into the HOF. That means the 37 win 1990 GSWs had 3 HOFers in their primes (4 if Timmy Hardaway gets in) coached by the great HOFer Don Nelson. Thats a disapointing season from a legendary roster.

#BeastsoftheEast Is conference record the tiebreaker? We have a nice edge over the Raps, there.

Is Evan Turner that bad for a team?

Yea I don't know what has gotten into the Pacers. When I posted that they held a 3 game lead on the Heat with 10 or so games left. They are not playing well now. I want that matchup badly. Also Toronto and Brooklyn are both playing well. Hopefully at least will push the Heat enough to force Wade to play and further wear down.

Well the original statement was a response to somebody being pissed that we may have drafted a Ben Wallace at the no. 9 pick. I stand behind the fact he will get serious consideration or get in. I could go through and get 10 guys in the hall that Wallace is definitely better than. As for Noah, he's a really good player but his defense and rebounding are not as good as Wallace who was among the best all time at both. Noah's marginally improvements in offense is not close to the downgrade in other areas. You may not have been watching Wallace's effect on the games and just how incredible he was.

Im perscribed a few things, yes./

I dont think i directed that at Tim who more or less agreed with the premise of the Ben Wallace HOF thing. That comment was probably directed at whoever was using a couple PPG gave Noah an edge over Ben Wallace over an arbitrary selection of years. And yea, I shouldnt be inflammatory like that but of course anybody who thinks Noah is better than Wallace was is flat out wrong. And yes, we will probably get into the HOF.

Nate silver’s thing has a thing about how steals are worth the equivalent of 9 points. I disagree with the argument because Its exaggerated and leads him to an absurd conclusion but it’s interesting.

Last night really destroyed any hope of the Bulls gettin Indy in the second round. Pacers pretty much locked up the 1 seed and the Bulls have a fat easier schedule than the Raps down the stretch. I really would have loved to see that bulls pacers series though.

David West, Haslem and Birdman are my three least favorite pro athletes. All in this game.

Ya ok dude i was only 2 when that happened but my guess is that 190lbs Rodman from the late 80s would have had some problems with prime Shaq in the low block. George Mikan was a good player, but he could never have checked Tim Duncan amirite? About the same comparison as Wallace defending jordan in 1989 good call.