UMFan83

Cubs won the World Series 2 killer offensive rebounds by Oregon that shouldn't have happened. Though when we took the 3 point lead with 2 mins left it was ours but just couldn't score those last 2 points. Tomorrow I'll be thrilled with the season but tonight I'm going to lament letting that one slip away Oh and Cubs won world series

That's actually kind of a rabbit hole I never thought of. How different the franchise would be today if the Cubs had won it in 03. Does the Tribune still sell the Cubs? If so, does the Ricketts family still buy them if they didn't have the historic drought anymore? Does the Trib Co authorize the spending spree that basically gave us 2 division titles in 07-08? Obviously its much less likely that Theo comes on board, etc etc etc You could make a fairly solid case that the Game 6 collapse was indirectly a net positive for the franchise. Because they got so close and lost an entire generation of Cub fans became thirsty for the elusive championship, attendance skyrocketed, increased fan interest and enthusiasm created the level of accountability that the Cubs didn't have to deal with as much in the past. (this is where it starts to become a stretch) There were a lot of other factors at play, but this increased demand probably played some small part in the value of the Cubs franchise increasing. Perhaps this value increase made it more attractive for the Trib to sell off when Zell and Co were going through bankruptcy, causing them to open the checkbook and bring a bunch of veterans in which led to 2 fun playoff seasons but no long term vision. Once that run ended the Cubs were baren of young talent leading to a situation where a large market team with a historic championship drought basically had to start from scratch. Enter Theo who was looking for a situation like the Cubs and the rest is history. You make it sound like losing game 6 caused attendance to go up. Attendance rises following playoff runs, because fans initially doubt the success as the year begins but the year after a run (99, 04, 08, 16) the excitement is there at the beginning and attendance goes up. There's no doubt in my mind that the Tribune still sells after WS victory. They were in a financial situation that demanded liquidation of non-core assets. The only question is if the new buyer would have held onto Hendry any longer and/or not gone after Theo & Co. I'd bet very heavily that a post 2003 WS appearing and maybe winning team would have been no better off by the time the team would have been sold, because of Hendry's terribly inefficient way of valuing hitting. They would have sold the team, the team would have been bad and the new owner would feel lots of pressure to make management changes. Losing game 6 didn't gain the Cubs anything. Fair rebuttal. The one thing I will say about attendance is that it did make a leap after 2004 but it looks like the trend really started after 1998. Before that they would hover around the 2.1m mark, 2.4ish if they had a good year. Between 98-2002 they were in a 2.6-2.8m range. In 2004, they started a run of 8 straight years over 3 million on attendance. Can you really attribute that to long term increased demand following a near miss title run and not a) general sports attendance trends, b) wrigley expanding bleachers and overall capacity, c) other things like better marketing, etc? Probably not all the way. My opinion was probably also shaped by my world view as the Cubs became a much bigger thing in my life in 2003 so to me it might have seemed like there was an increase in overall interest in the Cubs when it was only the standard marginal boost after a playoff run.

Yeah. Ultimately for the long-term future of the franchise, it's better that we won it under Theo/Jed than we would have been if we won a "lightning in a bottle" title under Hendry like the White Sox did, but there will always be a part of me that loves the 03 and 07/08 teams and wishes they would have won. That's actually kind of a rabbit hole I never thought of. How different the franchise would be today if the Cubs had won it in 03. Does the Tribune still sell the Cubs? If so, does the Ricketts family still buy them if they didn't have the historic drought anymore? Does the Trib Co authorize the spending spree that basically gave us 2 division titles in 07-08? Obviously its much less likely that Theo comes on board, etc etc etc You could make a fairly solid case that the Game 6 collapse was indirectly a net positive for the franchise. Because they got so close and lost an entire generation of Cub fans became thirsty for the elusive championship, attendance skyrocketed, increased fan interest and enthusiasm created the level of accountability that the Cubs didn't have to deal with as much in the past. (this is where it starts to become a stretch) There were a lot of other factors at play, but this increased demand probably played some small part in the value of the Cubs franchise increasing. Perhaps this value increase made it more attractive for the Trib to sell off when Zell and Co were going through bankruptcy, causing them to open the checkbook and bring a bunch of veterans in which led to 2 fun playoff seasons but no long term vision. Once that run ended the Cubs were baren of young talent leading to a situation where a large market team with a historic championship drought basically had to start from scratch. Enter Theo who was looking for a situation like the Cubs and the rest is history.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/bears-sign-returnerrunning-back-benny-cunningham/ Interesting signing (Benny Cunningham)

That is super super annoying

Enjoyable read. Lilly was awesome, glad Hendry's heart held out long enough to close the deal and not kill him

Wow that sucks, I just heard a great interview with him on a podcast (dammit the name is escaping me) where he went into detail about his Bulls years and set straight some misconceptions. RIP Was it the Woj vertical one? Someone on RealGM posted it http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1541836&p=53689708#p53689708 yeah thats the one thanks

Wow that sucks, I just heard a great interview with him on a podcast (dammit the name is escaping me) where he went into detail about his Bulls years and set straight some misconceptions. RIP

http://www.espn.com/blog/chicago/cubs/post/_/id/43437/jason-heywards-swing-makeover-did-it-actually-work Basically Jesse talked to rival scouts, all except 1 were pessimistic about Jason's swing and most said its basically the same. We will see...

I'm only down 3 E8 teams, and it would only be 2 (Nova and Duke) if I hadn't gone full blind homer and put ND there. Nova was my runner-up, so that's a problem. Oddly enough, I haven't missed a single game yet in the Midwest region, which juxtaposes nicely with the complete mess I have going in the East. yeah my midwest was 100% perfect until i went anti-homer and took louisville over Michigan and into the final 4. whoops. Other than that every single game has been correct so far, although i have purdue beating kansas this weekend so we will see how that goes :)

Geez, I suspect many are in this boat but went from 28/32 in the first round with 15 of my Sweet 16 teams, and all of my E8, F4, NC teams left to... 8 of 16 sweet 16 teams 4 of 8 elite 8 teams 2 of 4 final 4 teams luckily i still have both my NC game participants, but so hopefully not a lot of people in my pool had Gonzaga and Kentucky in their NC game

Quietly, I started to doubt Beilein this year after calling people stupid for doing that for the previous year. I'm saying this now because I'm owning it, I was wrong, I was dumb, Beilein is a demi-god.

Could just be one of those inconsistent relievers who gets it and loses it and then 5 years later you think "remember when that Derek turnbow guy was a dominant reliever?" Of course turnbow was never as dominant as Rondon has been, just the first example I could think of.

Are you saying you have the scoop or you're just assuming they make the wrong choice I'm pretty sure I know who it is. All over twitter now. It's underwood from ok state. Omg several years of dealing with what I saw yesterday is completely scary. Dude is a school jumper though, 1 year at OK State and he's gone again

Are you saying you have the scoop or you're just assuming they make the wrong choice

Why are the Cubs still tweeting about their stupid former backup catcher?

Seems like everyone has great brackets this year probably because the lack of major upsets. Only 5 double digit seeds advanced. MTSU and Wichita St were favored, not sure but Xavier might have been favored over Maryland too, URI over Creighton was a popular upset pick. Only USC over SMU was any level of surprising but even that isn't that shocking. I'm 28-4 and lost only SMU from sweet 16. I think this weekend might kill a lot of those nice looking brackets. The games I lost: Princeton missed last second 3 to win, SMU missed last second shot to win, Seton Hall got screwed by iffy flagrant call in a 1 point game and Marquette blown out by South Carolina #noonecaresaboutyourbracket

The crazy thing about that dong was that it didn't even look like Schwarber got all of it

That was a terrible flagrant call And I don't feel like I can comment on that UM game yet. My heart is still trying to get back down to resting rate.

whoops

My favorite underrated Schwarber moment was his first AB in Game 7 right after Fowler's homer. The dude gets an IF hit and after he stops running up the line, looks at a group of Cubs fans in the first rows, lifts his leg and bends his knee several times with a huge smile on his face. Then the dude steals second base. 7 months after tearing his ACL and LCL. horsefeathering awesome. The IF hit and showing off his repaired knee to the crowd: [bbvideo=560,315] [/bbvideo] Link to SB (cant find on youtube) [bbvideo=560,315]http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/63106348/v1211009683[/bbvideo] Sorry to steal your thunder bukie, just really loved that moment

Derwood entering something without any prior knowledge or expertise? I simply do not believe it

Quick, get a job with Berkshire Hathaway and make your start date retroactive to March 15th. I was 15-1, with my one loss picking Princeton to beat ND which was one made 3 away from happening.