UMFan83

JR should have stepped aside and let Jordan buy the team from him. And just to show even more loyalty, JR should probably have given him a nice deal too, because of all Jordan's done for the Bulls. And remember when Pip said he wanted to coach and the Bulls didnt take him seriously and hired VDN? Well they should have just hired Pippen on the spot when he made those quotes. Did Wade stop to consider that Johnny Kerr was the team's broadcaster for like 30 years, Norm Van Lier was a longtime pre and postgame commentator for Sportschannel/Fox Sports Chicago/CSN Chicago (while not directly affiliated with Bulls, I'm sure the Bulls had something to do with that), Bob Love still has a job with the organization, John Paxson was the radio color guy, then our GM and now a VP, Bill Cartwright was given a chance to be the coach, Scottie Pippen was resigned to finish his career in Chicago, Bill Wennington is the radio color guy, Pete Myers is a longtime assistant coach. I'm sure there are still some I am missing.

You can tell some of the hosts are really uncomfortable and it sounds forced when they bring up hockey. For instance Lawrence Holmes, he seems like he has to talk hockey and when he does, it's usually a very broad topic like "What does this Blackhawks run mean to you?" I'm not saying these people are apathetic to the playoff run, they just don't have as much expertise as others in talking hockry

Isn't it Lou's job to know stats like this?

oh im not saying i blame blackhawk fans at all. dollar bill did everything possible to alienate the fans. i'm just defending my team from accusations of bandwagoning - there really isn't much of that among flyers fans, certainly not as much as there has been with the sixers and phillies. the flyers have a fan base that's quite passionate, maybe it's not as big a base as the baseball and football teams, but it's there. the part that drives me crazy is that the local sports talk radio stations and other media treat the flyers like they're some niche team that nobody cares about. it's like they just discovered there's a hockey team in this city once the flyers made the conference finals. more people care about the flyers than the sixers and the flyers sell out almost every game, yet you turn on the radio this time of year and 90% of the talk is about which eagles are going to show up for mini-camp. when they do talk about hockey there's hardly any analysis whatsoever, the hosts just babble about how well michael leighton is playing and that laviolette has done an amazing job. thanks a lot. Wow that sounds exactly like Chicago sports talk radio. I love the Bears, I really do, but I am so not interested in hearing 2 hours of talk about Brian Urlacher's comments about Gale Sayers during the month of MAY, when there are 2 baseball teams playing, a basketball team rumored to get the best player in basketball, and the hockey team in the damn conference finals (at the time). Like the Flyers, the media started really talking about the Blackhawks when the conference finals came along. Before that it was sporadic talk at best for the rest of the playoffs.

People would start thinking that the Boston sports teams really did sell their soul to the devil to have the success they did in the 2000's. -The Patriots do not look the same as previous years, and lost a home playoff game in the first round. Tom Brady didn't look the same as pre-injury -The Bruins blew a 3-0 series lead for only the 4th time in North American sports history -The Celtics (hypothetically in this scenario) also blew a 3-0 series lead for 5th time in NA sports history. It's too bad the Red Sox got out of their early season funk or my theory would tie together.

Dammit Castro. Every time I think his ability to put the bat on the ball is going to be an advantage for the situation, he strikes out.

It was unfortunately hit just a tad too high and the wind got to it.

Dammit that almost went out. Oh well next best thing, both runs score, no out made, and batter ends up on 3rd. We're still in this.

I have no problem with wearing shirts that mock the opponent. But the rest of that, yeah. I just find it odd that you refer to the shirt as racist in the thread title, and then you ask if you are allowed to wear it. So you want to see if you can wear a racist shirt at Wrigley?

Posting so Keener can't delete his quadruple post.

I don't know any Philly fans personally, but this description definitely fits the ones I've come across online. blackhawk fans are probably not in a great position to talk about not paying attention until their team is good. Having the worst ownership in professional sports had a lot more to do with the not paying attention than the team being good. That's a good way to irk a Blackhawks fan. It's quite an ignorant statement to make without really knowing the uniqueness of the situation. I'm sure other team's fans feel the same way when their fans are called bandwagoners, but whatever I'm just telling you how it is from this side. And I'm not even saying I'm included in that group. You read my posts from 3 years ago and I readily admit I didn't watch very much of the Hawks a few years ago. I watched them all the time in the mid-90s, followed them through the 2000's but not very closely (part of that had to do with my moving to New England, I sort of had my own rebonding with my childhood teams at different times between the Cubs, Bears, Bulls). Everytime I tried to get back into the Blackhawks, I just couldnt stomach it. All I read about is beloved players leaving, bridges being burned, ticket prices rising while payroll was declining. I kept hearing about how they don't need to keep Amonte, we have Eric Daze now, or Alexi Zhamnov, or Tuomo Ruutu. After awhile, it made sense that their home games weren't on TV, they were unwatchable. Going to a Hawks game was seriously like going to a morgue. Yep, those are the jerseys that you saw growing up, it is nice to see them, but these Hawks are dead. I don't think anyone, whether it be the die hard fans, the fans that care about the team but aren't diehards, the casual fans, the media who ignored the team, etc wanted the Hawks to die. But at that point it was like "maybe its the best for everyone involved". As painful as it was, many people almost wanted to see the Blackhawks just end their misery and just die, so they could be remembered for what they were and not their current incarnation. Horrible sappy analogy, but the Hawks fan base was basically like a fire. At its peak it was mighty and powerful, but it was left unattened to and slowly died, until it was just a bunch of little flickers coming from the ashes. When Bill Wirtz died, and Rocky and McCub took over, it was basically like putting 2 new logs on, pouring lighter fluid on them, and relighting the flame.

http://deadspin.com/5548316/ozzie-guillen-has-no-sympathy-for-clevelanders http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/11/2010/05/500x_105879629.jpg http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/11/2010/05/500x_105878667.jpg

Absolutely I will. I love watching the World Cup.

Not a Bulls fan, Super Bowl XX was on my fourth birthday, Hull's title was before I was born, and WTH is Tampa Bay doing in there? I thought your post theme was "this is how things end for Chicago teams", so my response was "it doesn't always end that way". The Rays I put in there as a joke...it's them celebrating their ALDS victory over the White Sox.

Pierre LeBrun on the SCF (from a chat):

Buccigross picked the Flyers because his preseason Stanley Cup prediction was Flyers over Blackhawks and he wants to be right. He made that guess before the playoffs started? Heckuva guess just to get the teams right. I'm confused though. He picked Boston over Philly in round 2. No he made that pick back in September, before the season started. Which is actually less amazing just because the Flyers were supposed to be pretty good coming into the season.

Whats wrong with this Kyle?

Buccigross picked the Flyers because his preseason Stanley Cup prediction was Flyers over Blackhawks and he wants to be right.

At 35/1 I'm almost willing to just assume the risk that Toews will be hurt/ineffective and Hossa will be the best player on the team. NOT THAT I'M HOPING FOR THAT Yeah but again the Conn Smythe is MVP of the playoffs as a whole. If Toews was injured or ineffective, I think Niemi, Kane, Byfuglien, and Keith would be ahead of Hossa starting this series, with Sharp and Versteeg probably being in the same realm. I'm sure performance in the SCF is given higher regard than any of the other rounds, but not enough to suggest Hossa could jump over all those guys unless he had like 7 goals and 5 assists and pretty much willed the Hawks to victory in a couple of games. If Toews is injured to the point where he's no longer favorite, Niemi slumps, Buff diappears, I think it would be between Kane (who was quiet on the score sheet vs. SJ but solid in the first 2 rounds) and Kieth.

According to Weather.com, the average high in East Rutherford, NJ on February 3rd historically is 37 degrees. The average low is 22 degrees. The max high recorded is 56 degrees, and the max low is 1 degree. So if your really lucky, you might get 47/32 or something on that day. If you are unlucky, you might get 24/12 or something.

Not sure if you are joking, but Delaware is right next to Philly, and Wilmington (Delaware's biggest city) is pretty much a suburb of Philly.

I think those stupid groups from Iowa are more willing to research tickets ahead of time on stubhub, craigslist and ebay before buying them on gameday. And those prices are closer in line with full retail as opposed to heavily marked up. Are you trying to tell me they use computers in Iowa now?

They'd average a profit of like $1.25 a ticket in that instance, that's not the most worthwhile use of time. No but big time scalpers sell in high volume and usually sell Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks, concerts, etc in addition to Cubs (although Cubs sales probably bring the most income). It would certainly be a down year, but considering the team is actively trying to win, they know its in their best interests to keep buying Cubs tickets to sell. If they get another year like 2008, they hit the jackpot.

Someone is always going to scalp tickets if they are in demand. Even if the secondary market has dried up so far this season, they will definitely be making their money back in the summer preying on ignorant groups of people from Iowa who assume that every Cubs game is sold out and they come prepared to pay the scalper double face value to enter Wrigley. This is especially true on weekends. Just a rough estimate but if they sell 33% of their tickets for 150% of face, and the other 66% they sell for 80% face value, they are close to profit territory.

Those monthly splits are a little misleading because he went into May red hot and then really cooled off after 5-6 games in May. First 5 games of May: .438/.571/.813/1.384, 7-16, 4 XBH, 3 2B, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 5 BB, 4 R, 1 K, 0 GIDP Last 14 games of May: .081/.244/.081/.326, 3-37, 0 XBH, 0 RBI, 8 BB (nice!), 2 R, 14 K, 3 GIDP