UMFan83

Please tell him that not every Cub fan dislikes him randomly and that we all appreciate him signing here because he wanted to be apart of a winning team even though it meant not starting, and he resigned expecting to start and we think its ridiculous that they are trying to trade him. But hypocritically, also ask him to cover a little more ground on the right side of the IF this year, and tell him to stop underhanding the ball to other fielders please.

I bought three Phillies tickets for a total of $2 from scalpers last year, and I regularly went to games for half of face value, so it is possible to take advantage of the ticket brokers. For the hard-to-get games, I have a friend who runs a company's IT department. He has access to so many computers that he can have 9000 or so Virtual Waiting Room windows open at once. He gets me bleacher tickets for the games I want (last year in groups of 6), and I repay him by giving him one ticket for each game. It works out to a $30-$40 premium for each game that way, but it's worth it to me, and he deserves some sort of compensation since he has to take the day off to buy tickets for me. It's really crazy how people don't realize how easy it is to get tickets for cheap with brokers. Brokers make all their money 1-5 hours before the game. By that point, even with 20-30 tickets left to sell, they've already made their intended profit. They then sell the rest of the tickets close to face if possible, but if you negotiate they will go way under face value. Even if they get $1 for the ticket, they are increasing their overall profit by that much. I've gotten 100 level tickets to see Roger Clemens pitch in a night game for $5. My friend even got a ticket to the first Boston game by waiting til the Bottom of the first for $30. My other friend and I got up at 6am in February to ensure ourselves tickets to the game, but he ended up sitting right next to us for basically the same we paid months ago. Believe it or not, this same philosophy has gotten me great tickets at Bulls games and even a Bears game (Got 2 club box seats with $250 face value each for a grand total of $50). The key here is never think that you can't get tickets to a game.

With not a lot of high demand games this year, I think the only tickets I'll be buying on 2/24 will be opening day against St. Louis, the Sunday Night game on 4/9 against St. Louis, one of the White Sox games, and the Nationals game we plan on meeting at. Other then that, I'd deal with the scalpers and buy them below face value again.

I hope this doesn't block foot traffic through the area with all the people tied up waiting in line to see the knot hole. What I don't get is why the Cubs are attempting to make historical quirky things when they already have the real thing that other ballparks try to emulate all the time

I never liked the name "Devil Rays", so I'm glad they are changing it. I also hate their color scheme, but I do like their road uniforms with the "TAMPA BAY" across it. I don't know what those late 90's teams were thinking (in all sports)

Actually, the Cubs have made the playoffs twice since MJ's last game as a Bull. The 1998 season which resulted in the Cubs getting the wild card came a few months after the Bulls final championship. Yeah yeah, I didn't count that because their season started when MJ was still a Bull, but also because I wanted to pad my "pathetic" stats. Edit: Also because techincally Phil, MJ, Pip and co. didn't start leaving until January 1999 because of the NBA lockout.

I wouldn't be suprised if the Cubs lost 90 games this year, but I don't really expect it to happen. I expect somewhere between 76-86 wins. I know thats a huge range, but honestly this year could be played out 1000 different ways with the team that they have

I am a Michigan fan and even I was upset at the crappy calls against MSU. However there were a couple of calls against UM too (Paul Davis slipping and Brown getting a foul without making contact), but its obvious Michigan was helped today. This is getting pathetic to watch the home court advantage extended by the refs

Michigan State @ Michigan tonight...should be a good matchup hopefully. Chrysler Arena doesn't really have a strong home court advantage however, and I bet 25% of the seats will goto MSU students. Michigan really needs this win to get into the rankings and shut up those damn MSU fans.

I'd take Syracuse because they seem to have the most storied history of the teams listed (in both Football and BBall), but for some reason, I dunno why but Mizzu seems like a Big 10 type of team.

I saw two positives about that season. First, it made the brass realize Seifert wasn't the right coach and they got Fox. Second, it put them in a position to draft Peppers. I think they're record that season is probably more misleading than almost any team ever. As you mentioned, they were competitive in just about every game until the last couple; they just couldn't catch the one break needed to get over the hump. It didn't surprise me one bit that they improved by six games the next season. Bad teams never do. See Green Bay: 2005

What is also interesting to note is that I expect that this will die down talks of the Trib selling the Cubs...at least until everything is operating and they are able to determine how much revenue their new outlet brings in for them.

Interesting - for me it looks like (only 3 teams here though): 4 playoff appearances (2 Panthers, 1 Bulls, 1 Cubs - .57 a year) 13 playoff wins (5 Panthers, 2 Bulls, 6 Cubs - 3.25 an appearance) 1 playoff series win (.5 per appearance by a series team) 1 championship round appearance (Panthers SB 38 ) 0 championships I've had it better than I complain about, I suppose. Only problem is, with Carolina's murderous schedule this year compared with the Cubs' mediocre offseason and the Bulls' young uns, it's probably going to be at least February 2008 before another pro team of mine wins the big one. But, like you said UMFan, MJ made it worth it. See I'd count the Panthers winning as a playoff series win. By that I meant advance to the next round (meaning that you aren't like most of my teams that are 1 and done - like the Bears, Blackhawks and Bulls are) Of course, none of my teams has has as bad of a season as the Panthers had in 2001 (1-15)

Nope, although no one can argue MJ's greatness, the reason I'm saying no is because it was amazing to see a team I cheer for dominate so long. I am a Bulls fan, not an MJ fan. In the 7 years since the dynasty ended the 4 Chicago teams I care about have combined for: 5 playoff appearences (1 Cubs, 2 Bears, 1 Blackhawks, 1 Bulls - .71 per year) 9 playoff wins (6 Cubs, 2 Bulls, 1 Blackhawks - 1.8 per appearence) 1 playoff series win (2003 Cubs - 0.2 per appearence) 0 championship round appearences 0 championships Pretty pathetic run, and I'd still take those years to have what we had from 91-98. Think about how many cities would die to have 1 title, much less to have a dynasty and one of the best players in the game all time play for you (I can think of Seattle and Cleveland off the bat)

From ESPN.com chat: Erik (East Lansing, MI) Jeremy, I have heard in froums and on sites like scout.com that TO has been meeting with officials in chicago, are the bears pursuing him, have u heard anything JEREMY GREEN That was not rue. The Bears/Jery Angelo did not meet with T.O. I do however think they will have some interest.

Fixed Fixed again

If that happened, their 2 best wins would be 1) Whichever ranked team they beat and 2) Miami, FL However, 1. Ill 2. Ind 3. Wis 4. OSU 5. Iowa 6. MSU 7. Michigan With the stregnth of the big 10, it will be easy to get 7 teams in, and I was worried about Minnesota until Big 10 play started.

Well then, I guess everyone is pretty indifferent about Michigan then. Damn I need more UM fans to come to this board....

What does everyone think about Michigan so far? They are 12-3 (2-2) and all three of their losses came in rather close games against ranked teams (7 pts to UCLA, 7 points AT Indiana, 5 points AT Illinois) Their best wins however are against the likes of Notre Dame and Miami and they only beat Purdue at Chrysler Arena by 3 points. For the most part, they have struggled against a lot of the teams that they beat. Is this team capable of beating the MSUs, Wisconsins, Ohio States, Iowas of the Big 10 (at home or away) and will this team be able to wade through a strong Big 10 on the way to their first NCAA Bearth since 1998? **This is where I speculate and ramble on** If they win all the games they should (which they have all year), that should give them 16 wins (at Min, at Penn State, at Purdue, vs. Min). I think 20 will be the magic number (along with a win at the Big 10 tournament), so they need to win 4 games with this schedule - vs. MSU, vs. Wisc, at Iowa, vs. OSU, at MSU, vs. Ill, at OSU, vs. Ind. Lets say they go 3-2 at their home games (Chrysler IMO does not have a strong home court advantage), that means they need to beat either Iowa, MSU or OSU on the road. Can they do this?

I'll do it again. Last year I was part of the 7 game winning streak ;)

Seriously, I would not be upset if the Bears traded up and drafted D'Brickashaw Ferguson. I have never wanted a player for him name this much since World B. Free

NSBB ::Premium:: Board (;)) Basketballboards.net Bulls Board Skyscrapercity.com Chicago Forum (good forum with civic discussions about Chicago) Thats about it

At least there will be something interesting going on in March. I usually get rather tired of Spring Training by the middle of March and just want the season to start.

Since the league went to 32 teams, the schedule works out very nicely. Here are the games the Bears will play every year: Home-and-home against division foes (6 games) Games against an NFC division (4 games, 2 home, 2 away) - 2006 is NFC West Games against an AFC division (4 games, 2 home, 2 away) - 2006 is AFC East Games against NFC teams that finished in the same place in their division as you (2 games, 1 home, 1 away) - 2006 is Tampa Bay, NY Giants This past year was NFC South, AFC North, San Francisco and Washington. I knew the other parts...forgot about that one...thanks. OK I got it, thanks for clarifying. I thought the NFL just really liked San Fran/Chicago matchups...

Has anyone seen the schedule next year? HOME AWAY 49ers Cardinals Seahawks Rams Bills Patriots Dolphins Jets Packers Packers Vikings Vikings Lions Lions Couple of oddities: Somehow it seems like we play the Buccaneers every year since they left for the NFC South. Is there a reason for that? And a HUGE oddity. Somehow we are slated to face the 49ers at home for the third consecutive year. We also played the Niners in 2003 in SF to start the season and in 2001 at home, making this the 5th time in 6 years we play our NFC West "rival", and the 4th in 6 at home...