Soul

This is horrid. Bye Bye chance at first place.

This game is rapidly turning from a sure W to a L. Nice job!

In the field he's starting to really hurt us. Now it's 4-2, due to Jock.

Holy MoFo, its all over the national news now. Whoa, terrible.

Some more camp photos. I'll stop now, this is most of the good ones the rest is pretty much riff raff http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/Urlacher1size.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/Robbie1size.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/Rex4size-1.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/Muhammed3size.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/Muhammed2size.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/Muhammed1size.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/Hester2size.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/Chris1size.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/Bernard1size.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/AlexBrown1size.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/robbie3size.jpg http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa250/soulschizm/offense2size.jpg

Can't argue it. It's sort of maddening though that Grossman never gets mentioned as the QB with the most 100+ QB ranking games last year, or that he was a huge reason we won in overtime against Seattle. People just see his bad games. Even worse, Romo puts up 5 stinkers/marginal games in a row and it never gets mentioned. There's bias at work here, and even though I realize we shouldn't let it get to us, it's still ridiculous.

My goodness, where to start... 1) Lance Briggs has never, ever, ever been a poison in the locker room. Suggesting he will be, even after the warm welcome he received on his first practice day, is completely ridiculous. 2) New Orleans has lingering question marks too. Like how about that defense, which got completely and totally obliterated by our terrible QB and his horrible offense?? 3) Tank Johnson's gone...........and replaced by a superior DT. Contributors Ian Scott and Alfonso Boone are gone........and replaced by more capable backups. Cameron Worrell and Todd Johnson were both horrible, and not very good contributors. They've been replaced by Archuleta and Kevin Payne, who certainly can't be worse and I'll bet are significantly better. 4) 5 assistant coaches are gone. Yep, and this happens quite often around the league. The leader, who built this team on his philosophy and his methodology, remains intact. As for Rivera, I like him but he didn't want to run the cover-2 anymore and Babich does. Hence, Ron had to go. 5) I'll give on the RB questions. But TJ was spit before he came here; we developed him, lifted him out of his career hole. The Bears know how to develop good RBs, and Cedric was very good in limited duty last year -- I believe his ypc numbers were comparable to TJ. APete has been one of the stronger depth-chart running backs in the league for quite some time now. 6) The SB runner-up history is meaningless. 7) It's amazing that this guy suggests at the end that he thinks we're no worse than 2nd in the NFC to New Orleans, yet if you read his article you would think we're going to post a 3-13 record. Overstate your case much? I hope Lovie continues to use articles like this as bulletin board material. It'll keep us hungry, which is exactly what we need to be the best.

Come'on Soul. You know that cap on your emotions is gonna get blown off come Thursday or Friday. :P I'm struggling mightily against the temptation 8-)

Ummm, who kidnapped Peter King and replaced him with a reasonable sports writer? He did mention Walker might not be a good fit, which I thought was a silly comment. Lovie never, ever, looks for run cloggers from his DTs. Walker will be expected to fill his gap, yes, but the name of the game in Chicago is pressure, pressure, pressure from the front 4. Always has been under Lovie.

See for yourself! http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/01/SPQERANH81.DTL Hehe. He'll get over it. BTW, your sig pics are awesome.

Good, I want Big Boy back!!!

Something like this, I would guess: http://img451.imageshack.us/img451/9448/17561070hk3.gif Keep in mind, Morris was miserable in SF. It's not like he went from first to last. Based on what I've been reading today and yesterday, it seems that, other than Bonds' HR chase, there's less to watch the Giants for than the Pirates! (And, that says a LOT!) That's true. He left StL just in time for them to win a World Series without him. He goes to SF, a club just tanking in every aspect other than the Bonds HR chase. I can imagine going to Pitt might not be all that bad given that.

Plenty of Crew fans thought Weeks would be very good player given time. It's not over for him, but this year has been terribly disappointing.

There is a 0% chance of this happening with Church basically making the minimum salary. It's bad reporting on Levine's part. I dunno about that. There seems to be a sort of gentleman's agreement that discourages GMs from placing frivolous claims on guys that they have no hope or intention of acquiring. As I understand it, the common courtesy is that if you see a guy on waivers that you'd like to have, and who would clearly be pulled back if you put in a claim, a GM first places a call to see if a deal can be arranged before formally filing a claim. If a deal's there to be made, then the claim is made. If not, then the guy is allowed to pass. Now to be sure, that gentleman's agreement is not always followed, and over the years teams have certainly gone against this little piece of GM etiquette. Steve Phillips infamously placed claims on hundreds of players one year. Nevertheless, it's not necessarily a foregone conclusion that a guy like Church would never make it through to the Cubs. I agree with this completely. If the Cubs pass the Brewers in the standings before they tried to make a deal, the Brewers would block the Cubs, but I'm not sure if any other teams would or not (possibly a team or two in the WC race). Really? I can't think of any examples of this, but I can think of examples where players are claimed to block him from getting to other teams. Anyone know of any? Also, whoever we'd trade for Church would have to pass by the reds and pirates. I'm just saying there aren't many teams that are so concerned about the Cubs that they would block the deal. The Brewers if they are in position to block definitely would. The Cardinals? possibly. Braves? I doubt it. The NL West teams? Hard to say. It's more because Church would be an economical, decent pickup for someone. Teams don't have to claim him just because they're trying to foil the Cubs' plans. They can do it just because Church works for them and their own plans. And that opens up pretty much every team in the league under us. Basically what davearm just said. If they know the Nationals are going to just pull the claim back (which they definitely would) why would somebody who wasn't trying to block the Cubs try to claim him? It would be a waste of time for a bad team to claim him-there's no positive and a definite negative (Cubs aren't happy with that team) in it. OK. That does mitigate it somewhat. I still think it's a possibility that another team could claim him, and just call them up and make a decent deal to get the guy since he seems like a pretty good option. Yes, you can say why didn't they do this in the first place? But then again, you could ask the same of Hendry. Maybe in the next couple weeks a club realizes they need a decent CF option for the future and are now willing to throw a few prospects out to get one.

It'll drop. I'll predict it right now that the Blackhawks are going to disappoint and not make the playoffs. Mr Negativity always gotta ruin it...:P It's called reality man. Sure, the WS is likely the Cubs to win, and the Bears are a lock for the Super Bowl, but I'm telling you and all the other happy happy, joy joy everything is perfect newbies that the Blackhawks young players are going to disappoint this year and the team will be drafting high again next year. Oh, and the Bulls won't win the East either. If the Blackhawks continuing to suck is the only other shoe that will drop, I'll take it

Christ another damn lefty!! :evil: :evil:

I haven't really been paying much attention, largely because I don't want to get my hopes up and then be crushed when he suffers another setback, but is that velocity pretty consistent with where he's been the past couple weeks? 91-94. touched 95. But his command has been excellent, and that's probably more indicative of his health. If I were Kerry I would be concentrating more on control than throwing 98 MPH heat. I'm sure he could do it, but at some point he's got to learn to get guys out at lower MPH to save that arm. That's what I think Kerry's doing now. And it's slightly encouraging to me, although I refuse to open my emotions up again for another fall. With his breaking stuff 91-92 should be plenty to be successful out of the pen.

There is a 0% chance of this happening with Church basically making the minimum salary. It's bad reporting on Levine's part. I dunno about that. There seems to be a sort of gentleman's agreement that discourages GMs from placing frivolous claims on guys that they have no hope or intention of acquiring. As I understand it, the common courtesy is that if you see a guy on waivers that you'd like to have, and who would clearly be pulled back if you put in a claim, a GM first places a call to see if a deal can be arranged before formally filing a claim. If a deal's there to be made, then the claim is made. If not, then the guy is allowed to pass. Now to be sure, that gentleman's agreement is not always followed, and over the years teams have certainly gone against this little piece of GM etiquette. Steve Phillips infamously placed claims on hundreds of players one year. Nevertheless, it's not necessarily a foregone conclusion that a guy like Church would never make it through to the Cubs. I agree with this completely. If the Cubs pass the Brewers in the standings before they tried to make a deal, the Brewers would block the Cubs, but I'm not sure if any other teams would or not (possibly a team or two in the WC race). Really? I can't think of any examples of this, but I can think of examples where players are claimed to block him from getting to other teams. Anyone know of any? Also, whoever we'd trade for Church would have to pass by the reds and pirates. I'm just saying there aren't many teams that are so concerned about the Cubs that they would block the deal. The Brewers if they are in position to block definitely would. The Cardinals? possibly. Braves? I doubt it. The NL West teams? Hard to say. It's more because Church would be an economical, decent pickup for someone. Teams don't have to claim him just because they're trying to foil the Cubs' plans. They can do it just because Church works for them and their own plans. And that opens up pretty much every team in the league under us.

there's nothing hendry can do. he obviously cannot add any payroll, he can't even get the z deal done. this whole sale business sucks and it's happening at the absolute worst time. if we end up not re-upping z, plus not making the playoffs after not being able to add payroll, upsetting is going to be a kind word to describe it. if that in fact happens, we better have a huge bat in right and another above average starter to replace him. unlikely. there's no reason we wouldn't be able to afford z, anyway, if we start pie, soto, theriot, hill, and marshall--that's 5 cheap major contributors that shopld even allow the new ownership to get someone out in right who can play a little bit. I fear the timing on Z is what will kill us. The sale won't be finalized until what, November? I think Z could be long gone by then right? Even if not, I would think new ownership would need some time to get situated. I fully expect the Yanks to roll a semi truck full of $50 bills up to Z's house immediately after the season ends.

I'm not going to demonize him or anything, but it would really suck if he got on to the Coke habit and it killed him.

But what happens when Ryan Braun quits performing way way over his head? Fielder is in a big time HR drought, JJ Hardy remembered who he was, Weeks has been optioned to AAA, and all the Brewers starting pitching is suspect, outside of Gallardo who looks like the real deal. The only pitchers on the Cubs who really have performed better than expected are Lilly and Marshall. Lillys numbers in his past have been inflated by pitching in the AL East, so who knows maybe facing the weaker NL, Lilly really is this good. Marshall is a young kid who has talent, and it will be interesting to see how he handles the pressure of pitching in a playoff race. So it's a race between the Crew and Cubs to see who implodes the most? :lol:

Just pray for health. Pray for health...

Looking at Milwaukee's website, they have Perez and Vargas listed as the probable starters...

Dave Bush pitched for the Crew last night. Are they going to start him the day after using him in relief?

I think someone turned off the Mets' run-scoring spicket. No more runs tonight, no matter what.