Soul

Cmon Will, one more big strike.

Bonds better not get anything here. Or I shall be very put out.

Kendall is playing like he's drunk. Marmol's pitching like he's on the sauce too. This could get ugly, here comes Bonds.

Brewers 'bout to blow it open against Mr. Juan Cruz and his D-Backs

I agree with the last point. I agree with the fact that ARam had no chance to reach 3rd there, either. I'm also not really bothered by ARam's occasional displays of a lack of hustle. I'd rather he stay healthy and continue to mash the ball. Still, to be fair, it's not really about whether he would've made it to second or not. It's process over outcome. Just like a lot of us will criticize Hendry if he makes a bad pickup and it turns out roses. You want people approaching their jobs the right way so that they will consistently achieve the best possible outcome. We want Hendry to make smarter decisions because that way more of his moves will wind up good and less will wind up bad. It's inevitable that some will go either way, but the right approach will yield the most consistent results. In other words, the only point of my rant there was that, "He wouldn't have made it to 3rd anyway" isn't really a valid argument against anyone criticizing Ram for what he did. I'm also not bothered. I don't think it's fair to say ARam isn't approaching his job correctly because he watches his homers. Why does this make a player lazy, or bad? When I look at ARam, I see a guy who has become much more consistent at the plate than his days @ Pitt, and his defense is greatly improved. I sincerely doubt that just happened by him sitting around and doing nothing. He works hard -- it's just that he just likes to show off a little sometimes. I'm not going to crucify the guy for that when he's gutting out a bad knee and has upped his game several notches since coming to Chicago. Doesn't make sense to me, I think people are forgetting the good things ARam does and focusing on this one bad thing.

Isn't this exactly how the Yanks announced the Clemens signing? or flashed it on the scoreboard during a game and all that was on TV? Yeah they actually flew Clemens to New York, signed the deal, and then waited until the game where Clemens spoke to the crowd. There's no question the deal was done some time beforehand. I mean these are ridiculous comments. Sullivan is a waste of time.

The reason it took so long to get rid of Dusty Baker was that the fans had deemed him untouchable after 2003. And in retrospect, it wasn't his brilliant moves that had gotten us there, we had done it in spite of him. I'm going to be smarter this time. What you do is up to you. It depends on what you call 'smarter.' If you mean you are going to look for major issues where the manager is burning out All-Star arms and playing junk players for years when everyone on the planet knows they shouldn't be starting -- or similar big time mistakes, then yeah I'm with you. On the other hand, if you think nitpicking every tactical move Lou makes in every game is being smarter, then I respectfully disagree.

I'm all for arrests. En masse, if necessary. I'm just afraid if people don't shape up they'll wind up doing some really sucky things, like cutting off Beer sales in the 5th, or limiting beer sales, or even worse roping off the first two rows of the bleachers or something really bad like that.

RedIvyCub is a reliable poster. This guy/girl could be Gary Hughes or he/she could be some unemployed carpenter. I couldn't care less and I'm not inclined to believe some random poster on a fan message board. The behavior of MLB officals is very clear, as they've repeatedly stated that they want a baseball team in South Florida and they've done nothing to disuade Loria from making a mockery of the Marlins the same way he made a mockery of the Expos. I don't care what the person's "sources" say. It's sad because if they didn't get dismantled every time they won they'd probably win that division every year. Probably. Wouldn't you take the 2 trophies though? I would. A lot of their problems would be solved if "in the best interest of baseball" Selig would force Loria to sell. The city of Miami has twice offered to give Loria land by the Orange Bowl to build a new park, but Loria wants Dade County to pay for the park. It would *seem* that if Loria was that much of an embarassment to MLB they'd step in and do something. Instead they let him and his son in law do their damndest to destroy the fan base. Fortunately, they have some great baseball people in the GM and his staff. From my perspective it appears as though Miami just doesn't have a real good fanbase. But I can see why they might have a reason to not turn out if the ownership is tearing things up all the time. One thing though, during their 2003 playoff run they didn't turn out until the World Series; the Cubs had almost as many fans as the Marlins did for Florida's home games. It's hard for me to say the fans are supportive when that kind of thing happens. Marlins were on a tear leading all the way up to the playoffs, too.

RedIvyCub is a reliable poster. This guy/girl could be Gary Hughes or he/she could be some unemployed carpenter. I couldn't care less and I'm not inclined to believe some random poster on a fan message board. The behavior of MLB officals is very clear, as they've repeatedly stated that they want a baseball team in South Florida and they've done nothing to disuade Loria from making a mockery of the Marlins the same way he made a mockery of the Expos. I don't care what the person's "sources" say. It's sad because if they didn't get dismantled every time they won they'd probably win that division every year. Probably. Wouldn't you take the 2 trophies though? I would.

I would take his bat for a playoff run, but alas, Shef would feel he's being used because he's black and refuse.

Tribune will go private before the sale is completed. Therefore that takes care of this little problem. Actually it doesn't take care of the problem. The Trib will be owned by a Trust on behalf of Tribune employees. The Trustee (an independent institution) has a fiduciary duty to the beneficiaries of the Trust (i.e., the employees). If Cuban submits a significantly better bid, MLB will be in a tough position - particularly if the details leak. Considering many of those employees are members of the press, I wouldn't want to be the Trustee or Selig if MLB disqualifies the highest bid. They will do just what they did in Boston to get the ownership in place that they want. They will cobble together a group that can offer the highest bid. As long as that ownership is capable of winning, I'll be alright with it. I just wish these guys would open up a little imagination for once, and not shut out Cuban just because he's not a member of the 'club'

He's another one of these guys who thinks everyone's trying to give him the shaft all the time. What I find fascinating is how a couple years ago reports were that he refused to be traded to anyone because he wanted to stay with the Yanks so bad. Now he's sniping at Torre & the Yanks. Things must have changed pretty quick.

Bayless is a fascinating case study. It's clearly evident that with such a saturation of talking heads in sports today, the only way to separate yourself from the crowd is to come up with some unique and edgy schtick. Jim Rome, Stephen A Smith, etc etc all got where they are because of style, not substance. For whatever reason, Bayless has adopted "loud mouth babbling bafoon idiot moron" as his personal schtick. And amazingly enough, it's kinda working for him, considering that, as you note, he's still got a job. In short, he's got a job precisely because he's a douche.

No manager is perfect. Lou has made some good moves lately, but he still has his faults. Bunting with DeRo last night, to get to a guy hitting .220? Stupid I agree. However, people ignore the good moves he makes, and then just focus on one or two bad ones and then decide he sucks. I see this happening literally all the time, with every manager. It's overkill, and ridiculous.

They're going to wind up taking away the beer, and then will people ever be sorry.

I saw that this morning. I hope that's not the case. I tend to doubt that it's already occurred since you'd wait until Kendall had actually arrived at the ballpark. It wouldn't surprise me, in any event. Keeping Soto and DFAing Hill is the right move, and therefore the one that Hendry is unlikely to make. They better DFA Hill. Otherwise I may have to become upset.

It's amazing to me that the hottest manager in all of baseball is being criticized by anyone. Even posters on this board are still upset with him. At some point, I just step back and realize there's nothing wrong with Lou -- it's the fans and media who have no clue.

I don't think this will help us much because he won't be gone long enough. The guy they put in his place, Gallardo, is hot right now and will likely pitch well in his absence for a couple starts.

i wasn't aware pie was a young impact pitcher Yeah it starts with Rich Hill or Marshall. Probably Hill. We also have to worry about extending Zambrano first. We've got Z, Lee, Ram, Sori, as 4 really high paid players. We can't just sign every impact free agent every off season. I just don't think it's realistic way of figuring it will work. I wouldn't. I still think Hill has upside. He's a lefty on the right side of 30 who is not all that likely to suffer arm injuries. His ERA+ this year is still north of 100.

I don't see how this could be a bad deal. It's got to be nigh impossible to be worse than Bowen: .065 .167 .092 OPS+ -29 Haha. There's no way in hell Kendall will not outperform that. Of course, I've never heard of Blevin so I don't know what we really gave up there. But just speaking of the catcher swap, this literally can not be bad for us. 900K is chump change for the Cubs.

Ack, Crew looking good again tonight. Lincecum pretty much bitch-slapping us. Not looking good right now.

According to the Bears message board, Rosenhaus said that they will get a 1-year deal done by training camp. It certainly sounds like Briggs knows he lost this battle and won't sit out any part of the season. I hope so. Having Briggs for the entire season would be a big boost. Well OK, it's not really a 'boost' -- it would be a nice, uh, recapture of what we already had? :?

We have won one playoff series in the last 100 years and Kerry is the main reason for it. That is why he can do nothing for three years yet still be the best. Too bad game 7 happened? Where was he in that one? From what I can recall, Dusty Baker got pantsed by an 103 year old man who got lucky with every decision he made and we lost after leading 5-3. Seemed like the luck continued all the way through the World Series that year, much like it did for the Cards last year.

One thing about Soto though that I'm liking -- and I admit the sample size is small -- is that it looks like his pegs to 2nd are better than any of the other catchers we have sans Blanco. He definitely had one throwout yesterday that was miscalled, and it was a perfect throw. The other could also have been called out because the ball beat the runner -- that throw was only slightly worse, to the 1st base side but up a little. I for one would like to see Cub catchers at least throw out an occasional runner trying to steal. Hopefully those 2 Soto throws weren't just lucky.