Soul

Arms and legs both. No. Just his right leg. It's good to see the kid maintaining his composure even though you know it killed him to watch the bullpen blow that lead. Good for him.

In other words, you have no legitimate response besides backhanded insults and pointless hyperbole. A) Being down 2-1 after 6 innings is not a 100-1 deficit. B) Anyone who feels otherwise, is an idiot. C) You have done nothing but indicate the game is over after a 2-1 lead. Therefore, it is overwhelmingly clear you are in fact an idiot. (fronthanded enough for ya?) namecalling = bad. let's not do it. I don't make up the rules, if the first three things are true, then the 4th must also be true. Dang, its Friday! Relax everyone! b and c are speculative, not fact. It's a fact though that, if given a choice, we're all idiots to have become Cubs fans. I don't consider my fandom a choice though, so I'm innoculated and enslaved.

In other words, you have no legitimate response besides backhanded insults and pointless hyperbole. A) Being down 2-1 after 6 innings is not a 100-1 deficit. B) Anyone who feels otherwise, is an idiot. C) You have done nothing but indicate the game is over after a 2-1 lead. Therefore, it is overwhelmingly clear you are in fact an idiot. (fronthanded enough for ya?) namecalling = bad. let's not do it. I'll namecall the COBS and Dumpster all I want, thanks!!!!!

Yeah, it's not right to blame Eyre for yesterday specifically since Dumpster couldn't cut it, but he gave up the winning runs so damn quick it was unbelievable. And he's really been shaky the entire year. The thing is, Eyre's not the only one and shouldn't be the sole whipping boy in the BP. It's really been a combo of all of them.

...not sure I'd be throwing all our blue chips at Minny for Garnett now. He's on the wrong side of 30 and his numbers have been dropping for the past few years, though still good. I'd still take him, but the price has to have dropped a bit.

But according to Ryan, it's O.K. because the Mets bench is just too damn good.

Guzman needs to keep starting. Yeah, he's had a couple good starts and his stuff projects as a starter. I'd like to keep that train rolling if possible.

This Cubs team will generate more mental institution admissions than it will wins. Book it!

We're reaching the point where the Trib's going to have to allow something to happen, otherwise with each game we fall further behind, the amount of money the Cubs will sell for drops. You have a massive payroll with locked in contracts. If that results in last place baseball, it will negatively affect the value of that ballclub because it's additional cost the new owner will have to take on to fix the situation. Something will have to happen, one way or the other.

Reyes? Kip Wells and Adam Wainwright are on the Cardinals and you throw Reyes out there? Reyes has been the most unlucky pitcher in baseball. 1.17 whip 33/13 k:bb 7.6 k/9 All way too good for a 5+ era. Not to mention the grand total of 8 runs we have scored in his 7 starts. Yeah, I wasn't sure what Jocketty was thinking messing around with Wells. Maybe they'll start getting something from him, I don't know. Everywhere else he's been the guy has done nothing but disappoint. His WHIP hasn't been below 1.5 since '03, which was the last time he posted an ERA+ over the 100 mark. He's now 30, no spring chicken -- hope would appear to be fading for some kind of turnaround in his career. As for Todd, he was reasonable as late as last year, I'm thinking it's not all that bad a gamble to take. I'm sure expectations are low anyway, he'll probably be making peanuts and a pack of marlboro.

Well yeah, Hendry's the one who continues to overpay for tired bullpen arms. I suppose at some point if things don't get better you could review Larry's situation and even let him go, but he's been asked to keep a nearly impossible situation together and admittedly it's not working. Good for Lou figuring out how to get through to Z & Angel, but even he hasn't come up with a solution to the BP. Heck at this point since we're tossing money out the window anyway, we may as well do what Lou half-jokingly suggested and just bring up some young arms and DFA some of these lost causes.

At 9? Why? Long shot to be around then anyway. Can't score He's athletic, has great hands and an unearthly motor. He'll learn how. His shooting form is difficult to watch, but so is Shawn Marion's. It goes in within 15 feet. In college he's not known as a scorer. I wouldn't want to put money on him turning into one at the next level. He's going to have a tough enough time just figuring out how to make his strengths translate to the big league, much less improving his weaknesses.

Unfortunately, unlike Mr. Belushi, the Cubs have no soul.

The opening day 25-man roster payroll was $99,670,332. It should only be $96,420,332 but Rusch still counts $3.25mil against this year's payroll. That's true, but the actual Cubs payroll including deadweight and what not, is more like $115 million: http://www.northsidebaseball.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?t=36396&start=60 Ya can't just take all the bad decisions and players who tanked, remove their salaries from the table, and then paint a rosier picture. In other words, nobody forced Mr. Hendry to re-up guys like Wood & Prior. That counts against him.

he is? His OPS in April was .923... his OPS this month is .686. The last couple of games are starting to look better. Right during the throes of losing, Rammy starts to look good. Hmmmm...

Hilarious. You don't "tip your cap" when you give up 5 runs in 1/3 of an inning to a remote shell of the Mets' lineup like that, Ryan, you get pissed that you sucked so bad. Yeah, if that's really Ryan's attitude then I guess he won't be getting any better any time soon. That's pathetic. They rolled a AAA lineup out there today and Dempster made them look like worldbeaters. I'm just about done with Ryan's B.S. act.

Oh please, you know you want to watch a riveting Detroit-San Antonio series. It holds about as much appeal for me as a Bobcats/Hornets regular season game. And I've got a feeling a good portion of the country feels the same way. This playoff season has been a disaster, IMO. The NBA lost Dallas (and hence their crowned MVP) early in an embarrassment to a team that was then blown out by the Jazz. The Bulls were generating excitement until they (let's face it) laid an egg in the early part of the Pistons series and couldn't recover. The league basically took away the Suns chance to contend for a championship, rewarding the Spurs for thuggish play. Christ, it's been terrible when you look at it. If I wasn't a Bulls fan, I would have turned off the TV a long, long time ago.

Hendry's head wouldn't break if you put it in an industrial-strength vice. Not even under atomic pressure would Mr. Hendry's head buckle.

Ok George W. Think MLB would sign off on a Cub troop surge?

An expensive guy that dominated last year vs. a cheap rookie that's never pitched a game in the big leagues? If I'm running a team with a 100M+ payroll, I don't want a bunch of kids who have never pitched in the big leagues before being relied upon to pitch in tight situations. And it's not like Eyre was only good for one year prior to joining the Cubs, let's keep the facts straight here. But with all that said, I'm all for dumping the guy now. If only it was just Eyre.... Alas, it's the entire pen. And because of that, I fear it's not realistic to expect a fix this year. Which means today might not be the last time we feel this way. One thing's for sure. Being a Cub fan teaches you life lessons about losing. Unwelcome life lessons about losing, but lessons nonetheless.

Not his fault Texas can't find any pitching.

He was last night. The Mets sure weren't hitting the curve at all, but he was leaving his fastball up and over the plate, and they were jumping on it. He has more confidence in his fastball now, but I'd like to see him mixing in more curves and also some changes. And, he needs to locate his fastball better than he did last night. Does he really throw a change? I mean, well enough to call it an actual pitch that he has in his arsenal? Most people I talk to feel he's a 2-pitch guy, and that's likely to be his biggest issue. he does have a pretty good change when he can get it over the plate. he threw a few in the 1st inning last night. very glad i didnt stay up to watch the debacle btw. time for rich to adjust to the hitters now that they seem to have adjusted to him. Well, I've seen him adjust. In-game, even. He's got to get back to that.

This is such a one sided blind view of the story. Owners can't just cut on a whim. If they do, most players are just going to sign another bigger deal. The only guys who might lose out in this system are the guys that aren't worth what they are being paid. Being cut in the NFL is not necessarily a bad thing. You can get cut by one team and sign an even bigger deal with another, as long as you are good. But why should a player have to go through that? why sign a 7 year deal if you're going to get cut after 2? Go through what? Free agency? Players love free agency. What are they going through? They should "have to go through that" because the concept of a 7-year contract in anything is absolutely ridiculous. The NFL is a meritocracy, unlike baseball, which is a ageitocracy, or the NBA, which is a hypeitocracy. The fact of the matter is if you play well in the NFL, you get paid. Guys like Lance Briggs choose to gamble and wait for an even bigger payday, and I say good for them. But don't come crying about unfairness in the contract structure. These guys aren't "going through" anything unfair. Even though contracts aren't guaranteed, the fact is owners can't just cut anybody whenever they want, competition from the other teams would destroy them. We're talking about a 52 man roster in a sport that plays 16 regular season games a year, that's twice as many players as baseball and more than 3 times as many as the NBA, and 10% and 19% of the number of games, yet there's still plenty of room for 20-30 guys per team to make millions every year and the sport is run in such a way that unlike the NBA and MLB, they've had no work stoppages or threat of a work stoppage for two decades, plus they have had nothing but constant growth. The pie just keeps getting bigger and bigger. then why not just have all 1-year contracts in the NFL and let every player renegotiate every year? What, do you want to give every GM in the league a heart attack? :wink:

He was last night. The Mets sure weren't hitting the curve at all, but he was leaving his fastball up and over the plate, and they were jumping on it. He has more confidence in his fastball now, but I'd like to see him mixing in more curves and also some changes. And, he needs to locate his fastball better than he did last night. Does he really throw a change? I mean, well enough to call it an actual pitch that he has in his arsenal? Most people I talk to feel he's a 2-pitch guy, and that's likely to be his biggest issue.

I think it has to do with the Palace being occupied on Sunday. IIRC, there's a WNBA game scheduled. Gee, what should take priority?? EDIT - Concert Sunday, WNBA Saturday Yeah, that's not a big surprise. While the playoffs would take priority if scheduling all 3 of those together, the arena already scheduled the other two, and to cancel them or move them would be a big headache for them-so the arena isn't going to want to do that without a big fight. what doesn't make sense is the NBA not scheduling their entire playoff schedule into every arena ahead of time I hear there's a puppet show that will bump Suns/Spurs to a weekday too.