Soul

Gameday will be on my work comp all game :) Come on Z, open the season strong buddy.

It's a possibility, but I would presume the cost of the Cubs will be quite high, which would seem to preclude most budget-conscious buyers. Obviously that's not necessarily the case, but I would expect the odds to lean in that direction.

Any scenario that has the Cards finishing 4th is OK with me. I'm going to go 85 - 77. Cubs are respectable and provide hope for the future, but miss the playoffs by a couple games to the Brewers.

Maybe by making that push they can settle on an extra Washington pick in addition to the 1st rounder swap. That would probably satisfy most. I think it's entirely reasonable for Angelo to expect more than just the swap, considering the league rules set compensation at 2 1st rounders straight up, no swap.

Depends on the philosophy of a potential buyer.

Yeah, I think the DirecTV cost comes in around the same: it's $10/month extra for the HD channels, and then there's the fee for equipment. And whoever said Discover HD is the bomb -- couldn't agree more. Sports are great in HD, and Discover HD will have you mesmerized for hours. The new series "Planet Earth" is just amazing. It's like looking through a window at other parts of the world. DirecTV is testing the new National Geo HD now, too. With the sports and those two channels, I don't see myself checking out much SD programming anymore. Pretty much just the bulls/cubs/bears games that aren't broadcast in HD, and that's it. If you ain't HD, you ain't counting me among your viewers 8-)

Mark Cuban, your plane is waiting.

To Angelo's credit, he has taken the high road in this instance. Lovie too.

Why? Would be a great win, but why is it must-win? The Cavs have a game left at Detroit as well. If we want any hope of that 1 seed, it's a must-win. Sorry for leaving that out. With the Sheed miracle as well as their 4th quarter rallies against the Nets and the Heat today, I think that's all but out of the possibility. Probably. Right now we'd play Washington, correct? Butler just went out with a broken hand. That's a 40mpg, 19ppg starter. That's got to hurt, no matter what.

I guess I'm glad Guzman's on the roster, because I feel there's going to be at least one of our starters who is going to get slaughtered. Gooz will be there to take the reins, hopefully. Cotts makes me very nervous. So does Eyre.

I find it interesting that players and managers have had absolutely no problem whatsoever taking millions of dollars in return for perpetual badness, then when the fans finally start demanding a level of performance they start crying foul. To all players and coaches of the Cubs: You're getting millions of dollars to play at Wrigley. I doubt any will offer to return part of their salary if they fail, right? OK then. Stop complaining, and perform -- or leave. End of story.

I will root for OSU, but I think Florida's got this thing. I was rooting for UCLA, damn.

Notice there isn't a tagline. Who wrote this, the CBS mailroom foreman? What a [expletive] article.

is HD really that big of a difference? I could understand not wathcing b/c it was the cards and indians....but not b/c it wasn't HD I find it difficult to watch anything that isn't HD now. I'll still watch my favorite teams in non-HD, but it's a real struggle. Once you go HD, it's all that matters.

Wow, this is terrible. Yuk.

I'm glad I had too many things to do to watch this. I might have had to replace some furniture.

My #1 observation: the game was listed as HD, but wasn't. Hence, I didn't watch.

I don't think anyone is criticizing the Cubs for sending down Prior. I think people are trying to introduce a little sanity into the discussion. Prior is a wuss and Prior lost his confidence are pretty weak arguments. Prior lost mph on his fast ball and Prior hasn't located his pitches are much better arguments IMO. I'm glad the Cubs didn't give Prior a spot if he's not ready. I think here's the quote that Soul is referring to That definitely is criticism for sending down Prior. Also-yes, Prior lost mph on his fast ball and an inability to locate his pitches are the direct reasons why he hasn't pitched well. The thing is-what are the causes of those two things? Is it just because of the loss of arm strength due to the injuries? Is it the time off? Is it due to a lack of confidence that is causing him not to air his arm all the way out for fear of getting hurt again? I think it's a combination of all 3, and I understand why that is-I have a knee injury, and the hardest thing in coming back from it is trusting that my knee was healthy and allowing myself to go at full speed without risk of injury. With all the setbacks that Prior has had over the last year, it is likely that a similar thing is happening to him, and that is at least part of the cause for his lack of speed and command is this mental fear (the other part being that he is still rehabbing from his injuries physically as well and building arm strength). For about the 1 millionth time Confidence is result NEVER a cause. I think it's better for the ameture psychologists to keep their diagnosis to themselves. The diagnoses are completely full of nonsense, as is most of this thread. I don't care about the diagnoses or whatever. Prior was clearly not up to his standards or the organizations' standards for him, so he's getting the opportunity to improve at Iowa. And that sounds like a sane, reasonable approach to me. I really don't care if anyone agrees with me.

Oh, I think there's a great deal of question whether Prior would outproduce Miller. As for being crapped on by his employer, I suppose you could apply that argument to any player who gets sent down. So why should Prior be given special treatment? He's not getting it done right now, so he's down for the moment. Why is this bad? If Miller sucks and Prior does well at Iowa, the Miller is out and Prior is back in. Sounds like a solid, merit-based approach to me. Everyone always criticizes the Cubs for being too soft with veteran players. But once they get tougher and demand a level of performance, suddenly everyone's all over them for that, too. I guess they can't win either way.

They can magically force teams to miss free throws? Unbelievable. I'm with you on that, Slick. The Detroit game wouldn't have even been close down the stretch if Gordon didn't miss 3 free throws in a row. For an 87% free throw shooter, this was just plain lucky on the Piston's part. Actually, I think the Bulls missed 5 in a row at one point. That's not the Pistons doing anything. It's just luck, it's never happened before this season and it hasn't happened against the Pistons either. Bulls were just better Thursday, period. Even shooting terribly from the field, the inside game of the Bulls was so completely dominant the Pistons were reduced to a mediocre perimeter shooting team. Even sheed's biggest impact was as a 3-point shooter.

What I got from AZ Phil was that Alfonso Soriano's defense in CF is going to make us miss Juan Pierre. Yeesh. And Cliff Floyd's probably should be DHing in the AL. I doubt very seriously that I'll be missing Pierre's noodle arm, regardless of how Soriano does. There's nothing worse than a CF that can barely reach the infield with his throws, IMO. Hopefully Soriano will improve. I just don't like Pierre, and never will. Hated that move from the beginning. Sending Prior to Iowa was the best thing for him, IMO. I'm sure he's pretty peeved about it. *GOOD* He could use a little anger in his life.

I just saw some of Angelo's comments on Comcast. He's saying some of the same things people here thought he might be saying. It's not just picking up the 6th pick, it's whether there's a player who will justify the pick -- and he mentioned the large monetary investment of the 6th overall pick, too. He did say he will get back to the Redskins in a timely manner. I think he's going to analyze a few players: Landry, Branch, Adams, Okoye probably top the list. If one of those is worth the investment in a #6 pick, he'll consider biting. I don't think he can do this deal counting on trading down for more picks. He's got to consider whether it's worth it as-is.

Briggs is free to negotiate and sign elsewhere. The compensation, according to league rules, is 2 1st rounders. If they're "waiting for Bears approval" then I assume they don't want to give up the 2 1st rounders.

It doesn't at all. Briggs totally went about this the wrong way, so we should return in kind. Who cares? I want to what is best for the Bears and having a vendetta with Briggs doesn't seem like that would be the best way. The point was, the Skins did this and wound up rewarded with 2 1st rounders. If we wait, it *could* result in a better deal than swapping 1st round picks, which is what some have suggested isn't good enough. I definitely don't want to just exercise a vendetta for no reason though. I think this is a pretty tough situation to be in, for both sides. First of all, the whole franchise rule is being subverted on a semi-regular basis by players, which is threatening to undermine the entire rule itself. So that puts the whole thing on shaky ground from the beginning. And because of that, it puts both player & GM in a bad position, trying to figure out how to best help themselves in the face of a set of rules that either can't be enforced or don't hold up.

The CW is the smoldering, ashen remains of UPN & the WB. It's basically a targeted network, hitting the 18 to 34 demographic almost exclusively. It's the same concept the old UPN & WB networks had: co-opt the local, independent station in the area (in Chicago's case, WGN makes the most sense), and air a prime-time lineup with your logo pasted in the lower right-hand corner. They call themselves a "network" but there's no news, no CW-sponsored sports. To me it's just a prime-time package syndicated to independent stations.