Soul

Those weekend Cub/Sox games are literally the ONLY reason to watch WGN on Sat/Sun. Without that, their weekend viewership goes right into the toilet -- probably on par with the soap opera network. It's death for the so-called 'superstation.' Expect WGN to fight to keep Cub games on their network, regardless of who owns each entity.

Do you see that St. Louis can win the division? I don't see how their rotation could be called better than ours-maybe similar, but certainly not better (btw, I know that you have Milwaukee winning the division, just curious if you think anybody else has a chance besides them). Yes, plus the season is long. What if Hill & Guzman come in and are strong? Stranger things have happened. That would give us 3 decent starters. Could be enough to compete. I wouldn't just write off our rotation now. Even though I agree it doesn't look great, often times rotations at the end of a season aren't the same as they were in the beginning. And that can be the case for playoff teams as well as bottom-feeders.

Even though Arizona perpetually ruins the OL they draft, it does appear they have Thomas on their radar. I'd love a trade down for Levi. Hard to count on that, though.

I don't think it makes Hendry look dumber. I think the Tribune told Hendry they were opening the purse strings because they knew if Hendry spent a bunch of money this year he would raise the value of the Cubs. I read somewhere that after this offseason the Cubs value has gone up to around $600 million. How does spending a bunch of money in an inflated personnel market make a team more valuable? Are the Royals more valuable because they signed Gil Meche? I'm not an economics wiz but I always thought organizational debt was an undesirable thing for a business. LOL, econometric rigor. That's a good one.

You have a great job, sir 8-) The best I can hope for is to be able to pull up the Gameday window in between work sessions.

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.