Soul

It's all speculatin, but at least Rogers is willing to air out the other side of the story: that trading Zambrano could, in fact, be a positive move for the Cubs if it is done right.

Meh. That's one of those ESPN, "pay us to ignore your non-Yankees/BoSox baseball club," articles.

I don't like Rome, but at least he wasn't stupid enough to guarantee the Bears would be one and done like Cowherd. That guy's just an idiot.

Glad Stone will be back. Best baseball color analyst in the business, period. I always make a point of going out for lunch on the days he does his pow-wow with Murph. Good stuff.

I think it's awesome. Let the Yankees continue to eat themselves alive. I'm ready to pop a bottle of champagne and celebrate. Every season that goes by without a Yankees World Series is a blessing.

My goodness those hats are godawful. Those are just for ST, right?

they said that last year and who won the WS? I like the article emphasis that we paid. too much for mediocre players like Lilly and DeRosa A very average team that would've had no business being in the playoffs if not for a largely awful National League? Exactly. And in the process, they became the least respected World Series champion in the history of baseball (and rightfully so).

I'm no eternal optimist when it involves the Cubs (no, really, I'm not, seriously), but I think calling anything over 80 wins "gravy" is a bit glum. I'd say 80-85 should be reasonable, with 88 a possibility. I wouldn't talk about gravy until you get past that mark. If this team wins 83/84 games, calling those few wins gravy suggests we should all thank our lucky stars for that much success. And I can't agree with that. It's because of the low win total last year. Nobody feels comfortable giving the Cubs that much of a jump. He did predict a 14 game improvement, which is significant. I've got us hovering around .500 -- hoping for that 85-win area. I'm just jonesing for playoff-relevant baseball in September.

Should be more fun for spectators than dusty was, at the very least. If he really tries to hold back the rage, it could be even more hilarious. Then you get red-faced, steaming-ears Lou 8-)

He didn't break any bones? I can feel our luck changing already.

Looks like this was already done in the past, so instead of complaining about having the ad, we should be complaining about being deprived of it for 80 years.

If that's the case, then there's only one word to describe the Indians' closer situation: desperation.

Nothing. Complete silence on Lovie.

All this talk about Big Teddy Bear Lou is hilarious. There's no way in hell he doesn't run out of that dugout if something terrible happens with the umps. You can't remove a temper like that from a man. It's just not possible.

I still don't get how it's possible for a minor-league contract to be considered one of the worst offseason moves. I don't care if it's for Rush Limbaugh. And JD Drew the worst offseason move of all? Huh? What, is this guy on crack?

His arm might be somewhat wasted at 2B anyway. It's been a good long while since I've seen a Cubbie rack up some serious outfield assists.

I knew I should have been a baseball player. It was -20F here this morning, my Truck brakes needed to be pumped a few times just to get enough brake fluid to keep me from rolling into the ditch across from my driveway. Even a coaching position would sound good right now. How about "director of hydration?" Anything to get down to Zona :)

It's true that this one ad isn't going to destroy the mystique of Wrigley. It's more like the collective effect of all the successive times that we've seen "just one ad" be put up in Wrigley will eventually diminish the mystique considerably. It's a slippery slope. An ad here, an ad there, and we always say, it's just one, it's OK if it's tasteful, and before you know it Wrigley is no different from any other park in baseball as a way to sell people crap. On an mostly unrelated note, there's way way way way way too much advertising in pro sports (and college for that matter, at my 10,000 student mid major college alma mater there are no fewer than 5 sponsored half-time and timeout events during the basketball games). The way things are going, all sports will end up like Nascar, with ads every conceivable place from the tiny decals for every piece of the automobile to the ginormous NEXTEL in front of the name of the league. I'm not looking forward to watching the Seattle Windows take on the St. Louis Buds for the Wal-Mart championship trophy in the General Electric World Series, played on beautiful Pepsi field in the spacious Citipark. Everyone always cites the NASCAR example. The fans of NASCAR love the ads. They've basically adopted the advertisers of each driver. It's viewed as a positive, not a negative. I don't think baseball will ever be like NASCAR. But I also don't view advertising as inherently bad, either.

They tore down the entire damn bleachers and didn't lose the 'mystique' of Wrigley. Adding yet another ad doesn't change a thing. Probably nothing will, as long as that ballpark is standing in Wrigleyville. The first time Soriano hits a double off that sign, Len will make some wisecrack and wa-la, it becomes just as much a part of the Wrigley mystique as everything else.

Certainly has worked for the Yankees. Won't happen as long as the Cubs have the incestuous relationship with WGN television. Maybe WGN could spin off a new channel. They've got to start thinking about doing something because that one channel is kind of stagnant.

I remember when that shirt used to say 312 on it, as all of Chicago was 312 and all the suburbs were 708 I remember when Naperville was 312..... Yes, I am old. 8-)

Hahahahaha. Oh, Lordy. The trials and tribulations of Cub fandom.

People need to get over the TE fascination. The Bears TE group is fine. There are only a handful (maybe 5?) really good TE in football. Unless you get one of those, there's no reason to be spending 1st round picks on them. Every year there's 2-3 guys who are considered can't miss TE who are picked early and flame out. Yeah, the general rule of thumb is that Angelo won't draft a 1st round TE anyway. I wonder if McShay realizes this. Kiper could be right, although I think some of it hinges on whether Briggs is kept. We do need OL help soon.

I think the NBA is a completely different animal than the NFL. I don't want to say Skiles' teams wear down by playoff time, because I haven't really seen that. Actually Skiles, for all his faults, plays alot of his bench often to keep guys fresh. What I'm seeing is a club that was put together by Paxson for Skiles. And it's worked pretty well. But how far can this go? To me, I'm seeing players who leave this club and stretch their legs a bit, starting to do better than they did in Chicago. What if Skiles isn't giving a guy like Deng all the opportunity he needs to be that superstar? I do worry about things like that.

You mean stop the hands of time? I'd love to, but my Mom told me it doesn't work that way. Really? Because I think that's the plan for the forseeable future. They've been replacing pieces of the ballpark for years. How is that not changing anything?