Soul

I just think they'll lose. Cards have the luck now. Nothing will stop this turd of a team from being the most ridiculously underpowered World Series champion of all time.

You would be unwise to do so. Come on UM. You know it's the Cards. Put Neifi on the Cards and he would be suddenly great. Not sure what kind of drugs LaRussa gives his team, but somehow the Cards just always have the magic pixie dust on their side.

Interesting, Nebraska #15. They are good, no doubt, but they haven't impressively beat anyone in conference. A bad KU team by only 7, a bad Iowa State team by only 14, and a meh K-State team by only 18. They are good, and I'd rank them higher than Missouri at this point (just because they have played USC and UT tough), but I don't think they're a top 15 team. I see them losing two of the next three games: on the road against a solid Oklahoma State, home vs. Missouri, and on the road against A&M. Wasn't Nebraska #17 this week? You don't go up 2 spots by losing, IMO. Yes, I know they played a top team. I still don't think they'll go up.

Watching what Seattle did in the NFC Championship, I kept thinking why didn't the Bears do the same? It appeared Seattle double-teamed Smith and dared Carolina to throw to anyone else. ....which is all you have to do to stop Carolina. It's really very simple. They stink without Smith. Double him and they wouldn't sniff the endzone against us. I mean, having a philosophy and sticking with it is fine. But there's a limit. When you have one player who can blow you up, you've got to make the adjustment. If this is how Rivera plans on running his own team next year, then I fear he won't experience much success.

The Bulls haven't had a young player with this kind of ceiling since Pippen, and Thomas looks more polished than Pippen did his rookie season. Are you saying I was wrong for ripping im as a draft choice? :D yeah, i was pretty anti-tyrus, too. i'll gladly accept being wrong. The kid has the skills, and everyone knew it. I'm always careful to just look at athleticism, toughness, and character in college players. Nobody knows what will happen when they reach the pros, because what people don't understand is there are limits to the amount of practice players can put in in college------in other words, once they reach the pros they have plenty of room for development left in the tank. Jury will still be out on this kid until regular season games start, but needless to say so far so good.

It's not just a weak NL Central. It's a weak MLB baseball period. None of these ballclubs would have sniffed the playoffs most years. I mean come on, WS game 1 features two rookie pitchers on two ballclubs that both limped to the playoffs on massive losing Septembers. This is just terrible. I watched college football tonight.

Not sure how anyone would get so much as a chukle from the Kerry Wood site. Boring and stupid. That telemarker thing though-----hilarious :lol:

I doubt it will be the bench coach that sinks Piniella. Look to Hendry's incompetence as a GM instead. I'm sure McLaren saw that, which is why he stayed away. Lord knows why Piniella couldn't see it, and why the Trib doesn't, either. Hendry will be fired from this job when his contract runs out. I ask anyone who will listen: he's not going to succeed. Why are we going through this charade, when we could have just fired him now?

Clemens played for the Yankees and Red Sox. In the national media's mind, no player from either of those teams could ever do any wrong. Look at the free pass Giambi, a confessed steroid user, and Sheffield got from the leaked grand jury testimony. Giambi got a free pass? Compared to every other roid boy. He went through a rough couple months, but has been completely forgiven as soon as he started producing again. Agreed. Now Giambi's the golden child again---the face of the Yankees coming down on ARod because he just doesn't "fit in." Oh, how wonderful it is that the Yankees got their butts handed to them by Detroit. Thanks be to God. An oh, by the way: I still believe Clemens isn't clean. I don't care what anyone says, either. And I don't care if there's no proof. It's intuition. I had it regarding Palmiero, and it was eventually proven 100% right. Got that same feeling regarding Rocket. Put it this way: he's not doing what he's doing at his age on Flintstones vitamins.

Rivera has already said he's not going to alter the defense for anyone. If they go up against Steve Smith again, it's going to be the same defensive alignment---count on it. This scares me too, because Seattles' defense really isn't all that special, yet they shut down Carolina and Smitty with no trouble because, well....Carolina is a one-trick pony and can be easily stopped with a few defensive tweaks. But we won't make those tweaks, so we struggle against some teams.

Are you doubting Mr. Hendry in that regard? :lol: It wasn't 100 million because nobody had a payroll that high back then, but I remember quite a few years where the Orioles were spending with the big boys and putting out just *horrendous* baseball teams. It does happen. Haven't the Mets had a few high-priced stinkers, too? That said, I think the Orioles kicked a few front office guys to the curb for their debacles, and the same should have happened to Hendry. But it hasn't----because the Cubs are stupid, and that's why we just continue to wade in a morass of failure. Failure continues because it is tolerated.

Yeah-----that and the fact that back pain usually just gets progressively worse as time wears on even if you do stay in shape.

How many teams want him for 2nd base. How many teams NEED him for 2nd base? When was the last time he PLAYED second base. I say if the Cubs tell them they want him to lead off, but might need him at CF for 1 year before he goest o 2nd, and the price is right. Then I don't see how a cow would have to jump over the moon, before he joined the cubs. . I'll also see a cow jump over a moon before a team signs him to 5/20. NO TEAM in MLB is going to offer $100 million to Soriano, not even Texas. Best guess....Soriano ends up at 5 and $75. $75 million IS the better part of $100 million.

LOL, Soriano will agree to play CF for the Cubs right about the time cows jump over the Moon. You guys do realize he's one of the most prized F.A.'s out there, right? Not only is he going to cash in to the tune of the better part of $100 million, he can pretty much choose his team. Sound like a player who is begging for a job so much he's willing to switch positions? Not to me.

I still say this is the worst Cardinal team in 10 years. If they win it all, not only will it be incredibly ironic, but also a sad commentary on the state of major league baseball. And yes, I will puke too. I wonder if the ratings for this series will approach all-time lows. I know my own level of interest is almost non-existent. I'll watch Blackhawks hockey over a WS game this year.

The loss is huge because Brown was a great leader. I'm thinking this is going to drop us a notch as a defense......for now. Hopefully the bye week, combined with 2 home games against the 9ers and fins, will help Manning/Johnson/McGowan/Harris get into a bit of a groove. Certainly Brown can continue to mentor----his experience was expected to help Daneal to mature faster, and in the beginning of the season it was certainly helping. I love Mike Brown, but it is true he wasn't playing like he used to---he's one of my favorite Bears, I'll never forget those two OT INTs in 2001. One of the most magical sequences in all Bear history.

That's anger radiating off his skin. He hustled his way up to the podium. He just realized he was in Chicago.

I hope Lou is ready for the never-ending, freakish, melodramatic, "twingy," pseudo-injury soap opera that is Mark Prior.

This is a Dustyesque rationalization of a negative statistic. No it isn't. They ran well last year. Have the same people + a healthy Benson. Have focused most of their offense on the passing game. Dusty has nothing to do with it. So they're really not trying that hard to gain yardage when they hand the ball off? No, they just aren't putting any sort of emphasis on the running game. Last year they would repeatedly go to the run, even when the opposition knew they'd run. Occasionally, they'd be stuffed for no gain, but they'd keep at it and rack up yards. This year, if they don't gain 10 yards on a run play, the next play is a deep pass. They averaged 40 more yards per game and a full yard more per rush, and that was against stacked boxes last year. They are clearly capable of running the ball well. I suspect they will as the season goes on. Didn't they have 150 yards rushing against the Bills? And a pretty good amount the game before too? It's true they don't seem to be running the ball as well this year, but it's not a total collapse. And last night was just being down by 20 points----teams generally must throw when they're down, though they don't have to throw all long passes into double coverage like we did. The issue is, if the Bears do not attempt to run the ball, then the play action fake becomes useless. The Bears have been very successful with the play action this year. They kept running it, late into last night, and it was pointless. Interestingly enough, when you only run the ball 13 times, the play action loses it's effectiveness. If you're talking about last night, then yes. But for the entire year, we have had some success running the ball.

He must be getting signs from every team in baseball now, because he's doing the same "predictions" on the ESPN broadcasts. They aren't predictions anyway, just tidbits of info about what might come next, usually the kind that most astute baseball fans suspect anyway. Nevertheless, I enjoy listening to him. Stone is clearly one of the best color commentators in the game. And yes, he is also one of the most arrogant---though I don't think his arrogance can rival Joe Morgan. I agree he was wrong to leak info from player conversations. At the time, I just remember it becoming very clear through that entire ordeal that the Cubs were an unfocused, fragmented ballclub. From Mercker paying attention to the booth instead of the game, to everyone hating Sosa's admittedly tired act, to bickering about press coverage in general (not just the booth, mind you), to Dusty revealing himself as a manger who would not be able to right the ship through the tough times.......there was no doubt this team didn't have its head in the right place, or its managerial house in order.

Just wanted to chime in on this thread: I doubt Jimbo will say anything I haven't heard before, but vance's new sig is hilarious.

It means just because you were right about Baker doesn't show anything. It shows that it's possible to make a decision on somebody based on past performance. How about taking Piniella's World Series championship from 1990 and making a decision based on that?

It means just because you were right about Baker doesn't show anything.

He's going to turn into a big teddy bear. I can feel it. One year from now everyone will be asking where the fiery Piniella went.

I don't see the point in giving the benefit of the doubt to people who have a long history from which they can be judged. I hated on Baker before he was signed and never gave him the benefit of the doubt, and I think it's pretty clear I was justified. I don't have the same feelings on Lou, though. You can't use one example to prove the world. And besides, you have little choice but to give him a shot anyway----unless you're holding out on a huge stockpile of Tribune stock goony. Many Yankee fans hated on Torre when he took the NY job. His record wasn't exactly sparkling. I'd say they were dead wrong. Piniella has had some success. Not saying he will here, but I'll also bet if he doesn't, it won't be all his fault. Especially not with Hendry in the front office. I'm not doing cartwheels over this hiring, but hey whatever I'll give the old guy a chance. Once he proves himself incapable, then I'll start to complain.