Soul

Then why not bring someone in who you KNOW will implement the system you want, David? And one who you know is capable of implementing that system? You still haven't answered that question, and it's pretty much the whole bag of beans.

Or not. You really don't know anything about him to know whether or not it's a terrible choice. Sure, he has no formal coaching experience (he has "coached" with the Suns during his time there, although obviously not from the bench). I'd sure as hell take it over one of these retreads we were looking at. Given the fact that Paxson has interviewed him (and a ton of other candidates) and I'm sure done a fair amount of research and still put his ass on the line with him, I'll give it time before I deem it a "terrible, terrible" choice. My hope is that he's a D'Antoni type of guy. There's really no way of knowing, though, until we hear (and see) more about him. So you're saying it's a good choice because nobody knows anything about him? How does that work, exactly? I'll give it time too. That's not really the question though, is it. The question is, how can Del Negro be the best choice when nobody has an inkling how he will do, including Paxson? For all he (or anyone else) knows, Del Negro will simply fold under the pressure of being a coach. Obviously we all hope it works out. But even if it does, this simply can not have been the best choice. We're now relying on luck. Tell me where I said anything like that. The fact is, we know about 1/100000th as much as Paxson knows about the guy. There's no way it can, on the first day, be deemed a bad (or TERRIBLE) hire by people who know absolutely nothing. I didn't know that the hire had to be deemed (or could be) either good or bad the day it was made, especially when we have little to nothing to go on to make such an evaluation. Your first sentence clearly suggests people should be OK with it because nothing is known about him. The real fact is, even Paxson can't know nearly as much about Del Negro as he would about other candidates who have at least shown that they are coaches. It's not asking too much to hire a guy who at least has a resume. You seem to be saying that it's not a terrible choice if we get lucky and he works out. The reality is, we shouldn't have to get lucky to find a good coach.

Or not. You really don't know anything about him to know whether or not it's a terrible choice. Sure, he has no formal coaching experience (he has "coached" with the Suns during his time there, although obviously not from the bench). I'd sure as hell take it over one of these retreads we were looking at. Given the fact that Paxson has interviewed him (and a ton of other candidates) and I'm sure done a fair amount of research and still put his ass on the line with him, I'll give it time before I deem it a "terrible, terrible" choice. My hope is that he's a D'Antoni type of guy. There's really no way of knowing, though, until we hear (and see) more about him. So you're saying it's a good choice because nobody knows anything about him? How does that work, exactly? I'll give it time too. That's not really the question though, is it. The question is, how can Del Negro be the best choice when nobody has an inkling how he will do, including Paxson? For all he (or anyone else) knows, Del Negro will simply fold under the pressure of being a coach. Obviously we all hope it works out. But even if it does, this simply can not have been the best choice. We're now relying on luck.

He's clearly just trying to fool you into thinking he's good.

Which is probably why Lou goes crazy on him when he starts getting behind every hitter. He was good last night. I'm not getting my hopes up that he will do it consistently though, because he's shown that he can't.

JINXER!

I assume he's observing him more than just during the game when he's in center field.

That's a must, unless we're talking about some kind of extremely extenuating circumstance. Maybe if the candidate is some hotshot from Europe, or something like that. At least give me someone with some indication that he's been in a court-side leadership role before, and shown some promise. This is the NBA, I don't think it's too much to expect someone with some kind of accomplishment in the area of coaching. Let Del Negro cut his teeth somewhere for a couple years -- heck, hire him as an assistant and find out if he's cut out for coaching. But head coach right away sight unseen? That's stark raving madness. Even if he succeeded it would *STILL* be stark raving madness. BTW, the ESPN article says Del Negro didn't even make the finalists for the Phoenix job: Porter did land that job.

Gee, the road trip started off so well. Wh'aaa happon'?

Last time out Lowe was driving me crazy. I suppose it's too much to ask, but DON'T SWING at this guy's diving, out-of-the-zone slider/sinker!!!

Awww, that would just be too bad. I never like to see someone injured, but you know -- it's about damn time the Cards starting having to deal with the consequences of just throwing random players into whatever role they feel like it regardless of whether the player is capable of handling that role or not.

The link posted didn't work for me, but if anyone wants to read about it, I found a new one: http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-080606-chicago-cubs-mark-cuban,1,850956.story

but but but they want a name that resonates with the fans! you'd think that after all of this time searching and interviewing, attempting to find a big name coach whose name "resonates" with the fans, that they would have hired batman or something. vinny del negro? chuck person? tyrone corbin? might as well have just stuck with doug collins if they wanted a big name guy. in truth, what the bulls want is someone cheap. Wait a minute. Del Negro's never coached!?! I just looked it up on wiki. The guy has NEVER COACHED!!!! Not even as an assistant!

Yep. So let me get this straight. A) You know there's a pending case against you already. B) You know your boss already has you on notice for said pending charges. C) You know you are quite possibly fighting for your job because your employer just drafted another running back relatively high. D) With this knowledge, you get drunk, blow a red light, and fail a field sobriety test. I'd say that's the definition of idiocy. Unless these charges are completely untrue, Benson should start packing his bags.

Hill's not doing well. He'll be back but I think at this point it's going to take some time. I'd guess Marshall. And I like that -- I always thought Sean has the capability to be a solid back-of-the rotation lefty. Provided he's ready I would like to see him back in Chicago.

I think we can at least give Geo some time to see if he can work through it before declaring that he's "fading." The injury is interesting. If you aren't comfortable up there, maybe that can affect your approach and suddenly you're swinging at stupid pitches. I don't like today's matchup for him though, because Lowe will pound that low&away slider on him plenty.

Hey now. I thought it was a quality movie, second best in the Indy series. I didn't know (remember) Indiana Jones was from Chicago and went to U of C though. a buh? It was awful, there was very little semblance of a plot and ALIENS Well they could have just done another Bible archaeology story but I think that's a bit played out. I heard that the aliens bit was borrowed from when the script was going to be about Atlantis -- so you were going to get aliens either way this time around. BTW, where's today's game thread? I wanted to express my stern warning that the Cubs better not let Lowe dominate them *AGAIN*.

To me, this is an interesting admission by Jerry: So they recognize it's not going well. I certainly hope they've got a plan to make it go well. And hopefully soon.

I don't mind that so much. What sucks in my view is the fact that we have so few home games in June (the first real Summer month when people want to get out to games) and in September (for obvious reasons -- people want to be at Wrigley if the Cubs are fighting for the playoffs). Instead we're sitting around our TVs now that the weather is warm, and we'll be sitting around our TVs hoping the Cubs can secure the division from thousands of miles away. That's just stupid scheduling.

surge protectors are your friend. That's why everything I own is plugged into one, including the two things that got toasted. You should probably use more than 1. :rotfl: nice. Now I'm thinking the DTV receiver isn't toasted, but the dish got blown out of alignment. Heading up to the roof to check it out. The cable modem though, I dunno......it's flashing all kinds of weird when I plug it in.

surge protectors are your friend. That's why everything I own is plugged into one, including the two things that got toasted.

I just found out my DTV receiver and my cable modem got toasted by last night's lightning storm. GREAT! I won't be able to watch this game anyway. You're all in luck -- Cubs always play better when I don't watch. It's scientifically proven.

I can only hope they've actually got their act together but are just waiting for the finals to make the announcement.

I was hoping this would be a day game because it's a Thursday. Does LA usually stick with night games even on "hooky" day? Staying up until midnight is getting tiresome for me.

Which is A-OK with me. I'm LOVING how patient he's been so far this season. I hope he keeps it up. There's nothing wrong with striking out (there IS something wrong with being a bad hitter, some of which do happen to strike out a lot). Except having to listen to baseball idiots complain about it on the radio/tv all the time. True. It's generally stupid to isolate one aspect of a hitter and judge it independently of the complete picture. Strikeouts is one area that people tend to do this on.