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Since it seems to be what Sox fans care the most about, I can take solace in the fact that regardless of what the Sox do, Chicago will still belong to the Cubs as far as baseball is concerned. They can win it all, but by March the media focus will be back on the Cubs.

Suck it up. I could never turn down a chance to go to a WS game; no matter how much I don't care about either team. Not caring about the teams is one thing, but what if you absolutely HATE both teams?

I couldn't help but root against the Sox, and I'd rather not see any of it anyway.

Just barely into the Crawford boxes. You people can call me pathetic all you want, but the field is just a nightmare! If your players can't pull a couple of Pettitte pitches into those boxes over the course of 6 innings, you've got little room to talk. True, but how many of Berkman's homers have been cheapies into the front of the Crawford boxes? Too damn many.

Screw the Sox. I hope A.J. gets his eye put out with a champagne cork.

We're one Astros win from the worst scenario I could possibly imagine. If it is indeed a Houston-Chicago WS, I'll have to root for Houston, and that will hurt me deeply. But better that than listening to Hawk and Sox fans gloat all next year, and so on until the Cubs win one. God this sucks. Go Cards. :x

A little, but you won't find me crying myself to sleep over it.

The same way guys like Piazza and Grace went really low. Scouting is an inexact science.

Yeah, and Gammons reported it earlier than that.

Unless I am mistaken, Washburn is an extreme flyball pitcher. That doesn't project well in Wrigley.

Knowing Dusty it would be Matt Williams.

We better stop besmirching the fine name of the SCORE before some nameless person comes and scolds us.

Shocking, isn't it?

Unfortunately, kids often emulate hitters with unique hitting styles. When I was younger, some of the guys I saw imitated the most were Eric Davis and Julio Franco (usually with diasterous results). Persoanlly, I tried to emulate Mark Grace's hitting style. But you are right, Pujols looks excellent at the plate the vast majority of the time.

Sanders is shaken up. I'll feel bad for him if he is hurt again.

Calls being the key word. Again....the ball was rolled BEFORE the ump put his hand up. And again, if he hadn't put his hand up there would have been plenty of time for Escobar to throw the runner out. And as Tim pointed out, in a raucous playoff atmosphere stadium, the signal trumps the verbal call, and the signal was clearly out.

I see that point, but if you exercise every little opportunity to ensure things like that as a fielder, it will become a circus in the field. Should middle infielders hold the ball on caught baserunners until they are on their way to the dugout, or outfielders wait to throw the ball after a diving catch after an out signal just in case the ump changes his mind? The whole flow of the game would be disturbed. It isn't reasonable. If an ump calls a guy out, that should be good enough. Well, if it is a close call, I don't think it hurts to be a bit theatrical about the whole thing. Why do coaches always try to reinforce to players that you should hold a tag instead of just swiping? To make sure the umpire sees it and gets the call correct. That's just one small example, but I think it is a perfectly valid point to say that if it is a close call the fielder should make it as obvious as possible to the umpire. True, but I'm looking at principle, not just the individual instance. What if there less than 2 outs are other runners moving, and you need to throw quickly? The precedent of umpires reversing their calls is a real problem, and that is effectively what Eddings did. Whether or not Paul should have tagged A.J. is really superfluous here, IMO. The ump called an out, and then said he didn't when it was too late.

I see that point, but if you exercise every little opportunity to ensure things like that as a fielder, it will become a circus in the field. Should middle infielders hold the ball on caught baserunners until they are on their way to the dugout, or outfielders wait to throw the ball after a diving catch after an out signal just in case the ump changes his mind? The whole flow of the game would be disturbed. It isn't reasonable. If an ump calls a guy out, that should be good enough.

Not even assume a player is out when he is called out? Perhaps the fielders should reamin on the field until the batter is in the dugout to avoid any potential ambiguity.

On borderline plays like that you are absolutely wrong, the defensive players can never assume an offensive player is out. Until the ump says they are....says and shows the signal they are safe. You ask any coach....any coach and he'll tell you to take the decision out of the umps hands and make the easy tag. Assuming anything gets you can get you exactly what happened to the Angels. I don't think the extra effort is unreasonable in any way. From what I have been hearing, the ump has to yell "live ball" if he doesn't think a strike is caught. Paul says he heard nothing, and that is why he did nothing. This is the ump's fault and not Paul's in any way. Paul was not leaving the decision in the ump's hands because the ump had not said "live ball", so Paul rightly thought the decision had already been made. Saying Paul should have tagged him is akin to saying that on a double play grounder, the guy at second should stand on the bag until he heard the umpire call "out" before throwing it over to first. An umpire does not have to yell "Live Ball". He has to yell you're out. Yelling it's a live ball is considered coaching. What does he have to do? Signal an out? Oh wait, he did that.

I'm not sure how this turned into a debate between Dempster and Hawkins. I don't get the "you can get someone else" theory. The Cubs have pretty much proven they aren't good at just getting somebody else. They spent a year and a half trying to get somebody else, and that was just a year removed from spending a decade trying to find somebody else. $2m on Jobo was a managable risk. At $5m, they don't have the luxury of living through failure. This isn't a "if he fails, no big deal" sort of thing. They are tied into Dempster now, and he must deliver. He had good numbers as a reliever this year. But those numbers are not guaranteed in the future, given his history. To be honest, I just don't see Dempster as having "walked the tightrope". At least not any more than Borowski or Hawkins did. He gives up his walks, but he gives up few hits and very few XBH, and his peripherals as a closer are good. And I really would rather have Dempster at 5 million than Wagner at 10. Obviously Ryan isn't as good as Billy, but I don't think that difference is woth 5 million. Unless your have Rivera, Wagner or Gagne (Maybe not even Gagne, with his injuries), you have a gamble. Like I said earlier, if Dempster had a 1.40 ERA and .280 BAA, I would be a bit leery. But his number as a closer range from good - excellent, and I feel as comfortable with him as closer as I have with anyone the Cubs have run out there in the past 10 years, for what that's worth. I just think giving an effective in house option a contract for less than he would have gotten on the open market and using the rest of your offseason resources to plug other holes makes a lot more sense than paying another guy twice as much to do a job that probably would have been done anyway. Having an effective closer locked up before the offseason even begins is a luxury, and Hendry has bigger fish to fry than the possibility of Dempster regressing, IMO.

I've seen it, and that is definitely not the case. The ump called him out, paul rolled (and didn't sprint anywhere), then AJ ran, the ump froze, looked confused as hell, then panicked and didn't know what to do, then just stood around like an indignant idiot defending his ineptitude. You're right. I saw the fist pump while Paul was still in his crouch. If the Angels are at fault there, then everyone better tag every batter after every strike 3 call, everytime. The Angels definitely will. I wouldn't just tag them. If it's AJP, I slap him as hard as I can with the ball. It was a chance to do just that. But why would he have? The ump didn't call no catch, the rest of the infielders saw the ump call him out, and were running off the field. It was the same as any other inning ending strikeout, except that Eddings changed his mind after all the fielders were out of position, and AJP was at first. You just can't blame the Angels for this. My point is that the Angels are not blameless. Harvey, yeah an old ump, just said that it is considered coaching for the ump to tell the catcher the ball was not caught. It is Pauls job to secure the out and he did not do so. He also said that until you yell your out it isn;'t an out which is a point I made a long time ago. A catcher does not know a batter is out until he is told by the ump. But the point is that the position you are advocating dictates that the catcher should tag the batter on anything boderline, players should always assume the batter isn't out. That's unreasonable.

I've seen it, and that is definitely not the case. The ump called him out, paul rolled (and didn't sprint anywhere), then AJ ran, the ump froze, looked confused as hell, then panicked and didn't know what to do, then just stood around like an indignant idiot defending his ineptitude. You're right. I saw the fist pump while Paul was still in his crouch. If the Angels are at fault there, then everyone better tag every batter after every strike 3 call, everytime. The Angels definitely will. I wouldn't just tag them. If it's AJP, I slap him as hard as I can with the ball. It was a chance to do just that. But why would he have? The ump didn't call no catch, the rest of the infielders saw the ump call him out, and were running off the field. It was the same as any other inning ending strikeout, except that Eddings changed his mind after all the fielders were out of position, and AJP was at first. You just can't blame the Angels for this.

Unfortunately I think you're right. But Hendry could easily afford a 3/30 deal with one of the studs, and still have plenty of money to spend on improving the woeful OF offense. True. It's only 3 mil more than Dempster earned this year, and there is still plenty of money left to spend.

Dempsters career K/9 is 7.40 Hawkins career K/9 is 6.06 Dempster's career G/F is 1.26 Hawkins career G/F is 1.16 Dempster's career BB/9 is 4.72. Hawkins' career BB/9 is 2.72. You don't have to make a comparison to Hawkins to describe Dempster as somebody who walks the tight rope. The guy walks too many people, and that didn't change when he went to the bullpen. hawkins has primarily been used in the bullpen over the course of his career whereas dempster has been used as a starter, so your comparison should be weighted somehow. last season, when used primarily out of the bullpen, dempster got around 2.5 times more groundballs than hawkins, and struck out around 2 more hitters per 9 innings. dempster's numbers make me more than comfortable with him as the closer. I don't think you want to do that. Hawkins numbers were much better as a reliever than as a starter. I kept in his starting numbers, which were more than half his career stats, when comparing the two. Take out his starting time and Hawkin's K/9 goes up to about 7.5+ and his K/BB is about 4.5. I didn't want to unfairly disparage Dempster anymore than need be. Besides, it all counts. Their career numbers are quite similar. And Dempster's numbers were better as a reliever as well. His OPS and BAA went way down, and his k/9 and k/bb went up. Take out both pitcher's career starting numbers and you can see that Dempster has been better than Hawkins as a reliever, and much better as a closer. For all his control problems, Dempster has a slightly lower career whip than Hawkins, even though Hawkins has had a much longer stint as a reliever. As relievers, they are almost dead even. When it is all said and done, it is the total number of baserunners you allow, not how you allow them. And Dempster has an advantage in that he can pitch to contact because his stuff doesn't get hit as hard as Hawkins. And there is the fact that in multiple opportunities, Hawkins has failed to produce nearly the results that Dempster did in his first try. LaTroy has has more than enough opportunities for the law of averages to work out, yet his career save percentage is abysmal. Hawkins can't close, and he has repeatedly proven that. Dempster, hin his first chance, was top notch as a closer. Could he revert? Sure he could. But so could Eric Gagne, who was every bit as bad as Dempster was as a starter. Some pitchers abilities just translate well into closing, and IMO Dempster falls into that category. His peripherals were above career norm last year coming off injury, and they got better this year. And whether you choose to admit it or not, there is clearly something intangible about a successful closer. But Ryan has the numbers to go with it as a closer, and has earned his chance, IMO. If he can't do it, you can get someone else, and at 5 mil, he would make a good setup man. But I tend to believe he will.