soccer10k

Great save by the Levski Sofia goalie but the rebound goes right to Drogba for the Chelsea goal. 1-0.

Anybody that says Sosa "spent many a year wearing out a patch of grass in right field" gets absolutely no respect or credibility from me. And from some of the other posts in this thread, I'm not the only one who feels this way. Say what you want about the corked bat, steroids (theoretically), and leaving early but Sammy WAS the Cubs for years.

Ballack's shot goes off the post for Chelsea. That's two now.

Apparently you didn't see the "Official World Cup" thread we had.

Chelsea vs Levski Sofia is on ESPN2 right now.

If I lived in Minnesota, during the summer when the weather is nice, the last thing I would want to do in the summer is go and sit inside a dome for 3+ hours.

Is there a way that both can miss the playoffs? Because that would be ideal.

True, no one knows if Pie will make it or not. But given his age (21), his level (AAA) and his production .283/.341/.451 on the year, .323/.373/.538 post All-Star break, he is a pretty darn safe bet to come close to Crawford-type production in the bigs and certainly has the ability to surpass it. Who says you have to get rid of Pie to get Crawford though? Why couldn't you have both on the team?

Feels great doesn't it?

But you're still not trading a proven #2 starter. You're trading a prospect (i.e. a player that may or may not pan out and become a good/great player) and not a proven player. Crawford is a proven player.

Are you kidding? Crawford would be fixture for the better part of decade. At 25 he's already one of the top outfielders in the game. There is no guarentee that Pie will make it. And he'd have to go a long way to make to the level that Crawford is at already. Crawford is the proverbeal 5-tool player. If Pie does make it the Cubs can move Crawford to either corner position. They want a top of the rotation starter. That means a #1 or #2 starter. Which give you more wins? Not the position player, that's for sure. We don't have someone who can step in and fill that #2 spot if Hill or whoever is dealt. There are CF options out there that only cost us money and don't unplug one hole in the damn to fill another. Are they as good as Crawford now or in the long term? No, but the net effect on the team is more wins w/o Crawford (as the team stands today). I like Crawford, no doubt. His obp is a little low, but he has other skills that make up for it. His CS% is very acceptable as is his defense. He has affordable club options through 2010 i believe. I wouldn't cry too much if we swapped the likes of Hill (and some other middle prospects) for Crawford b/c that's ok for the long term future as Gallagher, Veal, and Pawalek are on the way. OK long term move for a 100 million team. Poor move for 2007 and Hendry's clock is ticking. I doubt Hendry gets Crawford for the current asking price. Pie will make it. Whether or not he reaches is ceiling is debateable, but barring some freak injury (same could happen to Crawford) he'll be in the bigs soon enough. You don't see top pitching prospects moved much. Remember Kazmir? That went real well. I threw Hill's name out there, but more likely it's Veal who gets moved (Younger, probably higher ceiling). Veal for Delmon Young? Done. You don't know if Pie will make it because he's not even in the bigs yet. Crawford has made it already. If the Cubs acquired him it would give Pie another year to mature in the minors. Going into the 2008 season, Jacque would be in the last year of his contract making him easier to trade if necessary. If the Cubs can get Crawford for a decent price, they should by all means do it.

There is one number that stood out for me there: 145. EDIT: Does anybody have his pitch counts for the season and maybe his pitches per start?

I, too, would love to have Carl Crawford. Oh yeah, and he's only 25.

Man United beats Benfica on a goal by Saha in the 60th minute.

Give him a one year incentive laden deal starting out around $1M and let him pitch his way to more money.

If the players were laughing after a loss and the Cubs were in the middle of a pennant race, then it might be a bigger deal. But the team's been done for a while now and the players know that.

The difference is the White Sox finished with 99 wins while the Cards will finish with, at most, 87 wins. The 2005 Sox had a solid team while the 2006 Cards don't.

Definitely under.

I always liked him better than their other college FB guys, but when he predicted Notre Dame to go 4-2 in their first six and average over 30 points per game in those six last year in the face of the 0-6 BS, and then turned out to be exactly right on both counts, that pretty much clinched it for me. I still can't believe people actually thought Notre Dame was going to be 0-6 to start last year. I could see people thinking they were going to lose to USC and Michigan. But Washington was 1-10 in 2004. Michigan State, Purdue, and Pittsburgh were toss up games that could go either way. At the worst I would have said Notre Dame would have started out 1-5 (I think I had them at 3-3). A 0-6 was just ludicrous.

I like Kirk too, he knows his stuff. I agree as well. I don't like Mark May and Corso can provide some decent analysis but Herbstreit is, far and away, better than the others.

I would be ok with it if Lee is at 1st, Ramirez is at 3rd, ARod is at SS and Soriano is at 2nd! I guess I could tolerate that situation. I'm rooting for a quick Yankee playoff exit with ARod going 2-20 and a smart Hendry picking up the pieces. I would by far rather have ARod over Manny. Plus, if the Cubs say to ARod he could go back to SS, I bet he'd go to Chicago. Now you have to do your part and say you've been a Yankee fan since you were a kid and call all the Yankee talk shows and tell them how ARod chokes and you want him gone. Even if the Yankees do well in the playoffs but ARod stinks up the joint, he will be ridiculed by the New York media for not helping the team succeed. I don't think it really matters how the team does, ARod needs to hit well in the playoffs. Obviously it's not realistic because I don't see ARod doing this but I would love it if ARod tore it up in the playoffs, but the rest of the team did horrible and the Yankees were bounced early and ARod went on a huge rant to the media and ended it by demanding a trade. That would be awesome.

I would be ok with it if Lee is at 1st, Ramirez is at 3rd, ARod is at SS and Soriano is at 2nd! There are always a couple exceptions to any situation.

That's doubtful. The Yankees view any season in which they don't win the WS as disastrous, and Boston goes insane every season. I think those are both higher pressure than the Cubs job. Imagine if Dusty got the results he got in either of those two places. He made it 4 full years in Chicago, 3 of which he was accepted by the vast majority of the public and media as exactly the right guy for the job. He'd have been killed after the 2003 playoff loss and 2004 collapse. Instead people talked about how lucky we were to have back to back winning seasons. Considering how they fired Grady Little after a 95-win season and a series victory over Oakland in the ALDS in 2003, I think Dusty's fate would have been similar. He wouldn't have even been around in 2004. Grady's choke job in 2003 with leaving Pedro in was far worse than anything Dusty did. Everybody knew Pedro blew up after he hit the 100 pitch mark. Everybody knew that Pedro should have been removed from the ball game. Heck, my mom changed the channel when Little came out the first time because she thought Pedro was going to be removed from the game. Nobody could believe that Grady left Pedro in that ballgame. While you could argue that Prior was overworked that year, there was no evidence to suggest that Prior wasn't going to be able to complete that 8th inning. He had pitched superbly that game and didn't show signs of tiring. He had also thrown 115+ pitches numerous times over the course of the year with positive results. Dusty had no reason to think that Prior would come undone in the 8th inning that day. That's the difference. Grady should have known Pedro was likely to unravel. I think Dusty would have been around in 2004, but would have been fired after the season if he was the Boston manager.

No. I could root for Manny, I could even root for Edmonds in cubbie blue. But Bonds would seriously make me consider not being a Cubs fan, atleast for a year. Did you cheer for Sosa when he was on the Cubs? You can't compare Bonds and Sosa. Two completely different people and situations.

I had to go with Morgan. And I agree on Walton. He is the worst NBA announcer out there.