soccer10k

The Cubs are still 2.5 games out of last place.

Enjoying yourself yet Fred? It's gotten awfully quiet in the Game Thread today.

Good video. I enjoyed it.

Boy, that's a good way to get into baseball shape, irregular practices. Like Banedon said, please stay retired Sammy. Don't tarnish your legacy any more.

Hopefully I'll be able to plan a trip to Wrigley someday. Gotta get the money first though.

I heard a rumor that he'll be participating in the Nation's Hot Dog eating contest instead. I'm sorry, there was a replay on ESPN earlier and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a joke.

LOL

Oops. Double post.

I detect sarcasm. As I stated, I'm not going to debate Notre Dame all the time. I have my point of view and that's not going to be changed anytime soon. Who is your team Slugger? We can discuss them instead? Notre Dame? More like Notre Shame! (heckling) Anyway, who's the team to beat in the SEC now? I like Florida in the East and Auburn in the West. Tennessee isn't that good, South Carolina still doesn't have the players to win under Spurrier's system and Georgia lost Shockley. Florida returns a good core of players and Chris Leak. I think this is the year they make the SEC championship game. Auburn has the scheduling advantage this year and they will get LSU, Florida, and Georgia at home. They do have Alabama and South Carolina on the road but their out of conference schedule (Washington St., Buffalo, Tulane, Arkansas St.) is weak. LSU will play both Arizona and Fresno St. at home but will have to go to Florida and Auburn. That will be the difference. EDIT: The college football conference championship comes down to who you play and where you play them so often that I have begun to use that in my analysis.

I detect sarcasm. As I stated, I'm not going to debate Notre Dame all the time. I have my point of view and that's not going to be changed anytime soon. Who is your team Slugger? We can discuss them instead?

Congrats to the Bulls. Good job by Paxson to get this done fast.

Is Jose Macias still available?

Between Pagan, Murton, Nevin, and Bynum (when he returns) the corners are covered. I don't necessarily think the Yankees would want Juan Pierre and Jacque Jones. We might be stuck with Pierre which would only leave right field to be filled. Even if we had to fill center as well, it wouldn't be a problem to do that. I don't really follow the AL, but isn't Matsui more-or-less done for the year? They could use a semi-quality bat to replace him. Sorry, I meant I don't think the Yankees would want both of them but instead would want just one. Given their lineup and who the Yankees are replacing (Matsui) I would think they would want Jones but not Pierre. I didn't clarify my statement well enough.

That's what I would like to see as well. If the Cubs give all the young guys (include Hill and Ryu in there as well) some starts they should be able to see if the young guys should be considered for starting spots next year or if the Cubs need to go out and get a pitcher or two in free agency (Zito/Schmidt/etc) after this year. If the Cubs don't know if the young guys can be counted upon as starters then how will they know what the team needs in the offseason? Oh who am I kidding, good organizations do this, not the Cubs.

That was my first reaction.

Without question it's Nomar.

What does this have to do with anything? Should ND just not make a schedule until a few weeks before the season so they can have all good teams. I don't think you will hear many ND fans saying that ND's schedule was as tough as it looked before the season started. Would you say that their schedule this season is tough? S 02 @ Georgia Tech S 09 PENN STATE S 16 MICHIGAN S 23 @ Michigan St. S 30 PURDUE O 07 STANFORD O 21 UCLA O 28 @ Navy (Baltimore) N 04 NORTH CAROLINA N 11 @ Air Force N 18 ARMY N 25 @ Southern Cal I think it is pretty decent. Probably about as tough as most-but definately not all- conference schedules. Obviously a school has to make it's schedule early and doesn't how how every team is going to fare that year. You can't hold that against Notre Dame. But the fact is, that even though Notre Dame tried to create a tough schedule last year, as the year played out it was obvious that their schedule actually ended up being extremely weak. And herein lies the problem. Nobody in the media bothered to look at how Notre Dame's opponents actually fared on the year and instead just saw the names "Michigan", "USC", "Tennessee", "Michigan State", "Purdue", and remembered that Pittsburgh was ranked in the preseason (but conveniently forgot they lost to the University of Ohio). Nobody in the national media bothered to realize that all of those teams, with the exception of USC, were average at best last year. Notre Dame beat a bunch of below average and average teams and because they are darlings of the media, were ranked higher than they should have been. Because of the caliber, or lack thereof, of Notre Dame's opponents, very few people realized that their defense was actually horrible - something that was exposed in the Fiesta Bowl loss to Ohio State. Notre Dame did not deserve a BCS bowl last year - and no I'm not going to get into another debate over this so nobody try to spark one - but received one solely because they are Notre Dame. I'm not saying other schools haven't been overrated as well solely because of reputation, but Notre Dame is overrated more often than anybody else. I'm also not trying to say Notre Dame is overrated this year, because I don't think they are. But they are given the benefit of the doubt more often than virtually any other school.

IIRC, we gave Clemens his first loss in 2004 after he started the year 8ish-0 and delayed his 300th victory as well.

Why would you call Pierzynski undeserving? Looking at the All Star Game Final Vote Poll, I would say that Pierzynski is, at best, the fourth most deserving behind (in no particular order) Hafner, Liriano, and Verlander.

Excellent point.

Actually the Cubs having no All Stars would be appropriate, but the rules are the rules, they had to pick someone out of this mess. Z unquestionably deserves to be and All Star though. Regardless of how bad this team is, Z earned his spot.

We got Crime Dog in late June 2001. We got Fred McGriff in late July 2001. Link He strung the Cubs out for a couple weeks before finally agreeing to the trade.

Between Pagan, Murton, Nevin, and Bynum (when he returns) the corners are covered. I don't necessarily think the Yankees would want Juan Pierre and Jacque Jones. We might be stuck with Pierre which would only leave right field to be filled. Even if we had to fill center as well, it wouldn't be a problem to do that.

Jacque's power is to left, so he likely wouldn't benefit from the short porch in right. Virtually every left handed hitter with any power whatsoever would benefit from having a short porch in right field.

There is absolutely no way Z is getting traded. Not a chance. Prior maybe, but not Z. It says in the blog that ARam would be the centerpiece and Jones could be involved. No mention of Prior though.