soccer10k

There are ways around the salary cap in the NBA which is why the New York Knicks can have a team salary of $123 million. Dallas is second in the NBA at $96 million. I'm not sure on the rules but I know there are ways around it. The NFL has a strict salary cap and there is no way around it.

I'm making a prediction for the 5-30 post game thread: Another losing streak begins.

That's my thinking too. Nope. When a player wins, he gets to chose. I still think Barrett should drop the appeal if it isn't heard and serve it vs. AL Central teams from June 16-25. That's not correct. The only way to "chose" when to serve your suspension is to drop the appeal at a time that's convenient for you, but if you genuinely plan to appeal, your suspension, if it still exists, is served immediately. That was my thinking as well.

I fault Corey's failure on bad coaching and jacking him around in the lineup and not because he was brought up too early. He was progressing nicely even in Dusty's first year until the injury. Then when he came back in 2004, the multitude of coaches (and manager) giving him conflicting advice screwed him beyond repair until he could get away from them. Funny that he now seems to be back on track with Baltimore. With our manager and coaches there will never be a good time to bring up young players because they don't know how to coach them. Agreed. Corey was making strides up until he got hurt in 2003. He was only 23 that year and had drastically improved his numbers year to year. Look at Corey's production between 2002 and 2004. He has his best year in 2003 but once Dusty had him for a full year, his numbers dropped dramatically in 2004. Coincidence? I think not especially considering he's on the upswing now in Baltimore.

I could see Wood coming back on a 1 year contract like the one Hendry gave to Nomar in 2005. But I don't see Hendry signing him to a long term deal.

And Dunn will strike out in his other at bat.

Prior's "velocity" is not a "major concern" after one start. When was the last time Prior pitched in a regular game? It's looks like to me that Prior was sacrificing velocity for comman tonight. The "velocity" will become a concern, if after 5-6 starts down the road...Prior is still topping 89 mph. But until then, it is not a concern. Agreed. Let's allow Prior to make a couple starts before we start to judge how he looks. He only pitched 2 innings tonight and was obviously on a very limited pitch count. It's too early to tell how well he's going to recover right now.

It was a very easy read - I think I finished it in 3 days - but I didn't think it was as good as Cubs Nation. Some parts were interesting but other parts weren't. It's worth reading but I wouldn't go into it with high expectatations.

England have real problems. The best two strikers - Rooney and Owen - will be nothing like fit (Rooney won't even play until the knock-out stages, Owen is just getting his fitness back) for the finals. The central defence, where England have such strength, is weaker than I can recall - Campbell's been out with mental problems for a while, Ferdinand lapses regularly, which leaves John Terry to have confidence in. Anything further than the quarter finals I'd see as a huge achievement. The Dutch are well-equipped. However, they're always well-equipped. Holland and Spain always have good teams but they always find a way to fail. Although in Spain's defense, they got screwed over in 2002 and should have beat South Korea.

Does anybody have a pitch count for Prior? He needs to be able to get up to 70 pitches before he goes up to AA or AAA.

That seems to be the key for Aardsma - throwing strikes. He has the ability to be a very successful pitcher at the major league level if he can throw the ball over the plate.

I just made the same observation and was just about to post about it as well.

Assuming the talk of two more starts in the minors if he stays on schedule with no setbacks, 6/3 and 6/8 minor league rehab starts and a return about 6/15 in Houston or the weekend after Detroit series. The game on 6/15 is against Houston but it is at Wrigley field not Enron/Minute Maid.

Maybe Dusty has realized exactly how much Hank White sucks. That would mean Dusty actually used his brain, which would be unprecedented.

I think 41-71 from here on out is more likely.

I"m trying not to get my hopes up, and crossing my fingers that he doesn't get hurt again. He'll be back on the DL by July.

Oh my goodness the Cubs actaully won!! It's a Memorial Day Miracle.

Wuertz must have mentioned OBP.

I have said before that Pope is going to be like Agoos in 2002. Overmatched and outplayed. It's imperative that Mastro and Gooch are able to help him out, or else we're toast. Oh no, not Jeff Agoos. That can't be good.

Truffle, My numbers are the same as your except I have karenmac at 126 instead of 125 and I have HHHBK21 at 99 instead of 98.

I don't think the US is going to advance out of the group stage this year. None of the teams they played were very good and the US didn't have one great game. I think the combination of bad play and the Group of Death will send the team home early. Hell, even if the team plays well but suffers a couple bad breaks, they might not advance out of the group stage. That being said, Claudio Reyna only played about 15 minutes in these three games. If he is healthy, this is a completely different team and for the US to have a chance of advancing, Reyna MUST be healthy. Bruce Arena better whip this team into shape in 2 weeks because they have a date with the #2 team in the world and they had better be ready to play.

The US had a similar stretch of games in 2002: May 12 they won 2-1 against Uruguay May 16 they won 5-0 against Jamaica May 19 they lost 2-0 against Holland. Here's the link: http://www.ussoccer.com/common/stContent.jsp_16-TMNT11.html I don't remember how the team actually looked in those games though. How the team performed in 1998 warmups looks closer to how they performed this year: May 16 they tied Macedonia 0-0 T May 24 they beat Kuwait 2-0 May 30 they tiied Scotland 0-0.

Thank you! If Bonds was on the Cubs, people on this site would have such a diffrent attitude on Barry. If you support Sosa especially, then how could you hate Bonds? Ludacris. Best hitter of our generation, people. The difference is that Sosa was beloved by the media and the fans up until is last couple years. Bonds is just a jerk. I'm not saying Cubs fans wouldn't love him, but there is a huge personality difference between the two.

Thank you! If Bonds was on the Cubs, people on this site would have such a diffrent attitude on Barry. If you support Sosa especially, then how could you hate Bonds? Ludacris. Best hitter of our generation, people. Big difference between Sosa and Bonds. First off, Sosa's not breaking any records. Second, and most importantly, Sosa is a suspected cheater, while Bonds is a known cheater. Bonds is heralded as the greatest hitter of our generation because of what he has done from 2001 and forward. That's going back to when he was 36. The 4 greatest offensive seasons of his career occured after he turned 36. He was outstanding before that, but nothing he did in his prime was ever considered Ruthian. It's been everything he did after he started juicing in 99 or 2000. I'll give you that nothing he did before 98 was ever considered Ruthian. But Bonds was the greatest player of our generation before steroids and the steriods issue makes people forget about this. If Bonds wouldn't have taken steroids, he would have been a first ballot HOFer anyway. The guy was the quintessiential five tool player. He would have ended up with over 500 HR's and over 500 SB's. He wouldn't have 715 career HR's but make no mistake about it, Bonds was a great player without steroids. Also, I read Howard Bryant's "Juicing The Game" a couple months ago and there was a line that went something like "steroids turn a average player into a good player and a good player into a great player. But who knows what they would do to a great player." Well, I think we know and Bonds is the example.

Were you joking about preferring he hit it in Oakland? Because he hit 714 in Oakland and a majority of the crowd cheered him. Could it be that the majority of the fans at that game, were say......Giants fans? I will never recognize Bonds in the in the 700 club. To me...there are ONLY two players in MLB with 700 +homeruns(Aaron/Ruth), and 4 total in the history of the game (Oh in Japan, and Gibson in the Negro Leagues being the other two). There weren't necessarily a majority of Giants fans at the game. The A's have limited the number of tickets available for games in the past couple years (namely not seating people in the Al Davis section in center field) therefore increasing the percentage of seats sold. More people cheered because they live in the Bay Area. Hitting a milestone homerun in Oakland is the best road stadium Bonds could have possibly hit a homerun at.