woodchip2153

Didn't really think this was worthy of it's own thread so I'm adding it here. Fangraphs had their Cubs Preview today. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/team-preview-chicago-cubs/ nothing earth shattering.

Soriano with an opposite field home run.

I haven't read the entire article yet, but so far it's a good read. http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2011/2/25/2014143/frightened-to-swing-the-odd-approach-of-batters-to-facing-carlos it's goes into detail about how batters refuse to swing against Marmol.

am I crazy or was Sullinger walking when he "drew" that charge on McCamey?

Crandell Head and Brandon Paul in for McCamey and Richardson. Interesting...

That doesn't make it correct. And that label is applied by racists what??? Ramirez has been a below average defender for almost his entire career. He had a couple of above average years defensively, but overall he's been below average. That was obviously tongue-in-cheek. Maybe you're not a regular contributer, but there is a long-running joke (though not so lighthearted) about Kaplan and Wittenmeyer's perception of Ramirez being lazy being based on his ethnicity. Although, in all honesty, I think Kaplan is a [expletive] racist ok, sorry, missed that reference. And I agree there are probably racial undertones in the reasons they hate Ramirez.

That doesn't make it correct. And that label is applied by racists what??? Ramirez has been a below average defender for almost his entire career. He had a couple of above average years defensively, but overall he's been below average.

it's a strange phenomenon in South St. Louis County. They love their hockey and nascar.

Not exactly true. By size of TV markets they are 7th. By MSA they are 9th. By CSA they are 6th. They are a small market team, but they have some things going for them. There's no NBA franchise. There's no dominant college sports program, like a USC, Michigan or Ohio State. There's an NFL team and them. I guess there's the NHL... Not sure that counts. It's also a sports happy city/area and baseball is ingrained into the city. That plus it's ideal situation near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers means that there are a lot major business HQ's/distribution centers to invest in the team, through advertising, etc. St Louis, for example, has more fortune 500 HQs than Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia. Add all that together and if you were to rank teams by areas of potential profitability, the Cardinals would probably rank in the 10-15 range. Definitely a mid-market team. I think they're also top five among MLB teams in merchandising, not sure how much of that is shared though. never underestimate how much these rednecks love their fights hockey. St. Louis itself is a smaller market but as others have mentioned their footprint beyond St. Louis is huge. It just amazes me how the people in STL accept that they are a small market and think Albert should keep playing for half his market value to stay a Cardinal. Only a handful of my friends actually think the cardinals are being cheap.

Do Verne and Clark know there is a game going on?

has Cole played this half?

that was just terrible.

they better take a look at the shot clock and put it back to 5 sec or whatever.

hasn't that been called intentional 431 times against illinois this year?

it looks like McCamey got the message. He was in there fighting for rebounds. Hopefully he keeps it up.

yea, what happened to him?

Hasn't the contract year theory been proven to be false?

to clarify I'm talking about the intentional

wow, that call just proves how bad these refs are.

wow McCamey didn't even touch him!

I'd love for the Cubs to sign Pujols, not just because he's good at baseball, but so I'd have a front row seat for the mayhem. These guys got all bent out of shape when Edmonds wound up on the Cubs.

does anyone know where I can watch the Illinois game online. atdhe doesn't have a feed.

I really hope we get this one pretty easily tonight. Need a 2-0 week. I hope so too. I'm still sour about 07-08. This team needs to play to its potential and run IU out of the building. I'm worried about Jordan Hulls going off on us, and the fact that we're only 4 point favorites has given me pause as well. Kenpom only has us winning by 6 with 67% chance of winning.

I want to post this to my facebook page, but I know all the haters will just ignore and still call him a quitter.

that probably explains why the site got blocked at work. Hopefully it's unblocked on Monday.