Wheelimus

Tell him to pour some super glue over it and man up. Or, obviously, NOT.

Exactly, they're watching their season go down the crapper and want to drag ours with them.

Edmonds should have just held up 5 fingers as Gagne was being tossed. Hehe, can we play the Brewers everyday please?

Wasn't the trade deadline like 10 minutes ago? Or they have a timeframe where they can pretend the deal was agreed to but they had to work out particulars?

Hehe, should make our six games left with the Pirates a little more fun.

What would be the point of shutting down Hill? I guess I just worry about him blowing his arm out or something trying to overdo it to make it back this year. I suppose it's a small worry though. Probably no reason to have to shut him down, but part of me thinks that and then playing winter ball might be more helpful.

At the point we're at now I don't see Hill having a chance in hell of bumping any of our top 4 starters. So it would probably be best to shut him down and just stick with Marquis as our 5th. At least then we can hopefully get him through waivers tomorrow and hope a contender gets desperate or something. I'm not feeling too bad about a Z/Demp/Harden/Lilly playoff rotation.

I think we're putting way too much stock into the "they won't sell to Cuban because he's controversial" theory. Baseball does not = Basketball. In the NBA it's easy for an owner to be just behind the sidelines. If he gets emotional and blows a gasket, easy to hear and see. At Wrigley he'd just be one of 38,000 or so blowing a gasket when Marquis sucks it up. Unless he made a point to sit in the front row right behind home plate, I don't think you'd ever even notice. I think Mark knew that his way to MLB's heart was cold hard cash. If he buys the Cubs for 1.6 billion or something, every damn franchise in the game is worth a lot more money. I think any owners worry about Cuban is worth far less than, say, 25 million dollars in equity.

You know, the Cubs themselves could have (and still could) put a final end to this nonsense. While Bartman doesn't keep a high profile, apparently you can get ahold of "family spokesman" Frank Murtha. How about this. Aram and Woody surprise him one day (with, say, Bruce Miles conveniently tagging along) and officially apologize for the 5 years of hell he went through. And present him with season tickets for life. In fact, after turning down 25K I think we need a Steve Bartman day at Wrigley. Each attendee gets a Bartman autographed picture...of A-Gone booting that double play. To be honest, I think it would take a bit of a stunt to finally put it to rest. He comes out on field, 15% boo, 85% quickly educate those idiots on why the poor guy isn't to blame for '03.

Trey, what are you doing? You know you're not allowed to snort coke while on probation. You're supposed to be getting clean so you can put the band back together for all your phans. :lol: Seriously though, lighten up a little. If we got as sad as all the horrible day in day out news warrants, we'd all be dead in a week. Sometimes light humor makes sucktastic things a little less terrible. Hell, until I got down to the real stupid in this thread I was going to crack a joke about Vance's whereabout's. Being super serial won't bring the poor kid back. If there is something beyond he's probably chuckled that his life was noticeable enough to warrant this thread and the drama that ensued.

Goodwill with the Reds organization that might help us in a future trade? I mean, it's pretty well known that the Cubs would not have used the pick for anything. So unless we think that Hendry should have told the Reds to screw off and drafted Hamilton for ourselves after they asked there isn't a lot of room for criticism.

I'm kind of hoping that the Barry Zito implosion cools the starting pitching market just a bit. Sure, CC is going to get freaking paid. But I hope the market for what I'd call "2nd tier" pitchers is a little more sane. And Ryan Dempster is certainly going to get paid as well. But I think he's going to be fair to the Cubs. And if we're fair to him there's a pretty decent chance of him pitching for us next year. He certainly owes the fact that he has a MLB career in 2008 to the Cubs.

I sure hope nobody PM's me a link to an HD torrent of this game later...

Excess baggage if you let it matter, in my opinion. in your brief negotiations, make the conditions for his signing clear. No crew, no press conferences, low-keyness important. Of course there will be a circus on Day 1. Day 2 maybe. But if he just shows up, puts on a uniform, and plays a game and then goes home...the circus isn't really his fault. Just like nothing can keep the vultures from running idiotic crap like "OMG A-Rod's Marriage Is Failing" into the ground nothing can keep them from running Bonds return into the ground. Are we to pass up every chance to improve our team because morons can't help themselves? We're talking a couple hundred thousand dollars here. If he walks in and fails a drug test or goes all prima donna on our asses...release him. No big loss. It would be just our luck to pass only for some AL team to sign him up and beat our heads in World Series time. Can we maybe have the near free offense instead, so at least we can stash one whammy safely on the bench and not at DH against us in Game 7...

Please, put down the kool aid and back away slowly. Kool-Aid? You're telling me you don't think that Barry Bonds bat could be useful to a major league team? Again, we are talking about Barry freaking Bonds for the major league minimum. I'd advocate (especially with Edmonds starting to cool and probably in need of more rest) putting him in left field, Soriano in right, and Fukudome in center. Soriano could handle right, and Fukudome is an excellent enough fielder to make up for Barry's lack of range. But he'd sign for the minimum. This could be as little as upgrading from Daryl Ward to Barry freaking Bonds for your go to pinch hitter. Collusion and nothing less. He put up a 1.000 OPS last year. .480 on base percentage. Obviously there might be a little rust. You may only get a .250/.400/.500 line out of him. Um, sign me up please still. Especially for next to nothing. He's only a spectacle because the media won't let it drop. Their job is to generate traffic or sell papers. But in the grand context of things he's a guy facing a perjury charge in a trial that won't happen until next spring training. Not our problem, we have every right to sign any available player who could help us. If I can come to grips with Jim Edmonds potentially being on the World Series winning Cubs team, I can come to grips with anyone. How the hell did so many of us become so high and mighty? We are talking about signing someone to play professional baseball. Not like we're talking about making a convict President. Though our President should be a convict. But that's another thread. :D

Good luck Sean. While the team change may suck, nothing wrong with calling Cali your home!

If things go like I'm thinking, Marquis is going to go up against Zito. Man oh man. That's a game to drink to, heh.

I officially forgive him for Dusty Baker being in the dugout during the 2003 Playoffs. 2004/2005/2006...eh, I'll forgive him for that when the World Series win is in hand. Gotta keep him motivated. \:D/

SSB getting mad about fun had in this thread would be like Edward D Wood Jr. getting mad when people laughed at Plan 9. Take success where you can get it pal. Best of luck on the bad crap, I can relate. But you should take the fact that you made a bunch of cynical Cubs fans day as a good thing. Smile a little bud ;o)

I don't even think you have to feel sad. Something tells me Joe Borowski the kind of guy to look back on 131 big league saves, 450+ innings thrown, retirement at 37, and $10 mil plus made with no tears. More of a "raise the glass" type of moment... If he wants to hit the gym and hopes he gets a call, best of luck. If he decides that's just about enough and retires, enjoy it Joe. Thanks for '02 and 0'3...no hard feelings about '04 :)

You go tell Ron Santo that winning isn't everything... It is. Barry refused to admit to a crime to the feds. The same damn thing the ACLU always tells you to do. Don't admit a damn thing. I don't really care. I guarantee you 10 times more money was spent on BALCO than the actual harm to society warranted. I also had a problem giving a crap when as a nation we collectively were disgusted at a man getting blown by his mistress and lying about it so his wife wouldn't find out. SHOCKING. I know we're just supposed to bend over and take it. We're Cubs fans. But screw that. We're in the drivers seat for once in our lives and people don't want to add a legitimate offensive machine to the team? For the minimum? Hypocrites. If you didn't turn on Sammy Sosa until 2004 and have a steroid enhanced stick up your rump...kind of a hypocrite. We turned a blind eye to what our brains were telling us because it was pretty much the only thing we had. We're supposedly such a religious country. What happened to the folks without sin being the ones to cast stones? If that were the case there shouldn't be any coming from any longtime baseball fan. Which is lucky since we're all living in glass houses... It would be akin to telling 1933 or 1934 Babe Ruth to go suck it because he was embarrassing. Thank goodness such wusses were not in charge of the Yankees those years. Hell, something tells me that 37 year old Babe Ruth in 1932 was a bit of an eye-sore. But I bet you that World Series win freaking tasted like candy. Hey, whose ass was it that got kicked that year? Oh yeah...

You would have to be stupid to not sign him. 1.000 OPS. Pretty much guaranteed. Who gives a damn what he does in the field. Shove him in left. Kosuke to center. Surely Soriano can handle right when he comes back. Until then Edmonds can surely handle right until he comes back. Afterwards plenty of at bats for Jim. Or any other OF if he falters. None of those starters are going to be hurt by a little extra time off. This is the year. You have to go for it and spare no expense. When you can get a legitimate monster for a couple hundred thousand you'd be insane not to. If not us some team better have a GM who isn't that dumb. Who cares what he did in the past. Obviously he'll have to pass a piss test now. If he can, screw it. 100 years people. I'd sign Stalin up if he might give me 30+ homers in a half season and change.

What are you trying to say? That scrap heap grabs at times work out? And with as much as both the Cardinals and the Cubs go dumpster diving, it's just basic law of averages? Insane. It's obviously Cardinal pixie dust.

I'm not going to be the one to jinx him by changing my opinion. I hate the bastard. When he was a Cardinal and I hated him, he kicked our ass. Now that he's a Cub and I've hated him, he's kicking our opponents ass. Obviously the common thread is that Jim is powered solely by the hatred of Cubs fans. That's why he sucked in San Diego...no Cubbie hatred. So hate my friends. Hate that SOB to a 1.000 OPS.

BLEEP 'em up Cubbies, BLEEP 'em up **CLAP CLAP** BLEEP 'em up Cubbies, BLEEP 'em up **CLAP CLAP** and rinse and repeat...