Wheelimus

Dont be a fool, wrap your tool. Or if not, he wouldn't be in this situation if he'd just take the same advice to heart that I've been hoping our President would for years "Come up with an exit strategy" 8-)

Yup, with nothing really to play for (he's already rich, already has a ring, and has no chance at the HOF even if he hit 500 homers) I'd imagine he'll just retire and let the union win his grievance and get his total contract payoff without working another day. That being said, where in the hell is Selig on the Barry Bonds issue? If Giambi is being forced to either testify or be suspended, why not Barry? I think most of us would be doing high fives if Barroid got suspended 8 short of the record.

Not if his batting average was as good as his women slept with knocked up average.

Obviously Mr. Dukes was never given the "wrap it before you tap it" advice that my father gave me as a young adult... How long before he's on "To Catch A Predator"?

Fontenot continues to impress.

It's hard to believe this is the same guy who was halfway decent last year.

Seconded. I hope BOTH of his heads fall off, but the one down south first. A good week before the one up north. So he has to deal with the loss for a week. :D

Best wishes to Cliff and his family. To be honest, it may be best for the team if he just takes the whole ten days and lets both mind and body heal. If we have a prayer of a stretch run we'll need him. Maybe we can have Jones locker cleaned out before he gets back...

Eh, it's still way too early to close the book on Ryno. Yes, some of his baseball philosophies from years ago weren't anything we'd love, but years actually managing may change all that. He's still pretty young. Who knows what his baseball philosophy will be five years from now.

I'm not sure that's fair at all. Bonds only has the chance to hang around long enough to break it because of his steroid years. Aaron only had the chance to hang around to break it due to a long consistent career. Which as far as we know was never tainted by performance enhancing drugs. Also, Aaron did hang around for a few more seasons after breaking the record, so it's not like he just broke it and then hung up his cleats.

Simple plan. 1) find out if Harry Carey's restaurant still has that machine that blew up the Bartman ball. 2) take out a full page ad in the Tribune letting Barry know that he can either pay "insert insane price here" (half to the ball owner, half to charities who work to keep young ballplayers off steroids) or he can watch the ball be destroyed online. 3) Either cash in or call Barry's bluff. :D Somehow I think the ball catcher could easily get the full page Tribune ad paid for. Hell, catch Sandberg before one of his teams games and he'd probably pay the whole tab.

Did he mention NSBB or did he Sullivan us? No. He said northsidebaseball. It was great. And the wrong has been righted. :D

Really weak from the Tribune. You lift a happening on our message board for a story but can't even acknowledge where it happened? That's, like, stealing. Anyway, I've written a letter to Sullivan on the subject and would encourage others to do so. Maybe if we bombard him with disgust he'll have to add an addendum noting it was North Side Baseball.

Everyone listen! I have a plan that we MUST do. :lol: Step 1) Have Bruce Miles tell Z that all these guys on the internet are saying he won't resign because he wants too much money. Make sure there's a lot of "selfish" and "greedy" and "washed up" quotes mixed in there. Mr. Miles will need a laptop because he has to show Z what he's talking about. Step 2) ? Step 3) Z SIGNS FOR TEN MILLION A YEAR WITH INDEFINITE OPTION YEARS AND NO BUYOUT WHEN AND IF WE DECLINE! :D

Our absolute best case scenario is to win the next two games decisively. Then perhaps Lou will notice Alan's success and start listening to his input more.

How about "Jones and Novoa for any other living human being. Yes, we'll even take Sandy Koufax and trade them to Israel..."

But in Tampa he doesn't have the possibility of someone telling Zambrano he pointed to the scoreboard while Z's getting lit up if he misbehaves.

If the price for Gathright is cheap (and there's something to be said for "the guy can't even make the AAAA Royals, so how much is he worth?) I'd love to pick him up as a project. What I would do is call up Rickey Henderson and pick him up as a minor league player/instructor. 25th man on AAA Iowa. Then I'd give him Gathright as his personal pet project and tell him to mold him into something usable. What's his motivation? Tell him that if he Gathright earns it with his help, you'll give both of them a September callup. If Rickey Henderson could somehow export his brain into Joey Gathright's body, you'd have a leadoff hitter for the next decade. If not, assuming the cost was low (trash for trash), no big loss.

Murton needs to be playing everyday somewhere. He never got a full year at AAA and he needs to be force fed righties until he masters them. Honestly, if Lou won't play him everyday, send him back to AAA until Jones is gone.

If we want to trade Jones we're going to have to give him a start against every righty (and zero lefties) from now on. He's going to have to bounce back (he isn't great, but he isn't that bad) a little bit to get someone to bite. Else we're going to need someone to become desperate because of injury.

When it comes to families, you never want to assume anything. There's no doubt two sides to the story and the truth is probably somewhere in between. Only question is who is it closer to? :wink: As for trading for Dukes, sure...if the price were right. I mean, if it's Dukes for Eyre, sure thing! :D Else, lets hear what it would take and go from there. He's a talented player and you can always spin it as doing the humanitarian thing to remove him from Tampa Bay, which is obviously not the place on this earth this young man needs to be playing half of his ballgames.

Yes, I've been wondering when the Cubs will move on and this looks like it's finally happening. Hard to get worked up over this one. The guy can't stay healthy and pitch to save his career, and this simply looks like the Cubs just want to do right by him and let him finish out his time here with dignity. The last time I saw Mark Prior pitch his fastball was worse than most high schoolers and his breaking pitch was more likely to hit 2 feet before the plate that it was to fool any hitters. If there's reason to think he's going to come back to his former self, I certainly haven't heard it. Let's finish our time with him on a good note, rather than breaking it off with angst and bad feelings. He finally had surgery. Given how talented he was before the injury, isn't it worth seeing if he can come back from that next year? The risk is low and the potential reward is high. Agreed. He's under the Cubs' control so why waste that. Stupid move by the Cubs. Not sure if there was a choice. As others have said, he was clearly injured in spring training and hadn't been in the minors for many years before. They would have lost the grievance. The one and only way to accomplish the goal of keeping him under team control until 2009 would have been to force him to go to the minors and try to get by with what he had injured. Even then they still might have lost.

I want Felix to hit above .125 in Chicago. Does it matter if he does or not? The season's done. You might as well get the kid AB's in the majors the rest of the season. Nothing to lose and everything to gain. Exactly. At this point we can either repeat ourselves last year and cling to silly hope that we'll turn it around, or we can recognize what reality is and rebuild. Rebuilding would mean a bit of a firesale. Eyre, Howry, Cesar, Jones, Floyd, Ward, Zambrano, Barrett, etc., all have to be given up for any return that could benefit us in the future. You do that, and you bring the kids up in mass. Hill/Soto/maybe Fox behind the plate to learn. Theriot at SS just to see what he does over a full year. Pie in center. Murton or prospect in right. Bring up Rapada and any of the other kids who deserve a chance. As has been said, you either win it all or get the #1 draft pick, or you lose. Since one of those options is a little closer than the other, lets go for it. Maybe we find a few surprises at the MLB level from some of our kids.

No, I'm sure that he was going to sit it out most likely anyway. But that also doesn't mean the conversation didn't go something like this. Cox: So, how's the finger doing John? John: Not so hot... Cox: Yeah, think we're going to hold you back. John: I'm really sorry. I sure hope we still win today. Cox: Are you kidding me? We're playing the Cubs. They'll fight each other with more vigor than they will us. Hell, the guy pitching BP could go seven and win today...

Lets put it this way. You can trade Lee, but the haul better put a smile on our faces once the frown of losing Derrek fades...