CubmanPi

That feels right, Brian. That feels right. <3 Woody

This news makes me happy http://blog.adultrental.com/files/2009/11/jizzinmypants.jpg

Didn't watch the video. Won't watch any 2003 Cubs stuff on purpose until after The Big One finally happens. 04 was a huge letdown in line with other big Cubs letdowns, '07 was very anger-inducing, and '08 was almost predictable, but '03 was soul crushing on a level none of the others reached. I thought the Yankees series was great, and it was during the same homestand as the Tampa series with the cork. And that series with Atlanta was intense. Kerry Wood carried the team in both games he started, pitching great and coming up huge with the bat in both. I used to have his Game 7 homerun saved to my computer. That homerun and the intensity in and around the stadium when it happened gave me goosebumps everytime I watched it.

RIP Ronnie :bye:

Jason Marquis had some good games with us, but come on Colvin's a lock. I think he has earned it already.

Yea, that definitely sounds interesting. Googled "Joe Crowley BBWAA suspension" and got this: http://sportsbybrooks.com/joe-is-there-something-you-want-to-tell-us-28212 The context of the decision was that he had spent plenty of energy going on a similarly juvenile rant about the city and population of Toronto. Apparently this guy votes with his obnoxious homerisms. I'm surprised they reinstated him. What a tool.

Fred, your posts are coming in a good couple pitches (probably around 45 to 60 seconds) ahead of my WGN broadcast. Either that, or your statistics are finally enabling you to see the future. On what television provider? Fios

Fred, your posts are coming in a good couple pitches (probably around 45 to 60 seconds) ahead of my WGN broadcast. Either that, or your statistics are finally enabling you to see the future.

Is Gregerson's WHIP seriously 0.77?? I smell rally this inning...

Ron's pep talk was probably one of the more entertaining parts of this broadcast, ruined by technical difficulties. Figures.

You need an attitude transplant :wink: DC is a lot farther away from Ft Meade when the Cubs are so competitive in the Fecal League.

I was wondering how there are still so many people in the stands. Then I remembered that the Cubs are coming to DC next week, and I'm not sure how far out of my way I'm going to go to catch those games.

It has resulted in more than that. Depending on the likelihood of this sticking, the assault charges and the ligament may not even be his biggest concerns right now... http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/baseball/mlb/08/16/mets.rodriguez/ They may or may not have grounds based on the conduct side of the incident as well, if I'm remembering correctly what Len and Bob were saying about it during the game tonight.

I think I'm hearing crickets making noise from inside my house. Then I realized it could just be the game thread. Are you hearing them too Fred?

Wonderful hit and run call.

Sounds like you'd have ~40 reversed calls per team in a typical year... about one every fourth game. Leaguewide that'd come to ~600 reversals a year. Those start to look like meaningful numbers IMO. Jim Joyce's blown call would have resulted in a perfect game celebration that got delayed by three minutes, but the game would have ended the same. I haven't been watching much of the Cubs this year, but there probably could be a few reversed calls that led to them only losing by 7 or 8 runs instead of 10 or 11. 600 reversals in a season of 126,360 outs (give or take a few hundred for extra innings, unnecessary bottoms of 9th) still gives you a blown call for every 0.4% of outs for the season, and only a handful of those are going to impact the outcome of a game. And I already pointed out the number of teams the last decade that came within a game of the post-season. You're still talking drops in a bucket. Granted, there will definitely be a case where a team gets kept out of the post-season due to a blown call late in the season that costs a game and keeps that team one game out of the playoffs in the last week, and there will be another team that's not the Cardinals who will lose a post-season game or series due to bad umpiring, and if that were to happen, it'll be awful that replay isn't already in place. However, just based on the numbers and odds, it will likely be multiple decades between such circumstances, and I don't blame the league for not wanting to slow down hundreds of thousands of games as a preventative measure.

They specified that the missed 20% were 20% of the CLOSE plays. With 1.3 close plays per game, that's 0.26 close plays every game they get wrong. In 54 outs, that's still a very small number. I'm fine with replay, but the absence of replay in the big picture of a game, much less a season, is having very little impact. In that 0.26 calls per game they get wrong, it's still rare to change the game's outcome. And in the rare instance that the game's outcome is altered, it's still less than 1% of the season's games. That leaves the other 161 games to be determined by the better team, and the odds of that making a difference on the post-season are very slim. Since the end of the 2001 season, there have been 3 seasons in which there were no teams in baseball which missed the playoffs by one game or less. The other six seasons, there was one team which missed either the WC or the division title by 0.5 or 1 games. (I'm not counting the Rockies missing the division by 0.5 games in 2007, because they still won the WC.) Two of the years where there was a team which missed by one game, it was the Mets having an epic choke when the playoffs were well within their grasps with less than two weeks left and they blew it themselves. One of the years there was a 1-game difference, it was the Astros missing the playoffs by one game in 2003. The Cubs locked up the division 2 or 3 games before the end of the year and were able to let up at the end. It's frustrating to see the wrong calls, and replay would definitely get rid of almost all of them, but until replay is implemented on a larger scale, the best team is still winning.

Hearing Aaron Miles's name during a Cubs game sends me into PTSD-like flashbacks.

If the Cubs just play like this 40 more times, they're right back in the thick of things.

Dempster knocks Lohse from the game.

Not sure what I was expecting from Hill there, but productivity wasn't it. Works for me!

Thanks! I heard a good time was had by all in Rockford last weekend. How's everyone doing?

Thanks for the pbp Fred. Just flipped the game on, wondering why Lee didn't see the need to do any hitting the first four months of the season. Better late than never, right? :?

I care too. Of course, I can still look away from a train wreck. ETA - Castro is my hero.