Mizzou

Vance, I'd say that Lee owes you at least a ticket to the game if he winds up getting voted in.

I guess Walker is never going to start against a lefty again, while Corey will always start, no matter how bad he's struggling. Glad to see Cedeno in there, but batting 7th? Come on now.

I just voted 25 times and have probably voted a total of 50 times. While that pales in comparison to others, I'm still doing my part.

Very cool. I've been wanting to see this. Thanks for the heads up!

How long does Dusty leave Corey in the leadoff role? In the 4 games since asking to be put there, he's 2 for 19 with 8 strikeouts and no walks. His OBP is all the way down to .278 (and for the month of June it's at an utterly pathetic .207). Walker is a no brainer. Why the heck he's not leading off by now is beyond me. The majority of his career at bats have come when leading off, and while batting first, he hits for a .291 average, with a .349 OBP.

I still worship my lifesize sammy cardboard cutout (which stands next to the Jordan life size cut out) every day. A Sosa coffee mug and the ad that he took out in the Tribune after being traded are both on my computer desk.

I'll give it a try.

Sosa hit his 9th home run of the season, and 583rd of his career tonight. That ties him with McGwire for 6th place on the all time list. Next up is Frank Robinson, who has 586. [title edited since he is now tied for 5th]

The fact that Dusty started Enrique Wilson makes it obvious that the man is incompetent. I'd love to see someone try and justify starting this guy.

Is it even really necessary to register the email address? I mean, can't you just type in any random email address and vote? It's not like they send you a confirmation email or anything. Whenever I have to put in an email address for something and I don't have to confirm anything, I just usually use no@shutup.com or something like that. Have they released an updated vote count since June 1st?

I'll assume that was directed towards me. (too lazy to see if anyone else has posted numbers on the first page) I'm not sure where you're going with that though. Corey played less than half a season in 03. Putting up his numbers in that year makes it look like he has regressed. I'll assume you forgot that he was hurt in '03. I'll also assume that you don't believe that '03 couldn't have had an effect on '04, especially at the end of the year. So I'll assume that your statistical analysis although accurate, does not tell the whole story. As warp wrote, we all wish Corey would be hitting better. But a bad Corey is still better than most CFers in the league. So you want to throw out his numbers from 03 just because he missed half the season? Had I have put up numbers like homers, RBI's, runs, etc. I could understand that, however, the only numbers I posted were AVG, OBP, and SLG. So I don't see why on earth you'd want to throw those out.

I'll assume that was directed towards me. (too lazy to see if anyone else has posted numbers on the first page) I'm not sure where you're going with that though.

2001 - .221/.266/.336 2002 - .253/.284/.392 2003 - .298/.329/.511 2004 - .266/.320/.452 2005 - .272/.306/.447 Those are Corey's AVG, OBP, and SLG from every year that he's been in the big leagues. Come to your own conclusions, but what I gather from them are this: He's simply not improving. Across the board, his numbers are worse than they were two years ago. He's a great defensive centerfielder, he'll give you an ocassional bunt hit, he'll provide some pop (all 10 of his home runs are solo) but with men on base and in crucial situations, he flat out stinks. It's so bad that I actually expect him to strikeout every time he goes up there with runners in scoring position. And I'm not exaggerating - every single time he walks to the plate, I'm expecting him to wail away at a pitch in the dirt. At this point, I think we're better off by trading him. I'd love to see him be a part of a deal that brings Kenny Lofton back to Chicago. When Lofton was here, we had a bonafide leadoff hitter. Neifi's doing pretty well so far, but that .261 road OBP isn't looking too good. Bottom line, Neifi isn't the solution. Give me Kenny Lofton this year, and give me Kenny Lofton next year. He's shown no signs at all of slowing down, so don't give me the age thing. And in case you're not aware of his numbers - he's at .367 with an OBP around .450 in 20 games.

We have to remember that LaRussa will be managing the NL team - and selecting the backups... so while DLee will clearly be an All Star, it's not likely that LaRussa will select too many Cubs for the roster. In other words... VOTE! NOW!

It's hard to refute the notion that Dusty is trying to lose. It really is.

Dusty brought Hollandsworth in to pinch run for Ben Grieve. Pinch runners are used for speed... something that Hollandsworth doesn't have. It just seemed like a completely pointless move.

Man, I'm really starting to like Hinrich.

I don't think it's anywhere near as far fetched as Treebeard, Rocket, and IMB make it out to be, but if I were a betting man, I'd say no, he wont.

Not that it's a big deal, but I don't understand how some people are starting several game threads and others that volunteered to do it still haven't started one. How does the "rotation" work?

Just figured I'd let you guys know that bleacher seats are available for the 7/14 game against the Pirates. Supposedly, all bleacher seats are sold out for the month, but these were just made available, due to the rainout. I'd scoop some up if it weren't for summer school.

What seed did the Bulls wind up getting, the 4? This has been a pretty good game so far.

Check out this poll: http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/ Looks like 2 out of every 3 fans are sick of him whining.

YES!!! Finally received my tickets! They sure are bland though. Just a plain white ticket with the tickets.com logo embedded on it? That's weak. I have a question and I might as well post it here. For the other game I'm going to, I chose the Will Call option for my bleacher seats. Is there a certain window of time that I have to pick them up in? Basically what I'm asking is this: Can I pick them up the day of the game?

Did I seriously just read a few posts arguing about what time somebody should start a game thread? LOL, seriously?! Anyways... my point for posting here is this: I know I signed up (I think I did at least) but I have no idea when I'm up. So, if someone would let me know the day or a couple days before, that'd be great.

After thinking it over, I dont have too big of a problem with Macias pinch hitting - there were two down and if he made an out, which was expected, we had the top of the order up the next inning. The Perez situation is simply inexcusable though. Game on the line and you have your WORST option up there. And also, why didn't Dusty run with Lee when Barrett (someone who can actually do something productive) was at the plate? I guess having Lee in scoring position with Barrett at the plate was too much trouble for Dusty to go through.