… maybe the Cubs go on to have a big inning. We really got jobbed bigtime.

It was 2 bad calls on ‘strike 1’ and ‘strike 3’. I think alot of times umpires don’t give the benefit of the doubt to batters who go up there and never swing. I’ve seen it happen too many times. It shouldn’t be this way but it just seems to come with the human element of umpiring. overall the Cubs should have at least had 5 runs. Whether the bullpen would have kept it at 5 is very questionable.

I don’t think the bullpen has been ‘overused’ they’ve all been asked to pitch a couple hitters there or an inning there but no one is being ridden to oblivian.

I think we just have a talent problem outside of Marmol. I think we will start to see some musical chairs happen if guys continue to stink it up but I’m not all that confident in the alternatives in Iowa.

Just reminds me how awesomely important Samardzija’s 6 good weeks were last season. That really took alot of pressure off of the bullpen at that time.

that was no where near the strike zone. What a tremendously terrible call!!

I’d hate to see this bullpen once they get tired. Yikes.

We learned a lot from you last year. Glad Dome is playing well — we need him to keep doing that.

we always benefit from your insights .. and your terrific photos!

you back this season.

And it IS good to see Fukudome-san hitting again.

Will look forward to your always-interesting comments!

Offense not quite hitting on all cylinders yet. Bradley is out and Soto and Fontenot are now slumping pretty hard. I think once everyone gets reasonably ‘settled in’ for the season we will see more clutch hitting. At least I’m hoping :)

That was the big problem today, not the missed strike calls, Geo striking out, runners on third with less than two outs and not getting them in, is killing this club.

especially on a team wide level. If the offense continues to hit well, then they will eventually hit just as well in the clutch.

Dome has been outstanding in the first 9 games. Keep up the good work.

Vizcaino puzzles me. His outing yesterday was terrific, but he seemed to be all over the place today.

I thought Heilman would have a nice come back season and its very very early, but he hasn’t exactly looked any different so far than he did in his very bad season last year with the Mets.

He gets hit a LOT, which is a tough way to get the job done, but still a way, as he demonstrated in that game last year when he HB’d the winning run home.

Grr. Argh.

Do you mean umpire or catcher?

Be courteous, kind and forgiving,
Be gentle and peaceful each day,
Be warm and human and grateful,
And have a good thing to say.

Be thoughtful and trustful and childlike,
Be witty and happy and wise,
Be honest and love all your neighbors,
Be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant.

Be pompous, obese, and eat cactus,
Be dull, and boring, and omnipresent,
Criticize things you don’t know about,
Be oblong and have your knees removed.

Be tasteless, rude, and offensive,
Live in a swamp and be three-dimensional,
Put a live chicken in your underwear,
Get all excited and go to a yawning festival.

When you’re down and out,
Lift up your head and shot —
“Screw it!”

I was really hoping that he would get a chance to hit with the bases loaded yesterday

At least Hoff outplayed Duncan in the battle of the DH’s in the field. But Duncan out hit him.

Well first of all its Kerry Wood and even if he was the closer that isn’t going to help the middle relief. As for Derosa, Fontenot is ice cold right now but he’s still hitting about a hundred points higher than Derosa and is about 6 years younger.

Man, can you imagine the stare-downs in the locker room last year between Theodore and Eldrick? I gotta put my money on TRL unless Tiger had a caddy in the locker room to help read the situation…

He’s not pitching till Saturday. Z goes tomorrow.

It’s Kerry WOOD. WOOD. WOOD. Not “WOODS”.

I hope Jeff S. does eventually come back, it seems right now he can’t throw a strike, which is one of the main problems with our bullpen in general. As for the ‘free agent down the road’ don’t you think if there was a great free agent avaiable the Cubs would have tried to get him?

DeRosa vs Fontenot will be a fight to the finish. I wouldn’t rule out Might Mike though.

the “game ending play at home plate” in Mil went to SS… not second base

And its KERRY WOOD. Not Woods.

And use the reply button.

plays second base. The game ending play of which you speak was made by Theriot at shortstop. Even if Derosa was still on the team, he would not have had a chance on that ball.

It’s GREGG.

Hard to take your arguments seriously when you can’t spell most of the players’ names.

Duncan had the errors.

Harden has had major injury problems throughout his career. I don’t know if a sudden change of job description would help that. In a video game though it might not be a bad solution and I might even consider Guzman as the #5 starter. Most teams #5 starters really aren’t very good at all. We’ve been spoiled lately.

12 second overtime win? Okay!

With only 1 lefty in the pen (and Cotts is not showing well so far), the team may be better with Shark as the #5 and get Marshall back into the pen.

robbing Peter to pay Paul. SOMEONE’s going to have to start for the Cubs in 2010, and 2011, and 2012…

So you’d rather put Hill behind the plate? For how long?

But this is the same thing as how the Cubs should send Dome to triple AAA and have Micah start @ first.

except that Pedro is reportedly unwilling to accept under 5 million for the year, and no one is willing to take that risk with his injury history. I agree, though, that this is an intriguing (if unrealistic) way to improve the team.

12 seconds!!

Just wear it upside down.

as you should be. Smoking is NOT like drinking. You can drink in public without effecting other folks. If you get drunk etc that is one
thing but your having a couple of beers next to me is NOT a threat to my health , smoking IS. Al and many of us who sit in the bleachers are very sensitive to smoke and people light up on the area directly behind where we sit. Now if the Cubs can find some little corner downstairs where folks can light up without the smoke wafting at me ,than they are free to kill themselves but you can NOT smoke in the seating area. I hate to get personal but I hope you don’t have any children as the effects of your smoking around them can be devastating.

You would hate California. Everybody gives me the stink eye when I light up, (and I light up in the most out of the way places). Kids make coughing noises when I walk by in the street, and actually say, “You shouldn’t smoke”, all the while continuing with the fake, mimicry coughing. To top it off: anti-smoking commercials back home in the midwest say things like, “don’t smoke it’s bad for you”, out here they don’t mince words; they say, “You smoke? You’re a bad person, and you are going to die.” It’s really out of hand. I’m the most courteous smoker you can find, I never flick a butt, I smoke away from everyone, I don’t smoke unless I’m around other smokers… Any way you slice it though, I’m the bad guy. I’m only hurting myself, I’m not plowing into, and killing three people at an intersection in Fullerton. People need to get a grip.

But don’t stand on your pedestal and condemn others for following “PC nonsense” when you’re just following your addiction.

To be completely honest, we can all admit that the government does AS MUCH as they can to protect both alchohol and cigarettes because of the massive tax benefits. The governments bias is not why these rules were passed.

It isn’t political correctness to like alchohol in public more than tobacco. It’s public common sense. One can make you loud, boisterous and CAN lead to terrible decisions. The other can make you and others smell terrible, create smoke which genuinely isn’t pleasant, and is proven to damage your life 100 % if regularly around it.

So, let’s look at this from two seperate ways.

If everyone in Wrigley drinks every day for a whole season, bad things CAN happen (fights maybe even deaths). If everyone in Wrigley smokes every day for a whole season, bad things WILL happen (life expectancy down, period, try and argue with science if you want, but life expectancy is the complete scientific consensus).

The other way to look at it. Do people stop going to Wrigley because they can’t smoke. Obviously not, it’s still selling out every game. Now take away drinking and see what happens. It wouldn’t be a massive loss in revenue, but you’d definitely lose some ticket sales. And that number would be even larger in places like Miller Park where tailgating is part of the atmosphere.

I’m sorry that you smoke, and they’ve gotten rid of it, but when you do get yelled at, ticketed or kicked out for smoking in Wrigley, please don’t be mad at people. Be mad at science and numbers.

Lastly, yet again, most people in Wrigley do drink, and when someone drinks TOO much or causes problems, they’re thrown out and often arrested. Being drunk in public is a crime, and people are being punished for it. How many people get punished for smoking at Wrigley? 0? Man, it must be so hard for you to continuously yell at people who are punished for their vices, while you get to “blow smoke in people’s faces”. When I pour a beer on ya, we’ll be even then, right?

as a one time 3-pack-a-day smoker (down to 10-15 cigs a day now, thankfully), I have never felt compelled to thumb my nose at non-smoking laws except in bars. That many states make it illegal for me to light up in a business whose only customers are 21 or over, and make it illegal for the owners of said businesses to choose whether or not to allow smoking, is… kinda fascist. Think what you will of me, but I have a hard time drinking and not smoking.

Having said that, I agree with most smoking bans because there is an overwhelming body of evidence that those little cylinders of tasty do, in fact, kill everybody with enough exposure. If I were (god forbid) a parent, not only would I stop smoking, but I’d be jumping down the throats of people who try to sneak smokes in places they’re not supposed to (except bars). Wrigley is no smoking; if you light up there, I hope you get caught and removed from the ballpark. My solution is to carry around nicotine gum or a can of nasal snuff when I know I’m not going to be able to smoke for a while.

(If you really wanna talk about a ban that makes no sense, there’s this green leafy substance… but methinks I have danced on the politics line long enough.)

1) It’s against the rules, and it’s awfully disrespectful of you to break the rules like that.
2) Someone drinking a beer next to me won’t induce an asthma attack that sends me to the hospital.

A little consideration for people around you is a wonderful thing.

Like I said drunks who bother anyone ARE removed and yes ONE cigarete smoked next to me is more of a problem for my health than
drunks slurring their words and falling down around me. This is nothing to do with drunk driving etc, but with my ability to watch a game without having to breath in smoke that is both dangerous and makes me sick.

anyway…i had two points on this subject.

1. after the all-encompassing state smoking ban was passed in the winter of 07/08, enforcement was very haphazard in the main granstand at first. by last june, it seemed to be uniformly enforced. however, if you REALLY want to have a smoke, i’ve noticed that smokers can clandestinely sneak a drag in a few places…

2. those places are far away from any concentration of fans. and that’s the point of the whole ban…there’s no need for smokers to bother anyone else because, believe it or not, many people are allergic to cigarette smoke. i wish that, rather than an absolute ban, they could create one or two little holding-pen areas where smokers can smoke and a) the average fan is in no way involuntarily exposed to it while b) hardened smokers don’t feel compelled to devise methods to beat the rules.

what a dumb signing bonus.. our drafts have been terrible…. I am done wit wilken… we could have had wieters… cant miss prospect.

on the field. Hope we learn more about the context or alleged context soon. Right now the ump’s charge doesn’t pass the smell test.

Was he the crew chief or something? Not sure how the process works, but the article states he’s filing the report not the home plate umpire?

We were talking about day games yesterday. I knew it said about being played in God’s own Sunshine but I couldnt remember the rest of the quote. You save me time from googling it.