For the last two years, I've run a contest paralleling MLB.com's Free Agent Frenzy. (MLB.com login may be required to view that page.)

If you haven't done this before, here's how it works. MLB.com lists 15 top free agents -- we'll use the same ones -- and then you pick what team you think each player will sign with, and a number representing your confidence level in that signing, from 15 (most confident) to 1 (least confident). In other words, if you are 100% sure Ryan Dempster will re-sign with the Cubs, you'd give him 15 points. If you think he's back but you're less certain, give him fewer points. UPDATE TO CLARIFY THIS: Each number from 1 to 15 is given ONLY ONCE for the entire list of free agents; i.e. the guy you are most confident will sign with a particular team gets 15 points; the one you pick out of a hat gets 1 point.

Whoever has the most points after all 15 free agents on the list are signed wins. The prize this year will once again be a copy of Glenn Stout's "The Cubs", an excellent comprehensive history of the ballclub.

The 15 free agents are:

Bobby Abreu
Milton Bradley
A. J. Burnett
Pat Burrell
Ryan Dempster
Adam Dunn
Rafael Furcal
Derek Lowe
Oliver Perez
Manny Ramirez
Francisco Rodriguez
CC Sabathia
Ben Sheets
Mark Teixeira
Kerry Wood

Leave your picks in the comments. We'll use the same deadline as MLB's contest: 4 pm CT on Wednesday, November 12 (the day before free agents can sign with any team). I'll also need a volunteer to keep track of these and let me know who the winner is. I'm going to make picks; if somehow I win (highly unlikely!) the prize goes to the second place finisher. Good luck!

I haven't done a headline post like this in a while, and when I do, I've usually put them up in the morning. But there are some interesting notes tonight, so I'm getting this one up now, and you can continue discussing during the day.

• A. J. Burnett has opted out of his contract and is a free agent. I am neither arguing for nor against signing him; I simply point out that a lot of people here were in favor of going after him last winter. What say you now?
• The Yankees bought out Damaso Marte's deal. He's a free agent. Some here were in favor of the Cubs going after him last summer. Marte had a good year, and the Cubs could use a lefty reliever. He sometimes walks everyone in sight, and he's 33 years old. Thoughts? (Another note in that link: the Yankees are considering making former Cub Mick Kelleher their first-base coach.)
• More renovations and seat additions are being made to Fenway Park this offseason. Crane Kenney has said more than once that he looks to the Red Sox as a model in many different ways. What the Red Sox are doing to Fenway could be a model of what could be done to fix up Wrigley Field.
• And finally, wild-card and division tiebreakers may be decided by head-to-head records, not coin flips; GM's will discuss this again at the Winter Meetings next month. Perhaps this is a precursor to giving all postseason home fields to the team with the better record.

That ought to give you enough to fill your Thursday night and Friday. Have at it.

The Cubs lost 5-4 to the Rays in St. Petersburg, Florida, last night, their second loss in a row to the suddenly-powerful team from Tampa Bay.

I know, I know, that's not what you want to talk about this morning, you just want to hear more about Carlos Zambrano's shoulder problem. The answer is that we don't know anything more right now than we did last night; Z is flying back to Chicago today to have a MRI performed. After that we'll know more. Obviously, if Z misses more than a start or two the Cubs will have to suck it up and other pitchers will have to take up the slack, and/or they'll have to make a deal for pitching help (I'm sure this will start the A. J. Burnett rumors going into high gear).

But until we know more, the sky-is-falling crowd will just have to wait until they declare this season "over". The Cubs still maintain a 3 1/2 game lead over the Cardinals -- you think the Cubs are having a tough time, St. Louis just lost two straight to the woeful Royals -- and they did keep battling last night, just as they did the night before; Geovany Soto's 9th-inning HR off Troy Percival cut the Rays' lead to 5-4 and they did get the tying run on base when Mark DeRosa walked, but that was it. Michael Wuertz did a good job of keeping the game within reach till the 9th.

The real issue, then, was DeRosa's drop of a fly ball in the first inning, allowing an unearned run to score. This wound up the difference in the game. Z actually threw pretty well, except for the third inning when the Rays had four straight hits and five hits in all, scoring four runs. The shoulder problem, possibly in evidence since mid-May when Z "slept wrong", didn't get worse, says Z in a quote from the Paul Sullivan article above, till the last batter he faced:

"There was a funny pitch that I felt something in my arm, and then the last pitch I threw in the game to Hinske, I dropped my arm a lot because I couldn't go back to the top of my arm," Zambrano said.

So we wait. And the Cubs may also need outfield help, because Jim Edmonds has a foot problem. Edmonds, hitting .300/.342/.500 in 70 Cub at-bats, has actually been a useful contributor and -- I can't believe I'm writing this -- if he's out for any length of time, the Cubs would miss his bat.

Wondrous and yet strange season, this is. One thing I like: Lou's decision to bat Kosuke Fukudome leadoff while Alfonso Soriano is out -- despite the fact that the normally patient Dome swung at the first pitch he saw last night and grounded out.

A couple quick notes on my tour of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame yesterday. In addition to entire floors dedicated to special exhibits on the Doors and the Beatles movie "Help", the Rock Hall also has a large current exhibit on baseball music entitled "Take Me Out: Baseball Rocks!" It covers music from all musical eras about baseball, from DeWolf Hopper's early 20th Century rendition of "Casey At The Bat", to a forgettable 1969 song recorded by Ernie Banks called "Teamwork", and a large exhibit focusing on the local team, the Indians, and their 1997 AL Championship team. There's a place where you can listen to various baseball songs; Steve Goodman's "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" is included (but no "Go Cubs Go").

I was a bit disappointed when going into, or more correctly, attempting to go into, the actual "Hall of Fame", where all the inductees have their signatures etched into glass. It was roped off and closed -- explanation: the 2008 inductees' names are being etched. Lame explanation, IMO: to close this off for a full day (which is what one worker there said), so that someone like me, who is not likely to return to Cleveland any time soon, can't see it, isn't right. They should do this sort of work in overnight hours.

So, I'm back home in Chicago, ready to gear up for the first Cubs/White Sox series beginning tomorrow, but first, the business of salvaging the final game of the Rays series tonight. Do that and the road trip will be split 3-3, which would be fine with me. Game thread will be up around 3:30 this afternoon.

TORONTO -- Sean Gallagher threw a pretty nice game last night.

But the Cubs lost to the Blue Jays 3-2, snapping a four-game winning streak, you're saying. What is Al talking about? The road finally get to him?

No, it didn't, though I was almost literally driving door-to-door from Wrigley Field, where I left Thursday's game, stopped at home to pick up my stuff, hit rush-hour traffic, stopped in Lansing, Michigan, overnight, and arrived in Toronto just in time to say "Hi" to my very nice bed-&-breakfast hosts, then leave for the game.

Gallagher DID throw well -- that is, except when he lost focus in the third inning and allowed back-to-back HR by two men we are very familiar with. First, it was ex-Cub Matt Stairs (who the Cubs should never have let go -- he could have been a valuable part-time player the last six years), who followed Alex Rios' leadoff double; next, former Cardinal nemesis Scott Rolen followed Stairs' lead by homering just inside the LF foul pole, and that was all the Jays' six pitchers needed. Among those six was yet another ex-Cub, Scott Downs, who has turned from a young starter who couldn't get the ball over the plate for the 2000 Cubs into a premier setup man. Some friends of mine from my Colgate University class, who live here in Toronto and were at the game, told me that Downs writes the names of his kids in the dirt on the mound before his first pitch of every appearance.

Digression? Sure, because do you really want to hear me talk about all the squandered opportunities? The Cubs left 11 last night, including an awful inning where they had the bases loaded with nobody out, A. J. Burnett (who had stymied the Cubs for the first five) on the ropes, and scored only once, on an Eric Patterson single with one out. They had appeared to score two batters earlier, when Jim Edmonds singled with runners on first and second; Kosuke Fukudome, the runner on second, rounded third and scored easily. Time was called and he was sent back to third; this was never explained at the park, and if you missed it, here it is:

The shot from Edmonds had hit the arm of the second-base umpire and was ruled a dead-ball single. Had the ball not hit the umpire, Fukudome would have scored from second, but he was instead called back to third, after the umpires realized what had happened.

Lou came out and briefly argued, but this makes sense. The Cubs still had a good shot at taking the game back that inning, but Ryan Theriot hit into a double play. That seemed to suck all the life out of the Cubs; they managed only three harmless singles the rest of the way. The bullpen did a good job of keeping the game close, at least, and in the 9th, the Cubs did get a runner on base (Derrek Lee, who walked) with two out -- this after ex-Blue Jay Reed Johnson got a rousing ovation from the Jays (and Cubs) fans before pinch-hitting for Micah Hoffpauir.

They kept the roof closed last night because of a forecast of rain, and that was a good thing, because in the late innings, audible thunder rumbled overhead and by the time the game ended, there was a pretty good downpour outside. My friends graciously offered a ride back for me, but that required a walk through the rain, which is the reason this recap is being written now rather than last night. While waiting for the rain to let up, I ran into Len Kasper and Bob Brenly also outside, saying they needed to find a cab back to their hotel -- I assume they eventually found one, because they disappeared into the wet night. (Thanks again, guys, for the interviews earlier this year.) The now corporately-named Rogers Centre has been vastly improved since I was last here in 2003; the concourses, once dark and forbidding, have been painted in lighter colors. They're still a bit dark, but better, and the food selection seems much more varied, and lines move fairly fast. The Jumbotron, also new, shows detailed stats on every player in the lineup, though at one point it said Derrek Lee had "grouned" to short in the 7th.

The Cubs have won so often in this so-far terrific season that it feels really strange when they lose. However, we must remember the silly old phrase, "You can't win 'em all", and know that is literally true. Toronto's got a pretty decent team that has struggled in part because their closer, B. J. Ryan, has blown two saves in the last two weeks. It won't get any easier today with Roy Halladay going, although Halladay, like Tim Hudson on Thursday (similar numbers) isn't unbeatable (five losses). I'll have a game thread up in a few hours.