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January bores me to pieces. I wish I was a grizzly bear that hibernated through the winter.
From Comcast SportsNet
- Greg Maddux will be a Hall of Famer. Here's a look back at his career.
- And Maddux is the real headliner of a great Hall class.
- The Cubs will get to make their pitch to Masahiro Tanaka.
- The White Sox are also interested in Tanaka, thanks to a "level playing field."
From Cubs Den
- A series of Cub notes rehashes some content, but also looks into Homer Bailey, Daniel Nava, and Adys Portillo, who was immediately confused with the Portillo's restaurant chain.
- The position-by-position breakdown continues with two-thirds of the outfield. I find this strange because that's two positions and the first entry in the series was third base. Watch out... Cubs Den is unpredictable!
- And the continuing continues with another two-thirds of the outfield. Two-thirds plus two-thirds is more than a full outfield, but click the links. It makes sense.
- Here's a Cubs-style fantasy baseball outlook.
From Cubs.com
- (Video) Carrie Muskat gives an update on "Tanaka Watch." She more or less plays Debbie Downer.
- Chicago is a special place to Greg Maddux.
- Meanwhile, Sammy Sosa is losing ground in pursuit of the Hall.
From ESPNChicago.com
- Here are 10 bold predictions for the rest of the winter. I'm not an Insider, so I don't know what the connection to the Cubs is... but I assume there is one, since it was linked to the Cubs' blog page. So there's that.
- Sammy Sosa has made many "not quite Hall of Fame" material lists.
From the Chicago Tribune
- Greg Maddux collected the eighth-best win total in baseball history on his way to the Hall. The Chicago Tribune archive looks back at win number one.
From the Chicago Sun-Times
- Greg Maddux was a dominant force on the mound. But did you remember that his major league debut with the Cubs was as a pinch-runner?
From the Daily Herald
- Baseball is full of big personalities. But Greg Maddux was always low-key.
Miscellaneous
- Doug Glanville reflects on what it was like to face Greg Maddux as a hitter..
- Grantland's Jonah Keri makes the case that the Cubs could be in for a rebound season, buoyed by positive regression.
- The title of this Fangraphs article says it all: The Greatness of Greg Maddux.
- The Hardball Times knows we are all waiting for Masahiro Tanaka to sign. But a bunch of fellow hurlers are all waiting, too.
Today's food for thought
- A Japanese astronaut is making light paintings aboard the ISS.
- Take a look at the dusty remnants of an exploding star.
- Or how about a supernova that was studied by Johannes Kepler over 400 years ago.