YASNY

It must have been due to his natural charm.

"Ball Four" is great. I second The Critics nomination. I also thoroughly enjoyed "Veeck as in Wreck" by the late Bill Veeck. Good insight into baseball in the mid 1900's.

What's your point? I said TWO of the trio or Magglio. His salary is about equal to any of the two other guys.... well PK plus one of the other two. And I would hate to lose Lee.

Remember when the Big 10 was derogatorily called the Big 2 and the Little 8? And with good reason. Now, let's say you had a season where Ohio St and Mich were not scheduled to play each other in the regular season. You could conceivably have OSU and UM go through the regular season and come out at the end as the only two undeated teams in the nation... yet, since they were both in the same conference, both teams skated by on only playing cupcakes. No, when selecting two teams to play in a national championship game, they should not be from the same conference. If they make their way through a playoff or Tournament system, then they have earned it and there is no controversy. But picking OSU to play Michigan for a "National" championship under the above circumstances would be a travesty.

Go Wildcats!

Grossman will probably suck ... as did guys like Elway, Aikman, Young, etc. I just hope we see flashes of a top notch NFL QB over the next 3 games.

After what the Tribune Co pulled with that scam of the Cub fans and that paper company selling tickets for multiple times their face value, there is no way I could vote for the Cubs having the "best" ownership. The Blackhawks are eliminated because, well, you all know. The leaves the Bears and the Reinsdorfs. Nod to the Bulls because of the 6 championships. But, all in all, none of them qualify.

Two of the Konerko/Koch/Valentin trio or Ordenez himself should ease the budget crunch. Lee is more valuable per dollar than any of the rest at this point. I'd hate to lose Carlos.

Likewise. And as always .... :fthecubs

Which, in turn, is one of the driving forces that is keeping these salaries under control. The owners, in general, have gotten smarter about the way they do things and there is certainly a market correction going on, but this insurance thing is also part of the equation.

I agree with both points 1 and 2. Also, I don't believe Valentin will be with the Sox come opening day. I think his option was picked up because he is a tradable commodity.

Todd Walker is a major defensive liability at 2B. No thanks. Pitching and defense guys.

The Padres are setting themselves up very nicely and should be a contending team for a while.

Do we HAVE to talk about that?

That's an entirely different discussion. However, BD's power numbers where at least acceptable in Boston.

That is a good question. When people were screaming for Frank to be playing 1B after the inter-league play last season, I pointed out that NL didn't generally have experience at pitching to Frank and didn't really know how to get him out. I thought that was the reason for his hot streak. However, I don't think anyone considered it a viable reason. The fact that in the mid '90's Frank hit so well while he was a 1B seemed to carry more weight. But, I digress.

The question posed by this article, about does anybody WANT to play for the White Sox, is one that I've been waiting on for sometime. This franchise has a history of telling players one thing and doing another, bad mouthing players on their way out of town and disrespecting them at the end of their careers. I guess it's really starting to come back to haunt them.

You said, directly, what I've been attempting to communicate with sarcasm.

Wunsch would have some value on the trade market as well. I'm sure Florida could use a guy to come in and face the likes of Thome, etc.

I may be there before the end of 2004. Uncertain at this point.

Yawn.

I'm in Cardinal country here. You root for the 'Stros and I'll pull for the Cards and maybe, between the two of us, we can keep the Cubs out of the playoffs. But, before anyone gets nutso on me here, my heart will ALWAYS be with the White Sox.

All I know is that I've been reading all off season about KW is at fault for signing guys to "stupid" contracts. Paying Colon what the Angels gave him qualifies as such in my opinion.

But, at one point Koch did have his fastball. That point wasn't in 2003, though.

I don't know what else could be put together, but Lee for either of those pitchers would really suck.