Harry Chappas

I have always been in the Bowman was not the builder of the team camp but handed the keys to an amazing car. Getting Hossa was a no brainer and now we see that he may not be all that good at his job.

For some reason I pull for Dusty Baker, I do not know why. That was a great game last night.

I agree. While COVID economics will certainly be in play next season especially for teams that rely on gate receipts. Is Carl better than a middle reliever at this point? I think the Sox give him the $6M.

I think Nagy has some trouble in play calling. The start of the second half was abysmal. Hopefully they can figure it out and maybe Foles will have a say in that. That being said the Bucs and Colts ae two of the better run defenses in football so hopefully they can try and establish the run some going forward and get the offense in sync. I think the Bears are ok, they benefitted from a short week and team on the road last evening.

Because you took the time to respond in detail I will respond without going back through my post. I was not trying to say that the extra $600 was evil just that it had some unintended consequences to some individuals that had made out better than pre-COVID. I did not mean to paint with the broad brush as I seem to have and I apologize. I also did not audit the conversation the way a few of you have to my post other than to explain how the additional federal benefit was a windfall to a person and precluded her from returning to work as the premise of her job did change slightly enough. This person didn't win the lottery via the IDES but it made it harder to hire lower paid individuals. The IDES issue is that the management of the program is poorly administered not that the general benefits of the program is poor. In regard to the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago, there is no guarantee that the long term fiscal impact over the last 6 months will not be catastrophic without any government assistance. The economic boom of the last 10 years in Chicago may be gone and with it the state of Illinois. My bankruptcy quip was a mere generalization of the current fiscal atmosphere. I have always found it rather amazing the amount of federal revenue states like Illinois and New York provide and the how the federal government allocates the collected revenue as well as the opportunity in these states that provide the bulk to the federal revenue stream.

They need a positive turnaround and get something at the deadline or hope a GM is desperate and gravely overpays based on his recent performance. If he does round back into form and is playing well and they are seeing the results similar to his MVP year then moving him at the deadline comes a larger white flag issue....same with the rest of their core

My point was comparative of how states are handling the economic burden. I guess I need to come right out in this thread and pick a side and defend it until I get banned sort of like real life. Got it. Carry on.

There are no state income taxes so not certain how much of the state economy is linked to tourism and the fiscal impact of closing the tourism and entertainment industry. Put on the dog and pony show and then let the Federal government bail you out because you back the commander in chief. Unlike Illinois where we will spend $77M on a make shift hospital nobody will use and worry about paying the bills later. Illinois/Chicago need Biden to win and hope the federal government will come through on funding or the city and probably the state will most certainly have to declare bankruptcy.....the end of Chicago as a destination may not be too far off. I think what Florida is doing is stupid but they have a plan as poorly thought out as it may be....although I am not a fan of the state and expect nothing less.

Chicago, Cook County, Illinois....Union Brotherhood runs deep until there is a cash job waiting Poor Frank Thomas

I think the cubs have to hope he turns it around. If it was a not top 5 piece I'd make that trade.

I explained the employee's situation and why it was neither the employer or employee that was at fault. Go 2 hours outside of Chicago and see how far $600 a week can get you. Maybe her business model is absurd but prior to COVID it was just fine for many years. She was not forcing people to work in servitude.

Again I am not talking about individuals supporting families. My initial post was about a small restaurant that struggled to get employees in the summer because of the unemployment claims and never recovered. I am by no means trying to state that a family of four in a an urban area is living large on this policy.

Sorry I did not mean to use the term household.

Depends on your lot in life. The median household income in some states is below $30K. I could not live on that but there are certainly some that can.

She was making minimum wage and worked a handful of hours and then was making much more to not work. She then went off to college. I didn't ask to audit the conversation but the gist is she was making 3 to 4 times more to stay at home during that period as were many people in that position. I am not certain about he dependent status nor do I really know how the IDES works but as an employer we are on the hook for employment benefits for employees that were not laid off or had a reduction of hours because we are the more stable employer. We have a firm that represents us and they tried to explain this to me and I still cannot understand how the IDES works so when I heard that story I didn't really feel the need to question it .

What doesn't....she worked minimal hours, was laid off, received unemployment compensation. She was not being hired back for the same position technically so she did not have to elect to return to work and as such received the $600 weekly benefit.

Those charts look menacing if they break it down by industry I could be wrong. How many bar and restaurant workers make over $800 a week? I do think the bar and restaurant industry should be bailed out but they won't.

Was her choice...she was a high school student that only wanted to work 4 or 5 hours a week on the weekend during school. When she was asked to come back and to work more hours to help the carry out business her answer was no....unless they could top the $800 for doing nothing. Thus this girl that was making a little spending money now received $6K in unemployment.

Tex you eat tacos at 6:30 in the morning? The unemployment stimulus killed small businesses as much as anything. A friend had to close her restaurant because they could not get enough support staff. They are not in an urban area but not necessarily rural either. They could not hire people that wanted to work. A part time person that she was paying about $100 a week was making $800 a week to sit at home. She could not pay that person a realistic wage to come back to work. Another union friend has been out of work since mid-March and with random side work and unemployment has no interest in going back to work. Let's also not even get into unemployment fraud which is out of control. We are all screwed.

He and Abreu will DH and then in a couple of years he is the 1B and Eloy is the DH.

The cubs need to sell some parts but they are selling low so that is a bad idea.......never underestimate the stupidity of a nervous MLB GM

Think they gotta start another rebuild. Calling game yesterday hurt cub more than Marlins as Marlins bullpen was fresh. While I am mad the Sox lost at least their arrow is pointing in the right direction. Schwarber, Baez, Rizzo and Bryant - 1 hit amongst them

Why would he say that? What does it benefit him to say that he is fine and nothing is wrong? Wishful thinking on his part? I am thinking there was a lack of miscommunication and he was pitching like he did earlier this year when he was starter. He knows himself better than the White Sox at this point and my guess...if he is not injured....was that he had scaled it back to the TN days trying to go 2.1 innings and Renteria and Cooper were being overly cautious and not trusting him. I am not certain there is fault there as they as a staff have worked with him for two weeks and he is as green as a player can get.

I get not starting himbecause it forces Melvin's hand on the L/R matchups. My issue was Dunning was throwing strikes and they were in too big of a hurry to pull him to get to their plan on managing the rest of he game.

He was pitching better than Fiers. The top of the A's order should get on base. He got two outs and gave up no runs on two soft singles. He struggled if you want to call it that to the top four hitters in their lineup. He didn't have a chance to fail or at least come close to it. After the top of the first you had to think the Sox would get to Fiers and go from there. The White Sox bullpen had shown all season that they could be exposed and they were by the A's as I have pointed out numerous times. They are young relievers that the A's were making work. Not sure if it was Ricky or Cooper but whoever was handling the staff yesterday panicked and then failed miserably. I have not looked deeply into it but if Crochet was taken out simply because his velocity was down but he is fine and said so, and they still pulled him, they should be fired on the spot. Crochet was hoping to go 2+, maybe he did the Cooper and scaled back his velocity (to 98 BTW) to go longer and be more effective deeper into the game. In the end if Crochet is healthy I am a happy camper.