Hi gang,

First of all, not sure if these are supposed to be FanShots or FanPosts (I've seen both), so apologize if this note is in the wrong place. Wondering if we have some folks who still haven't signed up for fantasy baseball this year and are interested in doing so. I've created a 10 team league (4 advance to the playoffs) on Yahoo Sports ,H2H, weekly roster changes, standard scoring settings and with the new Auction draft functionality. 

The draft is set for tomorrow (Sunday 03/28) at 11AM CT. If you're interested in joining, please go to:

Next Year is Here 
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/register/joinprivateleague_league_select?.scrumb=

League ID: 580937
League Password: santostoupee

Otherwise, send me your email and I can send you an invite. Please only sign up if you're serious about playing... nothing worse than giving up halfway!

Thanks and go Cubs!

By now we’re all probably looking at October with resignation. Another year has gone by without getting to the promised land, made all the more frustrating by the fact that we were all expecting this team to “turn it on” at some juncture – a point in time that has not yet arrived and that many have given up waiting for. To rub some salt in the open wound, our bitter rivals have been scorching hot while we’ve been stuck in neutral. Can you believe that the last time we gained a full game on the Cards was on July 29th? That’s 37 games in a row of either staying put or drifting back (I thought that streak would finally end yesterday but, as soon as they walked Pujols in front of Holliday, the outcome almost seemed obvious – all-time saves leader pitching or not).

All that being said, regardless of how much of a pessimistic (or realistic) Cubs fan you are, it’s hard not to think of how cool it would be if we somehow managed to pull this off. What would need to happen for the miracle to occur? What’s the hottest we’ve ever gone to close out a season? Here are the hottest finishes since 1900 (with 25 games left):

 You have to assume we’ll have a winning record from here on in (we play 18 of our 25 last games against teams that currently have losing records, if I’m not mistaken – plus 3 vs. the Cards and 4 at SF). The question is: how hot would we need to get? Would replicating any of our previous hot finishes get us anywhere? Even going 22-3 (resulting in finishing 22 over), would that be enough? I’m not sure, you can decide, but I’m sure it would make things pretty interesting.

Either way, if we have to go down, let’s at least go down fighting. Let’s make some teams look in their rearview mirror, regardless of whether it slows them down or not. Let’s make ESPN keep showing us in the wild-card standings and have them use words like “suddenly resurgent”. Let’s get that spark that some of us are still waiting for. This team needs to start realizing they’re capable of much more, so that they can come out swinging in 2010. But if they get hot enough, quickly enough… who knows?

... was, first of all, completely absent in last night's loss to the Astros. Obviously not fun to watch, but over the course of the season that's bound to happen several times.

The more curious thing about his bat is that it also almost hit Lee in the on-deck circle though, if I'm not mistaken. I was at the park so I didn't have a chance to see a replay, but I thought I saw Bradley chuck the bat back in disgust after one of his outs and Lee had to do a little skip to avoid getting hit by it. If I'm not mistaken Lee then turned back and just shook his head too... I'm sure Bradley didn't mean to toss it at Lee, but it was a sad sight to see.

I don't actually have a problem with Bradley at RF from a production perspective. Sure, the homers haven't been there but I think he's been a really solid 2-hole hitter (.338 average, .991 OPS this year hitting second - too bad he hit 4th/5th for most of the year). He got off to one of the most terrible starts I've ever seen (no doubt about that), but his numbers have improved consistently every month.

I think the importance of team chemistry is often understated though, so it annoys the heck out of me to see his unnecessary antics. The bat toss yesterday, the bows to the crowd after he caught the fly ball a couple of days ago, the hand in the ear to the crowd when he hit a homer early in the season after they'd been booing him all game. I'm sure they're a product of adrenaline/frustration and just his personality, but they're completely unnecessary. I'm totally in favor of showing emotion out there in hopes that it'll spread (doesn't it often seem like we're half asleep out there?), but his displays are definitely of the wrong kind of emotion. Not only are they negative in nature, but they're completely about him and his actions and not about the team or the game. A couple of months ago he hit a big RBI double after a long dry spell and pointed towards the sky with a face that clearly said "finaaaally". Who cares if it's been months since your last hit, you just helped your team right then...

I wonder if he'll ever understand the difference. In the end, if you're more concerned about yourself than the team, you should try to keep that to yourself. I'm sure many people, including your teammates, will at least appreciate the effort.