Okay, I don't think anyone here has brought this topic up and it might not be the right time to raise this issue but I'm going to go ahead and right about it anyway because I like to live dangerously. By all means, ignore this post if you must. I have noticed a lot more of these W flags popping up at the UC and Wrigley. There seem to be several different variations of the flag, the one that immediately comes to mind has a red backround, black W, and four feathers hanging from the top right corner of said W.

Now, before I get into the nuts and bolts of this surely divisive issue, I would like to point out that  whoever is responsible for the flag some took it upon themselves to have not just flags but t-shirts made with this design. I am not a lawyer but I would think that both the Hawks and the Cubs would have something to say to the person(s) responsible for.....well basically making money off this idea. I mean, you would think, for sure that the Cubs would have some kind of trademark on the whole "W" thing. I'm not quite sure the Hawks would have as strong an argument, considering the lack of an actual Indian head. The flags/shirts do however, incorporate both the colors and the four feathers we have all come to know and love. Either  way, I would think that these things will become either a) completely illegal if they aren't already or b) extremely hard to get a hold of due to efforts by the Cubs and Hawks.

Whichever one of these scenarios (or neither) I am on board as saying that I want one of these things. Yes, part of that is that I am in the degenerate, low life, less intelligent group of people that root for the Chicago Cubs. But another part is that I think its pretty cool that someone has taken a tradition that is a hundred (ish) yrs old and applied to a completely different sport. I know there are a shitload of Sox fans reading this right now (or not) that probably hate this because it has something to do with the Cubs. I completely understand this. I'm sure there are quite a few Mets fans who follow the NY Football Giants and would never want to hear an M-E-T-S METS METS METS!!!!! chant. This is kind of a different situation though.

I don't think the people who are sporting these flags are saying "Yah we're awesome cuz we're both Cubs and Blackhawks fans!" I think they're just trying to celebrate a win in the only way they know how. Seriously, we're not that smart, most of us get the majority of our global economic/hairpiece related news from Ronnie. With brain stuff like that, how can you expect us to come up with a different way to celebrate? Bottom line, if you are a Blackhawks fan, you should LOVE seeing that flag because it means they won. And that's what we all want right?

Go Hawks

I mean layoff as in "leave alone" as opposed to "terminate"

Now that we are clear on that I must confess that I am not a stathead and was never a particularly good baseball player, so maybe I'm missing some standout statistic that would easily explain why (some) Cub fans think Soriano sucks super bad. Despite the fact that I'm not the smartest in terms of baseball stats, I DO watch alot of baseball and sports in general and, in my humble opinion I don't think Soriano is that bad.

I'm sure there are those of you out there who are going to throw all kinds of stats my way explaining why he sucks and I encourage you to do so, I am always a fan of learning new things. But in my simplified way of thinking I have to ask myself. Is Sori the best defensive left fielder in MLB? No. Is he the worst? No. Is he the best offensive left fielder in MLB? No. Is he the worst? No. So, basically what we have is (IMO) a better than average left fielder who makes the occasional blunder in one of the most unique outfields in all of baseball. This brings me to my point (yes I have one).

I believe the reason that Soriano is held to a higher standard is because of his contract. We all know that he is overpaid and the contract is too long. Here is my question, If Soriano was paid like a left fielder from, say, the Royals, would we not be overjoyed with the output Soriano provides? Now, I know this is not the case, but who's fault is that? There are three people that could be blamed for the burden of Phonzie's contract; Soriano himself, his agent, or Jim Hendry.

Soriano's contract is ridiculous, I will admit to that. Some might say it is so ridiculous that no one (save Pujols) could ever live up to such high expectations. This is not Soriano's fault. If you want to lay the blame on anyone, lay it on his agent, who projected him to be a much better ball player than he is. Lay the blame on Jim Hendry for signing him to such a ridiculous contract. I know we don't see him much and it is easier to boo Soriano but Hendry is the one we should be booing, not one of the best hitters on our team (yah I said it).

I'm not saying everyone should drink the kool aid but there are a lot of problems with this team OTHER than Soriano. Let's distribute the blame evenly instead of unfairly.

Go Cubs

I am writing to everyone today to pose a question. I know that like myself, a lot of you will be attending Opening Day at Wrigley Field. I was wondering how many of you would be willing to/interested in having a (very) informal BCB meet and greet.

Second City Hockey does this sort of thing a lot for Blackhawks road games. I have a few friends in Chicago but none who are going to the game. I think this would be a great opportunity for the BCB community to get together and meet, you know, in person!

If anyone is interested, I'll make another post about where to meet up.

Thanks!

Sorry for the Olivia Newton John reference, I hope that song doesn't get stuck in your head like it is in mine.I also want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I just had some quick thoughts on the game tonight. Thanks to SCH member Scott13 for his weird fun fact about fighting penalty minutes in today's game thread. I didn't know the exact numbers but reading Scott's comment, it makes total sense. The Hawks are not fighters. Now, I don't know about you guys but the last time we played the Blues it seemed to me like they were more concerned with hurting our players than scoring goals. I know the Hawks are more of a finesse team and it is obviously working out pretty well for them. But tonight, in St. Louis, I would absolutely love to see someone in a blue and white uniform get leveled/punched/knocked the f--- out. I think it would be nice message to send.

Oh and if person on the receiving end of a Blackhawks beatdown is Barrett Jackoff, that would be just fine by me. So what are your thoughts? If you had to pick one Blackhawks player to drop the gloves who would it be? Mine is Byfuglien, I don't know why, I guess I just want to see him go apeshit on somebody. What about you?

Go Hawks!

Last night I went on a little bar tour here in Peoria and tried to keep a close eye on the Hawks. I don't know about you guys but it seemed to me that the Yotes physically dominated our boys last night. Maybe it's the unis, I don't know but those guys looked huge! Adding to this was the fact that the Hawks did a poor job of clearing the slot with the puck in their zone and when we were on the attack the Yotes pushed our guys out of the slot taking away screens and a couple rebound shots. Credit goes to Bryzgalov though, he did a great job tending and defended well on numerous rebound shots from the Hawks. I think what stuck out most in my mind was the lack of physical play by the Hawks I didn't see any big hits or scrums all night. I kept thinking "man if we could just get a big hit it might shift the momentum to our side". It never happened. Maybe the time between games had something to do with it but I would really like to see a more fired up crew take the ice tonight and lay somebody out, lets send a message that we wont be pushed around. Oh yeah, and dropping the gloves every once in a while wouldn't hurt either.

PS: no Eddie Belfour sitings last night, although I don't think he'd be caught dead in some of the dives I was in but I'm going downtown again tonight so I'll keep my eyes peeled!

Go Hawks!

Sitting here a little over a year since the Cubs were swept out of the playoffs by the Dodgers I never thought I'd be rooting for them to win it all. That is, until Jim Thome was traded from the White Sox to LA. For those of you who don't know, Thome is from Peoria, IL (home of the Cubs A affiliate Peoria Chiefs) which also happens to be my hometown. Before Thome embarked upon his successful career, Peoria was probably best known as the home of Richard Pryor and more recently, the heavy metal band Mudvayne. Jim Thome grew up as a Cub fan and is a god here in Peoria. He and his wife are very involved in local charities, pledging $1000 to the Children's Hospital of Illinois for each home run he hits every year. This year that totals $23,000.

Thome is ranked 12th in the all time homerun list and 3rd among active major leaguers. He is also ranked 6th all time in postseason homers with 17. A four time all star "The Pride of Peoria" is  also the only player in history to have his 500th homer be a walk off and if it weren't for his bat, the White Sox might not have beat the Twins last year in Game 163.

I'm pulling for the Dodgers not just because Thome and I are both native Peorians but because he is one of the greatest sluggers of our time and at 39 has never won a world series, despite two appearances with the Tribe in 95 and 97. He has avoided public scandals and steroid accusations and I can personally attest that he is one of the nicest, most down to earth guys you'll ever meet.

So, if you find yourself without a team you can get behind this post season root for Jim. In my opinion he deserves it way more than the likes of A-Rod, the Angels, and especially the Phillies. Also, did I mention, HE'S A CUB FAN!

Here's to hoping Big Jim Thome is the first World Series Champion born and raised in Peoria.

Ill make this short and sweet. This offseason were gonna be short on cash (thanks Milton!) So why not bring Felix back? He's a black guy (i think) and this could prove to all the naysayers that Cub fans aren't racist. Not to mention what he's been doing recently with the O's. I'm lazy today so here's a link from Rob Neyer's "What's To Be Done With Milton Bradley?" Fangraphs article So.... what do you guys think?

For everyone out there who may already be considering what moves the Cubs should make in the offseason here's some food for thought. Of the cubs eight regular starters, (and for fun we'll include Three Finger Hill in this discussion) only one has a higher season BA then D-Lee. Obviously, everyone knows that could only be Rami.
Lee also lead the team in homeruns (duh) RBI (89, that's 40 more than second place Theriot), and is tied with Fukudome at 30 doubles. Oh yah, and third in OBP. So the guy who has hit more homeruns than anyone else on the team must be having a career year right? WRONG! Derrek currently has 27 homeruns far shy of his career high of 46 in '05.  However he has consistently produced and is on track to beat his homerun and RBI numbers of the last two years.

So here's my plan.....CLONE DERREK LEE! If the Cubs had 7 more D-Lee's suiting up everday then as a team we would currently have 322 homeruns and 623 RBI. The Cardinals this year have hit 134. That's 134 homeruns for every single player that has worn a Cardinals uniform this season including DeRosa and Holliday. While eight Derrek Lees whooped all the Cards in homeruns, they made up the difference in singles and triples, I'm not even going to list the stats because they're RIDICULOUS. Now all those base and extra base hit add up to alot of RBI, so even with eight #25's runnin' around they still would whoop our collective asses in that department. But, wouldn't you feel better knowing that Derrek Lee would be at bat while Derrek Lee was on deck, while Derrek Lee was in the hole!?!?!?!?

I know I would. So forget about what to do with Bradley, forgot about Zambrano doing his Chuck Norris ab-machine workouts, forget the debate on whether Piniella has gone loony, forget about whether or not Soriano will bounce back next year, and for Christ's sake forget plotting the murder of Aaron Miles! (I know he sucks but do you really want to kill him!?!?). Forget all that stuff and somebody tell Tom Ricketts his first move as owner should be to buy whatever machine or team of scientist he needs to CLONE DERREK LEE!!!!