They are meant to be broken, but I'd like to hang onto this one for a little bit longer. At least until the Bulls are legit contenders again. I'm talking about the 72-10 magical season of '95-'96. This year there are 3 teams supposedly threatening this mark, so I decided to reach way back in the archives and see how the records really stack up.

As of December 27:

'95-'96 Chicago Bulls: 23-3

'08-'09 Boston Celtics: 27-4

'08-'09 Cleveland Cavs: 25-4

'08-'09 LA Lakers: 24-5

It should be noted, however, that the Bulls following the Dec 26th loss went on a 18 game winning streak before losing 2 in a row in early February (they didn't lose in the entire month of January?!?!). I think the end of the season is really where these teams are going to be tested. I remember reading an article recently where one of the players were talking about that season and how they lost 2/3 of the games in the second half of the year (which they apparently did because through 41 games they were a ridiculous 38-3). Will it happen this year? I don't know, but I sure hope not. Gives me one more thing to hold onto while we wait for Pax to build a team around our first true legit star: D-Rose!

Chicago Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano limped off the field Sunday night with a strained right quad, and his status was day-to-day.

The sellout crowd at Wrigley Field was silent as Soriano was helped off the field.
My heart initially sank. For some reason the feeling felt so familiar. The Cubs would once again break the hearts of so many out there.

But then for some reason, I began to feel a bit more optimistic.

Theriot SS
Fontenot 2B
Lee 1B
Ramirez 3B
Floyd LF
DeRosa RF
Jones CF
Kendell C

Yes that outfield seems a little bit weak and who knows what's gonna happen with Pie now, but this is still a pretty darn good team. With Z and Lily anchoring our rotation. Wood actually looking decent in his comeback. The Brewers starting to fall apart at the seams. This Cubs team with it's new found "Cubbie swagger" is not gonna let this one thing stop them from their destiny to stop the streak at 99! Ok so there still might be a little bit of kool-aid in my bloodstream, but there's just this strange feeling to this year... It's gonna happen.

GO CUBS GO!

It looks like the Brewers are getting a little bit desparate to duplicate the success the Cubs have been enjoying the past couple of months.

Already fighting to stay in first place, the Milwaukee Brewers are now scuffling among themselves.

Catcher Johnny Estrada and manager Ned Yost nearly tangled in a dugout tunnel late in Thursday's 12-4 loss to the New York Mets, the Brewers' 10th defeat in 14 games...

...When the half-inning ended, Estrada and Yost got into a heated dispute in the tunnel leading from the dugout to the clubhouse. Infielder Tony Graffanino stepped between them while pitcher Ben Sheets and pitching coach Mike Maddux stood in front of Estrada.

The next inning, Yost motioned with his finger for Estrada to come talk with him, and they disappeared out of sight down the tunnel.

They seemed to have gotten the formula wrong though. It needed to be Estrada getting into a fight with Ben Sheets. And then Ned Yost is supposed to go out in a following game and kick some dirt on an umpire. C'mon now, it's not that difficult.

ESPN Sportsnation is running a poll and ranking the QB's in the league:

1. Payton Manning
   
2. Tom Brady
   
3. Drew Brees
   
4. Carson Palmer
   
5. Donovan McNabb
   

.....

25. Matt Schaub
    
26. Daunte Culpepper
    
27. Mark Brunell
    
28. Rex Grossman

My quesiton is, is Grossman THAT bad? He's ranked under a man who's seems like he's 100 years old (Brunell), a man who's got 100 other QB's to compete with because he's been nothing without Moss (Culpepper), and a man who's been a backup his entire career who threw a grand total of 208 yards last year (Schaub). I agree that Grossman might not be the best quarterback in the league, but 28/32 might be a little harsh SportsNation. I'm a bit scared going into this season if Grossman is indeed only the 28th best QB...  

"The deal for the four-time Cy Young Award winner contains a $7 million player option for 2008, a person familiar with the negotiations said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The option includes provisions based on innings that could raise the value to about $10 million."

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2687700

I was hoping a third time would be the charm for Maddux and th Cubs, but I guess not. Best of luck to him out in San Deigo! Maybe this means that Peavy could be actually on the trading block. :) or... not... Where are our pitchers Hendry???

Are they being serious right now? What are they doing over there in Oakland? Obviously they were not watching the Jonathan Quinn experiment a couple years ago. But I guess congrats to our old friend John Shoop! Best of luck to ya over there!

Shoop to call offensive plays for Raiders.
"The Oakland Raiders replaced offensive coordinator Tom Walsh on Tuesday, promoting tight ends coach John Shoop to take charge of the team's struggling offense."
-- Associated Press

Just one last comment from the article... talk about selective memory... :)

"Shoop, quarterbacks coach for Oakland last year, served as offensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears from 2001-03, helping the team post a 13-3 record and win the NFC Central in 2001."
-- Associated Press

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2678933

Did anyone else catch the unsportsmanlike conduct call on the Bears during the game? "Unsportsmanlike conduct. Defense #55 and 24. Celebration in... an... unfair way. 15 yard penalty. 1st down." UNFAIR WAY?!?!? Is this a new terminology that I didn't know about? :) Totally kidding. But I did find it hilarious. Anyone else remember any other good calls during games?

"Gilbert Arenas suffered a groin strain during Team USA's practice on Monday and will not play in the FIBA World Championships, USA Basketball announced.

Arenas, of the Washington Wizards, strained his groin Monday morning during a practice outside of Seoul."

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/wbc2006/news/story?id=2549008

How convienant that he strains his groin the day after The Captain starts and tears it up. I'm just kidding. It's always sad to see players get injured, but the silver lining is that it looks like our boy Kirk is most likely gonna win himself a gold medal from the World's.

Can someone explain to me the logic of Dusty's moves at the end of the game?
So Dusty's sitting in the dugout pondering what moves to make at the end of the game and he comes up with this? I can just imagine what was going on his head.

"Let's see. I got Jones, Freddie and Ronny coming up against Brad Lidge. What should I do? Oh, I know! Let's let Freddie (.234) have a go at Lidge and I'll just pinch hit for Cedeno (.300) with Mabry (.219). This is definately the best way for us to win this game. I'm so smart, no wonder I'm getting paid $4 million/year."

Yes, I understand he may have been going for the long ball with Mabry, but if that's the case, why not pinch hit for Freddie and do that??? ARGH! I don't think I've been this frustrated in quite some time.

I still haven't given up on this season yet, but I just wanted to take a quick look into next season. Here's my realistic wish list for what I want to see for this team.

Catcher:
I'm pretty comfortable with M.Barrett. But if Hank White can't pick up his hitting, we can't just keep throwing an automatic out up there everytime we use him.

1B:
D.Lee is a lock.

2B:
T.Walker is good, but he's going to be 34 next year. And with Pierre likely gone, we're going to need a lead off hitter. You know where I'm going with this. C'mon Hendry, you love guys who strike out 100x a season. Bring Soriano in finally!

3B:
A.Ramirez is a lock no matter how bad he's been this year simply b/c I can't go another what 2-3 decades of not having a consistant 3B again.

RF:
J.Jones and M.Murton platoon please. J.Jones is hitting over .322 off of righty's and .208 off of lefty's. M.Murton is hitting .375 off of lefty's and .234 off of righty's. I can't think of a better platoon situation as long as they're both gonna stick around.

CF:
I would love to see Pierre stay, but not for the money that he's going to want. Welcome to the big leagues F.Pie, let's see what all the hype was about. And no, Pie should NOT lead off. We should bat him 8th, just as we're doing Cedeno.

RF:
FREE AGENT SIGNING! PLEASE HENDRY!!! I'm thinking in the Carlos Lee range. You can do it Hendry. I have faith in you!

This brings us to... dum dum dum...
Starting Pitching:
Ok we'll go with the obvious.
#1 C.Zambrano is a lock.
#2 M.Prior if he's not injured we can deal with one pitcher who's chronically injured.
#3 FREE AGENT PICK UP! I don't care who. B.Zito, M.Mulder, whoever is available that will go out there and pitch every 5 days and give us a fighting chance to win the game.
#4 G.Maddux simply for his presence in the dugout, and even at his age, he's not that bad of a #4/5 SP.
#5 C.Marmol/S.Marshall. We'll let these two battle it out for the last spot. I would like to think another free agent pick up, but I'm trying to be realistic here.

Relief Pitchers:
I feel like this is actually one of our strengths. I'm ok with B.Howry and S.Eyre as our set up guys and R.Dempster closing. We can mix and match whoever else we need in there as need be.

So there you have it. World Series? Again it's going to ride on who Hendry can pick up to fill that power void in the outfield, play 2B, leadoff, pitch every 5 games solidly, how F.Pie pans out, and if M.Prior can stay healthy. Geez, why do I feel like this is close to the EXACT SAME POSITION WE WERE IN COMING INTO THIS SEASON?!? What the heck did you do last offseason Hendry?

Do we really need to just blow this team up and start over again? Why does it seem so futile to keep going the way we're going?

Oh well... all I can do is continue to have faith and hope. GO CUBS!!!

Is it just me or are the Cubs actually extremely bad at taking advantage of other teams troubles? Albert Pujols goes down and we lose the first game they play without him. Roy Oswalt goes down and we lose the first game he misses while on the DL. I don't know about you, but I don't think this is the way it's supposed to go. Meanwhile, Derek Lee goes down and the Cubs go 7-22 in the month of May.  ARGH! Sorry, the frustration of the season is starting to pile up.

Sorry if this is a repost. I haven't been able to keep up with all the diary entries. But I was wondering if anyone knows anything about this. I just recently went to the Iowa Cubs website and noticed this:

Player         W L ERA  G  IP H R ER BB SO WHIP
Augie Ojeda 0 0 0.00  1 1.0 1 0  0   1   0   2.00

Are we shorted handed down in Iowa with pitching? Augie? Lil' Augie? Pitching? Anyone have any clue as to why he had to pitch? And in other news, lets bring this guy back up! Batting .320, while having a 0.00 ERA as a pitching?!? You're not going to get that kind of production from anyone. (I'm just obviously kidding, although I wouldn't mind him over Mr. Freddie "I'm trying my hardest to show you that I still belong in AA Jim Hendry!" Bynum)

ESPN reported that the Marlins recently terminated the contract of Pokey Reese because of his abrupt departure from camp.
"With Reese's departure, the front-runner for the second base job becomes rookie Dan Uggla, who hit .297 with 21 home runs last year for Double-A Tennessee -- but also committed 25 errors. A trade for a veteran is a possibility, Beinfest said."

Here's to dreams:

T.Walker, F.Pie and R.Hill for
M. Cabrera

I read in a recent article, that the Marlins aren't totally sold on building around him and dontrelle yet. And it doesn't hurt to dream right?

(Oh and yes I realize that we would have effectively sold the entire farm to the marlins for cabrera and pierre)

Hey Al, I've been reading your site for the past couple months and I've found it to be the best cubs blog by far. This is my first post and I don't know if anyone's posted on this yet. But did anyone else catch Phil Roger's article in the trib today? In it he listed the Cubs as having the 4th best rotation in baseball.

"4. CUBS: Health is again the key question. But in Jerome Williams, Rich Hill, Glendon Rusch and Angel Guzman, they have guys with upside behind Carlos Zambrano, Mark Prior, Kerry Wood (recovering from shoulder surgery) and Greg Maddux."

I don't really have a problem with his ranking. My only quesiton was with his commentary aboutGlendon Rusch. How much upside can a 31 year old pitcher really have?