I was reading an article this morning where Terry Francona, the manager of the Boston Red Sox, bet Larry Lucchino, President and CEO of the same team, that he could quit his tobacco habit. The loser of the bet will donate $20,000 to Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Hopefully the coach wins, and quits his bad tobacco habit. I would be a good start to showing other in the league that smokeless tobacco isn’t need to be a Major League Baseball Player or coach.

It’s just a small step in the right direction, but the real winner here is the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

I was watching Sportscenter this morning while I was still waking up, and I saw that Phillies have given a Friday deadline to either have him signed or extended.Personally for me, I think it seems a tad bit ’silly’ for such young players to be signing long term contracts so early in their career. Let’s take a look at Carlos Zambrano for instance. He’s never signed a long term deal since coming up with the Cubs. He played his first few seasons making slightly over league minimum, then in his third year he got a bigger boost up to $3 million. The following it doubled, and now in his fifth full year in the league, he’ll be eligible for free agency at the end of the year assuming he and the Cubs don’t make a long term deal. He’s really going to take it to the bank in this one. He will be making $12.4 million this season, assuming that doesn’t get re-written much like Derrek Lee’s salary last year.

You can look at this in two different ways. This includes the view of the team/owners/managers and in the eyes of the player. Last season David Wright and Jose Reyes signed…

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This is probably the biggest spring training question floating around the league this year. The Boston Red Sox paid multi-millions of dollars to just to gain sole negation writes for the 26 year Japanese Pitcher. With the dreadful Scott Boras as his agent, they gain another $52 million on a six year contract. This will end up as the smartest thing or the stupidest thing the Red Sox have done. Either he’ll continue on his monstrous pitching performances, or he will dud out and fade into obscurity.

The last time that I remember this sort of media whirlwind was when Hideo Nomo was brought over to the majors by The Los Angeles Dodgers. After a sort stint in the minors, and the player strike, he was brought up to pitch in the big leagues. After an All Star and Rookie of the Year first season, he slowly declined and now is not on a major or minor league roster. I think a big deal of his success his rookie season was attributed to his “tornado” delivery. It was such a strange and unorthodox windup, that many players couldn’t figure it out. In the following seasons players “figured” him out and his…

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With the regular season drawing to a close and the Cubs being cellar dellewers in the National League, it’s time to start looking towards next season. Not to sounds like the real optimist, but the Cubs are pretty close to getting that team together for a playoff run. I think there are definately a few “ifs”, “ands” and “buts” in order for them to succeed next season.

First off, and the most important thing is the Cubs need resign Juan Pierre. Before you anybody start yelling at me for not mentioning Pie, hear me out. This was JP’s first year playing for real big name team. He came up with the Rockies, an expansion team. He next went to the Marlins, an expansion team. He had a horrible start off to the season, and he was always man enough to admit that he was not playing to his fullest. He leads the NL this season in hits and stolen bases, even after his slow start.

He also got his…

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With the White Sox win last night they pulled within 6.5 of the league leading Tigers. They are starting to pull away from the pack, and making the White Sox only chance at making the post season by winning the Wild Card, of which they only have a half of a game lead over the Twins.

I would very much welcome the Twins passing the Sox and them not getting into the playoffs. I’m sure being a Cubs fan, makes me a White Sox enemy, but regardless I don’t like some of the players on the team, and I don’t like the coach at all. Putting it nicely, they are jerks. Also, their two play-by-play guys are the most biast announcers I’ve ever heard in my lifetime. Every time I hear the phrases, “He gone!”, and “You can put it on the boarddddddddddd YEAH!”, I want to throw something at the TV. They can never say thing good about the other team, it’s always about the Sox.

Getting back to the Tigers, I’ve kind of become an over night fans of theirs. I think it’s mainly because I’ve been a fan of Jim Leyand over the years. He…

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We are reaching the home strech of the baseball season. Teams have been unloading players, and teams have been filling the holes that they have. The reds have pretty much completely re-worked their entire bullpen by getting a new closer in Eddie Guardardo from Seattle, and middle and late inning relievers. They had to lose once top prospect Austin Kearns and former All-Star Felipe Lopez to the Nationals for some relievers, with the big name being USA Team member during the World Baseball Classic Gary Majewski. Apparently Majewski had a sore shoulder and already had recieved a shot in it to relieve the pain, and is now on the DL. Obviously the Reds are mad at this because they were never told about his shoulder soreness.

On the flip side, teams that have little to no shot at moving onto the post season have unloaded some players. The Pirates got rid of a lot of their veteran players with their young player rebuilding movement. The Cubs trade Maddux and Walker now because they weren’t going to be resigned next season, so they go something for them. A couple of the Royals were moved around, but all and all it was a…

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Yesterday Kerry Wood announced that he was opting out of surgery to repair his slightly torn rotator cuff, and was just going to rehab it in Arizona. I think this was a pretty smart decesion by Wood. It’s obvious that he would just fubar up his shoulder again if he gets it fixed, and does nothing to correct his bad mechanics.

The way I see it the Cubs have a few options when it come to Kerry Wood at the end of the season. I’d say there is a 99.9% chance they will not pick up this 13 million dollar option at the close of this season. Even if he comes back as to the Cubs as a reliever, he won’t be making 13 million for the season, no chance, regardless of team. Given his success coming out of the pen last year, I think the Cubs will offer him a contract with many incentives. I’m guessing the base salary will be around 2-3 million.

Another option the Cubs have is to just let him go, pay his buyout and Wood and the Cubs will go their own separate ways. While I think this is unlikely, because Kerry Wood has publicly said…

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keep telling myself that the Cubs won’t be having a fire sale, but unless they win about 15 or so out of their next 20, I think they will be unloading some players gearing up for a big offseason.

Players most likely on their way out
Juan Pierre - He’s going to want Furcal type money, and he hasn’t proven that he’s really worth that much.
Todd Walker - He does have some worth left. The Cubs could probably get a few prospects out of him.
Greg Maddux - As much as I’d like him to finish off the year as a Cub, I think the chances are slim to none now. He’s a free agent at the end of the season, and I’m sure he won’t be resigned. The 9 million or so he make could bring in a much better pitcher, like Barry Zito.
Scott Williamson - He’s said that he wants to close again. With Dempster entrenched, like it or not, for the next two seasons, Williamson won’t have a chance at closing. Heck, with Eyre and Howry, he’s not even the setup man.
Kerry Wood - He’s been living off his potential ever since his rookie year…

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Even though it’s as a replacement, Francisco Liriano is going to the All-Star game tonight. Jose Conteras bowed out because he pitched on Sunday and wouldn’t be able to pitch tonight anyway. It’s better than nothing, but I’m still a bit upset he didn’t make the team outright.

Now if Travis Hafner would have just made it, I would be a happy camper relatively speaking.

I’d look for the AL to still win the game tonight even though final two hitters in last night’s Homerun Derby were from the National League. It still should be a really close game, because the NL has really good balance in their lineup this year, but I don’t think their pitching is quite as strong as the ALs.

Who is going to win the MVP though, that is the true question. I’m not sure at this point. Typically it’s a hitter, and who hits the big homerun or drives in a few runs. If the American League wins, I think the MVP will be David Ortiz. If the National League wins, David Wright or Ryan Howard will bring home the award. There are too many good players to pick out of the bunch that will be slightly…

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onight is the big Homerun Derby to kick off the All-Start festivities. There have been quite a few people dropping out of the Homerun Derby and the game itself. I’ve noticed alot of people are doing this in the past few years. I’m since the game “means something” now, players (pitchers mainly) are not wanting to pitch, even an inning on a day or two rest.

Apparently quite of the pitchers in the All-Star game pitched Yesterday. This means that they will be pratically useless in the game Tomorrow on one full day rest.

It’s hard to say who’s going to win the derby. Last year I was thinking Andrew Jones would be shoe in with his home run count he had at the break last year. Who would have thought that Bobby Abreu would break the record. For that reason, I don’t think I’ll go with “Big Popi”. There are some new comers this season in the derby, namely Ryan Howard and David Wright. I’m pretty sure that Jermaine Dye, and Miguel Cabrera haven’t been in one either.

So this year, I’m going out on a limb and I’m gonna pick Miggy Cabrera. I personally don’t like the player, but he can…

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