AND RYAN SANBURG WILL GET HIS RING DAT EPSTINK AND SWAIN WON'T EVER GET!!!1!!

DAT EPSTINK SHUD TRADE MARMOL AND STEVEN STUART FOR CANO OR HE SHOULD OF BEEN G
FIRED ALREADY MY FRENT.

Or put Baez at second and hope Almora or Soler would get Moore or Price.

Keepers? All of them.

Here's his premise: The Cubs drew well from 1946-1953 because, hey, they won 5 pennants from 1929-1945. They were one of the top three or four franchises in baseball and from '46 to '53, they managed to at least beat the hell out of the Braves, Pirates, Phillies and Reds enough to finish fourth and make things interesting.

Then they drew well and were interesting enough because they had Ernie Banks, and Ernie alone was enough until 1965 and particularly 1966 when they were dreadful. So there was that day in 1966 when 3,800 fans bothered to watch them play the Astros. Ricketts is headed in that direction and that will bring him a long era of fan apathy that lasted until 1967 when they were so competitive, they were even in first place for awhile. They then rolled off a few winning seasons in a row with a core of extremely popular players and Leo Durocher, a personality that should take no backseat to any Chicago coach in history. OK, so that era ended and the Cubs were bad again, but there were always reasons to come to the park. I'm not sure what those reasons were from 1974 until 1984, but I'll let it slide and suggest the Bill Madlocks, Rick Mondays, Dave Kingmans, Herman Franks, Rick Reuschels, Bruce Sutters and Bill Buckners of the world might have been enough to sustain the team into 1981 when they were dreadful, MLB went on strike and the Tribune Co. bought the team. In 1982, the Dallas Green overhaul began and people were willing to be patient to some degree. Also Harry Caray arrived to entertain the crowd. How much had the patience thinned by April of 1983? Ask Lee Elia, who was reduced to quoting leading economic indicators and attendance (5,000 cocksucking nickel-and-dime motherfuckers) by the end of the month as fans booed no-names like Lee Smith, Ryne Sandberg, Jody Davis and Keith Moreland off the field.

So in 1966, the Wrigleys and John Holland fucked up and no one showed up and Al had a sad and the Cubs were uncompetitive until the following year when they spent time in late June in first place in the 10-team National League. They sustained that competitiveness until 1973 when they finished no lower than third, so I suppose that shitty 1966 was kind of worth it.

In 1981, they might have hit rock bottom (as in 2011), but they got a reprieve with new management which completely transformed the front office and just about everything the franchise did. The Cubs organization in April 1981 would not recognize the April 1991 Cubs organization, which would find the April 2001 and April 2011 Cubs organization much the same. The May 2013 Cubs organization is miles away from the April 2011 Cubs organization, which explains the patience fans have showed last year. It's gotten thin this year, but if we look at the lessons of history, the Cubs could be challenging for the NL pennant next year. If we're doomed to repeat that, well that will really suck.

I had 11 or 12 and am happy with it. Upgraded AI makes trades a little harder and as I said the scouting reports seem to be a little more uniform. I'm not saying you don't get variation on players, but you won't go into a player draft and see a guy projected to suck by your scout go top 10 in the draft, for instance. That drove me nuts. Also, foreign players come into the league differently -- they have the international academy, for example.

As for my "virtual balls," I'l probably take this through to '15 or '16, and then restart and be more realistic about things.

Last night I saw that Garza, who was 2-2 with a 1.something ERA when I traded him, went 3-18 with a 5-something ERA the rest of the way with the Dodgers. But his DIPS was pretty good, so just epic bad luck? Naturally, he signed a huge contract in the offseason with the White Sox.

Lacking a backup catcher, I picked up Geovanny Soto cheap via free agency. Sveum inserted him into the lineup as Castillo has a so-so 2013 and a terrible spring training in 2014. After a couple weeks, Castillo took over the starting job and has something like 7 HRs in April 2014. Arodys Vizcaino is also a stud.

Susannah Collins is literally unwatchable.

Damn shame too. Haven't had time to watch any of these, but how bad can they really be?

Anyway I wish her a tremendous amount of sex in the future. And success too.

?

Ask the imaginary Vin Scully. I traded Garza and Starlin Castro to the Dodgers for Yasiel Puig, Matt Wallach, Dee Gordon and Hanley Ramirez. Don't know what Garza did, but Castro won the NL batting title.

I've just played around a little bit over the last couple weeks and was able to guide our 2013 Cubs to a 67-95 season but have positioned them well with a 2014 rotation featuring David Price and Yu Darvish.

Here's the thing I like about it in comparison to the older versions: the scouting is much more uniform. In past versions you were more likely to have one scout think a prospect is Babe Ruth Jr., while the "Scouting Service" says "meh" and another scout would say he sucks. Now, they'll take a player and they could universally laud him a la Felix Pie and he could bust, or they could universally underrate a player. But very are is it that opinions on a player differ.

Also really enjoy the detail they put into distinguishing International players (Cuban, South Korean, Japanese, Dominican, etc.) from American/Canadian players in how they enter organized baseball.



Finally, Al Yellon can take heart: for $39.99 you can learn who really owns the Cubs.

Anyone own the newest version? Really enjoying it that it's totally worth any eyerolls and comments I get from my wife.

Maybe this lawsuit will unearth some evidence that not even Dan Webb and the heavies and Winston and Strawn can keep him out of prison.

They're really, really behind you around here. My fuckin' ass. I haven't seen it, not this fuckin' year.

Every one of you ripping Hub, where did you play your college ball?

Oh, nevermind. Huey Long would have improved the Bears guard corps and he's been dead since George Halas was mocking the New York Giants for wearing sneakers on the icy Polo Grounds turf. The fact that Kyle Long actually played guard for a few games in college and is a living, breathing human, and the words "Stan" and "Thomas" do not appear on his Social Security card, these are all good things.