geniusMoment

Cueto's final line 6 and 1/3 innings, 8 k's, 0 BB, 2 ER. But, it should've only been one run, Dunn bobbled a ball in the outfield that led to the first run. And Reds made Suppan look like Cy Young, Cueto deserved a better fate or a better team behind him. Edwin had a ball go under his glove which caused Cueto to make about 10-15 more pitches, causing him to leave. Really, he made one mistake, and Bill Hall hit a home run. But make no mistake about it, Cueto is a damn good number 2 starter right now.

Josh Fogg is flat out terrible. There is no reason he's on the Reds roster, they have so many better options. Hopefully, after about 5 April loses he will be cut and Bob will eat another million to go along with the 3.5 million they ate when they cut stanton.

I was one of the 10 people in the stands to watch Cueto pitch today, just absolutly great. He was throwing 97 all day, perfect control, a great change up, just dominating. On the way home I heard Orlando Hudson interviewed, he said Cueto has the best stuff he's ever faced, better than Peavy.

I don't mind the ticket prices because every team has the right to set prices for the seats in their stadium, if they charge more than people are willing to pay then people will stop going. As for the underarmor ads, well, I don't particularly like them, but there has been advertising in stadiums and on walls for as long as I can remember. Personally, if I owned the team, they wouldn't have any ads behind home plate or on the walls, but I don't think that's ever going to happen. I guess I'm saying what they do inside the stadium is there own business, I may not like it, but that's just the way it is. I'm just waiting for the day when someone just completely fucks everything up and takes off the ivy, puts in some more modern stands and walls, takes off the basket and turns it into Cellular Field.

That's a highly idealistic viewpoint to take. The Chicago Cubs are a very special team among their peers, this I won't deny, and that's part of why I'm a fan, but they're still a business, too. If you were a benevolent multi-millionaire owning the Cubs as a lark, i.e., P.K. Wrigley, you could afford to let a few people watch the game for free from their homes. If you were trying to make money off your investment, i.e., the Chicago Tribune, you would struggle to stand idly by as people make a profit off your product without passing that on to you. I won't deny that the rooftop owners are entitled to make money as another cog in the strange machine that is Wrigleyville, but they can't make that money and keep it all for themselves. The rooftop of Murphy's Bleachers is $1,000 per game to rent out. That's $81,000 over the course of a season, and they'd pay $13,770 for the privilege of having this unique business opportunity. Consider the revenue streams that the Cubs don't have--unlike the White Sox, Brewers, or dozens of other major league teams, they can't sodomize you with parking--as the cost of fielding a win-now team gets higher and higher, and you can see how it's silly not to make money off people who make money off you. Help me out here, but isn't most Washington architecture sort of bland? I get the impression that the idea is "do not overshadow the Capitol at all costs," and given the bureaucratic nature of the city, you're going to wind up with a lot of fairly uninspired buildings. I mean, there's the Federal style, but that's residential, and you can't be expected to build a ballpark that looks like a house in Georgetown. It's modern and clean, which can also be bland, but at least it looks like it's definitively part of Washington, unlike RFK, which could be (and was) anywhere. Camden Yards is Baltimore, Nationals Park is as Washington as possible under the circumstances of gridlock and compromise, which is pretty damn Washington. You're right on the mark about the cherry blossoms, which was a well-intended but ill-advised gesture. I still don't see the point in going after something where you get around 100,000 in profit a year. That's what, less than a third of a rookie's salary? To me, it's not realizing part of what makes your team unique. I'm just highly suspect that whatever money is made from the rooftops is what determines whether the Cubs are financially viable. Hey, I'm all for the Tribune making money, I don't mind the raising ticket prices (hell, I still travel up to Chicago for Cubs games 4-5 times a year), I don't mind the concession prices, and I understand the advertising. I just think that the owners have profited so much off the aura of the Cubs that going after every possible penny leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Let's say Mark Cuban buys the Cubs, do you think he'd go after the rooftops? Would he still run a profitable team? Still, the rooftop owners signed a 20-year-deal, so I suppose he's stuck paying. It just kind of sucks that things even got to this point as I feel the Cubs would make a profit regardless. I guess I'm just saying in my ideal world there wouldn't be this battle between the team and the surronding community seemingly every year.

I disagree with the whole concept of the rooftop owners paying anything. Part of what makes the Cubs special (different from any other team) is the stadium they play in, and the rooftops and surronding area are a big part of that. That atmosphere is a big reason why they sell-out game after game, have become a merchandise wonder and have profited millions of dollars. If I owned the Cubs (meaning I would be worth hundreds of millions) I wouldn't look at the rooftop owners as taking money from me, I'd look at the overall picture and realize how lucky I was to own something special. If the rooftop owners are making money good for them, considering how much the Cubs take in (17%) why even fight the battle. It's not like that amount of money should mean anything to the owners of the Cubs.

The Cubs are threatening to block the view of the rooftop fans if they don't pay up. Isn't this an annual thing?

I say unban Boff, he really wasn't given a chance. And some of his posts were pretty good.

Shades of Karl "Tuffy" Rhodes for Chicago fans, nice debut, hopefully it turns out better.

No runs for 8 innings, 6 so far in the 9th. Gagne not having a very good time.

Gagne wears his uniform like a jackass, tuck your shirt in and wear pants that fit.

Hat's off to Big Jim Thome. Wood's not messing around, first pitch of the year is right in Week's back. Damn you Braun, serenity now.

Edwin Encarnacion makes a throwing error on his first play of the year. Yes, baseball is back in Cincy. Nice weather in Chicago, looks like hell.

I hate the behind the plate camera angle ESPN is doing after the ball is put in play.

Glad I don't have any classes today or tomorrow, nothing like baseball

What up Mach!! Lookin' good, one more run!

I just saw the Chavo Guerrero and Jimmy Hart hair transplant commercial, I hope they got paid a lot for that.

What's funny is that all the shows surronding this show were good to great. Survivor Series 92 had Bret/HBK and Perfect-Savage/Flair-Ramon, Royal Rumble 93 had HBK/Jannetty, a good rumble and Bret/Ramon, King of the Ring had three great Bret matches, Summerslam 93 had Bret/Lawler, Steiners/Heavenly Bodies, HBK/Perfect and Survivor Series 93 had some very good work in the elimination matches. This was the big show, yet easily the worst of the bunch.

Please don't take this as me trying to pick fights, I just want to argue the point a little. Let's not even start with the difference in calling someone "properly trained" and the aforementioned "barely trained". What, in your eyes, makes someone properly trained? They've thrown this girl in the ring for what 4 years now? What does she have to do, work her way up through indy feds, pay her dues and graduate OVW to be "properly trained"? Shouldn't her healthy amount of actual ring experience coupled with former training be enough to at least not lap her in with women who just outright shouldn't be in the ring? Do you really agree that she's just eye-candy? It's more in the types of training. In basic wrestling training the emphasis is on learning fundamentals, learning how to work a basic match, getting your timing down and all that fun stuff. It's a bit different from learning how to do spots in a match. The big problem is that WWE's women increasingly attempt more dangerous moves in the ring without that proper foundation, and it bites them. Well then Candice would be one of the best trained of the divas as she has spent 10-20 hours a week for the past 3 years learning from the ground up in a training center in LA. She simply tore scar tissue, did not make a mistake in the match. Her initial injury was a botched spot, something other wrestlers have had happened to them countless times.

Baker has not completely committed to this, but the Reds rotation is probably going to be: Harang Arroyo Cueto Volquez Fogg Yeah, Volquez has been very good this spring. The thing that worries me, is he has had control problems in the past. What happens when the bell rings for real, and the pressure is real? Who knows, I guess that's why they play the games.

Add Jim Leyland to the growing list of people sucking up to Johnny Cueto. In Cincy multiple other scouts from other teams have called him the best they've seen this spring since I posted the last Cueto love fest. Here is what Leyland said: Baker tipped his hand a bit before his team’s 5-3 win over the Tigers by asking Detroit manager Jim Leyland about bringing in young and inexperienced pitchers from the minors to the majors, the way the Tigers did with Joel Zumaya and Justin Verlander. Leyland smiled and said, “If you don’t want Cueto, we’ll take him off your hands.” And that was before he saw him pitch. Afterward, Leyland said, “Some of the best crude stuff I’ve seen. Good velocity, good breaking ball. One of the best-looking young pitchers I’ve seen. Very impressive.” Oh, and Homer Bailey is probably on his way for another season in AAA. Hopefully, he works on something other than being an ass and throwing a million straight fastballs. Last year, Baileys first taste of the majors, David Ross went to the mound to calm Bailey down, Bailey told him, "Get your ass back behind the plate and out of my face." A vet may get away with that, but Bailey doesn't know shit and thinks he knows everything. Even though I'm a reds fan I have a hard time cheering for an ass like Bailey.

Bobby Heenan's commentary on this show is just fantastic. Probably his best work ever, I like it better than his 92 Rumble work or his Mania 8 work.

Rocco Baldelli may be done forever. http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/mar/13/sp...co/?sports-rays

Only wrestler I want to meet is Mickie. Just look at that. Look at it. Why she lost that ass I'll never know

If it were Pedro from a few years ago I would take the Mets. El Duque is like 50 now