March 2008 Archive
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 Wow....One game into his Cubs career and it seems that Kosuke Fukudome is going to make me look really bad for everything I said about him.....Fukudome went 4-4 with a game tying 3-run home run in the bottom of the ninth to help the Cubs battle back in their Opening Day tussle against the Brewers. for a 4-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Opening Day.
On a day full of excitement ranging from the Ernie Banks Statue making its debut outside of Wrigley Field to Carlos Zambrano and Ben Sheets being locked in a battle of the aces to Kerry Wood having a rough debut as the Cubs closer to Bobby Howry struggling in April once again.......Fukudome stood out among the rest.
Zambrano, who left with forearm cramps, and Sheets each pitched 6+ innings of shut out baseball on a typical crummy weather Opening Day at Wrigley Field as each team struggled with the bats. Both pitchers were on top of their game as they made opposing hitters look feeble in their attempts at production with scorching fastballs and wicked breaking pitches.
Unfortunately each teams respective closers couldn't do the same as Kerry Wood hit Rickie Weeks to lead off the ninth inning and help lead the Brewers to three runs that looked to be like the end of the game. On came the Brewers new closer, Eric Gagne, and all of a sudden he couldn't find the strike zone with a Garmin GPS Locater. After walking Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez to lead off the bottom of the ninth, Gagne ran the count to 3-0 against Fukudome before giving up the homer on a 3-1 pitch that Fukudome deposited in the right-center field bleachers.
Just when it looked like the Cubs had all of the momentum, Bob Howry came on in relief to pitch the tenth inning and gave up a lead off double to Craig Counsell that led to the winning run for the Brewers. Howry has struggled in the early months of the season during his career so hopefully he can get it straightened out. The Cubs weren't able to duplicate their ninth inning magic in the tenth inning and fell in their first game of the season. All in all it was one game game out of 162....but it certainly was exciting.
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Remember the Mel Gibson movie, "Ransom", where he turned the tables on the people who kidnapped his son and instead put out a bounty on their head??? Well, IU has (around) $3 million on the table right now and instead...
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I'm sure the majority of you know what a Segway is. If not I'll leave it to the company to give you a precise concept. "Segway is passionately devoted to moving you—easily, efficiently, intelligently, simply. The company's first product, the...
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Out of everyone who sent in their bracket or joined the Blogs By Fans Network bracket picking group thingy....one name stands out alone on the mountaintop...Erin from Beantown West. She is the only one with all four Final Four teams...
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(Last season I tried to preview every game and that became pretty boring and frustrating, so I'll just be doing each series this season.)The Cubs and Brewers both open the 2008 Season with high hopes as the Cubs are the...
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After last week's festivities in the NCAA tournament everyone was looking forward to this weekend's matchups. I think everyone was expecting more upsets, surprises and frantic finishes. As it turns out, only two of the ten games from Thursday on were decided...
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After news came out that Indiana University was hoping to fill their basketball coaching vacancy by the Final Four my first thought was that Tony Bennett was the man to get the job. It only made sense that he would...
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The man you see pictured to the left is Micah Hoffpauir, career minor leaguer in the Cubs Organization. I now firmly believe that if it wasn't for Hoffpauir, the Cubs might hold Matt Murton in higher regard. Unfortunately, that is...
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Last night was kind of underwhelming I suppose as the only game that was competitive was the Xavier/West Virginia tilt that X won in OT. As for the other games....well, I've been trying to tell you guys that Bruce Pearl...
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As Spring Training winds down the St. Louis Cardinals have trimmed down their lineup in preparation for the start of the regular season next week. The opening day roster is about complete and we are going to give you a...
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The NCAA Tournament revs its engines back up tonight with four games that probably intrigue the heck out of someone, somewhere so let's run them down. (I'm not going to talk about prospective IU coaches here but feel free to...
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What a horrendous game by the Bulls once again and I probably wouldn't even be writing about it if Brian from Depressed Fan hadn't used a little bit of technology to run a cool live blog on the game. The...
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Contrary to what I believed, it's becoming very apparent that the Cubs can, and probably will, trade OF Matt Murton. I'm going to chalk this up to the Cubs not correctly using their resources.....again, much like the batting order, much...
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Ask yourself, "Who is the most important part of the Colt's puzzle?" Who is the guy who puts it all together and makes it go? It is Bill Polian, and we just signed him through 2011....
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You can file this under, "What?" as the Chicago Tribune is reporting that Ronny Cedeno and Mike Fontenot made the Cubs squad but Matt Murton and Alex Cintron did not. I can understand the Cedeno move since he was playing...
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I had Rich Harden on my fantasy baseball team a few years ago and I was certain....CERTAIN he was going to lead me to the promised land and possibly a dynasty (keeper league). Sure enough, the dude went down with...
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The last big question the Cubs needed an answer to this Spring..."Can Rich Hill still throw strikes?" was answered yesterday as Hill threw five innings while striking out six and walking only one hitter. This was, by far, Hill's best...
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With reports heating up in respects to sending Pacman to Dallas and the Draft around the corner, Let me pitch this to you....
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To keep in theme with Jack's last post I thought I would put up this little golden nugget for all to enjoy. I'm sure its been a long hard day at work for most of you so sit back, relax and...
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This has nothing to do with my credit card bills. I accept that credit companies are villainous entities bent on the ruination of American society. I accept my relationship with them as an example of Bruce Paine not doing nearly...
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A couple of months ago I did a 'Quick Hits' post and had a pic of a cute girl on it that you all seemed to enjoy Buck Rampage said Yes, that girl is cute. I don't even care that...
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Welcome to the division that no one seemed to want to win in 2007. After the Brewers, Reds, Cubs, Astros and Cardinals each made a push at one point during the season to reach the top of the NL Central...
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Felix Pie certainly has had an interesting Spring so far. After coming into camp preparing to battle with Sam Fuld for the starting spot in center field Pie got off to a pretty nice start only to be sidelined by...
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Cubs Manager Lou Piniella finally made up his mind today and it tells him that Kerry Wood will be the Cubs closer to start the season and Jon Lieber is heading to the bullpen. Ryan Dempster and Jason Marquis survived the...
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Back to the drawing board.....Ugh. Here we are again trying to find a new basketball coach for IU and everyone has an opinion as to who their favorites are. So....here are mine.....I don't have a favorite. Look, I don't think...
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It looked like the Padres were the team to beat last season but by the time all was said and done....young upstarts Arizona and Colorado went to the playoffs out of the NL West. Now that the Diamondbacks and Rockies...
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Jimmy Rollins said the Phillies were the best in the NL East at the beginning of the 2007 Season and what Jimmy Rollins says....Jimmy Rollins means. Rollins, the 2007 NL MVP, led the way as the Phillies, combined with the...
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There are just a few days left in Spring Training and as the Cubs began the final preparations for the season a few things happened over the weekend.....First, Mark DeRosa finally let out that he was getting pretty annoyed with...
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We're going to change speeds here a little bit and talk some baseball. Yeah the NCAA tournament is in full throttle, but baseball season is just a week or so away and.......finally some good news has come out of the...
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The season is over and I think it's the best for all of us. I'm not sure the kids cared anymore, I'm not sure the Administration cared anymore about this team and I think the fans cared probably too much....
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Cubs lefty Rich Hill is having a very rough Spring this year as he is struggling to find the control on his pitches....which is the key to his success. If you remember back to when Hill initially came up to...
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It seems like the Angels have been dominating the AL West for years and this year should be no different if they get anything out of their starting pitchers. The Mariners made a big trade this season bringing Erik Bedard...
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Just when it looks like I'll have to end the posting of brackets with a White Sox fan....Klompus, a major Cubs fan, sends in his bracket. He must have taken a break from playing "Guitar Hero" in his living room.The...
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This is the final-final bracket I'm putting up and I can't believe it's going to a White Sox fan. I guess since Jackie Treehorn was nice enough to let Rampage and I stay at his home last year for the...
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The Cubs had an interesting day/night doubleheader against the A's and Giants yesterday and outside of the news about Kerry Wood having back spasms, everything turned out as well as they could have. In the first game, Ryan Dempster threw...
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Here we have our final bracket for public consumption and it comes from Mike of Green Pinstripes, your best source of Jets coverage. I've always envisioned Mike as being either Brian's brother or best friend. Neither guy I'd want to...
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By this time last year I had already spent six days in Nashville, TN with about eight of my best buddies getting thrown out of bars, singing karaoke, jumping into swimming pools at the hotel, golfing, playing basketball, breaking into...
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Here we have the final Cobra Brigade member entrant (since Paine is without the Internet) and it's a doozy. Tennessee to win it all, Cpt. Morgan? How will IU be able to afford Bruce Paine as their next coach if...
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What was once thought of as baseball's best division, the AL Central has become very top heavy with the White Sox spinning seemingly out of control and the Twins losing Johan Santana and Torii Hunter in the off-season. With the...
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Here we have another blogger willing to put it all on the line and that's good to see. I've given up on any other bloggers being willing to hand out their brackets....you know, because then it would be in writing...
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It's that time of the year again....prediction time! Nice. Now is my chance to let everyone know what I think and then watch as all my predictions slowly go up in flames. This year will be different....yes it will.I'm going...
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It must be girlfriend of bloggers day around here or something as Cpt. Morgan's girlfriend is now front and center. I do not know Hott for Teacher and I've never seen a picture of her, so I will wait to...
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Jason Marquis stepped up his efforts to either be the fifth starter in the Cubs rotation or to enhance his trade value by throwing five innings yesterday while only giving up one run. Marquis now has a 1.93 ERA over...
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Like most of you, I always like reading about The Sports Gal whipping The Sports Guy in his NFL/NCAA/etc picks, so I figured...what's good for the goose is good for the gander......or something like that. Anyways, my girlfriend, The Lovely...
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Thanks to valued reader Jackie Treehorn for bringing to our attention.....the rumor that will never die. I'm not sure if the rumor started here or not, but this time it actually looks like it's now legit as......Indiana University is expected...
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Hey, when your boss wants to get involved...you involve him. So, here is the bracket from Brian of Depressed Fan fame. He's actually going with a lot of upsets in the first few rounds before having UCLA take down Georgetown...
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I do not know Joseph Finn personally but for some reason....every time I look at his name I assume he could double as McLovin. Pretty interesting bracket here for Mr. Finn as he has Wisconsin winning it all over Memphis...
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This bracket is brought to you by the excellent Cardinals Blog, C70 At The Bat and it's officially the 'thinking outside the box' bracket. It's so crazy....that it might be right. North Carolina and Kansas coming out of the East...
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Remember last season when it seemed like the Cubs would go weeks without hitting a home run and their offense would remain stagnant? It seemed to be such an issue that Cubs GM Jim Hendry was nearly forced to add...
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Hmmm....what to say about this bracket??? For those of you who are looking to put some money on brackets, this is probably the guy to follow as he knows as much about college basketball as anyone I know. He has...
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Here we go with another valued commenter who's willing to put his money where his mouth is (even though no money is being exchanged). Following are words of wisdom from the man himself.I took 3 minutes max to fill this...
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Here is a little nugget of fun for all you Tyrus Thomas lovers out there that can't quite figure out why the kid isn't going to make it in the NBA....a nice little excerpt from Kelly Dwyer's live blog of...
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While some bloggers have chickened out when it comes to making their NCAA picks public, Erin from Beantown West has stepped up to the plate. Here is some verbage from Erin about her bracket:I have zero reasoning for these picks,...
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Ah yes, we have our first commenter step up to the plate and it is the one and only...Hank. A Cubs fan for life and fisherman for food and sport, Hank is one of the most subdued men you will...
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I gotta be honest with you here.....I feel real shaky about this year's bracket. I usually feel pretty confident about my picks, but for some reason or another I feel uneasy this year. Back in the day I ruled on...
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We are going to try something a little new here where we are actually going to share our brackets with you....you like that? I know you do. So, for the rest of the week we will be bringing you our...
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I was able to sit down and watch Carlos Zambrano pitch yesterday and.....he looked really, really good. His line will read six shutout innings with only one hit and six strikeouts but he looked even more dominant than that. Keep...
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Shamrocks, basketball, green beer, tornado, NCAA, leprachaun's, No Country For Old Men, Guiness, chicks in green, The Gargantuan, 3 AM coffee, Asian guy in a suit and gin and tonics. That right there sums up my weekend. OK OK....I'm off just...
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There are some people really upset about the Hoosiers getting a #8 seed in the NCAA Tournament but you know what??? They earned it. Indiana controlled its own destiny the last two weeks and they ended up losing three out...
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If you thought your world was turned upside down after Minnesota had their own Christian Laettner moment last night....imagine if Conseco Fieldhouse would have been hit by a tornado at the end of the game.....Video comes from the SEC Tournament...
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I'm not even sure what to say right now.....bad free throw shooting, bad basketball......this just isn't going to end well. I'm not even sure I'd want Eric Gordon back next year (talk to me tomorrow for a better answer). I'm...
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For those of you who have been wondering where exactly Bruce Paine is.....he's moving to the other end of the Earth....otherwise known as Minnesota. Paine is packing his gear into his little white truck this evening and making the trek...
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So, Billy Crystal struck out yesterday, kind of. Each and every one of you would take the opportunity to take one at-bat in a Major League uniform wouldn't you? I can't sit here and blame the fella and I can't...
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At a time when I should be really excited about IU's chances in the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments....I'm left wondering which IU team is going to show up. Will it be the aggressive, hard charging team that runs through...
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You have to love the competition taking place in the Cubs rotation right now as Jon Lieber and Jason Marquis battle it out for the final spot. It looked like Lieber was just about to sew up the job and...
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Former Cubs pitcher and 1984 NL Cy Young Award Winner Rick Sutcliffe has been diagnosed with a treatable and curable form of colon cancer:Sutcliffe, 51, was diagnosed after a routine test during a physical revealed that he has a treatable...
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If the Cubs are truly moving Alfonso Soriano down in the order to protect his legs (and not to prepare him for a Brian Roberts acquisition), then this ultimately benefits one of my favorite Cubs players, Matt Murton. The reason...
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The video above is the first Bob Knight clip I've seen with him as an ESPN analyst. First of all let me say that I think I am going to like Bob Knight the analyst. I think he brought a...
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I try and convince the readers to send us "Shooter" poses so they too could be blog "superstars," but I guess I'm being a bit to hypocritical...as I had yet to actually throw my "Shooter" up on the page. Well,...
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Cubs Manager Lou Piniella announced on Wednesday that he plans to drop Alfonso Soriano out of the lead-off spot and into the second spot in the lineup in a move that's going to really test my patience. The reasoning behind...
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This is a bit late, but I think we would be remiss in not posting something about Indiana Hoosier players receiving regional and national recognition. Earlier this week DJ White and Eric Gordon were named to the first team All Big Ten...
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I went over the bullpen earlier this week, so now it's time to update the starting rotation. Heading into Spring Training it looked like Jon Lieber, Ryan Dempster and Jason Marquis would be battling it out for the final two...
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One way or another, the Cubs are going to have a Hollywood ending this season. In an attempt to outdo the excellent documentary 'This Old Cub' and the outstanding 'Rookie of the Year', the Cubs have announced that there will...
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The Cubs are 14 games into their Spring schedule and Lou Piniella has already had enough with the lack of production from some of his veteran hitters:Piniella doesn't like the approach of his hitters, saying: "We're giving away very easy...
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Coming into this season we all knew the Cardinals rotation was going to be a little shoddy. I mean with Chris Carpenter and Mark Mulder already tabled until further notice there was no other way to look at it. Now,...
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The St. Louis Cardinals organization has conjured up a quite simple and brilliant idea this spring. They are asking their fans to become baseball scouts for the 2008 amateur draft. Not a real live scout that roams the country looking...
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Just a day after it looked like Felix Pie had the center field job locked up for the Cubs, he's about to undergo testicular surgery. Yeah, that doesn't sound comfortable to me either. Pie has been dealing with 'testicular torsion'...
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Ah yes, it's time to go over the least recognized, but maybe the most important part of the Cubs team during the season.....the bullpen. The Cubs went into Spring Training with as many as twelve pitchers looking to fill seven...
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Yes, Penn State. IU lost to Penn State. This is the same Penn State team that is without its best player. This is the same Penn State that can't get 5,000 people to sit in the stands for a game....
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It looks like it might finally be time for Felix Pie to shine as he has taken a commanding lead in the center field derby. With Sam Fuld coming into camp with an outside shot at the starting gig, Pie...
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It looks like we're finally going to see some spring type weather around these parts this week. After weathering around 8 inches of snow fall on Thursday and Friday I'd say we are all ready for nice 50/60° days. Maybe...
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As anyone that follows the Cardinals knows, Albert Pujols' throwing arm is basically dangling by a thread as it has been the last 3 or so years. In the past day or so a few aritcles have come out detailing...
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For about the past 10 years I have been playing fantasy baseball. The last 4 I have been involved in a fantasy league with several members that include Cobra and Buck. There is also a friend in the league that...
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Golfer Trip Isenhour is in some trouble with the law these days. Not for what you would usually expect though. There was no alcohol involved, no domestic disputes, not even manslaughter. Well.....there was slaughter involved, just not with a person....
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As I was on my flight yesterday afternoon I thought to myself....if the Cubs don't make the playoffs this season in the weak NL Central then something really bad has to happen. Being a Cubs fan I know that this...
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I apologize for my lack of posts this week but I've been on travel for work. Since I'm trying to get caught up....this will be an abbreviated post....let's hit it.First off, major kudos to Erin from Beantown West for the...
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The post title above really is the truth. When Adam Ahlfeld plays, the Hoosiers are pretty much guaranteed a victory and Ahlfeld said as much during his Senior speech following the game against the Minnesota Gophers. Ahlfeld even made a...
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The Indiana Hoosiers take the court tonight for Senior Night against the Minnesota Gophers. The Hoosiers will be looking to redeem themselves from the shellacking they took over the weekend. If that game didn't wake them up, then hopefully...
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The Hoosiers were pretty sure their chance at a share of the Big Ten title was miniscule after their horrendous loss to Michigan St on Saturday. However, this morning things are looking a little brighter as Purdue lost to Ohio St....
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Look, I haven't slept in about 72 hours. I may not sleep tonight. My head is coming unglued and after spending 9 hours at work and another 5 working on a side project out in the garage, I came into...
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I was perusing the internet this morning and came across this picture on ESPN which had the headline "Up For Grabs". What's up for Grabs? A baker's dozen of Krispy Kreme's finest? But seriously, these guys (Dimitri Young and Nick...
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If you are like me, you may still be reeling after the Colts draft from last year. But you need to shake that off and get ready for THIS April. The Colts are a team that have their starting...
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There's not many things more aggravating than having a fun weekend only to realize around 6 PM on Sunday that it is all over and you must return to work the next day. Luckily, after toiling around for another five...
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Just when it seemed like things couldn't get any better in Mesa....things got worse in a hurry. Jason Marquis, who is battling with Jon Lieber for the final spot in the starting rotation, expressed his thoughts on a possible move...
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2008 Cubs Preview
