CornCobDress at 1060west speculates that Dusty Baker may replace Jim Tracy as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Tracy may be going, but Baker is not coming. While Los Angeles may be Baker's dream job, the man who said this is not General Manager Paul DePodesta's dream manager, given DePodesta's sabermetric background.

"From talking to Andy MacPhail and people who have been here for awhile, it's been this way for a long time. I think more night games will help. We can try to keep the ball in the ballpark. This is a tough ballpark to keep the ball in when the wind is blowing in the wrong direction. It's something I've been wondering about and have been researching."

The above quote came from the Cubs' esteemed manager, Dusty Baker, and as usual Dusty does not seem to get it.

There is an interesting article in INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY today.
If this interests you, check the link quick or go to the library for a print copy, because their online articles don't stay online for long.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDAr...

Marketing Maven Bill Veeck
BY JONAH KERI

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Posted 9/26/2005

On a cold, drizzling Saturday afternoon in 1941, Bill Veeck pulled into Milwaukee with his business partner Charlie Grimm, ready to take over ownership of the minor league Milwaukee Brewers baseball team.

The two men were about to take the helm of a bankrupt team - and they were dead broke to boot.

With a wife, two kids, a moribund baseball team and $1 in his pocket, Veeck faced impossible odds. But as he did throughout his life, he had a winning attitude.

When I first left home for college, my declared minor was in athletic training. The best class was athletic training modalities where we got to try the different treatments on ourselves so we would know what they were like.

The professor would jokingly encourage us to go out and try and get injured so we'd have something to treat.

Anyway, you can see why this article caught my interest today.

Ballplayers in good hands
Major league trainer stays close to baseball, other top athletes from Gilbert base

Cameron Eickmeyer
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 27, 2005 12:00 AM

It was baseball that brought trainer John Fierro to the Valley, and the sport has kept him here.

When Fierro, 49, moved to Gilbert in 1994, the then-Chicago Cubs trainer wanted to be closer to the team's spring training facilities in Mesa.

Let's say for the sake of the argument that the Cubs win both games vs. the Pirates this week and then sweep the Astros series.

And let's say the Cards beat the Astros today and tomorrow (like they should've done last September)...

What would the Cubs position in the wildcard race look like then?

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/standi...

Yep, that would leave us two games back with no games to play.

What would your choices be for games we really shoulda, coulda, might've had a chance to win and didn't be?

Nomar Garciaparra wants to wear blue pinstripes next year, reports the Chicago Tribune. The Cubs should make a concerted effort to bring him back.

This season has clearly not been what Garciaparra and the Cubs had hoped for. After a stellar spring training, Garciparra shot -- backward -- out of the gate this year, posting a 405 OPS before going down for three months with a groin injury. Since his return in August, Garciparra has put up an 866 OPS (.310/.343/.523). He has also shown an ability to play third base (though if Baseball Prospectus's numbers are to be believed -- insert small sample size caveat -- not too much of an ability).

So why re-sign a player who hasn't been able to log a full season in three of the past five seasons and will never approach his 1998-2000 performance levels? And what about Ronny Cedeno?

The city of freeport, il. 90 miles west of chicago, has formed a partnership with the Freeport Park District and a non-profit group, Build Little Cubs Field, to build a smaller version of Wrigley next year(if fundraising goes well) in a Freeport park. It will be used for wiffleball, peewee Little League, and as a tourist attraction. The Cubs are supporting the endeavor, have supplied ivy from the wall, and will contribute the flags of Banks, Santo, Williams, and Sandberg from the foulpoles. Check their website www.littlecubsfield.com for details, pictures, etc. It looks very cool. What do you think? would you bring the kids to it or play yourself. Think Cubs Field of Dreams.

GameCenter.

Todd Walker says he needs a week for his bruised knee to heal, which would mean he would sit for the rest of the season, reports MLB.com. That means the Cubs have light-hitting Jose Macias and Ryan Theriot as options at second base.

Walker is 9th in the majors in EqA (.280) among second baseman with at least 400 plate appearances. Consistent with the rest of his career, he is 8 runs below average defensively.

UPDATE (11:20pm CT): Walker will miss the rest of the year, reports the Chicago Tribune. The Trib also discusses Walker's status for next year. He and the team have a mutual option for $2.5 million. Walker thinks the Cubs will pick up the option (which would be smart), but he hasn't decided what to do yet. He wants to start, and he is concerned the Cubs will trade him (an understandable concern) and/or move Ronny Cedeno to second.

In regards to the planned renaming of the Marshall Fields store...

...Roger Ebert wrote back in July that changing the name to Macy's was on a par with renaming the Chicago Cubs the Chicago Mets.

From the article:

Chicago not ready to be in a New York state of mind
September 21, 2005

BY CAROL MARIN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
http://www.suntimes.com/output/marin/cst...

Macy's is here to stay -- and we'll get used to it
September 22, 2005
BY RICHARD ROEPER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
http://www.suntimes.com/output/roeper/cs...

This kind of thing makes you appreciate that the Chicago Tribune after buying the Cubs from the Wrigley Family, didn't rename Wrigley Field something to remind guests of their new ownership.

Remember, it could've become...

Just when the Cubs seemed to have committed to playing Matt Murton on a more-or-less daily basis (which is commendable, by the way), we have this nugget of wisdom from Dusty:

"Everybody says, 'Play the kids, play the kids.' But I've got seven games against Houston," Baker said. "Against Houston, I've got to play my best team. We could have a direct impact on who goes. There's always something to play for."

Huh?

Even for Dustyspeak, this is truly inscrutable. The Cubs have put themselves in the interesting position of being out of the race in mid-September, yet not really having too many "kids" on the roster to play. Murton may be a rookie, but he's earned his playing time the old-fashioned way, even if it took an injury to Jerry Hairston to make it happen, by hitting .340/.405/.573 to date.

Looks like MLB.com is now offering blogs to their fans. Of course, they want $.$$ every month for the honor of hosting your thoughts on the game.

They should at least make off-season hosting free. It's not like those sites are going to get a lot of activity in the winter.

I haven't found a good example of a Cubs related blog there yet, but there is this one which I guess is MLB guest writers sharing their thoughts on the game.

http://players.mlblogs.com

Do any Cubs players have weblogs or websites?

I know Pudge from the Tigers has a site at http://www.pudge.org . He seems to be a rarity on the web though.

My thanks to the guys at www.cubsnet.com for giving us free blogs to share our thoughts and discoveries regarding our favorite team.

Have a great week everyone!

SI.com's Don Banks on the NFC North:

Now that Minnesota has been exposed as a first-degree fraud, who on earth is going to win the NFC North? We checked with the league and somebody has to.

Even though the season is only two weeks old, all four teams already have been roughed up pretty good at least once: Minnesota by both Tampa Bay and Cincinnati, Green Bay by Detroit, Detroit by Chicago, and ... hey, wait a minute, what about the Bears? Chicago lost 9-7 with honor at Washington and drilled Detroit at home on Sunday.

In this division, that makes Lovie Smith's hard-luck guys a prohibitive favorite to wear the crown.

It's still early, but that's pre

12:00pm CT on FOX.