You are going for the win today in a 1-1 game by replacing a 3.95 ERA with a 1.43. By replacing one homer every 9 innings with one every 23. By replacing a .233 Batting average against with a .169.

The homer thing is critical. Once it's 1-1 in the latter stages of the game you should be thinking that this game might well finish 2-1 with a home run deciding it either way. It was the right thing to do regardless of the issue of rest for the next start. Zambrano had already given up a homer in the game.

So the guy that rarely gives up a long ball serves one up. That's life.

Just like life is gong-show fans who can turn any defeat into victory after the fact. If just THEY had been the manager.

Of course if you pick a fan at random and make him the manager, the playoffs would be out of the question. More likely would be a player revolt by mid May, caused by all the cowdung rules, regulations, game strategies, and pre and post game lectures that the nerd had been dreaming up his entire pathetic life.

You could make a case to leave Zambrano in for his hitting. Non-Zambrano Cubs went 3-29 last night or about .100. Zambrano was .247 for the season and 1-3 last night.

They should have brought Marmol in and moved Zambrano to rightfield.

The possible Muslim takeover. They'll shut down the titty bars for sure and my social life becomes zero.

The Marine Corp is defending me.

I'm hot for the Broadsheet gals.

If Eve hadn't been suckered by that snake.

That foot nudging the judge wouldn't work.

Steinbrenner is Bush and the Yankees are starting to resemble America in Iraq and the other teams are the insurgents..........If we just keep spending and fighting we will win.

20 columns of NFL picks? This is where readers need a delete icon.

Both Hannity and O'Reilly simply cannot speak without accompanying and constant finger, hand, and arm movements and gestures. Now go watch a Hitler speech.

Doing away with the bogus trade and call-up rules. Why not have cuts, waives, call-up replacements from the minors, and trades during the playoffs?

Every town has a local right wing talk radio guy, who usually just parrots some tangent Rush went off on the previous day.

Our local clown came to Limbaugh's side concerning Harkins comment about him maybe still using drugs. He said that was despicable because Rush had serious physical ear problems that caused the pain killer addiction. First off, the story was about alleged back problems and surgery. The Oxycontin abuse CAUSED the hearing loss, a common effect of pain killer addiction.

And for that matter narcotics kill the male sex drive and performance which may explain the viagra.

The conservative spokesman of America needs viagra to trump the dope to restore the capability to fuck, out of wedlock, after his third divorce.

Even better than the endless cliches by the sports media without which there would be close to total silence, is the fans----when their favorite team wins they think that they have personally accomplished something. They personally defeated the fans of the other teams. And they brag.

Which sails so far above the everyday fan's head that it may as well be the space shuttle, is that whoever wins the championship is not the best. They are just the team that won that one particular playoff tournament.

There is no best.

Some of the most gung-ho-semper-fi soldiers are phony.

It's all nearly life and death on an emotional level. Sports is where they go for their serious life's drama, passion, and sense of self-esteem. For VICTORY.

The deepest humor is that for the most part the players aren't even there. I suspect they want to perform well individually and whatever happens happens. Winning isn't everything. It's really no big deal. They're millionaires. Losing is just a brief bummer and all the speeches about the critical importance of a ring is semi-sincere at best.

"Of course, I am generally in a bad mood when the Patriots perform poorly, and I get some nice little excitement going when they win. But it is soon forgotten when real life comes back around"

Real life is the next game. They are looking forward to that more so than anything else in their lives.

The origin of all this is tribal. One tribe or clan against the other and the desperate need to be a member of a tribe.

The most extreme forms are your 60 and 70 year olds at the college game tailgating and screaming themselves hoarse. There may also be a fear of death element involved---I'm still in college, always in college. There's always another game. I'm never going to die.

And let the republican base keep rallying around Bush and Iraq........The republicans have gone from a majority of state governors to a minority, from a solid majority in the Senate to a minority (with double the number of republican Senate seats up for election in 2008 as democratic) and from a solid majority in the House of Reps to a minority.

GO RUSH. GO BUSH. GO REPUBLICAN BASE. GO WAR.

So desperate to have someone with an "R" after their name the republicans steam towards nominating a pro abortion rights, pro gun control, pro gay rights candidate at the top of their ticket for 2008.

Conservatism is dead. Rush and Bush killed it.

You better hope it's Rudy. He's only 8 points down to Hillary. The rest are 20 plus.

Should be censured for denying evolution.