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It's hard to truly speculate on trades and free agents at this point. It's looked down upon to start talking about specific free agents before the World Series is over, right? A Rod got in a mess like that a few years ago.

Would you have Hardy and Escobar on the roster? DM: That would be difficult. Believes JJ would bounce back. IMO, JJ is gone for pitching.

Will McGehee's breakthrough impact Gamel? Doug: It probably slows his progress to the majors a bit. Is Casey McGehee Casey Blake? Thinks his struggle with defense was related to his knee injury. He had the opportunity to have a "full" surgery that would have kept him out for most of next year, but he chose to just get it cleaned up.

Sounds like Escobar is essentially untouchable, but he'll consider "serious" proposals for anyone.

I didn't hear him elaborate on positions. Just that payroll might determine it. Sounds like Ricky is in line for 2nd base still. But then he says "may have to sacrifice some offense to get some pitching."

Doug says his goal would "probably be" to get 2 starting pitchers.

But he gives Suppan a lot of credit for taking the ball a lot and not getting injured. Hooray for that.

Doug won't discuss Suppan. Just that he has a guaranteed contract and he'll compete at Spring Training.

Doug says Sheets "hasn't been burned." And Ash says he should be on anybody's list. They speak "once in awhile" with his agent about ongoing interest.

I'm surprised Doug didn't know where Escobar was at in terms of rookie status, or when players can file for free agency. He sure seemed to stumble on those points.

The Brewers end of season press conference starts in just a few minutes. It's on 1250AM. Listen to it streaming http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Sounds like there's also a Brewers retrospective tonight at 6PM on 1250

For those of you flying from Milwaukee, it looks like the only airlines that offer non-stop flights from MKE to Phoenix are Midwest, Airtran, US Airways, and Southwest. All airlines except Southwest have fairs available now for most of spring training. Southwest will release the rest of its March schedule on October 13. Right now, if you don't mind connecting flights (which I hate), you can get a round-trip ticket for less than $250.

Patrick, I noticed the same thing when looking for car rentals in Phoenix. I don't have an explanation - I was holding off in hopes that prices would drop. On another note, I used Fox one of the years I went to Spring Training, and they were great.

It would be the season ticket holder price, if it's anything like the Terrace Ticket Treat was. I'm hoping I get the existing season ticket holder price ($30), since I already had a package and I'm upgrading. Given that prices weren't raised last year, I think these prices are more than fair.

From the jsonline blog. Prices are staying very close to last year. My favorite part is that buy one get one free offer for full-season packages in the Loge Infield. I already called my rep and switched from the Ticket Treat package to that package.

Booing Prince on the grounder was really poor form. He was all twisted up and actually fell over. By the time he got up, the second basemen already had the ball. I wouldn't have run either. He was probably embarrassed. Point, we may have had the same tour guide. His name was Jay. We were the two most talkative people on the tour, and we had no problem with playful ribbing (hey you Brewers fans, check out the 82 flag, etc). It was the lecture that really made it weird. The tour guide shook our hand at the end, though.

The announcement stated that Mint will remain a free website, and the founder will be employed by Intuit (Quicken). The email that Mint users received: Thank you for being a part of what's becoming a revolution in active personal financial management. I'm excited to say that Mint.com and Intuit are coming together to take personal finance to the next level. Mint.com has entered into an agreement to be purchased by Intuit. Once the acquisition closes, Mint.com will have the opportunity to spread that revolution to more people, more quickly, together with one of the world's strongest software brands. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of 2009. What's not going to change Mint.com will stay the way you like it: free, easy-to-use and constantly improving. What will change As outlined in today's press release and my blog post, after the acquisition closes, the Mint.com team will contribute to improving the financial lives of tens of millions of consumers and small businesses. I'll personally be taking on the role of GM of Intuit's Personal Finance group responsible for online, desktop and mobile consumer personal finance offerings. Joining Intuit enables us to bring our vision of helping consumers understand and do more with their money to millions of Intuit customers. This is a compelling combination of our innovative product, technology, and industry leading user interface design with one of the most trusted brands in software. I look forward to executing on that vision --- for you. Thanks for your support, Aaron Patzer Founder and CEO

and this ISN'T bugging you?

Quicken bought Mint, so it's the same company having potential access to your info.

jjkoestler- I buy my tickets early for the weekend games, as those have more of a tendency to sell out as well. All the games I've ever attended in Scottsdale (Giants) have been sellouts or near-sellouts, so it's a good idea to buy early there as well. The Angels games I've been too have been pretty full, and sold out on the weekends. And of course, buy early for Cubs games. Weekday games at Maryvale shouldn't be an issue though. That being said, I buy early for almost every game, because I prefer to sit in the shade. Most Spring Training parks only have a couple of rows that offer shade, and they can go quickly. I think a lot of the other questions you asked can be answered by reading the previous page of this thread.

More milestones today - Prince walked to set the club record for a season, Gallardo broke the 200K mark, and Braun got his 500th hit.

For those of you flying from Milwaukee, I'm pretty confident Southwest Airlines will have some pretty good rates, but they don't start Milwaukee service until November. Right now you can only purchase flights through March 12, 2010.

When I was taking classes, I lived by www.campusbooks.com. It's an aggregator that searches all the book websites for new and used books. You can create a "backpack" with all your books and find out what it will cost to buy them all from the same place, or if you bought each book where it was listed for the lowest price.

I work on a Mac at work and I have Office for Mac - it works fine for me.

If you're looking this early, I'd recommend looking into a condo for vacation rental. It's usually cheaper than a hotel and provides you with a kitchen so you can cook your own food to cut down on costs if you want. In 2008 I rented a 2 bedroom condo in Mesa for a week with my parents for $650, cleaning fee included. I usually use www.homeaway.com, which allows you to search for properties but you can contact the owners directly. The first year I went Dad and I stayed in an extended stay hotel in Mesa - also not a bad idea b/c we got a kitchen. The important thing to know is the Phoenix area is huge. It doesn't matter if you stay in Tempe, Phoenix, Maryvale, Glendale, Peoria, or Scottsdale - they're all close enough to drive to the parks. Most days you'll be driving 20-45 minutes to a game no matter where you stay. Also, if you search "spring training" in this forum, you'll probably see a bunch of great tips from past years.