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I'm only using names that haven't already been used. Brewers: Carl Crawford Packers: Arian Foster Bucks: Blake Griffin

Why didn't they keep their months shut? MLB is going to get wind of this now and put a stop to it before the season starts. There would be nothing better than watching a closeup of an obvious missed call on that screen, especially if it benefits the Brewers.

The Marlins should just be thankful that they get to have any home games at all this year. Their lease at Dolphin Stadium ended in 2010 and the Dolphins were not obligated to extend it. From the Dolphins perspective, the concert is certainly more profitable than the 30,000 fans that will show up for a 3-game series.

I have talked to people here who went to games at the Orange Bowl and they said it was a complete disaster to get there and park. Most people parked on people's lawns since there were no parking garages or lots. The Orange Bowl held 75,000 people, but the games were on weekends and it didn't always sell out. They obviously considered parking when getting the stadium approved, but there's only so much you can do with a small piece of land. They are building a parking garage that is costing $100 million and holding 5,700 cars. The thought of 5,700 cars in one parking garage is terrifying. For comparison, the Miller Park lots hold 12,500 cars. So imagine crowding half of the Miller Park lots into one parking garage. I'm sure the Marlins fans will end up getting a bad rap for leaving early, but that parking garage is going to be the real reason. I should add that I am excited to check out the new ballpark when it opens next year. I'll buy my tickets for a Sunday afternoon game though.

If anything, the Marlins stadium will help the Rays. By moving the stadium into the heart of Miami and changing the name to the "Miami Marlins", Loria and Miami-Dade County have asserted that the Marlins are the property of Miami and not necessarily the surrounding regions. Dolphins Stadium (or whatever it is currently called) is located near the border of Miami-Dade and Broward County. There are 1.7 million people in Broward County (about the whole population of the Milwaukee Metro) that has easy access to Marlins games and will soon have to drive 30-60 minutes to reach the new stadium. There are another 1.2 million people in Palm Beach County that could get to Dolphins Stadium in about an hour that will soon need 1.5-2.5 hours+ to reach the new stadium. Furthermore, most people in Broward and Palm Beach are English-only speaking. Miami-Dade is mostly Latino and has a distinctly different culture than the counties to the north. By moving the ballpark to the heart of Miami, the Marlins have decided to go after the 2.4 million people in Miami-Dade County and not worry about the ~3 million people to the north. It's not necessarily a bad decision by itself--the area is way too spread out to appeal to everyone. However, it specifically associates the Marlins with the Latin American culture base and not the Northeast US migrants that make up a decent portion of Broward and Palm Beach. The Marlins already have been doing this--you will hear music in Spanish at Marlins games and not just on "Los Marlins" night. Basically, there is no incentive for anyone who moved to South Florida from elsewhere to change their allegiance or even care at all about the Marlins. Cable TV has the Rays and the Marlins on, so there is really no reason to prefer one team over the other. The Marlins are trying to become Miami's team, which leaves the Rays to have the rest of Florida that doesn't like the Yankees, Mets, or Red Sox.

I just drove by it on Sunday--it is only about 10 minutes from my apartment :-) There is a long, long list of problems/concerns with this ballpark, but aesthetics is not one of them. The seating bowl is done and they are currently installing the roof. It has a square, sliding roof like Houston. The exterior is definitely modern. None of the styling is done but it is going to match the Miami skyline. There are really no "old" looking buildings here, so it looks fine. The coolest feature will be live fish tanks in the backdrop behind home plate (with really thick glass). Ok, now on to the negative: People in Miami are not really interested in the Marlins. There are plenty of baseball fans here, but most have allegiances to other teams. I'm not sure that a new stadium is going to change that. It's built on the old Orange Bowl site. The destruction of the Orange Bowl has contributed to the decline of the UM football program, since everyone now has to drive 45 minutes to reach the football stadium. The second issue with the Orange Bowl site is that it is in the middle of Little Havana. It is a working class neighborhood with relatively low crime, but it isn't exactly a place where suburbanites and/or people with money for and MLB game would tend to congregate. English is the second language in that area. It's also terribly ugly. To add to that concern, it is not adjacent to a highway. It has no advantage for commuting whatsoever, it was only chosen because the county already owned it. It is relatively close to a highway--the Dolphin Expressway--which is notorious for having the worst traffic in the city of Miami (not to mention it has tolls also). There is no highway interchange being built for the stadium, people will be expected to get off at the nearest exit and go through normal urban city streets. There is not enough parking being built on the site, so many people will be on their own in a dense neighborhood. To further compound the problem, there is no public transportation available to access the stadium. Miami has a nice new Metrorail, but it does not run anywhere near the ballpark. Furthermore, plans to expand the public transportation (which is desperately needed) were put on hold because the county spent all its money on the new Marlins Ballpark. But at least they convinced Loria to change the name to the "Miami Marlins". Basically, going to a weeknight game is going to be a disaster, and I doubt they will do any better than 15,000 fans on weeknights after the first season. The new ballpark is also located about 30-40 minutes away from the old stadium. That is a long distance, especially in a city with traffic problems. It's like moving Miller Park to Oconomowoc. They are counting on a new group of people to start supporting the Marlins that currently does not go to games. I'm sure they will do better than the old place because of the roof, but it is going to do little to help the Marlins as a franchise. Miami-Dade County is cash-strapped and they have a long list of issues that need resolving--and they are spending an astounding $350 million on this stadium--which will balloon to a billion dollars because most of the debt does not have to be repaid until the 2030s. It's just a horrible, horrible deal and it will someday be a model of poor fiscal planning. If people knew what they do now about the Marlins' finances, this would never have been approved.

Thanks for the great investigative reporting everyone! Now we all need to write angry letters to ESPN...

I think it was supposed to start at 3. We got there at 4 and stayed until about 5. We went to our assigned seats, which were 3/4 up in the last section of the upper deck. There were maybe 1,000 people in the whole stadium at the time. It was a very sad day, I consider it one of the low points of that era. The days after the crane collapse were terrible, but there was so much focus on what happened that we never really thought about the implications. It wasn't until I showed up that day and sat for an hour watching the rain that it sunk in--Miller Park wasn't opening in 2000 and there was absolutely nothing to look forward to for another year.

New image on the front page of JSonline: http://media.jsonline.com/images/375*265/mjs-millerboard_-nws_-lynn_.jpg

For me, it was the playoff win over the Phillies in 2008. I had to work during game #162 and didn't get a chance to show any emotion after they won. I had been waiting my whole life to go to a playoff game at Miller Park and it was such a thrill to be there. It exceeded all of my expectations, even though they didn't clinch anything. Another memory that comes to mind is from the 1997 season. For many, this was in the middle of the down years, but I was 11 years old and I loved the Brewers more than anything. At the end of July, the Brewers had managed to rattle off a 9-game winning streak to get back in the playoff hunt, including 4 wins in 2 days over the Toronto Blue Jays. Steve Woodard's 8 IP, 1 hit defeat of Roger Clemens occurred during that streak. For the potential 10th win in a row, Steve Woodard was back on the mound and a huge crowd (for those days) of almost 45,000 (about half of them were walk-ups) caused the game to be delayed for 20 minutes so they could reach their seats. Woodard lasted 2 innings and the Brewers fell down 13-0 before losing 14-4. I also have to mention the last game at County Stadium. I was looking forward to that one for a long time, especially after the crane accident and the heavy rain that caused about 1,000 people to show up out of an announced attendance of 55,992 for the final game of the season. It is hard to believe that a new generation of Brewers fans is now growing up that doesn't remember County Stadium or all the excitement leading up to that final game and then the opening of Miller Park.

Why didn't we try to trade Suppan to them?

Everyone assumed it was all over for the Rays, but they really didn't lose much and the Yankees didn't do much to upgrade. The Rays are probably still doomed to finish in 3rd, but at least there is hope that these guys can still produce.

Yes I remember that shot clearly. Now that you mention it, it probably was not the Capitol, nor any other building in Madison. At least not one that I have seen. At the time, I was thinking, "Hmm, that is a strange view of the Capitol, where is that perspective coming from?"

I'm sure he will be needed at some point when injuries happen.

Yeah, they are all good representations and a few feet here and there do not make much of a difference.

Nice pictures, but I think it is about 10 feet wider on both sides. The advertising panels now extend past those green supports under the Pepsi sign. From the perspective of the last few pictures, the "Journal Sentinel" advertisement will be about 1/3 blocked by the advertising boards. The final renderings show that those advertisement boards will be removed, which I hope is the case.

Interesting perspective John. Why did the Brewers agree to come back out of the clubhouse and continue the game? If the umpires declared the game over, did they really have any right to go back out there? It seems like if that happened today, the Brewers' manager could refuse to take his team back out on the field and demand that the protest go through the league office first, since the game was already over. If the league decided that time out was called, they could have resumed the game on a different day.

Casey, that looks correct based on the construction photos. It's going to be a monster. The reason that the photos of the new one look "small" is because the supports for the advertisements around the board have been extended out by about 25 feet in both directions.

I am a little concerned about the size of the scoreboard. If anything it is too big. Other stadiums (Kansas City, Atlanta, Arizona) have center field scoreboards, but they are much farther away from the field and/or higher up than Miller Park's scoreboard. Kansas City's is vertically orientated and the brightness had to be toned down because it was distracting catchers on high pitches. With Miller Park being indoors and having glass everywhere, there is a real potential for there to be glare problems. The Brewers will absolutely have to use a black or navy background, otherwise the thing could literally overpower the stadium lights and illuminate the players on the field. Judging by the photos, I think it is high enough that it will not be a problem, and I am looking forward to seeing it (on TV).

Signing Fielder would fill a big hole for the Cubs. It will not be franchise crippling, it will be a huge signing and he will produce there for years. Of course it will never be completely "worth it", but that is usually the case with free agents. The Cubs could dump $30 million/year down the toilet and still be in better financial shape than the Brewers.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1111461445.png Too bad my home network isn't this fast...

-Fielder's upcoming monster season -Weeks and Hart with a 20/20 -Gomez utilized properly by new manager -Bullpen rested due to improved rotation -Pumped up crowds at MP all season long -There's no need for a 5th starter in the playoffs.

Ugly first half. 23-20. I would like to see more of an inside presence from the Badgers, especially since Michigan State is guarding the perimeter.

I enjoyed Freedom by Jonathan Franzen although it certainly isn't without its flaws. It had plenty of parts that were not believable, but it's still a worthwhile commentary on modern American life. I've also been going through some weather disaster books: I just finished Isaac's Storm about the 1900 Galveston Hurricane and I am looking forward to starting The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough. I haven't gotten to anything on the Financial Crisis yet--I wanted to read All the Devils are Here but I'm waiting for the price to go down. theavrock--did you like Hot Flat and Crowded?

This will fire up the Cubs' fan base and bring them into the 2011 NL Central contenders discussion. Their starting pitching was already pretty good toward the end of last year and now they add a 200 innings guy on top of that. They get Garza for 3 years which helps set them up for a big run in 2013 after the Brewers lose Fielder, Greinke, and possibly Weeks. Adding another quality starter to the division certainly isn't good for the Brewers, but it is good overall for the NL Central. How about the Pirates now--will they lose 110-115 games next year with all the new talent in the division?