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I would make a joke about Cubs fans, but I'm sure that Suppan pitching at Miller Park is going to be even uglier.

As much as I like to rip on Braun for being a poor outfielder, he is nowhere near the level of Alfonso "Sorry Oh No!"

Yes, I agree that under the current economic system, the Brewers will be better off without Prince due to the high price of his new contract. However, if the economic system was fair, the Brewers would be far better off with Prince than without. As it is now, the best we can hope for is to get some decent compensation that might help us in the future. But what are we exactly building for? The Twins still make the playoffs without Santana, but they are demolished annually by teams in the playoffs that sign high-priced free agents.

Letting Fielder go can not be sold to some casual fans, and even some more dedicated fans. It is hard to blame them for being upset about a financial system where only a few elite teams are allowed to sign the top elite players in free agency. I suspect that the Brewers will lose casual fans who will simply stop following the team after Prince leaves. I do not blame these people for being upset, and sometimes I question my passion for the Brewers when the Fielder contract comes up. The Brewers are the franchise that took the risk drafting him and spent considerable time, money, and resources developing Prince from a prospect into a superstar. All that work got us one playoff appearance that lasted less than a week. Meanwhile, another team can now step in and grab him for the prime of his career, only because they have a larger market--and most likely fans who are not even as loyal as Brewers fans. In return, the Brewers simply open up additional resources which will be used to start developing more players who will eventually be traded to larger teams. If we happen to make the playoffs again, we will likely run into a team full of free agents that will always make us the underdogs. The biggest problem with the financial system is that we are the underdogs and will always be the underdogs. I do not see how Bud Selig and the pundits can deny this. The Brewers will always face an uphill climb because they have less money than the top teams. This means that our management can not make mistakes like the other teams can, they can not afford injuries, and it takes a number of things to go right to overcome the extreme financial disparity between us and the top clubs. I wish Mark would respond to the comments by the Yankees, since they should be an insult to him--basically saying that he should operate his club at an annual loss, while the superior Yankees are allowed to be profitable. I can not think of a scenario that makes us a better club without Prince Fielder. Even more, we will be stuck rebuilding while Ryan Braun's time with the club also ticks away. There will not be 3 million fans in the stands every year, the crowds eventually will go back down to a level appropriate for our market size if we can not compete for the playoffs. I am not saying that signing Fielder is the best move for the franchise or that we should try to go ahead with it. I am just saying that Doug and Mark A. really have no choice.

He was out and that was a bad rookie mistake.

The solution for Hoffman is to stop playing the Cardinals. They are responsible for his last 4 blown saves.

He has the same fastball velocity as last year, so I do not think he is done. As others have mentioned, the lack of changeups is the likely cause. He can not survive on only fastballs, no matter how good his location is. Perhaps he is having issues because of the lack of spring training games. I would not expect any change from Macha until he blows 3-4 more saves, at least. We really need him--the bullpen is set up very nicely right now, very few teams have the luxury of a pitcher of Coffey's caliber to use in middle-inning jams.

I do not think Hoffman is done. He has blown up badly as early as 2007. He will be back, but it better be soon or we will be forced to go to Hoffman.

I'm having really bad Derrick Turnbow flashbacks.

"Albert the great hitter" got the best of Hoffman that time.

Why hasn't he been starting already? We could have used the extra offense this week.

How classless. I hope he apologized to his teammates for that.

Angry Prince on display again...why does he have to do that on National TV?

From watching games in the terrace box with a direct view of Braun over the last 2+ years, it is clear that he either gets a bad jump or takes the wrong route on over half the balls hit in his direction. It is not noticable on TV or from certain sections of the ballpark. It cost us at least one game that I was at last year, but then again, we lost a game to the Dodgers because of a Cameron dropped fly ball. This one was especially painful because we played a great game at still lost. From the Cardinals' perspective, they kept it close and gave themselves a chance at the end. That's what good teams do. I'm also now 0-2 on the year at Brewers games. Fortunately, I only have one game scheduled in the next 2 months.

It is now snowing in Madison. We were under a severe thunderstorm warning a little over 24 hours ago. Gotta love Wisconsin weather.

Depends on the hitter coming up--not necessarily better or worse, but what percentage of singles, doubles, home runs, etc they hit. Plus, you have to consider the splits--is he facing a righty or lefty, what is his history against the guy, what baseball park are we playing in, how has that hitter looked in his last few games/at bats, is the wind blowing in or out, is the game a slugfest or pitchers duel...

I think that Jim Edmonds has at least 5 years left in the tank. Why hasn't Melvin signed him to an extension yet? Gomez is also incredibly inconsistent.

Is there anyone at all on here who would take Kendall over Zaun?

WIN #1!!! Here's to 89+ more!

http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/cc335c571673800062704e573db42c477db9f82.jpg

I once told them that I was buying for a group of my college friends (which I was) and they let me have 6. However, that was back in the day when Friday nights only drew 25-30,000.

I had this for about a year on my old computer. Every time the fan would start making noise, I would whack the computer with my foot, which worked for a few days. Eventually, the fan stopped making noise altogether. Problem solved.

We had no problems. We got into the preferred lot from National Ave around 12 PM with no line. Everyone around us (TB 416) was respectful. A few people did not show up until the 4th or 5th inning, but that is typical for any game. The amount of drinking also did not seem to be that much more than on a Friday or Saturday game in the summer, at least in our area. Everything was fine last year as well. The last year that it was really bad was 2008, when they still had the large groups coming from the bars.

Finally! I am excited for the open roof--I love MP, but roof closed day games are terrible. This will probably be my last Opening Day for a long time, so I'm going to enjoy it today. GO BREWERS!!!

Personally, the broken scoreboard adds a nice touch to the stadium. Reminds me of my childhood, when they had to call in that guy from Germany to fix the County Stadium scoreboard. It also encourages fans to score the game by hand. On a more serious note, I am curious what they are going to do about the new scoreboard. A fancy HD board would be nice, but I do not see how it can go in the current location without being protected with some sort of shield. It is one thing for a cheap matrix board to get hit all the time, but it would be extremely expensive for that to happen with a new scoreboard. Most other teams have their fancy scoreboards out of reach of home runs.