Archive - Sep 12, 2008

UPDATE #2: Game on. Sunday at 7pm CST in Milwaukee and Monday at 1pm. The third game will be made up on Monday, September 29th only if necessary.

UPDATE: Paul Sullivan says the Cubs have decided that no matter what MLB decides, they won't be traveling tonight. So take that MLB and Astros.

It looks like Astros owner Drayton McLane's attempt to keep the games in Houston this weekend were all for naught. An article on MLB.com posted around 9pm CST, says the plan to move to series to Milwaukee is back in play (just like the Cubs originally suggested). If it happens, details will be announced tomorrow.

Some "connected" Brewers fan posted that everything is already in place and there will be games Sunday and Monday at Miller Park. Hopefully he's more connected than those Orioles fans from the offseason.

A Houston Chronicle story posted just a bit earlier paints a still defiant McLane.

“This could be the biggest series in the history of this season,”
McLane said via phone from his home in Temple. “And the fans would be a
tremendously inspirational force for our players. And I didn’t want our
players to be away from their families.

“We’re standing up for our fans and for our players. It’s just
not right to have them leave their families to play at another site
like Atlanta or Cincinnati. I said that to (Selig) several times
(Thursday) and I said it again (Friday).”

McLane said there are three main considerations as the club
consults with Selig and the Office of Emergency Management while
considering whether they can play a doubleheader Sunday against the
Cubs at Minute Maid Park and another game Monday.

One is the feasibility of the Cubs’ charter to land at Bush
Intercontinental Airport on Saturday; the second is to make sure
there’s no flooding near the ballpark downtown; the third is making
sure there is electricity, according to McLane.

The fourth consideration is that McLane would have to refund the ticket money and then where is he suppose to swim?

While Bud Selig was busily hiding his head in the sand regarding Hurricane Ike and catering to Drayton McLane's need to collect cotton candy revenue from this weekends games in Houston, the MLB powers that be had the annual coin flip for playoff tiebreaker games.

The Brewers won the flip for any NL Central tiebreaker between the Cubs and Brewers as it will be played in Miller Park. Of course, it's the Cubs home away from home and after the week of July 27th (not to mention the Brewers recent homestand performance against the Mets, Padres and Reds), I guess it's not a bad place for the Men in Blue to play. The regular season ends for the Cubs in Milwaukee on Sept. 28th so why not just do a day night doubleheader? I mean if they are considering rescheduling one or two of this weekends washouts on Monday Sept. 29th. Might as well make a travesty out of the whole season wrapup.

The Phillies got control of the lucky penny as they won all the home field advantages you can gather including wildcard tiebreakers vs Milwaukee, St. Louis and Houston. They even won the tiebreaker homefield if they have to play game #163 vs the Mets.

In the AL, tiebreaker games could be in Boston for both wild card or AL East,  vs Tampa Rays, for the AL East or vs. The Twins for the wild card playoff game.  US Commiscular will be causing havoc on the Dan Ryan, if the WSox tie the Twins after 162 regular season games.The AL didn't need to flip as much this year thanks to the franchise called the LA Angels of Anaheim from the OC near Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm.

Most of the time this stuff is a waste of good coin flippage, but go tell that to the 2007 Padres.