On Thursday, in his Chicago Cubs Preview, Rob delivered the bad news. This isn’t going to be the year, Cub fans. Your team is good, just not good enough. There will be no championship banner flying on the north side of Chicago.

There has never been a championship banner flying on the north side of Chicago.

The Jays aren't even halfway through their spring training games, so there are still a handful of "73s" seeing action for the Jays. In yesterday's game, for instance, Bryant Nelson went 0 for 1 as did Jason Alfaro.

In this game report, we take a look at five of these "73s".

Maybe I've just never followed Spring Training this closely before -- do the Jays always play the Twins every other day? Are the two teams getting tired of each other?

Lucky for us, this game is also on Rogers Sportsnet this afternoon, with coverage starting at 1:00. Let's hope it's less like the last televised game and more like yesterday.

Pepper reminded us last week of Weaver's First Law:

No one gives a damn in July about a game you lost in March.

Personally, I don't even care all that much in March - however, recent events have reminded us of another of Weaver's Laws. To wit:

The best place for a rookie pitcher is in long relief.

So, what's going on here anyway?

In 1975, the Big Red Machine broke a four-decade drought by besting the Boston Red Sox in the greatest World Series ever played.

Fifteen years later, in 1990, the Nasty Boys took the Reds to the most surprising World Series sweep in the history of the Great Game, blasting the Bash Brother-led Oakland A's in four straight.

It's 2005 -- another fifteen years later. Baseball is starting its 136th professional year on the shores of the Ohio River. And it's about to happen again.

Last night was a rough one, but I'm betting that the Jays had a little bit of the "everyone's watching on TV" yips. This afternoon's game against the defending World Series champs isn't on television, so we can use it to put my theory to the test.

bluejays.com lists a "home" radio broadcast for the Jays but it is identified only as TOR, so I'm guessing it's not on the radio, just online. I'd gladly be wrong, though.

Last year's Astros didn't play the winningest baseball in franchise history but did offer the most exciting. Dead as a doornail in mid-August -- 56-60 and in seventh place in the wild card standings - Houston roared to 36-10 finish, won its first ever playoff series, and came within four innings of the World Series.

Do the 2005 Astros have what it takes to expand on last year's accomplishments?

Like Dave Berg, who we remembered yesterday, Jason Kershner also left the Blue Jays this offseason to sign with the Boston Red Sox, hoping to catch on with the World Champions.

Please share your memories of Jason Kershner in this thread.

Spring Training Game Report: Yankees 8, Jays 0.

Mrs. Hank pretty much caught the essence of last night's game in one sentence. And while we did not shut it off and watch Survivor because I have some perverse sense of duty that made me watch to the end in order to be fully informed so that I could do a bang-up job on this game report, I didn't go back and watch my recording of the first couple of innings that I had only heard on the car radio. I couldn't do it to myself.

With yesterday's game being rained out, is this game seven or game eight? I say seven, but I'm happy to be corrected by baseball traditionalists.

Tonight's game is the first we'll see of our Fightin' Jays on television in 2005, on Rogers Sportsnet and mlb.tv (for free) tonight at 7:15.

Back in the dark days of January, Mick Doherty posted a cunning Question of the Day.

"Your life depends on this game (again?) and you trail by one with two down in the bottom of the ninth. You have runners -- Rickey Henderson and Lou Brock, actually -- on second and third and you can pick one hitter, from any team, any era, to stride to the plate to take his whacks against Dennis Eckersley. A walk does you no good, as the only other hitter available to you is Bob Buhl. Who do you tell to grab a bat?"

Bauxites, as always, rose to the challenge.

In all the hustle and bustle of the offseason, particularly our software change, I forgot to collect our thoughts on some departed players.

Please share your memories of Dave Berg in this thread.

This will possibly be the most pointless game report ever written, as the game was rained out. On top of that, as Dante Hicks would say "I'm not supposed to be here today!" So instead, I'll report on the spring training scores from the Classic Video Game league yesterday.

Let me take you back to the end of the 2004 season...

I am powerless against the allure of EA Sports' MVP Baseball 2005. The controller sits there on the floor, "pick me up", "play me", she will say. She is a formidable temptress, and I am well beyond the point of feigning self-control.