In what could be the most important draft the Bears have had since they moved training camp to Bourbonnais, the Bears drafted 12 players at nine or 10 different positions (depending on where they play the late-round picks).

Per usual with a Jerry Angelo draft, there were a couple of mild reaches (none on the level of last year’s second-round selection of Dan Bazuin), but on the whole, it appears the team filled the most pressing needs in the early rounds, chose who they felt were the best players available in the middle rounds and then patched some other holes with their seventh-round picks.

Let’s take a look at the first few draft picks. We’ll take a look at the later rounds in an upcoming post.

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However you spend your time when you watch the NFL Draft — playing the NFL Draft drinking game, guessing what is in Mel Kiper Jr.’s hair (language warning), competing in an office mock draft pool, etc. — the event remains one of the most popular events in sports, even though no game takes place. I credit the N.Y. Jets notorious bungling of drafts for this.

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There’s a long way to go this season, but with the fast starts of St. Louis, Cincinnati and Milwaukee, it looks like this N.L. Central race may not be the runaway that all the “experts” were thinking.

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While seemingly everybody and their mother has the Cubs winning the division this year (see here, and here and here), I’m trying to contain my enthusiasm.
Because I just can’t enter a season thinking we actually have a shot to win it all (the last time I did that was 2004 and we all know how that ended), I’ve spent the entire spring convincing myself that the Cubs are doomed in 2008.

Here are my “High Fidelity”-esque Top Five horrid fears about this year’s Cubs team.

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After being the laughing stock of the Big Ten for the whole season, the Illinois men’s basketball team just moved one game away from winning the conference tournament and back-dooring into the NCAA tournament.

If they get in, ESPN’s Laurence Holmes from WSCR-AM 670 wants them to be sent to a play-in game with Howard. Would you really do that to a team that’s one of the top 40 teams in the nation, Laurence?

That’s right, folks. People far, far smarter than me say that Illinois is the No. 37 team in the country. Over at basketball prospectus, the same folks who brought you the brilliant Rob Laird-bookmarked baseball prospectus also bring you one for college basketball.

Using their weird equation that I’m not going to even try to explain, Illinois is not only the unluckiest team in the nation (by a wide margin), they are the 37th-best following Friday’s upset over Purdue, which wasn’t that big of an upset if you consider Purdue is ranked just 12 spots higher at 25th by the same system.

FYI, before you think this website is crazy, they were all over George Mason in 2006 and VCU last year. This year, it likes New Mexico, although that team’s in danger of not even making the tournament this year. It looks like the big schools are the teams to choose in brackets this year.

It’s turning into a tradition.  And it’s a tradition that I can get on board with.

There’s been a core group of friends (degenerate gamblers, or whatever you want to call them), who have made yearly trips out to Las Vegas for the first weekend of the NCAA tournament.  We go out, we gamble, we get absolutely rocked for free, and we come home with a sense of….calm.  And maybe a little lighter in the wallet. 

Then last year, as I was getting married to my lovely, lovely wife, we decided to save money.  We decided not to go to Vegas.

Big mistake.  BIG, big mistake.  On St. Patrick’s Day last year, the first day of the second round, our core group of myself and two close friends Mark and Amber, we looked at each other and said never again.  This could not, absolutely not happen again.  We had a great setup at Joe’s on Weed St. here in Chicago, and we got hooked up with a lot of freebies after spending essentially three full days there.  But as Mark and I were abosolutely cleaning up against the spread (through 48 games, I went 34-14, and Mark went 31-17), we decided that there was way, WAY too much money to be made.

This year will be a little bit different, as my lovely wife (also named Amber) will also be making the sojourn with us, and quite possibly (but hopefully not) sucking quite a bit of the fun out of the whole expedition.  But maybe not…..

Last year, my wife and I spent the Super Bowl in Vegas for free, and got to attend a huge Super Bowl party with free found and drinks during the game.  And it was her idea to make some bets right before the game.  And it was HER idea to put a bet on Devin Hester returning a kick for a touchdown in the game…and to bet enough that we would basically pay for the airline tickets, the only thing we had to pay for to get out there. 

12 seconds into the game, I had no voice, we paid for the trip and I loved that woman just a liiiiittle bit more. 

Will this March be any different?  I don’t know.  And maybe, that’s really the great thing about Las Vegas: Even as it gets more corporate, you really never know what’s going to happen.

Maybe you’ll almost knock Doyle Brunson over because you’re not paying attention (that was me).  Maybe you’ll have a little too much to drink and, at the prompting of your friends, proposition a married, older woman (Mark).  Or maybe on St. Patrick’s Day you’ll have a little too much to drink, fall off the bed and get stuck (the Amber that’s not my wife).  Or maybe you’ll make that really great bet.  Who knows?

And that’s the joy Vegas, baby.

My kids are horribly addicted to television and whenever their favorite shows go to commercials, they pretty much spend the entire time pointing to whatever toy happens to be advertising and saying, “I want that.”

My answer is always one of three five things.

• “You don’t need that.”
• “You already have that.”
• “We can’t afford that.”
• “Not a chance.”
• “Maybe Santa will bring it for Christmas.”

I get the feeling the winter GM meetings in baseball are little like that. You get the team brass together in a hotel room or wherever they stay, and they talk about all the things they want for the upcoming year while the GM provides answers pretty much similar to the ones I give my kids whenever they see a commercial for Little Princess’ Bake & Fun Kitchen or whatever.

In that spirit, let’s take a look at some of the sports-related things that I would like to receive for Christmas.

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Note: Everyone welcome Paul Schmidt, a long-time member of the Journal sports staff who currently still strings for us occasionally while living in Wrigleyville. Ideally, we were hoping for him to make his first post(s) during the Cubs’ playoff run, but, well … Anyway, this is his first post. Welcome, Paul!

Kirk Herbstreit and Brent “Mushmouth” Musberger seem to disagree (unless Illinois goes to the Sugar Bowl — EEK bad memories bad memories), but things are shaping up for my alma mater, Illinois, to be a BCS team.

Read that last sentence one more time.

Illinois could be a BCS bowl team.

We’re less than 24 hours away from that distinct possibility. It looks like Illinois will pass both Tennessee and BC (who lost today), with OU, Arizona State, Va Tech and LSU recording victories. Of those teams, it would seem the only one Illinois could have passed MIGHT have been Oklahoma. So really, that’s a moot point.

Which leaves questions of how things work … there’s the order the bowls pick in, but something I know I had forgotten about is that if your BCS bowl’s representative gets stolen, you immediately get the first pick to replace them.

So it would certainly appear that, with tOSU headed back to the title game, the Rose Bowl will get the first pick (which isn’t good for Illinois). That’s when things get dicey…

Who else goes to the title game?? Is it Georgia, who couldn’t even make the SEC title game? Is it Va. Tech? Is it LSU? Is it Brent Musberger’s ridiculous selection, Hawai’i? I honestly don’t know, and it’s the whim of the voters to decide, but this is how I would slate it:

National Title game — Ohio St. vs. Virginia Tech
Orange Bowl — West Virginia vs. Georgia
Rose Bowl — USC vs. LSU
Fiesta Bowl — Kansas vs. Oklahoma
Sugar Bowl — Illinois vs. Hawai’i (a game that roughly 5 people travel to see).

The reason that is, is because, with the exception of bowls who get their natural representative picked out, in this case the Orange and the Rose, the Sugar Bowl picks dead last. The Orange, which automatically gets WVU, would probably take the BCS #3 team, likely to be Georgia. That gives the Rose the next pick (after OSU goes to the title game), and who are they going to pick, a team like LSU or Illinois to keep the Big Ten/Pac-10 rivalry alive? (if you don’t know the answer to that question, really, just stop reading and turn the computer off). Fiesta seems to love Kansas, and they don’t seem to mind that they would play OU, so that seems totally likely.

The question becomes the Sugar Bowl, and who they pick. They have to have Hawai’i, who would be the consensus last pick. The question becomes, who is the other team? It comes down to Arizona St and Illinois. The one thing going in Illinois’ favor is that they travelled EXTREMELY well to New Orleans in 2002, and Arizona St. is a notoriously bad travelling team.

Maybe I’m looking at things through Rose (or Sugar?) colored glasses, but I think this seems highly likely.

By now, it is well documented that the Cubs are actively searching for a left-handed outfielder this offseason. The two biggest names being floated are Carl Crawford and Kosuke Fukudome. Crawford, currently signed with Tampa Bay, would cost — according to rumors — something along the lines of a prospect (in the Cubs case, Felix Pie) and either a starting pitcher (Rich Hill), a relief pitcher (Carlos Marmol) or both.
Fukodome isn’t going to command Matsuzaka-type money, but he is figured to sign for roughly $10-15 million a year for five-to-six years.
Whom to choose? With Crawford, you know what you’re getting because he’s proven himself, at a young age, as a capable major league all-star. Fukudome, even though most Japanese players have done admirably, could very well be a bust. There is that risk. He’ll also command more salary than Crawford. On the flipside, you can obtain Fukudome without losing other players in return. With Crawford, trading pitching would leave at least one other hole to plug.
It is thought by some that the reason the Cubs are trying to sign Kaz Matsui is two-fold. One, he could be the true lead-off hitter so many fans crave and, two, he would provide some friendly company for Fukudome.
There is also the possibility, since the Cubs have openly stated they intend on increasing the payroll, that the team will sign Matsui, Fukudome and still trade for Crawford, though it is unknown who the Cubs would use to replace Hill in the rotation (assuming Hill is part of the deal), as the team has not been attached to any free agent pitchers. Right now, the team already is planning on life without Jason Marquis, moving Ryan Dempster to the rotation. Technically, Mark Prior could replace Hill in the rotation if Hill were to be traded, but … yeah.
The scenario of obtaining all three is small, but since it’s the hot stove league and doing this stuff is just fun, let’s take a look at how it could happen.
First, the Cubs’ 2007 payroll was right at the $110 mark. Assuming the Cubs increased payroll means a 10- to 15-percent markup, that will give the Cubs in the neighborhood of $120-125 in salary to work with for next year. Not including last year’s contracts of Michael Barrett, Cliff Floyd, Cesar Izturis, Jacque Jones, Wade Miller and Kerry Wood, which total $20 million, one could reasonably assume the team has roughly $35 million in money with which to shop this offseason. If Fukudome commands $15 million, Matsui signs for $4 million per year and the team can obtain Crawford ($5 million), that leaves about $11 million to do whatever with. Finding a starting pitcher on the free-agent market is essentially a lost cause at this point, so filling that void would have to be done through trade or the farm system.
Here’s how the Cubs’ 2008 roster would look under the Crawford-Fukudome-Matsui scenario, assuming Pie, Hill and Marmol are traded to Tampa Bay and Wood signs elsewhere (Remember, I’m taking some liberties here. Again, this is just make-believe hot stove stuff):

• RF Fukudome ($15)
• LF Soriano ($12)
• CF Crawford ($4.2)
• 3B Ramirez ($15)
• 1B Lee ($13.3)
• C Soto (400K)
• SS Matsui ($4)
• 2B DeRosa ($2.75)

• OFs - Murton, Pagan (415K)
• IFs - Cedeno (400K), Infante ($1.3), Theriot (400K)
• C - Blanco ($1.8)

• SP: Zambrano ($16), Lilly ($9), Marshall (400K), Dempster (5.3), Guzman/Prior/Gallagher/O’Malley/me (400K)
• Closer: Bob Howry ($4.5)
• RP (RHP): Wuertz (415K), Cherry/Hart/Gallagher/Guzman (two, 400K each)
• RP (LHP): Eyre ($3.8), Ohman/Rapada/Cotts/Pignatiello (one, 750K average)

(Eaten contract: Jason Marquis ($7))
(Total salary: about $120-125 million)

Final thought: The Cubs lose a bit in the way of pitching in this scenario, as that rotation looks very mediocre after Zambrano-Lilly and if an injury were to arise … ewww, but isn’t that a SCARY good lineup? I also think that lineup would make the Cubs possibly the best defensive team in the National League not including Colorado.

What do you think?

The notion of the Illinois football team qualifying for a BCS bowl, as far as I can tell, was first brought up by Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune. Seemed pretty silly and far-fetched, I thought.

Then, after another crazy week of college football that saw yet another No. 2 lose, I read this. Suddenly, the team everyone in the blogosphere loves to mock for whatever reasons (Exhibits A, B and C … note: mild language warning on these links) is the hot team people are picking to sneak in this suddenly wide open chase for BCS berths.

Now certainly, with the parity of college football this year, the BCS is a little desperate, and will probably lower their standards faster than the Army has. It’s sort of like when a senior girl, who was on the homecoming court as a junior, asks you to the prom, only she’s let herself go, made a few bad choices and is now pretty much asking anyone who will take her. That’s the BCS right now — the desperate, former it-girl who is now slumming it because she has no choice. But hey, it’s still the BCS and if you don’t think I’m rooting for things to fall Illinois’ way, you’re wrong.

After all, I never went to prom.