"Mr. Miller persuaded major league players to cast aside the paternalism of the owners. He never convinced the owners that they could prosper amid an upheaval of baseball’s economic order — something they would eventually discover — but he outmaneuvered them at every turn."

Clearly, this is shocking news.

My package, which I divide among 15 friends, fell in price to $13,314.56 from $13,315.16. There is an asterisk: I will receive eight more tickets next year, so the average price per ticket dropped about $2, to $58 from $60. Still, my bill fell by 60 cents. Which means my kids can get those gumballs we've been saving for. I emailed the Cubs and asked if team owner Tom Ricketts, or president for baseball operations Theo Epstein, would sit down and explain why I should spend this kind of money for a team that has almost no chance of playing championship baseball in 2013. Instead of Ricketts or Epstein, the Cubs gave me Colin Faulkner, vice president for ticket sales and service. We sat at a back table at Bernie's, across the street from Wrigley. He ordered a Blue Moon and I had a Revolution IPA. Faulkner's first pitch was a soft: toss: He said he'd recently spoken to a fan whose father had died without seeing a World Series. Taking over his father's season-ticket plan, this fan intended to leave a seat empty in honor of his dad when he finally watched the Cubs win it all. I wasn't buying it. The Cubs haven't won the World Series since 1908. Why would this guy be any luckier than his father? How big is the waiting list for season tickets? I asked. Answer: 115,000. Imagine owning the second-worst team in baseball. It has a waiting list of 115,000 customers. Would you reduce prices?

One of the strangest chicago sports stories of all time

HEAVENS TO MURDERTROID DO I HAVE CANDY DOES JI

3-23 in the playoffs? benched? madonna not returning your calls? no problem.

Ran across this article about Chipper Jones' and how well he did in his age 40 season. Turns out our very own Luke Appling tops the list on several of these old-guy performance indicators.

In his weekly hit with Mully and Hanley, Stone kept bringing up the fact that he was reading blogs and how they were speculating on his future and on how he and Hawk interact, so I think its time to speculate which blogs Stone Pony reads. If he is on SSS which user do you think he's masquerading as? Do you think Stoney like the redesign since it's easier to read on his iPad? ALL THESE QUESTIONS NEED TO BE ANSWERED!!! Oh yeah and Stone said he'll be back next year. So yay that!

Sorry Android, another iOS only thing. But Hey, Frank Thomas, celebrity spokesperson.