Jeff Pearlman talks to Tom Verducci about working a clubhouse and other intricacies of baseball reporting. My favorite answer starts with: "Patience is a requirement. Anybody with a credential and a pen or a microphone can get "a" quote. You’ve seen it, Jeff: the scrum around the star of the game and the stock questions that typically feature phrases such as "how surprised were you . . . ," "the mindset," and "what pitch." The worst are the non-questions. They almost always start like this: "Talk about . . . ." It’s sheer laziness. The point is that you ask a stock question you get a stock quote."

"Szymborski projected these five teams as having taken the biggest hit to their win totals, compared to the beginning of the offseason. (Keep in mind that these projections also factor in the improvement of other teams in their division."

Time to party like it's 1983.

Big Lanky checks in at number 16 in MLB based on talent, age, and contract status.

"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