Friday Rumors and Notes

• Reed Johnson will be honored at the Comcast Sportsnet awards next Monday as the Cub player of the year. John Danks, Bobby Hall, Patrick Kane, Brian McBride, and Drew Gooden will also be honored.
• On Sunday night at 10:30 (PM CT) Comcast Sports Net will air a Cubs special. They will breakdown the Cubs bullpen and rotation. It will be hosted by David Kaplan and Len Kasper.
• Gail Fisher will have live reports from Cubs camp every night in Mesa starting on Friday Feb. 13 (next Friday) on Sport Nite on CSN.
• Cory Provus of WGN Radio could be leaving the booth. Cory is the leading candidate to replace Jim Powell in the rivaled Brewers radio booth. Provus, who does the 5th inning and pregame show on radio, joined the Cubs broadcasts in 2007 when Andy Masur left for a job with the Padres.
• Former Cub Matt Murton has been traded to the Rockies. He's back in the NL, so we could face him this year.
• Kevin Millar appears to be close to signing with the Blue Jays.
• Bruce Levine still thinks the Cubs have to add a right handed bat off the bench. Right now, Reed Johnson would be the only guy on the bench that hits right handed.
• Lots of sources think Nomar Garciapara could be a fit to come back to the Cubs. Right now his best offer is a minor league deal with the Phillies.

More posts to come including a look at what the Cubs have done this off season. And of course, I'll keep you posted.

Recap: Gameday Experience

Nick Digilio and Cory Provust hosted the "Game Day Experience" session at the Cubs Convention. The guests were Ted Lilly, Koyie Hill, Kevin Hart, Mike Fontenot, and Joey Gathright. Here's the recap:

• Ted Lilly was asked about his routine on the days he starts. He said he tries to keep it the same as any day he starts. He tries not to think about it too much early in the day because then he wants the 7:05 game to start at 1:00.
• Koyie Hill said that the game is the same in the minors, but the environment is different.
• Fontenot said that his day is a little bit different when he's starting. He says he lifts and runs more on days he's not starting.
• Gathright says he wakes up late and gets to the park around 2:00.
• Kevin Hart likes to get to the park early.
• Mike says sometimes he likes going on the road to see all the ballparks.
• Joey has never seen as many fans in a hotel lobby as he saw at the convention.
• Koyie says the many Cubs fans are great and make you take a lot of pride in what you are doing. He thinks that the fans on the road give you an edge.
• Ted says that you have to be as consistent as possible.
• Cory asked about superstitions. Joey says that he has an old teammate who will put on lady's underwear when he gets into a funk. Mike says he has to be in the dugout to be ready for Zambrano's beat into the ground everyday.
• Nick asked who screws around the most in the clubhouse. The guys said that there are a lot of characters on the team. They mentioned Dempster and Jon Lieber as jokers.
• Cory asked about aliases that the guys used on the road. Ted says he used Harry Rosenbag. Koyie used Turb Fergurson. Joey only has his current one.
• Mike and Ted's favorite story was when the security guy clotheslined the fan who was about to jump Bobby Howry.
• Joey said that it's fun to be on the plane when you're winning, but it's not when your losing.
• Koyie said that we would laugh if we knew how much stuff gets broken on the plane when you put 25 competitive people on a plane for 4 hours over losing card games and stuff like that.
• Kevin described AAA travel as "no fun".
• Joey said that he doesn't train for speed. He said that his mom was really fast and his dad could jump really high so he got a combination of both.
• Joey was asked about the YouTube video where he jumped over a car. He said it started after football practice in 10th grade. He said he can't jump over cars any more because he will get in trouble.
• Kevin has seen Joey jump cars first person before.
• Mike says that he will stick with jumping over chairs not cars.
• Kevin said that some teams make rookies ride on a motorized cooler that they make the rookie ride out to the bullpen. Lilly had to carry a pink purse from the dugout to the bullpen.
• Someone asked if any of the guys played fantasy baseball. Most of them play fantasy football in the off seaon.
• All the guys follow football pretty closely. Fontenot likes the Saints. Gathright and Hart are both Cowboys fan. Ted said that football is his favorite sport to watch. He enjoys watching high school games. Koyie likes the Chiefs.
• Mike says he likes to hunt and fish. Joey likes to draw and play X-box. Kevin says he plays X-Box live for about 4 hours a day. Koyie said he always wanted to be an architect. One of Hill's goals is to get better a racket ball. Ted enjoys golf.
• Someone asked if they get distracted by the fans. Mike says he tries to ignore them. Ted said that it just show that they are interested when they cheer and boo. Joey likes to interact with the fans.
• Cory asked if Wrigley has lived up to their expectations. Ted says that when he see all the fans you realize how special this place is. Lilly thinks the new guys will have a lot of fun this year. Joey said that when you found out he got a chance to come to Chicago, he came mainly because of the fans.
• The panel shared their favorite Lou Pienella story. Ted told a funny story about how Fontenot had a great game, and Lou went up to the bullpen catcher and said, "Great game today." Lou has confused Mike and Corey Miller more than once.
• Joey said he knows Lou because he played for him in Tampa.
• Lilly was asked about plowing over Molina during a game against the Cardinals. He said that Molina is a class act, Ted said he felt bad that he got hurt no that play. Ted says that sliding would have been more dangerous for himself.
• Someone asked about there favorite and least favorite places to play. Mike's favorite city is San Diego and least favorite is Pitsburg. Joey and Ted's least favorites are Minisota. Ted's favorite is San Fransisco and Gathright's is Boston.
• Lilly says that when he was on the Blue Jays, Wrigley and Fenway were his favorite places to play.
• Mike's favorite thing about Chicago besides Wrigley is the weather in the summer. Koyie enjoys how active the city is. Kevin says that he likes walking around the city and seeing millions of people with your teams logo on their hat.
• The guys talked about the small visiting clubhouse. They love the fact knowing that the other team is miserable over there.

Loads of Cubs links

• Corey Provus chats with Jeff Samadzija
• Corey catches up with Sean Marshall
• WGN TV page includes video from Cubs Convention and Spring Training Broadcast Schedule
• 670 the score click on Bob Brenly to hear his interview with Mully and Hanley.
• Click on Crane Kenny, Jesse Rogers, or Len Kasper to hear some Cubs talk.
• Kap talks with Tom Verducci of SI.com.
• MLB.com talks about Pie trade.

Plenty of good stuff to come.

Hope You Had a Great Christmas

Well, It's the day after Christmas. I hope your Christmas was a great as mine. Let's get to a few more Christmas links.

• The twelve days of Christmas Cubs version from Chicago Cubs Online.
• Holiday Q&A with Kevin Gregg from Cubs.com.
• The Night Before Christmas from Hire Jim Essian

And Sweet Lou was on WGN Radio with Steve Cochran and Cory Provus on Tuesday. Here's the recap:

• Lou talks about how he is playing golf and enjoying the warm weather in Florida. (lucky him)
• Lou came to Chicago for a few days and says he doesn't miss the cold weather.
• Cory Provus came on and wished Lou a happy holidays.
• Cory asked how Lou's hammock was. Lou said he hadn't been on his hammock too much because he's trying to loose some weight.
• Piniella said he had all his shopping done for Christmas.
• Lou says Jim's working on getting a left handed bat.
• Lou said he's going up to Iowa for the fan fest in Mid-January and says he's going to be pretty busy for awhile.
• He encourages people to go to the Cubs Convention at least once in their lifetime. Fans can get autographs, ask players questions, take pictures, and have fun.
• Cory asked what his message to the players will be this year at the start of spring training. Lou says he's got to think about that and says that the first meeting in Arizona will be an important one.
• Steve asked about Santo getting nipped for the Hall again. Lou says that going back to Ron's career he was a dominate player at 3rd base for many years and says Ron should be in the elite group.

Here's the latest Cub related rumors:

• Mark Gubicza of XM Radio is convinced that Milton Bradley will sign with the Angels.
• The Rays, Yankees, Cubs, and Nationals are also interested in Bradley.
• Ken Rosenthal says that the Cubs are confident they can acquire Bradley.
• Rosenthal also reports that the Cubs could revisit Peavy talks if they get approval from their new ownership which is expected to be settled in about a month.
• Former Cub Corey Patterson has agreed to a minor league deal worth 800,000 on Wednesday with the Nationals.
• Sammy Sosa is ready to come back and play in the major league. reports say that he is waiting for an offer to play in 2009. Before he was expected to announce his retirement after the WBC, but not anymore. I think the Cubs would have interest in bringing him back if he was left handed.

Well, That's it for now. I'll keep you posted on everything throughout the weekend.