He gone! She gone! You're all gone!

If this is what it takes to control a game I'm for it. Was everybody afraid of him?

WEST BURLINGTON, Iowa - An umpire has emptied the stands at a high school baseball game, ejecting the entire crowd of more than 100 fans for being unruly.

Umpire Don Briggs said he had no problem with any of the student athletes during Thursday's game between Winfield-Mount Union and West Burlington.

He said he had to take action because fans were being unruly, yelling and arguing.

However, West Burlington Superintendent James Sleister said he didn't see any unusual behavior and said he thought the umpire overreacted.

The game resumed after a 40-minute delay. West Burlington won 12-11.

The umpire called police as a precaution. West Burlington police officer Al Waterman says there were no arrests.

See ball, hit ball!

As I write this the White Sox are facing another pitcher they have never seen, David Huff of the Cleveland Indians. As usual they have just three hits and are trailing 6-0. Should they go on to lose they will be 1-8 against unseen pitchers.

This is pathetic. I don't understand it and am quite frankly sick of the whole thing.

Last week the Sox came home for an 12 game homestand by winning seven of ten games. Two of the AL's weakest teams, Oakland and Cleveland, were the first opponents. After beating the A's in the first game 6-2 the Sox just stopped hitting and were shutout three times in six games.

How do professional hitters just stop hitting and then become terrorized by unseen pitchers? When the Sox usually start a rookie pitcher he gets lit up. I really think the Sox hitters would have trouble with a college team right now.

Our pitching has been fairly good so far except for Colon and with some decent timely hitting the Sox should be four or five games in front. Amazingly, they're just three and a half games back of Detroit who they have five games with this week.

If this team can't be more consistent hitting it will be a long summer.

Big Zzzzzz for Piniella

How long before Carlos Zambrano tears the team apart?

It will be up to Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella to decide what to do about Carlos Zambrano missing a team plane to Atlanta on Monday.

The Cubs manager is in charge of discipline for any violation of airplane policy.

It's common to get permission not to fly with the team. And according to sources close to the matter, Zambrano's teammate Ryan Dempster asked for -- and received -- permission to fly later to Atlanta in order to help take care of some personal family business.

Everyday when I see Piniella it just seems like he'd rather be somewhere else. Does this man care? His pitchers do as they please, except pitch. If not for Randy Wells pitching like he has who knows how bad they would look.

The rookie looked like a winner over Atlanta until Lou's top two relievers Carlos Marmol and Kevin Gregg couldn't hold a 5-1 lead with six outs to go only to lose 6-5 in 12 innings. I never saw any fire from Piniella once.

I think GM Jim Hendry needs to start thinking new manager. Piniella has no control of this team and he may not care either.

Losing it?

People in Chicago scream about Ozzie Guillen and his antics, well they better start looking at Carlos Zambrano. This guy needs some serious help. Lou Piniella also needs to grab control of this out of control team.



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The cycle of baseball

The game of baseball is so cyclical it's amazing that all the teams don't end up 81-81. Thank goodness for the Nationals of the league.

Last week I was moaning about how crappy the White Sox were playing as they were losing 12 of 15. Then they wake up and have won 5 of their last 7. Including a 20-1 loss to Minnesota and a 17-3 win over the Angels last night. Go figure.

They get turned down by Jake Peavy in a trade for him which in essence may have been a wake up call by Kenny Williams to the whole team. Shape up or ship out. They still need better hitting with men on base and starters John Danks, Gavin Floyd, and Bartolo Colon need more consistency. At 20-24 this is not a record that intimidates teams but maybe they're ready get things going.

Of course most Cubs fans think their team is in first place by ten games. Reality, they're 21-22 and mired in an eight game losing streak. I had mentioned how they were winning but not playing well. They are playing the same way and it caught up to them.

This is a team close to imploding.

Let's see, Ted Lilly gets thrown out of the game that he's not even in, Ryan Dempster gives his best stuff to the Gatorade machine, Milton Bradley blames the Tribune for making him say stuff about the umps, they use Carlos Zambrano as a pinch hitter on a cool damp night as he's just days off the DL and Neal Cotts keeps longing for 2005 and his days with the White Sox. All that in a 10-8 loss to Pittsburgh

You better start waking up Cubs fans and realize that Jim Hendry is not doing a good job so far. The injuries are piling up and he's not doing much to find fill-ins.

I know Cubs fans, you have a better record. Guess what? We're not in your division, lucky for you.
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