Wrigleyville23 defends the selection of Ryan Dempster to the All-Star game over Cole Hamels, Chad Billingsley, and Johan Santana, in response to criticism from ESPN.com's Keith Law.

Congratulations to Ryan Dempster, who threw his first complete game in tonight's 7-2 win over the Atlanta Braves since his final start of the 2002 season, which happened to be against the Chicago Cubs. Dempster didn't walk a batter tonight while striking out 11. His 82 game score tied his season-high game score, which he had set in his win over the San Diego Padres on May 15.

Here is the video of Felix Pie doing to Ken Griffey, Jr. what Griffey himself has done to others a few times over his career -- robbing him of a home run -- in the Cubs' 5-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds last night.

Baseball Crank analyzes the NL Central according to Established Win Share Levels (EWSL). The report is not kind to the Cubs, who are hoping for a number of players to exceed normal expectations. Predicted wins: 78.

If you were ever wondering which Cubs' player has the most career at-bats in a Cubs' uniform without a hit, wonder no more, as Cubnut at The Cub Reporter has your answer.

Joe Aiello at View from the Bleachers presents some interesting bits of information on the Cubs from Bill James' new book. Specifically, Alfonso Soriano's free-swinging ways and Felix Pie's excellent baserunning.

From the Chicago Tribune: "As recently as Sunday, Stone planned to call just 13 Friday Sox home games, serve as a three-days-a-week baseball analyst for WSCR-AM 670 and perhaps continue his postseason work for TBS. Then Sox vice president Brooks Boyer called to ask if he wanted a roster spot on the Sox broadcast team. Within 36 hours, the one-year contract was done."

(Hat tip: Baseball Primer.)

He's calling games for the wrong Chicago team. How did it come to this? Wrigleyville23 blames Dusty.

Maury Brown and Kurt Hunzeker at The Biz of Baseball write on Sam Zell's exploration of selling the naming rights to Wrigley Field:

Sam Zell has said that he should be able to selling the naming rights to Wrigley for as much as $400 million over $20 years, a deal that would match Citigroup’s deal with the Mets’ new stadium as the largest payout for a naming rights in US pro franchise history.

As a secondary naming-rights deal, it would be unparalleled.

And therein lies the problem.  A $400 million secondary naming-rights deal?

. . . .

Rich Hill has allowed an 83% (39/47) stolen base rate during his career. To help improve that, he has made some alterations to his delivery, which he will use whether or not runners are on base, reports the Chicago Tribune's Paul Sullivan.

"Chicago Cubs second baseman Mark DeRosa has left spring training in Arizona to undergo further tests on his heart at a Chicago hospital," reports the AP. "DeRosa met briefly with reporters at the Cubs spring training camp on Monday and said he may consider an unspecified surgical procedure to get his heart back into rhythm." He does hope to be back on the field within a week. The Cubs are certainly losing bargaining power in a possible Brian Roberts trade with this news. We wish DeRosa the best.

The Wolf Report looks at previous Japanese players who have come over to MLB and surmises, from that history, that Kosuke Fukudome will have somewhere between a 740 and 780 OPS in 2008 for the Cubs. (Hat tip: The Cub Reporter.) See also here for tempered expectations.

Poor Tom Hume. Facing Andre Dawson having a great day in his most powerful year. The date: August 1, 1987. The video:

... the Pirates are not going to be great in 2008. "I said I think it's pretty obvious that this group of guys is not going to get it done," said Mr. Bay, who, after winning the Rookie of the Year in 2004 and being an All-Star in 2005 and 2006, hit all of .247/.327/.418 last year (worse than the strangely maligned Matt Murton).

FOXSports.com's Dayn Perry lists the Dusty Baker-led Cincinnati Reds on top of his teams that could surprise in 2008. (Hat tip: Wrigleyville23.) It seems like people have the Reds as possible contenders every year, usually referencing their supposedly powerful offense. That offense finished 10th in the NL in runs scored in 2006 and 7th last year. True, the Reds finished first in runs scored in 2005, but they also finished 16 games under .500 that year. How are they better this year?

One of the long-time and most prolific members of the Cubs Blog Army has decided to stop publishing.