Roundup

All you need to know about Mark Prior and Kerry Wood is this: Once you see them pitch off a mound, it’s about 3 weeks before they pitch in a real game. That means Wood is on pace to pitch the home opener. Prior is on pace to sing Take Me Out To The Ballgame in May.

The Trib gave a rundown of the Cubs’ spring training stats. Looking at the players who have 20 at bats, here’s what we see:

Player    AB   AVG   HR  RBI
A Ram     24  .458    1   3
Nomar     22  .455    2   4
Dubois    20  .400    3   4
Hairston  20  .300    1   2
Barrett   21  .286    1   4

Player     IP   H   ERA
Zambrano   9.0  5  0.00
LaTroy     5.1  7  1.69
Mitre      8.0  9  2.25
Maddux     6.0  9  3.00

That’s the good. Here’s the not so good:

Player    AB   AVG   HR  RBI
Burnitz   20  .250    1   6
Korey     28  .250    0   3
Walker    23  .174    0   1

Player     IP   H   ERA
Dempster   8.2 10  6.23
Rusch      9.0 14  7.00
Guzman     3.1  8  8.11

All this screams small sample size, but hey. It’s all we have to look at.

Bracketing

If you need help picking your NCAA Tournament brackets, here's my advice. Look at mine and do the opposite. The one rule that I've followed: You never make money betting on Illinois. Oh, and hurry. You've got about 2 hours to get your picks in.