VFTB Prediction Contest Update and Week 4 Questions

The VFTB Weekly Prediction Contest
Official Rules

• Each week, on Friday morning, we will open the ballot for predictions on five questions for the games running that Mon – Fri. Questions will, for the most part, be Cubs related but may vary based on what is going on in the season. Each entry must be completed in full with guesses for each of the five questions. Ballot locks Monday morning at 7am Eastern time.
• Stats will be compiled based on the total number someone is off on each of the five questions. The entrant deemed to be the closest cumulatively among the five questions will be awarded the weekly prize from the VFTB prize pool and be entered to compete in the playoff edition come October for the grand prize, a $100 gift certificate to the Wrigleyville Sports online store.
• You may win more than once over the course of the season, so continue to play. Each time you win it gives you that many more chances to play come playoff time for the grand prize.
• Winners and questions will be announced in the Funtastic Friday post each week, with winners being notified via e-mail to confirm and claim their prize.

Update From Week 2

Adam Liberty – 11

cap’n obvious – 13

Andy Steinberg – 19

Mike Quinn – 19

Joe Putzer – 21

Doc Raker – 23

Mike Hoerger – 26

Holly Danks – 28

Rich Beckman – 29

Susan Hardesty – 35

Here is the link to the PDF of the full results:

Week 4 Questions

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VFTB Prediction Contest Update and Week 3 Questions

The VFTB Weekly Prediction Contest
Official Rules

• Each week, on Friday morning, we will open the ballot for predictions on five questions for the games running that Mon – Fri. Questions will, for the most part, be Cubs related but may vary based on what is going on in the season. Each entry must be completed in full with guesses for each of the five questions. Ballot locks Monday morning at 7am Eastern time.
• Stats will be compiled based on the total number someone is off on each of the five questions. The entrant deemed to be the closest cumulatively among the five questions will be awarded the weekly prize from the VFTB prize pool and be entered to compete in the playoff edition come October for the grand prize, a $100 gift certificate to the Wrigleyville Sports online store.
• You may win more than once over the course of the season, so continue to play. Each time you win it gives you that many more chances to play come playoff time for the grand prize.
• Winners and questions will be announced in the Funtastic Friday post each week, with winners being notified via e-mail to confirm and claim their prize.

Update From Last Week

We have our first qualifier for the playoff edition, the winner of week 1, Koby. He was about as accurate as you can get, scoring a combined two points off the answers. Here are the week 1 results for the top finishers.

Koby – 2
walterj – 3
alex – 4
Mike Mahon – 4
Eric Rolfsen – 4
Scott cambrin – 4
Steve – 4

View Complete Results for Week 1

Week 3 Questions

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VFTB Prediction Contest – Week 2 Questions

It’s that time again. Time for the weekly announcement of the questions you’ll have to predict in an effort to win the grand prize sponsored by Wrigleyville Sports. If you didn’t get a chance to play with us in week one, that’s OK. That week ends today with winners announced next Friday. It just means this is your chance to make your picks and have a shot. Let’s go over the rules:

The VFTB Weekly Prediction Contest
Official Rules

• Each week, on Friday morning, we will open the ballot for predictions on five questions for the games running that Mon – Fri. Questions will, for the most part, be Cubs related but may vary based on what is going on in the season. Each entry must be completed in full with guesses for each of the five questions. Ballot locks Monday morning at 7am Eastern time.
• Stats will be compiled based on the total number someone is off on each of the five questions. The entrant deemed to be the closest cumulatively among the five questions will be awarded the weekly prize from the VFTB prize pool and be entered to compete in the playoff edition come October for the grand prize, a $100 gift certificate to the Wrigleyville Sports online store.
• You may win more than once over the course of the season, so continue to play. Each time you win it gives you that many more chances to play come playoff time for the grand prize.
• Winners and questions will be announced in the Funtastic Friday post each week, with winners being notified via e-mail to confirm and claim their prize.

This Week’s Questions (For games running 4/11 – 4/15)

Click Here to Enter Your Guesses

1. How many total runs will the Cubs score?
2. How many total bases will we see from Starlin Castro?
3. How many pitches will the bullpen throw?
4. How many home runs will the Cubs hit?
5. What will be the combined total of Soriano K’s and Koyie Hill at bats?

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The 2011 VFTB Prediction Competion

The time has come for the big announcement of the game to be played this year on VFTB. You might remember that last year we played Beat the Streak each day. That was a fairly successful game, but got tedious down the stretch to manually calculate on a daily basis. This year, I wanted to make the game we played both easier to calculate the winner, but also more fun and beneficial to play. Enter this year’s game sponsored by Wrigleyville Sports.

The VFTB Weekly Prediction Contest
Official Rules

• Each week, on Friday morning, we will open the ballot for predictions on five questions for the games running that Mon – Fri. Questions will, for the most part, be Cubs related but may vary based on what is going on in the season. Each entry must be completed in full with guesses for each of the five questions. Ballot locks Monday morning at 7am Eastern time.
• Stats will be compiled based on the total number someone is off on each of the five questions. The entrant deemed to be the closest cumulatively among the five questions will be awarded the weekly prize from the VFTB prize pool and be entered to compete in the playoff edition come October for the grand prize, a $100 gift certificate to the Wrigleyville Sports online store.
• You may win more than once over the course of the season, so continue to play. Each time you win it gives you that many more chances to play come playoff time for the grand prize.
• Winners and questions will be announced in the Funtastic Friday post each week, with winners being notified via e-mail to confirm and claim their prize.
• You can always check the status of the contest winners as well as enter your ballot on the official contest page, here.

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Annual VFTB Survey

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July Stat Madness

We ran this in the month of June, and I’ll be announcing the winner soon. Here are the questions for the month of July. Scores are tallied for each question and the lowest score wins. Every amount you are off for each question (above or below) is totaled.

As always, there will be a prize for the winner so make sure you leave me a good e-mail address. Good luck. Entries will close at 5pm EDT tomorrow.

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June Stat Madness

I got this idea from Baseball Reference and decided to copy it and make it Cub focused.

All entries must be received before the first pitch on June 1. Enter your guesses for each question. Every amount you’re off in your answers will net you a point. Lowest total score wins a prize at the end of the month from our fabulous bag of prizes.

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Off-Season: What Do You Want?

This weekend, the 2009 season mercifully comes to a close for the Cubs. If you haven’t noticed, not many of us have had the desire to watch, let alone write about, this team down the stretch. I don’t think I’ve watched more than an inning or two at a time all month of September. Beginning Monday, our focus switches to the 2010 edition of this team and I want some feedback from you regarding where we need to head as a blog. I have few ideas that I want to run by you on topics I’d like to tackle as well as ask that you leave some ideas on what you want to read. Here’s what I have so far.

1. A month long series on the changes I’d like to see happen with the game of baseball.

This one will basically be a different change each day. My plan is to do the bulk of the writing on this, but also open it up to you guys as well as the other writers here as well. I think it will be a lot of fun and lead to some good discussion about what is right and wrong with the game today. (Planned Date: January or February)

2. Break down the team position by position

The plan for this is to take a look at what we have in the Majors and Minors and the positions as well as who might be available via free agency. (Planned Date: Mid to Late October)

3. Breakouts / Busts down on the farm

The game plan for this one is to take a look at various prospects that either had breakout years, severe declines, etc and perhaps make some commentary and, when possible, share scouting reports on them from before the season. (Planned Date: Sporadically Pre-Christmas)

4. Monthly Newsletter

This one has been on the back burner for the past 6 months, but it’s something I really want to get started with. The newsletter would be delivered via e-mail the beginning of each month. It would contain things like:

• The monthly “Lizzie” awards
• Feature articles from the site’s writers
• Interviews
• Links to popular posts from the month
• Important site news & announcments
• Monthly Trivia Question

I’d like to flesh this one out a little more and welcome more suggestions on content for this one. (Planned Date: January?)

5. 2010 Predictions for the team

I’ve been giving this one a lot of thought this past month as I read all the arguing over guys like Derrek Lee, Milton Bradley, and Jake Fox. The plan is to have a thread for various players and invite everyone to predict / comment on those players before the year starts. We’d also do this with trades and signings, etc. The goal is to have something to refer back to when we argue. =) It will give you a chance to be bold and let the site know where you stand on various players, topics, transactions, etc. (Planned Date: First off-season transaction)

That’s all I’ve got so far, but I’d love to get your feedback on this and other suggestions for this off-season. When I say that, I mean it. I want the comment section on this post to be full of good feedback. Let’s here it, even if you’re not a regular commenter.

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Ask and you shall receive

There was a request for a collection of links to all the books reviewed on the site by Cubbiedude. I went ahead and post a section in the right sidebar called CubbieDude’s Bookshelf in which I linked to all the wonderful posts he’s written.

I think I’ve gotten them all, but I may have missed some. Feel free to let me know if you find anything and I’ll be sure to update the list. Enjoy!!!

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May Giveaway: American Icon

As a way of saying thanks to the people who read this site and make it fun to do what I do, I’d like to give away a prize each month to a random reader / commenter. At the end of the month, I’ll choose a random person to receive the gift that month and get in contact with them.

This month, the giveaway is a book “American Icon: The fall of Roger Clemens and the rise of steroids in America’s pastime”. The book hasn’t been released yet, but it can be yours by simply participating.

What do I have to do? – To enter to win, all you have to do is comment on the site. The more comments you leave, the better your chance of winning, but please don’t just comment for the sake of commenting by saying “hi” or “i’m in”. The goal is for us to increase discussion on the site and really build community.

How is the winner determined? – At the end of the month, I will tally the total number of posts and randomly select one of those posts. From there, a random commenter on the post will be chosen as the winner. If the post chosen does not have a comment, a new post will be chosen. If the random comment selected is one of the writers on the site or myself, a new comment will be chosen.

Good Luck!!!My Sister’s Keeper movies Lost Voyage movie

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Housekeeping

Just a quick housekeeping note for you guys. I have been fiddling with ways to allow people to best use the comment section. I’ve settled on the quick tags plugin. For those who don’t know HTML, using this plugin should help. If you want to use the gray box (or any of the other tags)

1. Click the tag (i.e. b-quote for the grey box)
2. Paste or type your text
3. Click Close Tags
4. Resume mindless rant about why Ryan Theriot is good / bad

Finally, here is a you tube video for your enjoyment that goes with the housekeeping theme.

Wait Until Dark dvd September Dawn video Escape to Witch Mountain

• The Passion of the Christ divx
  Princess Protection Program on dvd

• Toy Love rip

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars release

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest dvdrip

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A Quick Review of Commenting

Lately we’ve had some heated discussions of the merit of Jake Fox, the ability of Ryan Theriot and the reliability of rechargeable vs. non-rechargeable batteries (not actually, but that may be a good discussion).

As is the case when people have disagreement, words are said that shouldn’t be said. For example, instead of saying “Pablo, you’re an idiot saber nerd….Ryan Theriot is a god”, a better way to handle it is to simply continue to make your case without the ridicule against the commentor.

I really like the disagreements we’ve had over the players we’ve been talking about, particularly Jake Fox. Let’s just try to get along. As far as the language, I’m trying to be more lax with that. Just keep it somewhat PG. Don’t be dropping any f-bombs and things of that nature and we should be good. In the meantime, carry on.Herbie Rides Again release

• Lucky You dvdrip The Woodsman full
  • The Good Shepherd trailer
  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial movie full

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Rotisserie Baseball

I’d like to play a Rotisserie league this year with 10 teams and a live auction draft on ESPN.

If you’re interested in playing with me, let me know why you should be the guy for the league.

I’ll provide a prize for the winner of the league. Send all entry explainations to joe@viewfromthebleachers.com

Please include the following:

Name
Age
Experience Playing Rotisserie Style
AIM name if you have one
Reason why you are the right choice to play with

The Last Unicorn trailer

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