For the younger generations of Chicago Cubs fans, reaching the postseason isnt quite the novelty it was for the generations before them. For all the years that have been tacked on to the teams epochal championship drought, the Cubs have more or less been steady crashers of the playoff party in recent years.Between the Cubs most recent World Series appearance in 1945 and their 1984 NL East title, they drew a big, fat goose egg when it came to playoff baseball. Thats why that 1984 team looms so large in the collective memory of North Siders and why players such as Rick Sutcliffe and Ryne Sandburg are now folk heroes.This season will mark the Cubs seventh playoff appearance since 1984. Its not the Yankees or Red Sox or Cardinals or Braves, but once every four or five years isnt bad. Still, all living generations of Cubs faithful are united by the title drought -- and they all hope this years postseason entrant will be different.Is it different? Of course, that remains to be seen. What we know now is that as a regular-season team, this Cubs bunch was good. As it turns out, with a couple turns of the statistical screw, they were very special indeed.As we wrote the other day, the Cubs have sported a run differential that,?translated to wins via the Pythagorean formula, marks them as a 108-win team. Their differential ranks in the top 25 all time in the modern era (since 1901). Thats 2,452 team seasons. However, the Cubs is only the fifth-best run differential (per 162 games) in franchise history. Four pre-1910 Cubs teams did better, including the only two Cubs teams to win the World Series and the 1906 team that established the big league record with 116 wins.If we are to compare the postseason worthiness of the Cubs teams that advanced past the regular season, we must do a couple things. What were trying to do is estimate how strong each team was compared to the league it was in. To a significant extent, run differential does this.The problem comes when trying to compare teams over different seasons and eras. Baseball was very different a century or so ago, especially in the decades before Jackie Robinson came along. Not only was the talent pool less than what it should have been, but also, in the pre-draft era, the talent major league teams allowed in was not distributed equitably. Those early-20th century Cubs teams might well have been the best of their day, but there was a reason they clustered so many overwhelming teams together.To account for this, we can look at the distribution of wins within each season and adjust that to be era-neutral. After we apply that adjustment to run differential, we should be able to better compare teams from different years. The three years with the widest distribution of run differential were 1909, 1906 and 1942, the year so many big leaguers entered into military service for World War II. The smallest distributions, which in theory are our years of greatest parity, were 1984, 1959 and 1986. This season ranks 89th of 116, so we are very much in an era of parity.Now we can rank the Cubs postseason teams. In case youre skimming, be aware that there is a little surprise at the end.Shelton Gibson Jersey . The Lightning are 2-0 so far on a four-game road trip, giving the club five straight wins as the guest and improving Tampas away record this season to 11-8-2. Mike Quick Jersey . -- Edmontons Val Sweeting is two wins away from a trip to Winnipeg to play in Canadas Road of the Rings in December. http://www.cheapeaglesjerseysauthentic.com/?tag=authentic-nick-foles-jersey . Tests earlier this week revealed a Grade 2 left hamstring strain for Sabathia, who was hurt in last Fridays start against San Francisco. Its an injury that will require about eight weeks to heal. He finished a disappointing campaign just 14-13 with a career-worst 4. Jason Peters Jersey . 8 Iowa State on Saturday, sending the Cyclones to their third consecutive loss. The Longhorns (14-4, 3-2) got their biggest win of the season with their third in the row in the Big 12. Nate Sudfeld Jersey .C. at the helm of the top team in the Eastern Conference. His tenure as the GM in Vancouver was all too brief. Though he led the Canucks to what was then a franchise record-shattering campaign in just his second season, Nonis was gone and replaced one year later.Early this summer, during her first week of preseason high school basketball practice, my oldest daughter broke the middle finger on her left hand. The fracture marked the end of seven sports-injury-free months for our family, a record. As a mom, I took comfort in knowing that there was nothing I could have done to prevent my kid from jamming her finger on a rebound, other than forbidding her to play. That felt like progress.Didi, 15, along with her sister, 13, and brother, 14, have been involved in organized sports since kindergarten and racked up scores of injuries along the way. Black eyes and pinched nerves. Sprained ankles and pulled groins. Bruised bones and swollen joints. A dislocated shoulder. A torn eyelid. A torn ACL. At least one diagnosed concussion, though I suspect others were missed. For my husband and me, parenting three young athletes has served as a literal crash course in injury management and recovery.According to a 2014 ESPN sports poll, more than 87 percent percent of parents worry about their child getting hurt while playing sports. My husband and I arent sporty people. My three seasons of youth softball passed injury-free, probably because I spent 75 percent of my time on the bench. Johns short Little League career proved equally safe and lackluster. We adopted our children, and while weve done our best to nurture their inherent physical talents, we didnt have personal experience to draw upon. That explains why, in the beginning, I didnt even know enough about the risks of youth sports to be nervous. I anticipated nothing more than the normal bumps and scrapes of an active childhood.My perception started to shift when Didi was about 11 and she got hit in the face with the ball at soccer practice. The trainer (a former Division I player whom I later learned wasnt certified in sports medicine) didnt do much more than tell my daughter to stop crying. The next day Didi had two black eyes.We moved to a new city not long after that, and our kids joined a well-organized soccer club. But after only a couple of months with her team, Didi dislocated her shoulder during her physical education class. Shed just turned 12, and the injury kept her off the pitch for five months. She attended physical therapy as the ER doctor advised, and I hired an older soccer player to give her some additional workouts before she returned to game play. But in hindsight, I recognize that I didnt take the steps needed to help her rebuild her overall fitness. When Didi was ready to begin practice again, she was rusty, and her coach wasnt happy.I recently spoke with Craig Bennett, director of sports medicine at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, and president of the Washington Athletic Trainers Association. He told me that one difference between youth and collegiate athletics is that serious college programs offer players a dedicated, knowledgeable sports medicine staff. In youth sports, its the parents job to identify qualified health care providers with expertise in both sports injuries and child development. You need to somehow build your own treatment team.You need a health care proffessional who understands that there must be a plan for returning to play, Bennett says.dddddddddddd If you heal and return to play without restrengthening, you are at risk for reinjury.And that is exactly what happened. At the end of that painful season, Didis club moved her to the B team for her age group. She handled the demotion with grace, played hard, and within a couple of months was invited to start training with the A team again. Then, during her first practice with her old teammates, she tore an ACL fighting for the ball. She hadnt yet turned 13.I cant describe the anguish I felt watching my daughter suffer another injury, especially one so serious. This time, though, I networked to find the best doctor, a surgeon whod repaired ACLs for NFL players and teenage girls. His plan for Didis return to play involved physical therapy, personal training, and a conservative nine months of recovery.Didi brought maturity and positivity to the struggle, emerging stronger than before. The physical therapy and athletic training addressed not only her post-surgical weakness, but also the individual quirks of her physiology that had predisposed her to injury, such as overly flexible joints. Today I dont worry about her tearing an ACL again or suffering another shoulder injury. Accidents will continue to happen, just like this summers broken finger, but at least I have the peace of mind that comes from having educated myself and done all I can to protect her.Ive learned to accept that coaches arent perfect, even the good ones. Sometimes they arent qualified to assess a childs injury. And of course, doctors arent perfect either. Dealing with youth sports injuries is complicated, and an otherwise excellent pediatrician likely will have no training in sports medicine at all.More specialized care immediately after a sports injury can help prevent lifelong problems, says Dr. Steven Anderson, founder of Seattle Pediatric Sports Medicine, an organization of medical professionals dedicated to education, collaboration and research in pediatric sports medicine. But you will never have enough specialists. He and his colleagues are working to grow the organizations website as an educational resource for coaches, parents and doctors who might not otherwise have access to the latest information.I feel lucky to have Dr. Anderson on my familys treatment team. The certified athletic trainer who helped Didi after surgery now trains all three of my kids to help stave off injury. The kids grumble a little about the extra work, but just yesterday the trainer warned my son and me to monitor his foot for a possible stress fracture. I see the cost of her sessions as an investment.People ask me why I dont pull my kids out of sports after all theyve been through, but the answer is simple: They are athletes. To ask them not to compete would be like asking them to change who they are. So, Im trying my best to be the mother they need, and Im learning that a big phey need, and Im learning that url=http://www.cheapfootballchinajerseys.com/]Wholesale Football Jerseys[/url] Wholesale Basketball JerseysWholesale Baseball Jerseys ' ' '