A look at the 87th Major League Baseball All-Star Game on Tuesday at Petco Park in San Diego:FIRST PITCH: 8:16 p.m. EDT.TV: Fox.RADIO: ESPN Radio, ESPN Radio Deportes.SERIES: National League leads 43-41, with two tiesAT STAKE: The league that wins gets home-field advantage in the World Series.STARTING PITCHERS: Chicago White Sox lefty Chris Sale (14-3, 3.38 ERA) for the AL vs. San Francisco Giants righty Johnny Cueto (13-1, 2.47 ERA) for the NL.STARTING LINEUPS:AL: Houston 2B Jose Altuve, Angels CF Mike Trout, Baltimore 3B Manny Machado, Boston DH David Ortiz, Boston SS Xander Bogaerts, Kansas City 1B Eric Hosmer, Boston RF Mookie Betts, Kansas City C Salvador Perez, Boston LF Jackie Bradley Jr.NL: Cubs 2B Ben Zobrist, Washington RF Bryce Harper, Cubs 3B Kris Bryant, San Diego DH Wil Myers, San Francisco C Buster Posey, Chicago 1B Anthony Rizzo, Miami CF Marcell Ozuna, Colorado LF Carlos Gonzalez, Cubs SS Addison Russell.MANAGERS: Ned Yost of Kansas City (AL), Terry Collins of the New York Mets (NL).Game notes The AL is the home team, even though the game is being played at Petco Park in San Diego. The switch was made because this is the second straight year of at least four in a row the NL hosts the All-Stars. Because of AL rules, there is a designated hitter. ... The AL plans to pitch Corey Kluber, Cole Hamels, Aaron Sanchez and Jose Quintana after Sale. The NL hasnt announced its order after Cueto. ... The AL holds a 10-3 edge since the All-Star Game has determined home-field advantage in the World Series.NEXT YEARS SITE: Miami. Cheap Hydro Flask 24 oz Standard Mouth Flamingo Water Bottle . Nine days before the opening ceremony, organizing committee chief Dmitry Chernyshenko said Wednesday that Sochi is "fully ready" and will deliver safe, friendly and well-run games that defy the grim reports that have overshadowed preparations. Cheap Hydro Flask 24 oz Standard Mouth Mint Water Bottle . -- Most satisfying to Russ Smith about No. http://www.flaskwaterbottle.com/hydro-flask-40-oz-sale.html . Newcastle dominated in the early stages but City weathered the storm and then raised its game in extra time. Negredo broke the deadlock from close range after a simple move in the 99th minute before Dzeko took the ball round goalkeeper Tim Krul to seal the victory in the 105th. Cheap White Hydro Flask Straw Lid 40 OZ Wide Mouth Water Bottle . -- Yogi Ferrell orchestrates pretty much everything in Indianas offence. Hydro Flask 32 Oz White . Most important, perhaps, it went off without a hitch. Organizers poked a little fun at the now-infamous opening ceremony gaffe that saw only four out of five snowflakes open up into rings, leaving the Olympics logo one ring short. 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 leeague record with 116 wins.dddddddddddd.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. cheap falcons jerseys cheap ravens jerseys cheap bills jerseys cheap bears jerseys cheap bengals jerseys cheap cowboys jerseys cheap lions jerseys cheap texans jerseys cheap colts jerseys cheap jaguars jerseys cheap chiefs jerseys cheap rams jerseys cheap dolphins jerseys cheap vikings jerseys cheap saints jerseys cheap giants jerseys cheap jets jerseys cheap eagles jerseys cheap steelers jerseys cheap 49ers jerseys ' ' '