Thank you Bruce Miles, for getting up in the morning and getting a Cubs news story in the paper again. It seems like forever (but is probably only two days) since any of the Chicago papers had anything about the Cubs in them. Miles' piece in the Herald talks about today's offer deadline for arbitration-eligible players. It also confirms recent rumors that the 2005 home uniforms would dispense with player names on the backs.

The Sun-Times' Mike Kiley also went to work for the first time in nearly a week and asked Jim Hendry to defend his off-season. There are some interesting lines one could read between. He also covers the situation regarding arbitration-eligible players.

If those aren't enough for you, I suppose you could take a look at this article from yesterday's Springfield State Journal Register that profiles local boy Ryan O'Malley, a pitcher who spent time at three levels of the Cubs' farm system in 2004. It's not really news, and the first half is pretty lightweight, but I enjoyed the piece more as I read through the second half, which discussed O'Malley's 2004 performance in some depth.