3GamesToLove

Heresy =/= hearsay. Unless you think Eaton is divine.

Incredible. I've been a Spurs fan since '07 (got to watch Champions League football there in 2010--the famous 3-1 win over Inter), and I never thought this would happen. Still in disbelief.

Yup. Regression doesn't denote things getting better or worse.

I guess so. I'll just stay in tomorrow anyway and watch baseball on TV. Last day of the Extra Innings preview on DirecTV.

Sucks. I made arrangements for work and can't swap the days now. Was going to be my first home opener.

$20 for parking really adds up.

Probably going to about the same games as last year, which is lower than it was four or five years ago but that's largely due to general lifestyle and spending habit changes rather than an indictment of the team. I just like watching baseball. I am going to the home opener for the first time ever. So that'll be interesting.

I'm kind of shocked by all of the ownership shills around here. Most of the rest of my baseball corners of the internet have taken on a decidedly pro-player bent over the last few years.

Maybe a somewhat underappreciated player. As a kid getting into baseball in the late 90s he was fourth on the all-time homer list and yet I knew very little about him compared to those others.

Sticking solely to guys I saw play........ Ray Durham Alexei Ramirez Chris Sale Magglio Ordonez Frank Thomas

Good for Harold, and for those of you who grew up watching him play. I guess this makes the ball I got him to sign at last year's SoxFest extra cool now. As someone who only saw him play in his final stint and even as a kid looking at his career stats in Who's Who in Baseball, I never quite got the adoration. I still don't think I do. Baines is the new example that'll be used to show the Hall being watered-down. He's a worse candidate than Rice or Dawson. This shows the flaws in the committee system in particular--a system which is responsible for bad selections going all the way back to the 60s. From Craig Calcaterra at NBC's HardballTalk: "Baines played for 22 seasons, amassed 2,866 hits and made the All-Star Game six times. He was a fantastically consistent hitter, posting an OPS+ of 108 or greater every single season between the ages of 22 and 40. He was also a durable player, not missing a whole heck of a lot of time to either injury or ineffectiveness until his late 30s. Even then he managed to hang around until he was 42-years-old. In the early part of his career, with the Chicago White Sox, he was the star of the team and the face of the organization. ... For all of the pros in Baines’ column as listed above, it has to be said that Baines will be one of the weaker inductees in some time. He led the league in exactly one offensive category in his long career: slugging percentage in 1984. He was rarely a top-10 finisher in the most important offensive categories. His highest finish in MVP balloting came in 1985 when he came in ninth. While Baines may have meant a lot to the White Sox in the first part of his career there is no way one can honestly argue that he was ever the best player in the game or even one of the best five, six or, usually, ten. His failure to rank highly in hitting categories is especially notable given that over 1,600 of his 2,830 career games came at DH. He was certainly not thought of as a Hall of Famer by the men and women who covered him during his day: he was on the BBWAA ballot five times and never received more than 6.1% of the vote. He fell off the ballot in 2011 when he received 4.8%."

As others have said, Benetti's weakness in the Sox booth is his constant need to look for corny jokes and zingers--the occasional one is fine and I have no problem with it, but it gets too goofy at times. Last night on ESPN? No such problem. I don't know if it's a Stone thing, or what.

Ohtani is not pitching Friday. He pitches weekly (Sundays, hypothetically); not on a usual five day schedule. After his last start, it's even unclear if he'll even pitch on Sunday.

Both of mine are pretty embarassing. First album: Hanson--Middle of Nowhere First show: Linkin Park, supported by POD, Hoobastank, and Story of the Year. Rosemont, 2004.

Not sure if we have any Jason Isbell fans here, but a cool confluence of tour dates this month: Isbell at the Auditorium on 9/14 (still some [bad] tickets available), Amanda Shires at Thalia Hall on the 20th, and Drive-By Truckers (w/The Hold Steady) at the 312 Block Party at Goose Island on 9/22. Isbell, his wife, and his old band in the city all within 8 days of one another. I'll be there for all of them. This time four months ago I had heard good things about Isbell but had never actually listened to him or given the genre much of a chance. Within a week or two it was all I was playing and I'd made plans to see him at Summerfest. Now I'll have seen him twice within five months of discovering him. It's been a long time since I so totally got into an artist as this guy. If you appreciate great songwriting, give him a listen. I don't think you'll regret it.