All Activity

Best 2B in town this year.

Here's my next set of stadium visits and reviews. This time, it's for retractable roof ballparks I have visited. Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park): Easily the best of the 3 retractable roof ballparks I have been to. The roof was open when I was there and it really felt open air. Great view of the city and Puget Sound from some parts of the ballpark. This was 25 years ago, so I really can't comment on what the area around the ballpark is like. At the time, the Seahawks stadium was under construction, so there really wasn't much to look at from the bus station to the ballpark. Transit access from our downtown hotel was easy as we took an underground "busway" there. I believe that transit line has since been upgraded to an actual subway rail line. American Family Field: I have only been there with the roof closed. Someday, I'd like to go to a game with the roof open to see what it's like. It's a good stadium. Nothing outstanding and nothing bad. I sat on the 200 level and my seats were great. It was easy to get to the different levels for concessions. One downside is that they don't have 360 access around the concourse. Location is a negative for me. There's absolutely nothing around the ballpark as far as I could tell other than acres of parking lot. Huge tailgating culture - but nothing much for people who don't tailgate. The only way in and out is by car or bus as far as I could tell. Chase Field: I'd rank this the lowest among these three. I was actually there for an early season game and the roof was open, so that was nice. I can only imagine it feels more like a warehouse most of the season when the roof is closed. It's not a terrible stadium, but it's rather unremarkable. The most overrated feature is the swimming pool. Who cares? How many fans actually use it? Total gimmick IMO. The downtown location is good, but there wasn't much going on in downtown Phoenix when I went there (15 years ago). There is a light rail line that goes by the stadium, but it didn't go where I needed to go. They've since switched to artificial turf, so that would be a downvote for me.

Our Sox have a history of bad ownership but looking back the franchise was best under the Comiskey family in the first 20 years and again in the GO GO years. They did suffer after the Black Sox scandal but they had some nice seasons when Jimmy Dykes was managing led by Hall of Famers Luke Appling and Ted Lyons. I was never a fan of Veeck as he traded away a future All Star team after the 1959 AL Championship season. I will always appreciate him stepping in and buying the Sox in 1976 but he was under financed and for some reason he blamed it on bad managers as the Sox had 5 managers in 5 years in his 2nd stint, we saw Paul Richards, Bob Lemon, Larry Doby, Don Kissinger and Tony LaRussa.

The real awards don't get announced until after the World Series.

This post is BS. GM’s get assessed on the players they acquire and if they perform or fail. It’s the way it is.

Fans forget that after the team drew 1.65 million fans in 1977 Veeck wanted to move the team 3 years later to Denver. Veeck thought he couldn't compete against the Cubs in Chicago AND he thought he could make more money in Denver. The AL wouldn't let him move the team to Denver and he wound up selling the team to JR.

The 1st post that started this thread is the ultimate example of being a Monday Morning Quaterback. It’s always easy to make all the correct calls after the game is over.

This is just the Sporting News award. The MLB also has their own MotY award right?

lol yea man, he forgot so much he got manager of the year

Great point...I forget that I grew up in an era where pinch-hitting was a specialty (Jerry Hairston) and is no longer treated that way! 😁 I agree with your point. However, only the guys on the bench are available to pinch-hit and I am not so sure I would be thrilled with Colson being one of those guys.

Excellent points but sometimes it’s hard to accept some things like I don’t understand why people go to ballgame, pay good money for a seat and windup standing and watching the game from a concourse. Every once in awhile during a Sox they will show a view from around the fan deck pointing to the left field concourse and it’s packed with people just walking around with some standing and watching the game, I don’t get it, I guess I’m a Neanderthal man.

Few people are good at pinch hitting. It's one small scenario. The best one are those who can lay a bunt down so good even if the defense is playing against.

At least they now have opportunities to work on stuff like other organizations. At least Getz got Jerry to move the organization up to the 21st century. Yet we think Roch is the real thing but if you do the usual short sample size............nothing yet, Making the least predictable sport predictable. Trace that during the Reinsdorf era.

I get what you are saying and agree in many respects. Depth though...I just wonder what Colson means as far as depth? If he isn't our starting SS/3B...what value does he have? Bench? Minors until that time runs out? I really don' t have that answer...just thinking out loud. I just don't see Colson having much value to the White Sox if he is NOT playing everyday. Would you feel good about him pinch-hitting in the 8th inning of a close game? All hypothetical though...if they bring Colson back next year (which they will)...he will be starting at SS!

now there's a word losing organization and fans never believe in is depth. So if Colson can't hit major league pitching he can still be a backup at SS/3B. So instead our mindset is trading a problem which just means you inherit new ones. Rarely does that work ever for the Sox. But there are plenty of Castillos out there to appease the fan's dislike of Colson. I still don't trust Getz in trades. Any GM can get pretty good value out of trading a future CY pitcher. Trading from a strength is just as much as trading from weakness.

This is how I feel...far from perfect but certainly worthy of this award.

Keep in mind that these days, people have 60" HDTVs to watch games at home that didn't exist back in the day. Also, baseball is just not as dominant in our culture as it was in the 50s and 60s. It's more difficult now to expect to draw fans just because they want to see big name stars in person. Maybe Ohtani? But I can't think of much else star power that gets young fans excited such that they want to see these stars in person. There's also a different economic expectation these days. When the Sox drew 1.65M fans in 1977, it broke the all-time Chicago attendance record and was a massive success. Now, if any MLB team caps out at 1.6M fans, there are screams of how the franchise is failing and has serious attendance problems.

He's done some questionable things, but they do play hard for him. He deserves the honor.

We seem to forget that being a bench coach for a great manager means nothing when they are now a manager and for a different organization. It's like they forget anything they learned.

I'd of thought this was incorporated into something previoulsy as it seems like a very good stat to measure.

Right, I’m with you. I don’t really care about the experience if the Sox are playing because I’m too focused on the game. In fact I rarely leave my seat at all. When I’m traveling and go to other venues, though, I indulge more in the “experience” side of it, and that’s how I expect casual fans treat home games too. At the end of the day, I want the Sox park to be awesome mostly because I want the team to gain every competitive advantage possible.

I think the Big ten is up for grabs. UCLA toughest games left are at Michigan and then play USC. OSU lost their quarterback so who knows if they will hold up. Indiana is at Michigan this Saturday and then has USC at home, and Washington on the road. I think Indiana will repeat as Big Ten Champs. That in itself is a crazy sentence, Indiana football has been a door mat my whole life.

Really not feeling Jarrett Payton on mornings with Haugh