Leaderboard

to lighten the mood a bit:

This isn’t about politics, it’s about a global crisis stemming from a pandemic. Taking your statements about borders... the premise for Trumps initial border measures was politically driven, a campaign platform centering on curbing illegal immigration and drug tracking. That motivation is entirely different from slowing the spread of a virus with no currently effective treatment. The disconnect in your logic is what people here are calling under question.

#FireGarPax era is over

While we probably couldn't have stopped it, we could have prepared and mitigated the problem a heck of a lot better than we did. We closed our eyes and pretended nothing was happening until the middle of March.

All I can say is that I am sick of Fox News. How many times do they have to be proven wrong before they shut up?

Bulls fan and Nuggets season ticket holder here. Happy with this hire, and there's absolutely no way Karsinovas makes this move if he doesn't have control.

As good as any place to put this, haven't seen anyone else mention it - Garfien and Benetti are calling simulated games on MLB The Show as if they were real and sharing it online. They're doing this every Thursday at 3pm CT for that week's regularly scheduled game. Here's last week's Red Sox game. An hour and a half of banter, "season stats", and discussion about the real team. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon. Baseball is back, -ish!

If you look at all those picks like Kaine, Biden, Lieberman...so plain vanilla. Warren has her detractors, but I think she would motivate more young voters, progressives and Hispanics than Klobuchar. Trump would probably overplay his hand on the Pocahontas taunts, which would only serve to draw out more suburban soccer moms. Realistically, she played things right in the middle between Sanders and Biden...when she should have stayed to the left lane and not wavered on M4A. Staking out all those centering compromises hurt her. Her strength was always being a policy wonk, which rounds off Biden’s rough edges there. Klobuchar might be the one candidate nobody can remember any of her policy positions. She ran more on her Heartland background and record of winning elections, but she had an art of saying a lot without saying anything. So did Buttigieg, who runs rings around her intellectually and was smart enough to figure out Medicare For Those Who Want It was best position of all to bet on. You get Warren on board, it makes Sanders and AOC fans have to make a decision to get involved. With Klobuchar, they might vote, but they’re definitely not knocking on any doors for that particular ticket.

Thanks Squirm, I am passionate about certain issues and I am upset so many people, including very smart people, won't even consider reopening America before May or June of 2021. I'm telling you the world cannot be on hold that long. America will not surive and so many will die because of lack of food, $$. Nobody but the truly elite will have any money. It will be intersting if all other countries open up and we act scared, remain closed for business for 18 months. Would China attack a weakened America? Would Russia? Would they both? Let's be reasonable and play ball soon!

Again, we have a thread for politics related to COVID, let's keep this stuff to baseball.

You say this, but on election night 2016, two of my fellow classmates were reporting on the local Republican watch party. They were a sophomore and junior in college, working for the local newspaper. People at the watch party started yelling at them for being there, then gloating saying "Trump is winning and the media is going to be sad." Then, when facts are reported, they're called lies. Literal facts. COVID-19 was declared a hoax to start because of Trump. Trump's own words will be read back to him, and he will deny them. If you can't split editorial and reporting, that's fine, but don't pretend like reporters that "just report the facts" get called liars for no reason other than people don't like the facts.

The quintessential beating heart of a Romney Republican, the WSJ, is now LSM? Because if that paper is not center right, I don’t know what is...just Breitbart and the National Review, Washington Times, etc. I remember growing up in the 80s and 90s, a Republican meant something between William F. Buckley and George Will/Bill Kristol. With the current monetary policy of creating seemingly endless amounts of IOU’s, not sure what is still recognizable beyond abortion and gun rights.

My response is I don’t trust any of them. Just report the facts and let me form my own opinions.

Hypertension is one of the comorbidities and if you think about that alone, you probably have more men with hypertension than women (I have not actually looked that up, but someone can certainly fact check me on that).

That’s pretty incredible...in and of itself. Nebraska will probably be trending in the same direction with Ricketts. People just didn’t realize their votes in the past two elections could actually cost them their lives. https://qctimes.com/news/local/groups-criticize-reynolds-for-declaring-day-of-prayer/article_4e743bdb-0fa6-5411-81fe-f8a5527e1ccc.html#tracking-source=home-top-story Unsurprisingly, Gov. Reynolds is using the coronavirus situation to sneak in a Day or Prayer that is going to be challenged on the basis of separation of church and state.

???

Problem with looking at deaths is that those numbers are already baked into to data from a few days ago. New hospitalizations is the most telling number imo

Just want to point out, people need to be careful of everything they read. A lot of views that this is because the testing was faulty / inaccurate to begin with vs. "reactivation". In general the failure rate on the early test was pretty high (as high as 20%).

GarPax have no meaningful influence. If you're in the basketball organization, Karsinovas is your boss. Period. He has 100% of the say.

A little background might help some of you folks here, especially if you are new to SoxTalk the last few years... We used to have a political forum, called Filibuster. It was closed, for a bunch of reasons, and we made clear then to not bring politics onto the board. Now clearly, there are political ramifications to COVID - big, important ones - and we don't want to stifle all discussion on the topic. It is a seminal moment in our history and effects literally everything, including baseball. So we are letting it ride as long as it A) is on the COVID topic, and B) is not ad hominem between posters. Please stick with that, or the suspensions will begin.

There isn't a single Democrat that has called for "open borders". Like most fever dreams of the perpetually fantastical GOP this is a myth on par with the "welfare queen" driving her Cadillac to the corner store to buy her prime cuts with EBT. Experts, (something in short supply these days) told Trump that closing the borders would do very little if anything to prevent the spread. But, when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Trump has a few "go tos" in his political playbook and one of them is jingoism. Closing the border to China did nothing except virtue signal to Trump's core of 38% or so of Americans that back him. Amazingly, the only demographic in which Trump maintains more than 50% support is among white men over 50. Think about that. You're in that category I'd imagine from your posting history. Fair play to you I guess. Anyways, back to COVID: the soft lock downs seems to be working but we have to keep it up at least for another two weeks and likely into May. As we are seeing in Europe quite a few people are getting re-infected but are asymptomatically passing it on to others without antibodies, potentially killing them. Oh, has any single SB owner gotten a relief loan yet? I know I haven't, my bank is dragging their feet.

I have a feeling they are going to move pretty quick on the GM front. Lots of reports (no one should be surprised) that as part of the interview process, Karni already listed his proposed candidates for the various positions (and I'm assuming that included head coach). I suspect they will move fast on GM and I honestly wonder if they won't just hire a new coach before the season restarts (at the rate they are moving). Coach won't be able to implement new system, but at the very least, gets a little bit of time with the players. Also, I am going to bet on Michael Finley as one of the candidates that emerges (Cuban has spoke very highly of him). Bulls also reportedly had an informal interview with Nazr Mohammed, who has worked in OKC's front office under Presti (this was for an undetermined front-office role). He could also be raiding some people from Denver or Houston. More I read about this guy, we are going to see a very different operation emerge. Lots of international experience but worked in some pretty modern front-offices in the league before climbing to his current role with Nuggets. Seems to have been influenced a lot by Morey (in the sense of...I expect we will see MUCH more consistent roster churn). Houston always felt like one of those orgs that is always on the phone, always trying for anything at all times. He seems like he has a lot of that in him based upon some quotes I read...that said, I also think he appreciates drafting and developing a bit more than Morey does. I'm getting pretty darn excited.

Paxson might stick around as a senior adviser and I don't think that is a bad thing. Pax has made is very clear this isn't his show and Karnisovas is going to get the reigns to hire his guys. If he wants to pick Paxson's brain, Pax is there for him. If he doesn't...no biggie. Pax is so loyal to Jerry he would never do anything to intentionally undermine him (I genuinely believe that). Gar on the other hand has already been demoted massively. Cowley has been spot and ahead of everything on the Bulls and that point has been clear for a long time. Karni has 10 times the power Gar has (if not more). If Karni doesn't like Gar after he meets with him, I'm sure he will be out. These are pretty sweeping changes Bulls are making. New VP, New GM, likely a new Asst. GM...new scouts...probably new coaching...and one can only hope new medical team and further buildout of its analytics team.

I'm optimistic about Karsinovas. 1) Unlike what we thought just last month, he was not hired to be a GM, he was given VP of basketball operations and is hiring his own GM 2) He really does have a great track record, and the denver f.o. has done excellent for really the 21st century and just never got that truly exceptional player to lead them over the hump in the west, but that is luck. They did everything outside of luck to succeed. 3) He is not coming in as the old school, we know how to do basketball type hire that paxson was and bulls have acted like they are. His background is houston and denver, that's great. I'm still unimpressed with michael reinsdorf, but he did pull the trigger here. 1) It's embarrassing for all involved that paxson and gar have not been fired. Like, guys have some damn integrity and resign! But regardless, if Karsinovas is good, I'd expect forman gone right away, and paxson quietly exit out the backdoor next year. If you leave people in this org to backstab you they will. 2) I dislike their process. No reason to announce you will not go after agents. And while I liked many names, I still did not see that shift that shows the bulls aspire and believe they are the marquee franchise they give lipservice too. No going after actual presidents of successful teams. Specifically seeming to target GMs that succeeded without stars or money, because the bulls still think that the michael jordan era was actually about being scrappy underdogs. 3) Of their initial four targets, 3 just backed out. And then their other interviews are embarrassing. Danny Ferry got fired for talking racist shit about a revered bull in luol deng, a player the bulls nearly killed. Bryan Colangelo resigned out of embarrassment for "his wife" having a burner account talking shit about players. What players want to then join up with that front office in a stars driven league? That's being nice to bryan who absolutely sucked after his dad stopped whispering to him what to do. But, I think Karsinovas is a good hire. I think he can gain power and push the pathetic tendencies of this org to the side. There will be brighter days ahead, I'm sure of.

The argument could go along the lines of justice isn't served if they do not serve their entire sentence. I was a victim of X who stole my life's savings and he's only serving 10 months of a four year sentence! It's his fault he's in jail, if he gets sick he gets sick. There are plenty of innocent people getting sick on the outside. Were is the justice for the innocent victims?!

They should move the Coaching Boxes back and make the Coaches stay in them.

Social distancing will be a thing until at least August. It is common knowledge that if we ease up on it we may have to start this process over again. It's important that we keep informed about what the scientists and doctors are saying.

Hopefully it continues. But am worried about a couple of things, once the "curve" seems to be headed downward, people thinking it's over and sliding back to closer to norms, and the warming weather will make people want to go out more. I went to the grocery store yesterday afternoon, and left immediately. Way too crowded. I am pretty scared of this thing as my wife has asthma, and she cannot get this under any circumstance.

Latest models show fewer cases in Illinois, the curve is flattening in NY and Louisiana. Seems as if the social distancing is working. Still a ways to go, but we could be seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel. This could allow for the season to start, in some fashion, by early summer.

I assumed JoBi would pick an AA like Harris or Booker who is a great speaker. Imagine if Warren runs how you would hear Pocahontas insults 24/7. Compare that to our leader's record and resume. "Weekend At Biden's" could be a campaign theme or a hit cable corona masked-family movie. Not sure how much Obama will get involved.

Lets hope. Pax at least said he'll leave if that is what Karnisovas wants. Hopefully Michael and Jerry Reinsdorf won't get in the way when/if he wants Gar out too (who really should be the first one shown the door). I'm interested to see who he picks as GM now.

Pax and Gar stay, it's just window dressing

You finally said something "trophy" worthly.. Damn you, ya old bastard, damn you.

From the On Tap Sports Net, Brad Squires, aka Buzz, joined us to talk White Sox. This is a pretty fun conversation, I’d say.

I don't think a May start is feasible but at some point the thirst for revenue will overwhelm both the owners and the union. Obviously nothing is close at the moment, and I don't think anyone is arguing otherwise, but I also think people are being too dismissive

You haven't completed an episode of Ozark until you hear Ruth say "come get sum biiiiiiitch"

You can’t make plans? Of course you can make plans.

Also worth pointing out for the record, they didn't stop playing baseball during WWII.

This is just the best. "Couldn't have happened, to a beeeetter man."