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How old are you? What is your health like? What is your profession? Your parents still around? Spouse or kids have health considerations? What odds are you willing to accept that you live through Covid contacts? What would you think if you carried it and one of your parents died? What about a spouse or friend? See instead of thinking about screwing up my own hair with a pair of clippers, I choose to think that by avoiding the barbershop I potentially avoided picking up the virus and passing it on to my immunocompromised mother in law whose lowered White blood cell count wouldn't survive this virus. I think of my dementia inflicted mother who wouldn't understand why she couldn't leave the hospital if she got this by people roaming through her care facility. I think of my high school buddy down the street whose wife is immunocompromised and waiting on a transplant who would die if she got Covid. See this is why you run people the wrong way. As everyone here makes sacrifices to ensure life for the ones who don't possess the ability to fight this you take a national tragedy where 10's of thousands of people are already dead and you make it about you and your poor inconveniences. Making a mockery of mental health by tying your hair to mental health, when families have moms and dads who will never come home and are suffering from real depression and mental health effects is insulting. Think of someone other than yourself for once. Quit equating normal people's inconveniences with the true suffering going on in the world right now. Part of me is probably more enraged than I should be because I think no adult gets this far in life by being this self absorbed and unconscious of the world around them. I also remember you as a very different person when you came to Soxtalk back in the day and suspects this "greg" is all an act, which makes these posts even worse. Give all of us a break here and start worrying about other people, instead of you and this show.

In a normal year yes. In a year where sports went away and had people watching video game tournaments, more playoff teams and games are better. Also, in baseball 80 games is not enough to separate the non great teams.

Anyway, I never started that job because of Covid, but I found another one doing the same thing in the same format that I can work from home and pays significantly more.

At this point, I don't see how anyone can put faith in this Administration. The White House is full of hacks, and the president still doesn't understand how to govern. At least Trump and his staff can do one thing: Wear a mask. Stop worrying how it looks and wear a mask. Show the country this is something everyone can do. There are idiots all over the place.

The hypocrisy shown by the White House with their own Covid 19 outbreak should piss off even the most hardened we have to open now people. The new press secretary said it would be OK because they amped up testing (instead of being once a week, it is now every day)and contact tracing, something that they apparently deemed not necessary for the general public, If testing means nothing, why does Trump insist everyone around him need to be tested? Also, there were 70 new cases in WI where the victims said they attended a large social event. Speculation was it was the stay at home protest. Idiots.

I'd say this week has been a downer. I've said it before, not a good sign and it's not even the normal virus season. Corona may truly be the end of the world before this is over. This thing could be a runaway train by late September.

Greg - I understand your frustration and pessimism. People are not meant to be isolated and money is only one reason there is a need to work. The situation is maddening with no vaccine or cure in sight. The country is in a pressure cooker right now. What I will never understand is why people are so angry about wearing a mask. When I worked in a steel mill, I had to wear safety glasses, a hard hat, and steel toed shoes. And I would have never have worked in such environment without those things. I worked in a bar mill. There were times when a 200-foot piece of steel that was thousands of degrees would shoot in the air and go all over the place. What did we do? We ran like hell, which is hard wearing steel toed shoes. And what was one reason this happened? Because we were forced to work with shit equipment because the mill didn't believe in re-investment and modernization. Their motto, "Safety First" was a god damned joke. Kind of sounds like a meat processing plant, doesn't it? If people want to get angry at someone, get angry at the powers that operate industrial facilities that are not safe and don't pay anything anyway. Or get mad at a government that is in total denial and is showing it doesn't care all that much about its own people. You are right about one thing: People need to be kind to each other. Wear a mask and don't wave guns at people.

Little Looie, turns 86 today, the last living starter from the 1959 World Series team. Only a few role players are left like Lou Skizas & J.C. Martin who both had a cup of coffee with the 59 Sox. Luis was the first baseball player I met, along with Pete Ward in the summer of 1969 when they showed up to sign autographs at the store behind my house on the Southwest Side. As a 7 year old that was when I became a White Sox fan for life. Best of health to you Luis, one of the Sox (and baseball's) best.

Way to go Craig.

Mike Flynn is also not related to the coronavirus

“At least it seems that way in the complicated articles I've read.” Point rebutted. Greg, you know we’re just messing with you...especially if you’re going to talk like Bobby Boucher in The Waterboy. (Adam Sandler) "Ben Franklin." (Young Bobby Boucher) "Mama, when did Ben Franklin invent electricity?" (Kathy Bates) "That's nonsense, I invented electricity. Ben Franklin is the Devil."

No. It means teams will play in their home cities instead of at spring training sites.

Seemingly good news today. While Sunday’s in Illinois often see lower reported deaths it’s cases and percentage positive aren’t always far off norms. New cases dropped to 1650 and tests dropped to 13500. Though it sucks seeing tests drop below 15k, this is a 12% positive rate - the lowest I’ve seen in a while in Illinois.

If this is the case, it's a good case study. We're all doomed.

Its pretty obvious what is going to happen. ... There are going to be a ton of cases tied to events with large groups of people if we have those. The way this is going ... I'd suggest the governors will be the ones to slow/stop the reopening of the USA. Once we get the figures from the first week of reopening, we'll be shut for good through next spring.

What does that mean? No road games cause of corona?

True but the AL East gets the Nats, Braves, Phillies, and Mets. The AL West gets the Dodgers and DBacks. So for us the Twins and Tribe are tough but still manageable. The Cards, Brewers, Reds, and Cubs are solid, but they are also on our playing field.

Originally what I was thinking. As much as I would love to see way more games with Cubs, MiL, Stl, Cin, etc the Sox chances of winning more games and making the postseason are definitely heightened playing more games against KC and Detroit. Though I'm not sure maybe playing more games against Minnesota balances it out?

It's still the American League and National League. The only thing that's different is the schedule. The Sox would play 12/13 vs KC, Cleveland, Minny and Detroit. And they'll play 6 games vs Cubs, Brewers, Cardinals, Pirates and Reds. It's 78-82 games. Then they will take 7 playoff teams from the AL and 7 playoff teams from the NL. Seed it 1-7 with division winners 1-3. The top seed gets a bye in each league. 7 at 2, 6 at 3, 5 at 4. Likely a DH in both leagues.

They're not playing a full season so they don't deserve a full season of pay.

Guys - in addition to social distancing, can we practice an economy of words when posting?

H. Right now, you’re outnumbered by more than 2 to 1 in that viewpoint. While it’s certainly possible the administration will do everything in its power to force as many back to work and off unemployment rolls, there’s simply no path back to profitability for some or even many of the major industries noted in your “treatise.” Part of the problem was signing off on a compensation system that provides many workers significantly more than they were making previously...for at least four months. Why would you realistically expect them to feel incentivized to go back to work after reading stories like the South Korean nightclub or about 1/3rd the Tyson Foods plant in Waterloo contracting the virus. When we burn through our essential workers and burn out most of our doctors and nurses, what happens then? But this is precisely what the administration wants...for everyone just to collectively throw their hands up in the air and agree with your point H. Why the hell not? What do we really know, after all this time? What’s to lose? How much worse can things actually get? They’ve pretty much given up on testing...and actually following guidelines that THEY created. To quote Reagan, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." Hmmm... The truly sad aspect is that hundreds of thousands will die when 90% of all this could have been prevented with a serious, coordinated and timely response (see Germany) in February or even early March. It should be noted, perhaps unsurprisingly, that Angela Merkel’s background is in science, not branding. So let’s just put it this way. Imagine it’s December 7th, 1941...can anyone imagine FDR informing 48 state governors that they were each responsible individually for coordinating the response with their respective state militias? We keep hearing this is a war...we’re on wartime footing, but it’s morphed into a political, economic and cultural war more-so than a health care battle. We can’t wish or hope it away, we have to science the hell out of it. Which is precisely when any chance at “winning” was lost to the virus, which doesn't discriminate and takes no side, besides looking for hosts to either kill or incubate inside of before multiplying/reproducing. Greg, I guess you are in your 30’s or more likely 40’s. They talk about the kids from the 80’s being the ME Generation. Remember that? There was a point in American history where more people were willing to put the good of the American people ahead of their own self-interests. “To ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” a quaint notion now seemingly dead and buried. Maybe the greatest, most enduring lesson from this whole situation will be the tremendous cost of refusing to work together, whether it’s with our neighbors, neighboring states or even our neighbors in the global community. If we continue to see every situation as “us vs. them,” we will never overcome the problem...because too many will look around, see others not following the rules and decide the risk is worth it. It’s a classic economics concept called opportunity cost. China and authoritarian states take that choice away from the people...believing they know best how to keep people safe. There’s certainly a consequence when people don’t or aren’t allowed to think for themselves. We saw it here in Wuhan with the poor initial response from local leaders. But how can we argue that our freedom-oriented system is any better when we’re constantly presented with these choices...yet we keep choosing to hurt others due to our wants outweighing the obvious needs of others? And the King will say, 'I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.”

Just a few musings today. ... a.) Southwest Airlines and all of 'em are requiring masks now. And there is going to be social distancing while boarding and while standing in lines, etc. Can you imagine the rage people are going to have at airports now? Travel has been awful anyway for years, now this. People better try to be kind to each other. I sense a lot of anger regarding masks. It's like the people that have them on are ready to tear the heads off of those who don't. It's time to get kind or there are going to be so many fistfights/arrests/canceled flights because of rage. b.) Saw 12 people partying on a lawn while driving to the drive through last night for coffee. Weird. c.) I think the verdict is still out on whether America will ever be the same again. If one person at a danceclub is responsible for shutting down the clubs in Korea another 30 days, makes me think the first sporting event with fans is going to be a disaster in terms of people infecting people. I think we should get used to the idea of sports in empty stadiums for the rest of time. Or stadiums in which maybe they seat 40,000 and 4,000 are allowed in, something like that. With no concessions stands. d.) It's easy to say American business will never be the same. Airline and train and bus travel and subway travel all sound AWFUL right now. The idea of flying somewhere disgusts me right now. e.) I would think the movie industry is toast. At least the box office. Again, the idea of a movie theatre is scary and disgusting. I would guess mandatory masks. f.) Church or in my cass Mass is in danger forever of restarting. Again, there's going to be Mass one weekend, 40 people are going to be infected and that will cause all hell to break loose no pun intended. g.) People are going to have to be 100 percent healthy to go anywhere. If you have the common cold, it used to be you could go to church, be on airplanes, etc. Now once you cough you are going to get ushered off the flight, the train, the bus. So you are gonna have to be 100 percent healthy at all times or tell your bosses you can't travel that day? Or drive all over the country instead of fly? h.) People like me who are bored out of their minds and sick of this new normal might get the country opened for good. The ultimate end to all of this is everything will be open and the virus will do what it has to do. There will be normal precautions (masks, distancing laws like SWA's new policy of masks), but the country will be open and never close again and the virus will do what it has to do. How many deaths? Nobody knows. Will it kill me or you? Nobody knows. Finally if you read this far, yes I'm in my pessimism mode today. I have seen no human beings face to face except zoom for 2 months. This is bullcrap. I'm sick of it. I want to go do something and everything's locked up. I ALSO NEED A HAIRCUT. Bless u all. Have a nice weekend, though they all are the same.

I'll take that trade any day of the week.

I'd imagine Cooper would be incredibly high risk. Dude sounds like he's abou to croak on his best days. That would a difficult decision for him.