The Critic

Patterson gets the nod over Aaron because: Aaron got off to a really slow start. and It gives them a reason to choose another Cub.

QUOTE(greg775 @ May 18, 2005 -> 11:11 PM) Considering the fact the White Sox haven't exactly had the most stellar history of all teams, out there, with dozens of Hall of Famers, I was wondering if Mark Buehrle has become your favorite Sox player of all time. He gets the ball and pitches it w/out bleeping around. He has a good personality with the media and fans. He has never been a brat with his contract. Mark B is creeping into my top five Sox of all time. Dick "don't call me Richie" Allen. My first favorite Sox player and my all-time favorite Sox player. Always was, always will be.

QUOTE(ChiSoxyGirl @ May 19, 2005 -> 10:36 AM) Beat you to it! Yep, I'm gettin' slow in my old age.... You'll notice, there IS no green.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ May 19, 2005 -> 10:09 AM) Uhm, let's see... where can we find a biologist around here....? Uhm... wait, oh yeah, how about... ME!?! [Not that I feel slighted, of course...] SouthSider, I think you're actually asking a backwards version of the question, and this is possibly being borne out in the woefully small sample (n=2 = useless for all but idle speculation, but what the hell) of the currently infected Barry and Sammy. Some good research dating back a good 15 years, actually suggested a possible up-modulation in immune response in athletes taking anabolic steroids versus an unjuiced control group. The issue with the putative 'Roid Boyz right now (and here comes the idle speculation) is that being off of steroids now after presumably many years of use has severely compromised immune systems that had been artificially revved up by the anabolic steroids. The abstract of the paper that came to mind can be found here on PubMed. My interpretation follows. Your wife can help you translate the bio-babble, but the interesting part is that the steroid users in that study had significantly higher ability to proliferate B lymphocytes (the cells putting out antibodies in a cellular immune response) in response to exposure to SAC, which is a strain of (dum dum dumm!!) Staphylococcus. Juicers also had enhanced NK cell activity, but that would correspond to enhanced ability of these cells to seek and destroy cancerous cells or those infected by viruses. While not directly playing a role in fighting a staph infection, if NK effectiveness is compromised and the immune system is therefore overtaxed and stressed, it can certainly open up a person to a secondary bacterial infection like staph. A finding that seemed at first unusual to me (with rudimentary working knowledge of immunology but no expertise by any stretch) was the elevated immunoglobulin (=antibodies) levels in the unjuiced control group. In thinking about it though, that seems to make good sense as these circulating antibodies would be indicative of ongoing low grade cell-specific infections that a substantial portion of the control group is currently fighting. In contrast, the juicers don't have a lot of circulating antibodies because they are currently not fighting infection. If they became infected, their T cell-modulated scaling up of B cell numbers would be expected to be rapid and the infection quickly brought under control. The response would, of course rely on antibody proliferation, so if the juicers were sampled at the time of an incipient infection the immunoglobulin numbers would be extremely high. I'm not up on the follow-on research, but it's easily searchable on PubMed if you are interested. I encourage Soxy and Hurt and any other bio-geek types to offer their own assenting/dissenting interpretations of the research and add anything else they have. Also bear in mind something that has already been posted by Benchwarmerjim (pleased to meet you, btw), and that is that staph infections are becoming more tenacious and harder to fight with antibiotics, presumably yet another indication that our years and years of antibiotic overuse as a prophylaxis was a very bad idea and we've inadvertently selected for lots of superbugs. So, add that knowledge to the preceding for perhaps a clearer picture of the 'insult-to-injury' scenario being seen now. Oh, PLEASE, you just TOTALLY made that s*** up......

QUOTE(Middle Buffalo @ May 19, 2005 -> 10:34 AM) I thought Claymainac sounded more masculine. Nothing about Clay Aiken seems masculine....

Saw the first ( now 4th ) one, didn't see any others, won't see this one.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ May 18, 2005 -> 03:21 PM) Since you started a thread about the NHL, let me give you an update about what I know. 35% says a deal will get done by September. 65% says a deal doesn't get done until January 2006. Add to the mix that Bettman and his f***head cronies have been told in no uncertain terms that sponsorhips, BIG sponsorships are off the table if they do not start the season on time. That adds pressure to the owners, in reality. ESPN is also considering backing out of their contract with the NHL. No TV = NHL even less relevant than now, and THAT's hard to do. Replacement players = junk. While I'm still a little sad when I see that it's mid-May and then I think about how great the playoffs would be right now, I have to say that I adjusted pretty well to not having the NHL around this year. I'm a HUGE hockey fan, but like anything else, if it's not around you learn to live without it. NBA fans may learn this lesson next season.

Get well Barry....then retire and go away.

I'm going to the Dells again next month with the family. My kid loves the water stuff, and also LOVES feeding the deer. It's a nice place if you have kids....not much reason to go there if you don't.

Happy Birthday, Old Man Gleason!!! ( can't hardly call ya KID anymore, now, can we??? ) Hope your taste in music doesn't start softening up in your old age...... Here's to ya!!! :finger

QUOTE(Buehrle>Wood @ May 16, 2005 -> 08:58 PM) I'm addictied to Folds. He owns. Have yet to pick up his new CD though. I heard an EXCELLENT cover of the Cure's "Inbetween Days" by Ben Folds on the radio a couple weeks ago. I can't find it anywhere on the Inter.......I MEAN, I can't find it in any STORES anywhere.... If anyone has an mp3 of that song that they'd like to email to me, PM me please. I'd REALLY appreciate it.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ May 16, 2005 -> 06:35 PM) For the rest of the game. Not with pitches up like that, it won't.

QUOTE(BuehrleTheAce @ May 16, 2005 -> 06:31 PM) I bet Hawk's Sox-patch is a-quiver after that one He probably lifted it up to let the bad eye get a little peek...

AJ f***IN' RULES!!!!

QUOTE(YASNY @ May 16, 2005 -> 11:45 AM) If he's healthy, it will be sooner than that. They can olny leave him on a rehab assignment for 20 games, tops. I heard them saying on AM1000 that the Sox could extend that if he's not ready yet. I have no knowledge of how the minor-league rehab stint works, but that's what they were saying on the radio.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ May 16, 2005 -> 03:50 PM) After interleague. He already said he's not going to play the field this year. Makes no sense for him to rush back for early June when most of the games are going to be interleague. Or if he's ready, and ONLY if he's ready, he could be a mighty nice pinch-hitting option during Interleague. Let him get his eye back a little bit with no pressure of potentially running the bases 3 or 4 times.

Do you have a wallpaper of Joe slamming his bat to the ground after popping up yet again?? Nice work on the wallpaper, by the way - keep 'em comin'!! One of Pod swiping a base would be nice....hint, hint.....

QUOTE(Soxnbears01 @ May 16, 2005 -> 01:14 PM) if they promote it right it won't be a problem. If my 1st place team is at home on the 4th of july, I know i'll be there. Whether or not my team's in 1st on July 4th, I'll be there anyway. Just grabbed my 1/2 price club-level ticket this afternoon. White Sox Baseball and post-game fireworks for 20 bucks.....

QUOTE(Steff @ May 16, 2005 -> 10:05 AM) Speaking of BP.. on Friday Comcast will broadcast BP from Wrigley. No broadcasters. That's an awesome idea. Glad they're doing this, I'll have a tape running. Why isn't Santo doing the call of BP? "That's hit......IT HIT THE WALL........NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.............NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..............we have a fax from Evelyn in Iowa......."

I don't want The Pitcher Killer to keep his job because he'll wreck their arms. I want him around because he's a DISMAL in-game manager. He makes ALL the wrong moves ALL the time. The most important f***up I can remember from his Cub stint so far is when he left Zambrano and Clement rotting on the bench in Game 7 of the NLCS because he "would need them for the Series". Well, Dave Veres and Mark Guthrie made sure the World Series would not happen for them. NICE STRATEGY, DUST!!!

It's weird - everything about this team screams "85 wins" to me, but now that they've jumped out to the fast start, without the meat of the order hitting all that much, and with Big Frank probably coming back right after the first round of Interleague play, I can see this team in the low-to-mid 90's. Barring, of course, the annual catastrophic injuries to the exact players they can least afford to lose.... PLEASE not this year.....

QUOTE(whitesox91403 @ May 16, 2005 -> 02:27 AM) I'm going Friday. But, to be honest, I'm not really looking forward to it. Ahhh, make the most of it anyway. As long as you go in without an agenda to start s***, most Cubbie Kool-Aid drinkers will talk as much s*** about Baker and their bullpen as you will. ...oh, and avoid the piss trough if at all possible....

QUOTE(DonkeyKongerko @ May 15, 2005 -> 11:20 PM) As of now, the only valid answer to this question is Minnesota. Yep. One thing at a time. Don't put the cart before the horse. (Add your own cliche here).

QUOTE(whitesox91403 @ May 16, 2005 -> 02:05 AM) That makes no sense to me really. But they do let you in for visitor BP. This may be the ONLY benefit to going to the Deadly Confines to see the "City Series". You'd get to see the rare sight of Sox BP.

Yeah, I know it makes me a s***ty fan or whatever, but I like not having to plan every Sox outing in f***ing January. Sometimes you wake up and you want to go to a game that day. It's nice to not have to pay a piece of s*** f***ing scalper to do it. EDITED to add that Kotex Boy can eat a dick, piss up a dry rope and jump off a f***ing building. No one would miss him.