Al Lopez Ghost (old)

Maybe the Sox filed a missing persons report!

I've known her for a long time, and she's as fan-friendly as anyone could ever be.

and the White Sox have agreed to a two year contract. Now if they'd only let her play more than two songs a night..... So who says we can't sign our free agents?

You're crazy. Someone was going to do that so I thought I would. You may not really be crazy, but, geez our rotation is thin. Thin like see-through. Schoenweiss is a gamble as a fifth starter, but as the 4th guy with the cast of has beens and who-knows-if-they-ever-will-bes as the the 5th guy? Crap, it's getting late!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the record, we have an off day in KC and then the day before the home opener. Barring any rainouts, the first time we will need a fifth starter is April 18th against Tampa. The Sox will probably not decide on who the guy is until after the season starts, to see who is pitching well, or healthy, at that point. My guess is Ozzie will want to go with a veteran, but nobody will step up. Rauch finished strong last year, so I'll go with him.

Matthew and Baggio got it right about Jackson's performance in the Series. Weaver is sort of innocent, but he knew about the fix and didn't go public. To me, that's guilty enough.

I figure 82 wins. I think you gotta worry about our rotation. I think it's shaky if perfectly healthy - what happens if Elo pulls up lame? I hope I'm under the real number by about 8.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. Memo to Hawk: Radinsky was selected in the 3rd round of the 1986 June draft, by us of course. Not a rule 5 guy. Not sure about Bonilla.

I say be afraid, be very afraid.

Only bad luck gets you a view of the Detroit skyline.

I heard, don't know where from, that the Sox wanted their main entrance for owners and staff, to stay at 35th and Bill Veeck Drive. So the park was configured from that starting point.

There are "beat" guys in the newspapers, and columnists, who would love to break this kind of story. I have a hard time believing a TV guy, not known for being a hard digging investigator type, would get the story first. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. But PLEASE let it be true.

At least he didn't say "All I think about during the offseason is the Cardinals."

The Sox have learned from past mistakes. They now realize they needed an interpreter for Bevington.

I can confirm this, SSI, and like him or not, a watershed moment in the fortunes of the Sox and Cubs was when Harry Caray left (or was pushed) and the Sox tried to go to a sort of pay TV in a market that had very little cable TV.

I'm 53, so I've got a lot of favorites, but the 1990 team was something special. Remember in 1989 they started off just Godawful, especially defensively. There was a stretch of 6 home games in May, where they not only lost every game, by an average score of 9 to 2, they never lead in any game. Not once. But later in the year you could see they were bottoming out and were getting better. Then in 1990 they played hard every day, never quit, and talk about grinders: Fletcher, Robin, Grebeck, Gallagher, Ozzie, Calderon, Johnson, Pasqua, Fisk, Thiggy, Rad, Donn Pall, Karko, Kitty, Barry Jones, Hibbard, Samme, McDowell and later on in the year, Frank and Alex. This was also the last year of Comiskey, and the year they were no hit on the last anniversary of the park, and they still beat the Yankees. So you could see the progress, and you just knew that in the next couple of years they were going to be even better.

The guy who wrote this also wrote "From Lane and Fain to Zisk and Fisk", "'59: Summer of the Sox" and "Minnie and the Mick." Obviously a long time White Sox fan, he's no Cub propagandist. I really liked the Bevington reference. When he was rehired I was speechless, because I knew they were throwing away at least one more year. Kind of like I feel now.

The January 14 edition of prosportsdaily.com says: "Los Angeles Times says 'The Dodgers haven't shut the door on Chicago White Sox right fielder Magglio Ordonez, the subject of serious trade talks between the teams at the winter meetings, but the White Sox haven't backed down on their demand for starter Odalis Perez, setup man Guillermo Mota, one of the Dodgers' top two pitching prospects, Edwin Jackson or Greg Miller, and a fourth player."

I don't see a shred of evidence to think that we're going to be a contender in '04. We are demonstrably worse than we were at the end of '03, and we were not a great club then. And we won't spend money to bring in more talent. Time will tell.

Who goes first this summer? My guess is Loiza, a quality pitcher, unsigned next year, not making that much this year. I think he'll be one of the prime targets for, you know, teams trying to make the playoffs.

Well, at midseason he'd still be due 1.2 million. We don't got 1.2 million. Plus, if he's going well, next year he'd want a big fat raise, and if he's going bad, who'd want him anyway.

They don't venture all that much in Chicago!

He gawn. Diamondbacks signed him to a one year contract on December 5. I did a google search and it came up on ESPN.

My memory says that Valentin had leg problems when he tried to play Center for us, and he blamed the problems on the different sort of running you do chasing fly balls as opposed to the sprinting you do at shortstop. I would guess that if Jose moves to Center, he'll do a lot of platooning, with Rowand playing against all lefties. Doesn't matter, we're gonna suck anyway.

At Lawrence Fisheries, get the Wing Zings and thank me later. They're just terrific. As for Franco's I went there before the All Star Game and had the best Gnocchi ever. But yes it's pricey. If Gale Street Inn does move into the neighborhood, they'll be a worthy member of this club. Great ribs. Also, I can recommend the Koshers at 333 W. 35th Street. Plus there's lots of room to sit.