KeithFranklin

Not our night is what I am feeling.

Just need to keep Oswalt working. Would like to see him at 50 pitches or more after the 3rd.

QUOTE(mkalk @ Oct 18, 2005 -> 03:53 PM) The game could go to Thursday. They get today off. If Astros win in 6 Saturday: Clemens (on 6 days rest) Sunday: Pettite (on 5 days rest) Tuesday: Oswalt (on 5 days rest) Wednesday: Backe Thursday: Clemens Saturday: Pettite Sunday: Oswalt If Astros win in 7 Saturday: Pettite (On 4 days rest) Sunday: Backe Tuesday: Oswalt (On 5 days rest) Wednesday: Clemens (on 5 days rest) Thursday: Pettite Saturday: Backe Sunday: Oswalt Go cards push it to 7

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Oct 18, 2005 -> 03:49 PM) Hawk is staying in Florida for the series... I really wish he was going to be around. It just doesnt seem right for him to be in Florida while this is going on. He travelled with the team all season and should be with the team.

I have watched several discussions of this on Fox and ESPN since it happened. They love to go on and on about the motion the umpire made (The fist). They claim this is why the Angels were running off the field and they thought it was the 3rd out, etc., etc. Well I have watched this several times on a widescreen HDTV. First it is a judgement call if the ball hit the dirt. Second and most importantlyif you watch it Josh Paul throws the ball back to the mound and is completly off screen (ump is in the middle) before the ump makes the fist. JP is also already running towards first base when the ump makes the fist. The commentators are all wrong because the constantly claim that the ump makes the fist before the players leave thier positions.

Really what did you expect with what the Sox did in the off season. Even the home opener wasnt a sell out with only 37K attending. It will take the Sox playing well into May where people start giving them a chance and start coming out. And I dont blame them. I planned to purchase 4 season tickets for my business and family use. After the nothing that was the offseason I dont plan on going to more then a handful of games. As a businessman I know that you need to spend money to make money.

When do they blow up the goat, the black cat from 1969, Leon Durham, Alex Gonzalez... Such morons and look what they are doing to one of thier own...Steve Bartman..If I was him I would have said :fthecubs and start rooting for someone else.

I for one could care less about being able to win the "Division". The only thing we should be interested in winning is a "World Series".

Baseball will collapse unless the following is done.. Generous Salary Cap ( I would say about $100-$110 Million Good size minimum Salary level (say about $70 Million) Revenue sharing I for one dont care much for baseball anymore...The Sox have completly deflated me this off season. The Cubs I have not rooted for since 94 (And they are still trying to get by without really investing for the fans)

Looks nice...But damn it anyway...The upper deck will have fewer people in it this year then it did last year. With the wonderful (Not) offseason people will be hyped to head to the cell this summer (Especially early summer). My guess is attendance will drop by 500K at least this summer... 500K at say $15 per ticket is what 7.5Million...Hmm could have used that towards a player couldnt we. Think is they could have upped payroll 15-20 million (From the US Cellular Fees) and attendance would have jumped 500K rather then dropped 500K. With ticket sales, concessions, and parking would easily have still paid for the renovations, made fans happier, made sponsors happier (US Cellular among others) and had a much better chance at making playoffs for even more funds. Boneheads By the way I have never had a problem with the Cell...Lower deck is fabulous...First 10 rows of upper deck has clear view of entire field. More then I can say about the dump on the Northside (And I grew up on the northside in the 70's and 80's and hated that place every since I was a kid..Too many times sitting behind polls I guess).

Question: How many attended SoxFest (By day would be nice)? I for one am glad people let the Sox know they are not happy.

82-80 and attendance will drop 25-30% (Simply because of the off season)

See even tho they have been competitive it has been clear for 10-15 years that there is not the lets try to go out there and not only win but win big and possibly build a dynasty. It is more hey we got a decent team lets try to catch ligthning in the bottle. Chicago deserves more then this we want the Bulls pounding on everyone else. We want the Bears not only winning but killing people. Not this hey we can trade for X or sign big name free agent Y. Lets trade for X because we can get rid of some salary. Im sick of it...Im sick of them renovating the part of USCF that people dont sit in. I think that is ridiculous. They should concentrate on getting the lower deck full of Season ticket holders then worry about filling the upper deck. Sure the whole stadium will look nicer, but coupling that with basically cutting the talent level will result in a nicer looking stadium with fewer people in the seats. With the economy picking up I anticipated back in Octoberthat I would spring for 4 box seat season ticket packages for my employees, cause I thought the Sox would realize that next year they will be murdered in press coverages because of the Cubs postseason. Not now...I anticipate 1 or 2 games with my boys.

That is the problem right there...It doesnt really interest me anymore to see them trying to win the ALC. I want to see them try to win the World Series and in not a way that the next season they have just as much chance of being under 500 as they are in winning anything. Look at Anaheim and Florida...Sure I would be thrilled to win a World Series but I want it to be because we are trying to be a dominant team. I slowed the amount of games I went to not because of the park but because starting with the strike year (actually as far back as 1993) JR always tried to catch lightning in the bottle with 1 year contracts to tier 2 free agents, or trying to fill holes with trades when the hole could have easily been filled with a free agent and not having to give up talent. Look at the Kip Wells trade...We could have easily picked up a free agent pitcher instead of the bum we got from Pittsburgh (And I mean a pitcher as good as he was supposed to be) in a trade that cost us young talent. If the Sox want me to purchase season tickets (and I am willing to pick up 4 box seats for 81 games) they need to be willing to invest in more then tier 2 free agents and must be willing to bump the payroll to around 80 million or I will just go to games on a whim rather then invest in a full season.

Well with those budget numbers the chances of me picking up 4 season tickets is thin and none... I am beginning to think it is time for me to root for a team from another city...

If the Sox want me to pick up 4 season tickets they better be aggressive and spend some money to adjust the talent... I dont want Jose back...I want Roberto and a new bettter Shortstop...Not to mention Bartolo or equivalent... Without doing this forget about me picking up season tickets...

Say what you want about the Sox Fans being happy about this, but look shortly after the Cubs lost on ChicagoSports.Com a Cubs fan posted this. 680. If there's an upside, here's a few things: one, the Marlins still won't attract fans next year (they only averaged 16,000 this year); two, with Dusty, this is only the beginning; and three, root for the Red Sox to win it all (somebody's curse has got to end!) Submitted by: j.p. 10:50 PM CDT, Oct 15, 2003 Look they are even dropping back to the attendance thing with the Marlins. You may win your 2nd World Series in 10 years but we have better attendance. This is because you are a bunch of morons and this is why the Tribune Company doesnt ever go after bug free agents. They fill up the big urinal on the north side because of local bars and Sammy Soso. I grew up on the North Side in the 70's and that park didnt fill up back then. Not until Wrigleyville gentrified did it become the big local bar.

Yeah Corey McPherson on Channel 7 is telling everyone how they will be back because of 2 great pitchers. One thing Wood has never one more then 14 games in a season. He is this generations Nolan Ryan...Lots of strikeouts..Around 500 pitcher. Hey they better hope Houston and St. Louis just sit on there hands. Because not every year will you win that division with 88 wins. I doubt very much that the Tribune Company will go out and really try to land a tier 1 free agent. Simply try to win with the 2 pitchers and mostly bench players.

Yes...He is being blamed when what happened was nothing compared to GONZO muffing the ground ball and Prior loosing his composure. Not to mention there was no guarantee that Alou would catch the ball. After all he dropped an easier one in Puerto Rico.

I hope this doesnt backfire...This means they plan to have Becket start the 8th

No the problem is the really dont have much talent beyond 1 great pitcher and 1 good pitcher. After that they have a guy who likes to hit home runs and not much more and a bunch of has beens or bench players.

Have him throw out the 1st pitch at The Cell next year when the Sox face the Cubs

What I dont understand is why the LD is not full everynight...It is a great place to watch a game... As for the upper deck...I have never had a problem with it. You can see the whole field without any obstruction and you cant say that for a huge portion at the hole on the north side. As for the Home Run porch...I dont know if I like the idea of any upper deck in the outfield... I do believe that the pricing for tickets in the upper deck should be like half the lower deck.

And former fan of both teams....My family besides myself and my children root for both teams. I have come to realize that this years Cubs team is what the typical Cubs fan has always dreamed of and it is not what you think. When I was a Cubs fan I dreamed of a team that was a dynasty a team that had a chance to win the whole thing several years in a row. Yet as I grew older I realized that the ownership cared about nothing more then the bottom line. After Greg Maddox left for Atlanta, not because he wanted to but because he wanted to be on a team that was striving for just what I wanted the Cubs to be, I said enough is enough and I vowed to not return to the Cubs until the ownership decided that an exciting year every 3-5 years was not enough. Since that time the Cubs have yet to try to really invest in the team and have lucked into a number of players that guarantee that Wrigley Field will be filled. Only one of these players are truly great players (Mark Prior…Perhaps the stupidest skipped draft pick ever, but as a Sox fan I am glad he is not a Twin) that play for the team. Sammy Sosa is not and I will get back to this later. Now back to this year’s team and what Cubs fans dream of. First Cubs fans dream of the underdog team that wins it all. I guess this is because they have accepted the reality that they are not worthy of this. So you look at this team and you say this is it. Look at the starters in the playoffs. A bunch of mostly backup or 2nd tier starters with a couple of true starters (One of which cares nothing about his team and is all about marketing). Yes they have 1 great starting pitcher in Mark Prior (Who I predict will leave the Cubs when he becomes a free agent because the Cubs wont pay him what he is worth) and 1 good pitcher in Kerry Wood (Who except for these playoffs has always reminded me of Nolan Ryan and this is not a good thing. Like Nolan Ryan, Wood is basically a 500 pitcher who strikes out a lot of people). They have a couple of other OK starting pitchers and a bullpen of nobodies, old bodies. Yet the underdog story is true here as well just look at Joe Borrowski (SP?) he is the Cubs fan dream of dreams. A career Journeyman just a couple weeks away from calling it quits and through some fluke of nature his is a one year wonder. As for Sosa I have never seen a player so interested in the photo opportunity like I have said many times before they guy turns more doubles into singles and triples into doubles then anyone I have ever seen. He does his little hop every time he hits a fly ball and watches it then says whoops I guess I need to run. Even in this playoff run he has done nothing for the team of importance in any winning game. Not once has he put the team ahead with a big hit or simply hit the long fly ball to knock in a run. Yes he has had a couple of long home runs (One of which could have been dramatic had the Cubs not just turned around and lost anyway). Look at Pudge Rodriquez on Florida, I have seen him take the ball the other way to simply drive in a run but also known when it was OK to swing for the fences. I guess it is just the kicked dog syndrome. Continue to kick a dog and the dog begins to believe that is what they deserve. This is the Cubs fan. From the Stadium to the team things that were simply not investments become endearments. From no lights to the crappy old scoreboard what a cheap ass owner after cheap ass owner refused to spend money on the team or the Stadium. Now they revel in the cheapness and call it tradition (Which by the way I believe that most traditions are called traditions to support activities that don’t really have any other reason for being). Now I am not some Johnny come lately to Wrigley field. I grew up on the North Side of Chicago right on the Howard L line and could ride the L to Cubs and Sox games all summer (and did) walk up to the box office and get tickets. Yet even in the 70’s I hated Wrigley Field (And old Comiskey for that matter) and to this day wish for a nice big explosion to take the dump out. Why is it a dump you say? Well let me count the reasons. Poor seats…And I don’t mean simply just directly behind the poles. If you are not in front of the poles then you have restricted views. If you are out in the outfield seats along the baselines you face the bleachers. If you are under the upper deck then you can’t see where fly balls are hit. Did I mention the lovely smell of Urine in the concourse, the food sucks and the you can’t walk around the park and watch the game. I still remember back when New Comiskey opened and the company I worked for got season tickets to both the Cubs and the Sox and since I lived in the city very close to Wrigley and easy access to the L to Comiskey I got to use the company tickets a lot. To bad that the Wrigley tickets were about 10 rows directly behind a pole on the 3rd base side and simply sucked. As for the Comiskey tickets they were upper deck about 12 rows up on the 1st base side and were simply wonderful. We could see everything and really keep track of the game. Maybe that’s why Wrigley has become such a party place, because you can’t pay attention to the game under there. So the Cubs look like they could be this years Angels after all, but I also look to see that next year like the other years after a successful season they have probably a better chance to loose 100 games then win 90. And like this year the Cubs next year could be the 2003 Angels and be a sub 500 team.