greg775

Bush stunk. Is he just another guy? He reminded me a little of Larry Gura.

Witt of course has the incredible stats. So yeah. But Perez has proven his value and that he was NOT over the hill. I was listening to the game on radio the other night and some Royals pitcher was inexplicably not throwing strikes with a 3 run lead late. Salvy went out to the mound and lit into the pitcher telling him to get it together. It would have been nice having Abreu around to light a match under these horrible baseball players so to speak.

Not a good game but Lee did get 3 hits. Bennetti must be loving this.

Remember last offseason when Sox fans were panicking and upset we might acquire Salvy? Look at Perez's stats. He's been amazing and for those who think the clubhouse doesn't matter, he is a true leader. He would have kicked butt in the Sox locker room. They probably would have had to discipline him cause he would not stand for the Sox level of baseball. That's why guys like Abreu/Salvy are valuable despite metrics suggesting they will soon suck or do now suck. Salvador Perez should be a top five MVP candidate this season if the Royals make the postseason. Maybe top 3.

It was totally normal back in the day in Mt. Greenwood. Parents NEVER attended their kids games or practices and NEVER attended their kids games in grade school and high school. ... As one tiny caveat, the southside is pretty compact and yes the kid could ride his bike to most stuff and lock up the bike. I forget how we got home from our road games in grade school. Actually I think we met at the school took a van or two and they dropped us back off at school even in the dark to ride our bikes home. But I repeat NO parental involvement back in the day and our parents didn't hate us, they were just busy with life and trusted the coaches. We never had any child abuse scandals and we all turned out OK thank goodness. But when my dad came to that one game in our postseason playoff I remember being a little nervous about it. I do remember him driving me there that one day and on the ride home said, 'You kids played a good game.'

This thread, while educational, has done nothing to make me feel positive vibes about youth sports. Or should I call them 'parents living their own sports careers thru their kids' sports? If anything back in the day there was no parental coaching/no coaching at all besides your Little League coach, your grade school basketball and football coach. No private lessons. We learned from from watching guys shoot the basketball on TV or hit and pitch the baseball on TV and took it outside. Unfortunately we played baseball every day during the summer to go with official LL stuff and yes it probably ruined our arms pitching the rubber ball against the school wall for 9 innings every day in what they called 'fast pitch' on the southside. My friend peaked in high school, wrecked his arm. Was a special talent ruined by overuse I'd think.

It's 'funny' to think that when Reinsdorf/Einhorn bought the team there was much consternation and criticism of what they'd do to the franchise. 'Funny' that at the end of the JR tenure is when it finally showed its ugly head that people were right. Sox had been good enough years and mediocre enough years to go with 2005 for people to be moderately happy. Only the double tank years have shown JR's true side. Lousy owner who won't sell. Sad.

Lee and Sosa the heroes. Are they good? They've had moments. Arguably if you throw out automatic winner Crochet, Lee might be Sox individual player of the year. Maybe DeJong for all those homers. But Lee has earned himself some money this year. He should be an able backup catcher for many years if he can stay healthy. On another topic, what are the odds Jose signs a one-day contract with the Sox and has a retirement ceremony the last week of the season? I guess they might not want to embarrass him with a small crowd so maybe do it on Opening Day next April? That's if proud Jose has decided to retire. He also could go play overseas I would think.

It all drives me insane. Not sure what happened to adults the past few decades in relation to their kids. Glad you have a brain that functions in that regard. I know it's hard to imagine but when I was a kid playing 3 years of Little League and one of Babe Ruth my dad came to one game and no practices. When I played basketball at Queen of Martyrs and we played 30 or so games my parents and sibs came to zero games. They wouldn't be caught dead at one of my cross country or track events in high school. ... Not cause they hated greg. That's the way it was. Parents didn't go to games just made sure you had a plan to get to and from the games/practices. Usually they didn't even ask me if we won or lost or how I did, lol. Compare that to now ... WOW.

Glad to hear kids without much money are able to find an inexpensive option. Hope they can get rides to practice, games etc. In Wichita they have the Jackie Robinson League where a full season of non travel league baseball is 25 bucks with equipment provided. Businesses have chipped in and given $ or donated mitts and bats and balls for hundreds of kids. It's growing every year. It's not a travel league and it's got great instructors. It's given opps to play to kids who otherwise don't have the money to play travel ball in Wichita. If anybody is rich on here and wants to donate to a great cause, youth, send some dough to the Jackie Robinson League 42 in Wichita.

OMG. I can't imagine having one's batting average available from Little League. Shouldn't surprise me but sounds like a bad idea to let parents brag about their kids' BA and high school scouts. Now as an adult I'd love to know what I hit in Little League and Babe Ruth or Legion, whatever we called it. Now that I think about it as a kid we definitely didn't stress about our personal stats, just winning. Winning was really important in Little League to the kids on our Chicago southside team. Of course I think my BA and RBIs etc woulda been fine if published. Not Luis Robert-like. Nobody hit homers with no aluminum bats. Lot of action inside the lines not over the fence.

Tell me about it. It was no fun in grade school when our buddies from the football team showed up at basketball practice after their final game. Oops ... poor greg has been moved down the hoops depth chart, from a promising starter to scrub. Not complaining. They were good players. I didn't specialize. I just knew very little about football and nobody in family taught me squat so on first day of football I picked the wrong position to have fun: center. I quit by the end of week one. Not my game/position. On to basketball baby and baseball in the spring and hockey in winter as well as tennis/bowling.

You mean it's getting better? It WAS as bad as the greg scenario?

Glad to hear about multi sport kids. It's good for them IMO. Questions for Fathom: a.) How many of the parents are already talking about having their kid pick one sport soon? b.) How much pressure is there to join a travel team if you want your kid to have a chance at a schollie someday? c.) What's left for the kids who don't have the $$ to join travel teams or aren't talented enough to make the team? d.) Do you agree the youth sports world would be a better place if there were no $$ travel teams and kids simply played Pee Wee, Little League in a stationary place? e.) Do you sense any problem with poorer kids having no chance to play travel team cause of the $$ involved and the system is broken? Peace out. I am glad to hear about the kids playing more than one sport in your experience. At what age will there be pressure to pick one, however?

I love Stoney, but to absolve JR of blame? Unacceptable Steve. As far as him coming back ... he makes a great buck and apparently can turn down attending several road trips per season. I assume he turns down the Detroit and Cleveland trips a lot and probably a West coast trip or trip up to play Toronto.

Makes sense but no way the mommies and daddies who want scholarships will allow their kids to play more than one sport. Traveling teams make me want to puke. They go to Florida and win the 10 and under World Series at Disney. World Series? LOL. There are probably 1000 World Series around the country in the summer for traveling teams to play in with mommies and daddies monitoring every step of the way. Back in the day parents stayed out of their kids business and kids were happy playing Little League at the 115th and Homan fields. Now ... travel teams baby. We'll teach your kids how to be stars if they play just one sport and we'll get em a schollie for sure if you pay the big travel team fees.

They are doing what they are supposed to in 2024. Hit a homer or whiff. Exciting product.

Three hits? It's hard to get less than 5 hits in a game. Sheets and Vaughn back in the outhouse. Robert not exactly doing anything before and after that 2 homer game he had. Man we stink.

Sad that even soft throwers need TJS ultimately. Baseball training needs an overhaul. I have no idea what's going on but I'd suspect the way our young pitchers with talent go through the different levels of baseball has to be screwed up. Curve balls thrown too early? Arm overused at LL, Babe Ruth, Legion, HS levels? something up with minor league development? Baseball needs to figure something out. There already are dozens of amazingly lousy relievers in baseball with tons of mediocre starters. Sad. Something must be done in development changes.

Sorry Lip. I wrote double tank not talk. I know u don't double talk and I recognize you are 50 times smarter about MLB than me and smarter about the Sox than me. I get very frustrated being out of the race in April and again next April. I accept JR and the partners are the problem but it frustrates me similarly cheap teams like KCR, Det, Minnie, Cleveland win with similar budgets and smaller cities. I respect you Lip and realize your knowledge is much greater than mine.

This board can't explain rebuilding. Cause they won't explain to me how a team like the Chicago White Sox can do so poorly in a division full of small market/no money teams. Having to resort to the double tank is appalling and offensive and repulsive.

It's not been going on forever cause the Sox haven't been bad each and every year of this board's existence. I was as positive a poster as there was when the Sox were actually in contention which the Sox were for many years of this board's existence. Now they are buried.

Lip, a lot of fans on here and many who have probably lost interest in the team and left, get energized by trades and rebuilding talk. Can you imagine if they didn't change the draft rules how many people would embrace the tank? Tanking/rebuilding just drains me of all energy. Get a real GM like Dombroski in here and a real manager like Leyland and with the benefits of playing in Chicago we'd have won multi titles without tanking! I'm just trying to point out in this division it is utterly incomprehensible the Sox can't compete with the small market teams in our division. It's just insanity.

I'd take Chet over Robert in all scenarios. Robert must be a headcase with all those K's. He's too young and has too much alleged talent to whiff as much as he does.

Man, 30-95 and we're not out of August yet. That would be neat if we lost No. 100 before the end of the month. Sad though that baseball season no longer is something we can look forward to. That's the problem with those who embrace tanking and encourage this rebuilding crud. We have nothing to look forward to for years to come. The fact we can't even compete against KC, Minnie, Detroit, Cleveland is so laughable but nobody cares. We'll just go on our merry way rebuilding. There's no reason these Central teams can compete and we can't ever compete.