greg775

I hope so. I can guarantee you he won't be efficient all 7 years, not in this day and age of injuries. They'll be lucky to get 3 good to great years out of the 7.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 12:11 PM) http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...cle1237204.html Trading for and KEEPING Shields was key to Royals' 19-4 surge http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...cle1237145.html On how to act when your team's actually pretty good for the first time in your lifetime Did anyone cry when the Sox won the World Series? I don't remember crying...just being very proud and still kind of in shock because of how they barely the Indians' charge in September and then they just got on that surreal roll of games and pitching. Maybe it's different for Pirates and Royals fans because of that 20-30 year gap without anything but misery. We needed Matthew Wein all along. Wein, more than Shields and even more than Brett, has lived what Royals fans are hoping to experience over the next six weeks. He just did it in Pittsburgh. Wein is 31 and a lifelong Pirates fan, which means he’s basically lived the life of a Royals fan, just with a different wardrobe. He says that growing up rooting for a loser has shaped who he is an adult, some of it good and some of it bad. The Pirates are winners now, so to remind himself and others of the Kevin McClatchy years (the Pittsburgh equivalent of the Board of Directors years) he wears a Ryan Vogelsong jersey (the Pittsburgh equivalent of Neifi Perez). “You did feel like you were in an abusive relationship with the Pirates,” he says. “Like it was really your fault for enabling the Pirates to do this… “They were so bad, so ostensibly awful, I started saying, ‘I’m just a baseball fan and I happen to live in Pittsburgh.’ But then you realize, ‘I won’t stop watching. I can’t stop.’ Eventually, you accept it, like, ‘Oh, I’m really a Pirates fan.’” That started to change two years ago, when the Pirates were in first place in July and above .500 as late as Sept. 18. They had a young star in Andrew McCutchen, and enough pitching that the future looked bright. That’s when the transition took traction, with some bumps along the way that Kansas City can relate to — the football mentality transferred to a 162-game season, the embedded cynicism from a generation of letdowns, and an honest uncertainty about when to really believe. That 2012 season ended in disappointment, and a 20th consecutive losing record. Not even the Royals can match that. But those who stuck around saw a start-to-finish contender in 2013, 94 wins and then an epic wild-card victory over the Reds in which the fans in Pittsburgh rattled Cincinnati pitcher Johnny Cueto so much he dropped the ball on the mound. Now, the Pirates are again in position for the playoffs and the team is drawing more fans than any season in its history except for the opening of PNC Park. “It took a while for people to think it was real,” Wein says. “But now they think about it like it’s nothing but real.” The adjustment isn’t easy. Nobody likes to admit this, but there is a comfort in the losing. It’s familiar. Wein got used to leaving late for a game, parking close to the stadium, and waving at the nice usher who always let him sit closer to the field because of all the empty seats. Last year, Wein couldn’t get a ticket to the wild card game. He watched from a bar, and spent the last few innings “sobbing like a child.” Winning brings a sort of first-world problems, of course. Tickets are more expensive, expectations higher, and Wein says he can already feel a sense of entitlement from some Pirates fans. But this is a lot like romanticizing that dump of an apartment you lived in right out of college. The harder life is much better in hindsight, because the greatest thing in a world for a fan might be your team paying you back for years of letdowns with one glorious stretch of daily joy. “There’s nothing anyone can tell you that’s going to prepare you for what you’re going to feel, or how you’re going to deal with it,” he says. “You can’t prepare for it. At some point, you’re going to accept that your team is no longer awful. Something is going to click in your brain and you’re going to lose it. You’re just going to lose it. “If you’re someone who cries, you’ll break down crying. You’ll cease to be gunshy about it. And the payoff is worth it. Allow yourself to enjoy it. Don’t shy away from that. Allow yourself to enjoy it when it happens. Don’t become relentlessly pessimistic just because that’s been your nature the last 20 years. Allow yourself to enjoy it when it happens.” At least, that’s what people in other places say. But even Pittsburgh is a different place, with different history. Here in Kansas City, maybe we need to see this for ourselves. To reach Sam Mellinger, call 816-234-4365 or send email to smellinger@kcstar.com. Follow him on Twitter at @mellinger. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com. Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-colum...l#storylink=cpy Nope, didn't cry. I called my dad who was a lifetime Sox fan. You realize when your team finally wins that it still is just a game. You are happy as hell, but life goes on.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 17, 2014 -> 12:00 AM) This ump has one of the smallest zones of the year You'd think the umps would have some self respect. Baseball goes to replay because the umps are basically making so many mistakes it's laughable. Now they have all these overturned calls, you'd think they'd be embarrassed, but ... Part Two: Baseball tells its new commish to speed up games. One of the reasons games are so long is umpires refuse to call a pitch over the belt a strike. Umps have their own strike zone. I contend it's been a silent protest all these years, i.e., you can make the rules but we'll call the game the way we want! If they'd call a pitch above the belt a strike, it would make hitters, uh, swing a bit more. Umpires anger me so much. I wish they'd clean house on them.

I see the bullpen failed again tonight albeit against a good team. Good game except for the horses*** bullpen again. With Minnie winning Sox creeping closer to the cellar for the second year in a row. Avi baby!

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 08:53 PM) Just wait until the police officer is exonerated somehow...then we'll repeat the whole thing, similar to the anger over the Rodney King officers' trial verdict in LA. Yes. But caulfield, I don't know how close you are following this. I think it is a powerderkeg right now and has the potential of really blowing up tonight. People aren't taking well to the curfew news on social media.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 08:45 PM) State of Emergency Declared... Nixon is really taking some hits on the handling of this one. Yes. I don't know what they can do, frankly. You can't have nightly looting. But the people are so upset they want the cop's head on a platter. The people of that town, do want justice NOW. That's not how it works. What a joke of a news conference. I think they should have let the guy screaming in the back of the room have the podium for a moment. This is no light situation. That city is pissed off.

The governor set a midnight to 5 a.m. curfew. Should be interesting. Either people obey or they come out en masse again tonight, then at midnight all hell breaks loose when the cops implement the curfew. It's easy to be peaceful during the day ... at night? Different story. Midnight is still pretty late on a Saturday. Could be a lot of troublemakers out and about. The press conference is out of control. Angry people are yelling stuff at the governor and police chief. This is not going away. I think tonight will be a disaster with the curfew. People are just too pissed off. They want justice and that doesn't mean a long drawn out investigation. Crazy. They want that cop to be punished big time now.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 07:59 PM) There's a decent amount of business owners doing that They'll need sleep at some point since the looting usually hits any time after nightfall. When do you start shooting is the question? When the looters enter your store? When they start marching toward the store? Wild.

That's crazy that Mark Buehrle is pitching against the Sox in the Cell. Is this the first time he's been the opposing pitcher in the Cell? I hope Paulie hits 3 home runs and we win, 3-0 and Mark goes 8 strong innings.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 04:21 PM) It is funny to note that the media is totally exploiting the idea of female dominance in baseball as a big deal for one of the lead stories, even outside of sports, with Mo'ne Davis. The entire idea is that females aren't as good as males, so when a female dominates males, in a male sport, this is a huge news story. No sexism there, right media? Excellent point. Isn't Davis doing this in the LL World Series though? It is kind of a big deal she is no hitting the boys.

Very interesting story about a business owner getting looted. Cops wouldn't allow him to go to his store during the looting. Some community members felt so bad for him they wanted to help him clean up. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/16/f...html?1408211526

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 07:36 PM) Not sure what you mean here...I doubt they were upset about her having a real job, I think it's more the feeling they are being exploited by the mostly white media, or that the media is making them look bad or perhaps isn't trustworthy. No the implication was she had no business being with the white media. She should be on the black side of the issue. Kind of like she was a sellout since 99.9 percent of the media covering the case are white. They wouldn't even give her a chance and let her do interviews. This case could have gotten a lot worse last night. There were some real thugs out there and with no police at all on the scene, there could have been some real physical attacks on the media. I haven't heard what the plan is tonight. But a Saturday night? If it doesn't rain (storms are in the area)? There could be big time trouble.

Unless it's a false twitter thing, there was a picture of one business owner with an assault rifle today protecting his own business. Can you do that legally? I'll tell you one thing .. I know the police are under fire nationally but at some point the looters have to be stopped. Or it'll be anarchy in this country.There has to be a happy medium. The poor business owners.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 04:41 PM) Protesters tried to stop the looters last night. http://www.ibtimes.com/ferguson-during-fri...-stores-1660418 I've followed this pretty closely. This is kind of misleading. Last night protesters did try to stop the looters for a while, like from 1 to 3 a.m. They were getting interviewed by bloggers and other media and timcast.com was showing it live. It was all a pretty happy scene. Then at 3, all hell broke loose. The stores started getting looted again big time. People were walking out of the same store with booze, six packs. One lady brought a tub in at 3 a.m. at the meet market to steal more stuff. It was pretty lousy stuff. Then, the media started getting pushed around by the protesters (and to be fair thugs probably from other cities who came in to loot). Then at 3:30 there were rumors the looters were headed to Wal Mart. That's when I finally went to bed, but police did show up at Wal Mart to protect it sort of. What I don't like is, now that the police have been under fire, they are doing nothing to stop the looters. This was not a happy story last night of protestors protecting the stores. That happened for a little while. I don't know if they went home finally or got thirsty and started looting themselves. The protestors roughed up the media a bit, telling them to turn off their camera phones, etc. One reporter was told and you could hear it that he was gonna get knifed if he didn't turn it off. I personally think the police have to do something to protect the stores, but it appeared last night the new idea is to let the people do whatever they want, loot all they want. It's pretty sad. I know the people are furious about the senseless shooting, but man, this is crazy. I'm fully convinced the protestors will continue to loot after the sun sets if there's any merchandise left. Last night 3 a.m. was the point of no return when everything went awry with the police allowing looting. People looked like animals stealing property. It's kind of a no-win for police. And reporters are getting a wide-eyed view of the real world. With no police around at all, they are at the mercy of the looters pretty much. As an addendum, it's pretty sad when the protesters/looters were chanting, "Are you black?" mocking one black female TV reporter and demanding she leave and not do interviews. It's like they were upset she had a real job. What the f*** was that all about? This Ferguson thing may require the President to show up. There were some pretty good live feeds like timcast going on from 12 to 4 am. last night when I went to bed, so I kind of know what I'm talking about here.

All hell has broken loose on twitter regarding ferguson at 3 am. Looters going crazy; now they are headed to the Wal Mart. Geez enough is enough regarding the looting.

I don't know how much financial trouble he was in. I think the media is getting worse month by month in reporting pure bulls*** and we can't figure out what is true or not. I saw somebody say he was doing pretty damn well financially. I also saw the stuff Caufield was quoting. But I read Williams' people emphatically denied he was anything but a very rich man. This from TMZ. He was not in financial straits... Robin Williams did not have money trouble and money had no connection to his depression ... although he DID complain about being taken to the cleaners "the way most divorced husbands do" ... so says a person who frequently discussed finances with the actor. The source -- who was in regular contact with Robin -- tells us he was not cash strapped and lived "the way he wanted to," adding, "He always flew first class, took great vacations and lived in the house he loved." As for why he was selling his Napa ranch, we're told he just didn't like going there anymore. The source says the ranch was "a thing" for Robin and his second wife, Marsha, and he just didn't enjoy going there any longer. The source says Robin did complain over the years about "getting taken to the cleaners by his ex-wives." Multiple sources tell us ... money had nothing to do with the depression that ultimately led to Robin's suicide. Read more: http://www.tmz.com#ixzz3AWu1VTKb

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Aug 16, 2014 -> 12:58 AM) I was a Colts fan (Bert Jones era) when they were in Baltimore and it didn't bother me they moved to Indy. Sad that I never took the opportunity to see them at Indy when I lived in the Midwest. I'm all for the Sox moving to a new state, one that doesn't have MLB if it generates more revenue and it's spent wisely. I don't think Indy would be a better place. Face it. When it comes to baseball it's a Cubs town. How many WS victories will it take? When did it all go downhill? I remember in the 80's-90's the Sox would sell. Where do u live? Why the heck would want the White Sox to leave Chicago? That's insane. They've been playing there since about 1900. WTF? With all due respect, I've never read something so horrible from a Sox fan. Wanting them to move???

Hawk apparently said ... "I understand my old buddy Matt Abbatacola just ripped me apart yesterday, calling me names, calling me sexist. Friend of mine -- I didn't know Matt was still in town. I thought he was either fired, or quit and went some place else. I think he's just mad cause I don't use his name anymore. [About a minute later, sarcastically] Yeah, that really hurts, almost broke my heart. But I guess I'll have to live with it." I love it. Hawk is like Howard Stern. He's untouchable so he might as well fight back. Love it. I wonder if Hawk wrote that out. Really is the perfect comeback. (And I do realize Howard can cuss up a storm and say what he wants on Sirius).

Can't beat 17 hits. Now that's entertainment.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 05:30 PM) Riots happen because communities are sick and tired of being f***ed with by those who are supposed be there to serve and protect. It ain't that hard to figure out, bros. I do feel your pain in getting stopped by cops for no reason. That must suck and happens a lot to blacks. Riots should never happen, though, unless the rioter wants to spend a lotta time in prison himself. QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 08:17 PM) Jobs that give people a lot of authority can attract authoritarian assholes and bullies. #notallcops, but enough. Yep. QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 08:21 PM) I was a prosecutor in a pretty major city for a year. There are lots of good cops out there, but there are also some really, really bad officers. I'm not going to get into too much detail here, but "resisting arrest" is a very, very subjective term that officers sometimes use as a crutch to act in a way not befitting their uniform... This is a very interesting post. QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 08:24 PM) The Chicago police literally tortured people into false confessions for over a decade. The idea that a small but significant percentage of police are violent, authoritarian assholes shouldn't be that big of a leap. This is a very interesting post.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 06:51 PM) This point is just so hard for people to understand. You don't have to be outraged. But you can certainly disagree with what he said, and realize that he shouldn't be saying things like that when he's an announcer for a major league team, and a large part of the fan base is female. Simply saying "well it's always been this way and that's why it's OK" doesn't make it OK. Now you've got people comparing it to calling someone a "f**" etc. So if Hawk did that tonight, would that be OK too because that's how certain people talk? There are ways to disagree with a call and describe your feelings on air without saying what he said. That's all he has to learn how to do in that situation. Great post. I am not outraged, but I have watched college softball and volleyball and damn those girls (women) can play ball. Those softball infielders have quick reflexes and great arms. They can scoop anything. And volleyball? They'd beat the hell out of any fraternity team that might want to play 'em. I thought of the women studs I've seen compete at Kansas when Hawk said that. But I repeat, I am not outraged at all and generally I hate walking on eggshells PC outrage. But I agree with the above post a lot.

QUOTE (BaconOnAStick @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 01:37 AM) I am shocked nobody wants Dunn. Can other teams really see absolutely no value in a guy who does pretty good work against RHP? I'm honestly starting to think the price on him this offseason as an FA is going to be well below what he's worth. Combine that and our complete lack of options at DH going into 2015... I'm not opposed to a 2 year deal. This is what I mean about Dunn getting the benefit of the doubt in Internet-land (especially compared to my favorite, PK). Why oh why oh why would you want to continue the Adam era on the south side? I guess at 2 million a year you could keep anybody, but 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 million?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 14, 2014 -> 10:50 PM) And Butler. Even Moustakas is hitting the ball better than earlier in the season. Yes, Butler is happy as Justin Verlander at bedtime now that he gets to play first base. He despises being a DH. Good for him.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2014 -> 02:11 PM) Baseball seems like it's in good shape with revenues, league size, growth rates, new TV contracts, and it has had 2 decades of labor peace. I'm not sure "taking a harder line in labor negotiations" is something I want to see from MLB's ownership. They've got a good thing going overall, especially now that they've got the draft-rigging figured out. About the only thing they'd genuinely fight over, as far as I can tell, is the size of each side's pie slice. Great post. Labor peace means owners giving player "almost" everything they want. Taking a harder line will not work, not in baseball. Baseball has one shot at the owners getting more of what they want: a multi-year stoppage. 3, 4, 5 years and they might be able to re-do the entire system. That's too long a period. Will never happen.

Reinsdorf is actually right in wanting a salary cap cause owners are such buffoons they never will stop paying players exorbitant salaries. Pretty soon the average cost of a ticket will be about 100 or more bucks a game which will continue to make baseball a dying sport. It never was designed to be such an elitist game. Say what you want about me being out of touch regarding costs of the fan, but it's true. The average Joe has truly written off going to baseball games. Too much other stuff to do in the summer and it's not worth the cost, especially with games becoming more boring than ever (pitching changes, no steroid induced monster home runs; except from Tyler Flowers....boom minus the steroids!) To get a salary cap, and a shot at sanity, however, they'd have to shut down baseball for 3-4 years then start over once players would be willing to cross the picket lines and play again. A work stoppage of 3-4 years wouldn't help this dying game, either. Only way to keep down salaries is owner collusion and the owners just won't stop paying. Owners are out of touch, ego-stricken buffoons, though, and I'm glad this writer called out Jerry and some others. Doesn't hurt to have their billionaire egos blasted a bit.