LDF

QUOTE (shysocks @ May 14, 2015 -> 01:51 PM) Cleveland pulled Kluber after 8 innings, 113 (?) pitches, and 18 K's. He had a shot at the record and they pulled him!!! i don't know and i am not pretending to know. i am just throwing out this idea. you remember last yr with Sale and not being pulled. he wound up getting a sore arm / shoulder or someting. maybe they didn't want that.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 14, 2015 -> 03:15 PM) I can live with Melky's lack of power as long as he is getting hits in front of the middle of the order. The power will come back. exactly, a 300 avg, getting on base, moving the lead off man over or driving him in, setting up for the teams #3, 4 and 5 hitters. that is what i thought Melky can do or provide.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ May 14, 2015 -> 03:00 PM) I just don't think any of that matters. The team needs to win consistently and even then it may not matter. Honestly, I kind of like being able to drive up there on a Tuesday night knowing it won't be full. Your ideas are good ones, don't get me wrong, I think Brooks Boyer and their marketing dept are pretty good though anyway. They need to win baseball games. you are 100% correct on the winning. i am just saying, this team will turn it around. whether they will become a payoff team is another point. that is b/c of the awful beginning. but i still think the hype of this team is what i am thinking on building on. the time of doing little and letting the team bring in the hype is not the only way to address the attendance. a passive aggressive approach this summer. help build that hype. this team will turn it around.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ May 14, 2015 -> 02:24 PM) It's not about money. They have the cheapest tickets in the city. I saw Chris Sale vs Max Scherzer for $7 last season. and that is great.... can you or anyone imagine what is open now. the window of opportunity, it is there. it is not totally closed. fixed the radio contract, a full blitz of commercials for the summer of fun with the sox baseball, promote the family nite with the continue cheap ticket prices. sing the praise of the stars on the team. make a couple of spanish commercials featuring the spanish players for spanish tv. have those nites of father and son overniting at the park, i don't know, wasn't it several yrs ago they did that?? for me, do a live telecast for a cost of $1. on the draft and a limited amount to watch it in one of the rooms at the park. i don't know what else. but go out and put a full court press to get those fans. help this team fan base. this is just me and my rant.

QUOTE (Alexeihyeess @ May 14, 2015 -> 03:59 AM) Crane Kenney is the "source" for a lot of the Cubs propaganda on WSCR from Bernstein & Co. Probably came about when the Cubs moved to CBS Radio. The new business relationship and the access provided by Kenney has made the Cubs basically bulletproof in the eyes of that station. i owe you an apology, i was totally wrong in my thinking. i was seeing Kenney and i actually thought you were referring to KW. that is why i was lost. sorry and thanks for the correction.

QUOTE (Brian @ May 14, 2015 -> 10:46 AM) We should take this into our EPIC MARVEL THREAD, http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=95350, but the Thor scene and the dream scenes instigated by Black Widow are foreshadowing the Infinity Wars...or so I heard. b/c of this happy talk of marvel comics and movies, i am starting to become a fan. thor's dream, i need to see this movie again. i missed some important meaning. http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/11/8585809/a...n-cut-farmhouse

QUOTE (Alexeihyeess @ May 14, 2015 -> 01:33 AM) WSCR is never going to criticize the Cubs. Ricketts and Kenney made sure of that a little more than a year ago. how???

QUOTE (InTheDriversSeat @ May 14, 2015 -> 01:10 AM) I attended the White Sox game at Miller Park in Milwaukee on Monday night, but I DVR'ed the broadcast and tried to watch the Channel 50 telecast when I got back home. Just like previous years when WGN Sports-produced games aired on Channel 26 WCIU-TV, the crowd noise is way TOO LOUD, and I could barely hear Ken and Steve speak. Did anyone else notice the same problem? Last season I called WCIU-TV, and I asked to speak to anyone from the Engineering Department to complain, but the Receptionist at 'The U' refused to transfer my call. She blamed the problem entirely on WGN Sports which produced the baseball game telecasts. I say both parties are guilty: 1) the TV station that is airing the lousy audio, and 2) the party that produces the lousy audio telecasts. Why is it that the broadcast audio is just fine when a Sox game airs on WGN-TV, but when the WGN Sports-produced games air on WPWR-TV (WCIU-TV in previous years) the audio is terrible? The next Sox game airing on WPWR-TV is 1 week from today, Wednesday, May 20th from Cleveland. If the audio is terrible again, I intend to make some phone calls. excellent.... you gots to let me know how it goes. i wish you the best. david vs goliath

QUOTE (InTheDriversSeat @ May 14, 2015 -> 12:15 AM) Doesn't matter anyways because WMVP is not bidding on the Sox according to Robert Feder. nice info, many thanks. btw any idea on who is in the running for the sox ?

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 14, 2015 -> 12:55 AM) Baltimore has spent a ton of money under PETER Angelos, just not wisely until the last 2-3 years (part of it goes to Showalter). again you are missing the point, i am saying get a person to run the sox org, someone along the lines of those teams, not the internal, lap dogs the owners group depends on.

QUOTE (oldsox @ May 13, 2015 -> 11:52 PM) I don't want to speak for Caulfield, but I would guess that a lot of announcers have no idea how great a hitter was Harold Baines. nice point,

QUOTE (oldsox @ May 13, 2015 -> 11:42 PM) Nope. Just took a while to get used to it. Keep it up! that's kool. i have tried hard to improve on that european language. ~~~ edit: btw, on a personal note, the last few days, a lot of great stuff been mention in the draft thread, what are your thoughts??? i would love to see where you are in the thought process. btw, this is like xmas day for me, and i am a little kid. i really like the excitement of the draft. peace.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 13, 2015 -> 10:33 PM) It's a huge red flag no matter what his other tools are. If you can't command the strike zone MLB pitchers aren't going to throw you many strikes. I'm high on Anderson overall but he needs to start taking more walks. Not a ton, just a few more. I'd be happy with 30-40 a year in MLB. Just enough to keep pitchers honest. I will add that I have zero faith in the Sox to develop any sort of strikezone command in their prospects. It's not something they do well, at all. i too am high on Anderson and is a big fan. i still will not have blind faith in no one or anything. will be make the majors. i think so. but i have some questions that i would rather not ask at this time. last yr, someone took my question as a negative attack. i do not want that to happen again. so that is why i didn't immediately responded to the statement. either way, i do see an exciting player. i just wish he had progress enuf to play in the majors. i can't wait for him to come up.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 11:29 PM) Beane went through almost a decade of rebuilding, Baltimore 25 years....Atlanta will be rebuilding for 3-4 years while waiting on the benefits of their new suburban stadium. Beane did it with a stricter budget than what was given to the sox and did well. Balti has done well with an owner who only see the budget worst than Oak Alt been doing good without the idea of how much money they have, where they are going to play. basic 3-4 yrs of an uncertain know entity, the backside of Alt baseball. look at the big picture, not what the final line is saying, but the whole story.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 11:20 PM) They've made MUCH more of a concerted effort in recent years to show appreciation for the fans, but it feels like "too little, too late." It's only when they were starting to get desperate, dropped dynamic pricing, realized they couldn't get shut out on Sundays and started dropping prices around the board, but by then the product on the field wasn't an easy sell no matter what the ticket price. The funny thing to me is that over all these years, I've always felt the only truly successful marketing (other than the giveaways) has been the weekend fireworks games. All of those other promotions, like Dog Day and Elvis Night, were just window dressing and copies of what numerous minor league teams had already invented and been doing successfully on a small-scale basis for years. It's also little things. They never had a toll-free number for tickets, since I was in middle school. Most MLB teams treated their fans with more respect than forcing them to pay money to call to buy tickets. Maybe they can't do Thirsty Thursdays and Two for Tuesdays (because of the fear of ruining the family atmosphere), but going back to some of the discount (Mon-Thur) day/night promotions (Pepsi) and dollar dogs/Buck Nights or even "bundling" really good food offers with the tickets (like the A's do) couldn't do anything but help. they can't do that, b/c that means they will have to hire someone who knows what they are doing.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 11:20 PM) They've made MUCH more of a concerted effort in recent years to show appreciation for the fans, but it feels like "too little, too late." It's only when they were starting to get desperate, dropped dynamic pricing, realized they couldn't get shut out on Sundays and started dropping prices around the board, but by then the product on the field wasn't an easy sell no matter what the ticket price. The funny thing to me is that over all these years, I've always felt the only truly successful marketing (other than the giveaways) has been the weekend fireworks games. All of those other promotions, like Dog Day and Elvis Night, were just window dressing and copies of what numerous minor league teams had already invented and been doing successfully on a small-scale basis for years. i was talking to my family and was mentioning that the sox, instead of raising the prices, they should have lowered it a little across the board, and fixed the bad PR they got with the ozzie and son thing. no matter what, part of the major problem is the money and the so called not having it..... the biggest problem i thought the sox had was / IS the mismanagement of the FO!!!!! they need someone like Beane, the pres of Balti, someone... even look into the success Atl has done.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 13, 2015 -> 11:09 PM) The other difference for Illitch is that as a single owner, if he's on average close to breaking even every year, the increasing equity in his team by being a championship contender winds up as increased net worth for him as long as he doesn't lose $50 million every year. The equity increase is nice for an ownership group but they can't cash that out as easily without selling the team. i will say this very gingerly, i really believe the money is not even close in the forbe article. plus they make a lot of money with their sub companies, esp with the restaurant companies that provide the team with many vendors and their supplies, under a sub company. so that group makes tons of extra money, which we do not know. kick in the other sub companies that they owned in the basketball side. this part is the liquid money side of the business and let alone the money they give themselves in a salary.... yes the whole board gets a salary.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 10:58 PM) These are among the best posts in the thread because they're well-thought out, logical and reasonable. Everyone is right, and nobody is right. There's no way to be 100% right, so we take extreme positions and speak in hyperbolic terms in order to get the point across. There's no "proving" a point, because you have an entrenched, nearly unchangeable viewpoint. (I'd argue one of the best marketing strengths of the front office has actually been inculcating the feeling in the fanbase that they're somehow lesser, not loyal, should feel guilty...not supporting the team as much as they should, thus the "can't spend $1.00 if you only have 50 cents" type of comments). I posted an article from early 2011 that the number of local Chicago/Illinois fans attending games for the White Sox and Cubs was almost exactly identical...with the 25% split or difference being out-of-state/tourism related fans, or Wrigleyville "social experience" yuppier partygoers. If the White Sox have LOST fans from that point on, it's their own fault...because the Cubs were going into a prolonged rebuilding period. They had huge opportunities in 2006-07 and then again 2011-2014 (specifically 2011) and they blew both by a wide margin. i don't know if it is me, but one of the other reasons i got to dislike the owners of the sox is the backhanded insult they have made regarding the fans. like you mention and the other time of the sox are not fans if they do not support the team. i may be paraphrasing this last one, but the point is, we, or i have been a die hard fan and i will support it, when they put the product on the field. i have done that for many yr as a season ticket holder with 4 tickets. so did he ever come out and thank us. not in promo's but thank us for being there? if they do not put the product on the field, i will watch them on tv..... that was my feeling when i was in chicago. even this yr, i mention that if i was back in chi, i would have brought tickets. inspite of not getting another pitcher and catcher.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ May 13, 2015 -> 10:44 PM) Right, and there you have an owner who basically challenged the Dodgers and said "we're coming after you!" Of course, the irony is they won the World Series under passive Disney corporate ownership but haven't gotten close to that with Moreno, despite all the free spending, Mike Trout, one of the best managers in the game in Scioscia, etc. Angels tickets (at least when I went over a decade ago) aren't/weren't expensive....same with the Dodgers. It's a volume business out there with the population base being what it is. I still don't think we've met the bar of finding a single team whose fans CONSISTENTLY support their team (no matter what) after going through 7-8 non-playoff seasons (with one playoff team without a chance to advance because of the Quentin injury), and only competitive in roughly half of those seasons (2006-08-10-12)....versus 07/09/11/13/15. The Cubs... The Tigers...50% due to Mike Illitch personally (under Monaghan, not so much in the attendance department after 1987) If you look at all the Midwestern teams (once you get back the Cubs and Cards), you have a LOT of similar teams in terms of fanbase, demographics and economic impact/s from 2007-2008. Cleveland Pittsburgh Cincy Minnesota KC The team that has done consistently well without being a great team...probably the closest example is the Brewers. How much of that is the new stadium, the move to the NL, the fact that the Commissioner's office helped leveraged support directly and indirectly...being a one-market city, etc. If you want to argue Brewers fans are less fickle and more loyal, then I'll bite on that one. Otherwise, White Sox fans are VERY similar to fans in the five other markets mentioned above. They all support winners and tend to be skeptical by nature...even Twins' fans never believed in their team 100%, that they had the ability to advance in the playoffs (despite winning 6 of 9 AL Central championships). nice, one of the better post you have done.

a great pr move by Balt. http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2015...sed-games-riots

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/05/...o-offer-so-far/ interesting and surprising.

i never knew of this ruling on why it could not be done. hit the play button and then read it. http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2015...ind-catcher-kbo

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ May 13, 2015 -> 08:47 PM) The Tigers pretty much followed the same pattern as well. Throughout the 90's they were never able to crack the 2 million mark until 1999 (last year of Tiger Stadium) and 2000 (First year of new stadium). Then not much until they went to the WS in 2006. They started trending down in the 4 years after that but winning the division the past 4 years in a row seems to have perked the attendance right back up again. It's not a secret. Teams that make the playoffs multiple times in a short time span seem to have pretty good attendance. in the most part i will agree with you. but when you have a big city like chi and its appreciation for sports, a built in fan base like the northside, great pr person, they could continue to do as is and still bring in the fans.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 13, 2015 -> 08:19 PM) Doug Padilla ‏@ESPNChiSox 2m2 minutes ago A lineup of Beckham (3B) and LaRoche (1B) -- and even Bonifacio over Johnson at 2B -- sure does sound like a nod to much-needed defense. Scott Merkin ‏@scottmerkin 2m2 minutes ago CWS 5/13: Eaton 8, Bonfacio 4, Cabrera 7, Garcia 9, LaRoche 3, Ramirez 6, Beckham 5, Flowers 2, Quintana LHP. i would have never thought of that. you are right.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 13, 2015 -> 09:34 PM) And yet ... "Ventura told stuff by front office" is the thread we're in, so someone in the front office is fickle enough to speak to the manager 1.25 months into the season. that was completely a bad PR move... that in itself tells a lot to anyone that there is problems in the FO.