SI1020

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 19, 2009 -> 05:25 PM) I disagree, his drop down 2-seamer in 05-06 was one of his best pitches and he threw it because it was unhittable, not because he wasnt healthy. You're right, that pitch was devastating because he could locate it with speed and movement. His drop down motion this year seems to me to be used more often and is more laborious. It's a get me over motion and pitch. He in no way looked like the pitcher he was the last half of 05 and the first half of 06. Which brings me to another point. Other than those two parts of a season when has he resembled a true ace for any decent period of time?

Joe Crede had a less pronounced hitch in his swing that he was able to work on with some success. Fields will never be the fielder Crede was for the Sox, and even if he does improve and salvage his career he will K a lot. On balance I'd say he's probably going to wash out. For a long time I believed he would make it, but now I no longer do. Why do the Sox draft so poorly and even more so why aren't they able to work with players like Fields who could with some coaching be productive players? This organization has a number of problems and we are looking at a long dry spell unless certain things improve soon.

The premise is still all wrong. You don't hire a coach or a manager based on their success or failure as a player.

Often times the best coaches and managers were marginal players in their respective sports.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 18, 2009 -> 02:28 PM) I've never said Bush was dumb, he was just a terrible President, and is entirely different than Daley, for good and bad. Daley is corrupt, and the city has its annoyances. But if you think the city is worse now than in the 60's or 70's, you really aren't paying attention. This city has undergone a renaissance not seen in many other cities int he country, from about the early 80's until recently. Only in the last few years has that progress really stalled. Hate on Daley all you want, there is a lot to hate. But he has gotten results. I was afraid the remark about Bush would get miscontrued. I have no great love for him or his administration. As for the other part I was alive and in Chicago in the 60s and 70s. It was declining. Where I disagree is this feeling that gentrification has been the pathway to a better city. It has remade a few areas to the detriment of the middle and working classes. I'll agree that the lakefront, the museums and cultural institutions, what I call showcase Chicago is in some ways better than ever. As for the entire city, hell no. Do a checklist of all 77 community areas and the smaller individual neighborhoods within. Go back one, two and three generations and compare to today. Do the same with the public schools. What you now have is an upper crust, the urban poor and very little in the middle. Sorry, we'll just have to agree to disagree about Daley and the city. Do you work for the city?

Of course you're not the Candy Man.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 18, 2009 -> 04:38 PM) Floyd's arm may also be tired from going over 200 ip last year. For some reason I feel that many pitchers seem to have a down year after they go over 200 ip for the first time in a ML season. Danks went 195, so his arm may be tired as well. You know you may be right but it still makes me mad. All athletes, not just baseball players are supposed to be bigger, stronger, faster and better in every way. Why are MLB pitchers so brittle these days? How did guys like this one do it? Anyone remember him?

I've long thought that the so called "vote of confidence" is often a polite way of saying your job is on the line.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 17, 2009 -> 02:21 PM) No, the mayor is corrupt but also intelligent and relatively effective. Stroger appears to be none of those things. They aren't in the same league. That's funny. Bush is dumb and Daley is smart? They are both pretty inarticulate. You can have Daley's Chicago. A city with two classes and neither one middle. Red light cameras everywhere, and you can get your car towed even if its legally parked. Everywhere you turn you're getting gouged and Chicago is one of the biggest Nanny State places to live. No, the city of Sandburg, Algren, Dreiser and even Mike Royko is no more. There's not a day that goes by that I don't miss it, but there's very little chance I would ever go back. I often wonder what path the city would have taken if Adamowksi had been elected in 1963. New York could elect a John Lindsay and a Rudy Giuliani. In LA a Richard Riordan. In Chicago and Cook County it's the same Cro Magnan machine types recycled over and over.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 15, 2009 -> 03:04 PM) LOL, not sure if anyone saw this, but apparently the IRS put a $12,000 tax lien on Mr. Stroger. He claims it was a tax bill too big for him to handle all at once, and that it was taken from a deferred compensation of some type. Um, Todd, Mr. County Board President, did it not occur to you to leave some of the money aside to pay the taxes against it? Your excuse is only making things worse, as it appears you don't understand taxes and how to budget your own money. This guy is such a joke. So is the mayor.

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ May 16, 2009 -> 03:24 PM) See, I have a hard time buying that one fanbase is so much better or worse than another. Sox fans got a terrible rap with the father/son duo attacking the field. But the Cubs have their Chad Kreuter incident and others. I think all fan bases are passionate and have bad apples. Maybe some teams have more fans who are passionate, but not more passionate fans and such. Same with idiot fans, maybe some teams have more fans who are idiots (based on sheer population numbers) but not more idiotic fans. If you want to believe that fine. Philadelphia fans have a history dating back to before all of us were born. The Santa Claus incident happened in Philadelphia. They had to install a court in the basement at the old Vet during Eagles games because they had so many arrests. Even in individual cities crowds can be different. Boo the Pirates at PNC park and the fan next to you might buy you an Iron City. Try the same at a Steelers game and he might try to tear your head off. Especially if you're from Cleveland or Baltimore. Giants-Dodgers games in recent years have been the scenes of bloody fights in the stands and the parking lots. Even resulting in someone losing their life. No, not all fan bases are the same and not all stadiums will give you the same vanilla experience. Like I said, believe as you like.

I don't care for Skip Bayless, and he was weak in his little verbal date with Missanelli. Still I doubt that Philadelphia fans have suddenly become angels. They have a long history dating back to the days that the Phillies and Athletics both played in the city.

It doesn't seem fixable to me in the near term. Contreras looks washed up. Lets face it he wasn't bad, he was brutal. He doesn't trusts any of his pitches and he's using all sorts of gimmicks and various deliveries that are fooling no one. Is Floyd a one year wonder? I hope not. Broadway and Richard are not and never will be Major League pitchers. They are of course welcome to prove me wrong. As for Gobble, what is it with trying to rejuvenate KC rejects? I'm not convinced about Colon, and if either Danks or Buerhle decide to slump then we're really in trouble. I just hope the group in Birmingham continues to improve. The next few years could be very rough.

QUOTE (SoxFan101 @ May 6, 2009 -> 11:24 AM) That post was way too long to read so after reading the first few sentences id say its just ozzie being ozzie. Although if we fall out of contention in this division i hope KW keeps the core guys but not afraid to deal away anyone else because of false hopes we might make playoffs. I guess you wouldn't be interested in reading War and Peace.

The fact that JR is not even close to the worst in his home city or in MLB speaks volumes.

It has been a weird season. Real weird. Remember the old TV show "To Tell the Truth?" Will the real Chicago White Sox please stand up?

I'd like a little more than that. Then they can have him.

You're so right about it being a lost art. I've been saying it for years. Ever heard of the "drag bunt"? Our Nellie Fox was an expert at it back in the day.

Southsider - I agree with your latest post. Let me add this. From 1946 to about 1973 the US economy was on a roll the likes of which the world has never seen. Real incomes, even adjusting for inflation more than doubled. The great middle class was the center of gravity. Since that time nothing but trouble. Manufacturing has declined drastically, the entire Northern tier Rust Belt is dying a slow and painful death. The upper middle class and rich are greatly expanded, the poor are still with us (although poverty rates are much lower than in 1960) but most important of all the middle class is being squeezed to death. Both parties give the middle class the middle finger. The Democrats are controlled by their left wing, which becomes more Stalinistic by the day. The Republicans, at least on economic issues ignore the plight of the middle class and even on occasion promote policies that are poison for American business, particularly small businesses, which create most of the jobs. That is why I often vote for Liberterian candidates. I don't buy in to the totality of their philosophy, on some issues what they believe is a recipe for chaos. It is just my way of protesting the lack of choice among the two major parties. The Democrats could put the GOP out of business quickly if they'd go back to the basics of what made them a national and local powerhouse from FDR to LBJ. They catered to a growing middle class that often looked to the Democrats as the reason for their newly found prosperity. Today they sneer at people like me, and wonder why we sneer right back and they lose elections. As far as my own personal situation, I'm OK. I know I'm good at what I like to do, but unfortunately I'm firmly in age discrimination territory now. I'm also looking for and have the most experience in a type of job with very few good opportunities. Nothing to do but tough it out and hope my wife remains attached to my presence. Lastly, the topic at hand. California like the rest of the country is grappling with a host of difficult economic problems. That being said it would be hard to find a state more disastrously managed from an economic standpoint. California is textbook for why people like me have abandoned the Democrats while not being totally comfortable with the GOP across the board. Davis is a disaster and deserves to be recalled. The California Democrats remind me of 18th Century doctors who used to attach leeches to critically ill patients, hastening their demise. I hope the recall passes. Based on what I know I give it an even chance as of right now. The California GOP is known for shooting itself in the foot at crucial moments. Davis would never have been elected in the first place if not for the major problems of his GOP opponent.

He's lucky he still has a job.

Southsider- Thanks for reading and considering my opinions. Like I said in my post, there are number of reasons why these tax cuts have not "worked" just yet and you obviously mentioned some good ones. A real live economist on Soxnet. That's pretty allright if you ask me. If you have the time or inclination what would you do if it was in your hands. How do you propose we get this economy out of the dumper? I'm one of those out of work professionals at the moment. Thankfully for me, my wife is doing OK and she's not pitching me out the door. I can't afford to give her a four million dollar ring to show my appreciation either.

Since I already screwed everything up by making a political post why not carry it a little further. I see tax cuts lambasted here. What the hell do they teach these days? You know I've seen the pendulum swing from left to right and back to left again among the youth of this country. It's swung hard left again at least among college age kids in the North, Great Lakes Midwest and West (left) coast. But I digress. Repeat after me. TAXES ARE NOT A ZERO SUM GAME. When you lower income tax rates the result is usually job creation and a major increase in government revenues. It happened in the 20's under Republicans, in the 60's under Democrats. Hell it was one of JFK's most important planks in his platform. Of course the Democrats weren't the fractured schizophrenic politically correct emasculated debating society that they are now. It was a party that catered to the lower middle class and middle class and those that aspired to become that. It was a powerhouse that won elections at all levels. I'm getting carried away, I'm just so tired of the knee jerk cliches. It worked under Reagan when rates were lowered and government revenues almost doubled under his watch. It's not happening so far this time. There are a number of reasons why the economy is not rebounding, but when it does the tax cuts will spur additional revenues. Liberals want my money. They want it all. I don't want to give it to them. It's one of the main reasons the Democrats have had so much trouble the last 35 years or so. People don't trust them with their condescending social engineering ways. California is the extreme example of this. Gray Davis is a disaster. Many Democrats will admit as much, but not for publication because they don't want to give any ammo to the opposition. I'm sorry, even if Bush is the anti christ and Republicans eat babies for breakfast like their enemies would have you believe, the left in this country is brain dead. I don't know who if anybody pays attention to what I post, but for the record I'm a registered Independent who votes Republican about half the time and Liberterian the other half, with the occasional Dem or Reform Party person thrown in. If I'm not completely enamored with the Republicans I recoil in horror at the left and again, taxes are not a zero sum game.

This is a perfect example of why I rarely if ever vote for Democrats. The party as its now constituted needs to go extinct. I've been doing such a good job of avoiding most things political here for several months.

According to reports in Pittsburgh Giles just turned down trades to Oakland and Seattle. I guess he wants to stay in the NL. Both of those teams are contenders.

I went back to 1950, that's 53 baseball seasons total. The White Sox had a better record in 37 of those years. If you go back to 1970 the White Sox still lead 20-13. The 70's was the only decade the cubs beat us, having a better record in 6 out of 10 years.