Fotop

Hey guys, I'm amped for this game just as much as the next guy. However I'm a bit confused as to when it actually comes out. I pre-ordered it at the Electronics Boutique in Woodfield mall. When I listen to you guys it sounds like it comes out the 12th (Monday), but the website (ebworld.com) says it ships on Monday. So I figure at the earliest I will have it Tuesday. However, I just saw the commerical for it and it said the 15th. All of this is really confusing...I just want to lead the Irish to a national championship.

La Russa is going for the knockout tonight. That lineup is murder.

Jake Westbrook.... :puke

That comment is somewhat skewed. I mean I could just say when's the last time you've seen a REAL platoon and we could have a nice circular argument going. Hypothetically, it would work but like I said the situation needs to be right and both players need to accept that their job is to hit the crap out of one type of pitcher. To site a platoon/group of players putting up all-star numbers (this may be outdated, however I haven't seen a true platoon in awhile) I again have to defer to Weaver's book "Weaver on Strategy." He states and I quote: "By matching your bench-players' strengths to your starters' weaknesses, you can create a 'player' of all-star caliber from spare parts. In 1982 we used Benny Ayala, John Lowenstein and Gary Roenicke in left field. They combined to hit 37 homers which is the same as having a Reggie Jackson in the batting order. Individually, Roenicke, Lowenstein, or Ayala could never compar to Jackson, but when used against the pitchers they could hit they collectively performed like a star." Granted this was a "platoon" of three players, but it stresses the same point I'm trying to make. If you don't have a "stud" player but you have two or three average ones would it make the most sense to rotate them in a manner in which all of them would have their most success? Why trot a player like Rowand out there against a guy who he's 1 for 24 against when you have a guy like Perez who may be 5 for 10 against the same guy? I'd like to note however that the "hot hand theory" overrides all statstics. If a guy is flat out mashing the ball, then he needs to play everyday until the streak is over. The point of the game is to score more runs than the other team. Putting your most productive offense out there every night increases your chances of winning the ballgame. It really shouldn't matter who's ego is hurt or caving into backwards logic such as "platooning is gay" and "throw them into water and it's sink or swim." There are better ways of doing things, let's not settle for what's considered the norm or comfortable.

The park itself is nothing to write home about. Straight out of the cookie-cutter boom, Busch is essentially just another cookie cutter as ss2k has said. Their fans are great though...can't say much about the opposing team's fans however.

Platooning is far from "gay." For mid-market to small-market teams platooning is their only chance to have an "all-star" at every position. By that I mean they can play two guys who each rip their respective type of pitcher (rhp/lhp) and their combined stats can create the same stats as one all-star who can hit both types of pitching. Let's face it, it'd be great to have 9 guys that all can hit rhp and lhp equally but that's gonna cost you; especially in today's market. I just finished reading Earl Weaver's book about managing, and he was quite the believer in platooning. Besides, what sense does it make to play a guy everyday if someone else can hit certain pitchers better? Even though it's blatantly obvious to play the best player for the best situation, people still think it's stupid. If the players all accept their roles and play for the TEAM, platoons are just another weapon to take advantage of other teams, and it's backwards logic like "platooning is gay" that prevents mid-market teams like the sox to gain any headway on the powerhouse big market teams. By the way, Rowand KILLS left handed pitching...do you think it would make sense to start someone else in his place against lefties even though Rowand is on the bench but you want someone to play everyday so you play him over Rowand against LHP? Nope, I didn't think it did either.

Couldn't have said it better myself...that guy drives me nuts.

Hey there everyone, as some of you have noticed I haven't been posting much this month and for good reason. Most of my weekends in July are devoted to trips to various MLB parks, 5 in one month to say the least about it all. So far this month I've traveled to USCF, Wrigley, Petco, and Busch, with the last weekend of the month devoted to Citzens' Bank Park in Philly. All in all, it's been a blast and I've been able to see some great baseball. This past Saturday (7/10) I was at the Cards/Cubs game at Busch Stadium. First and foremost let me say that this rivalry is rather heated, more heated than Sox/Cubs IMO. When you think about it, it makes sense because these guys play in the same division. Anyways, there was a lot of tension/playoff like atmosphere. I was fortnate enough to have some pretty damn good seats (first row in LF), and as with any ballpark trip I take with my family we were rooting for the home team. Naturally I had my Sox hat on, like I would anywhere else and it's the "vintage style" hat but it's green and the logo is the 1983 logo and it's green as well. My brother had a red soccer jersey on and bought a red cards hat and he was sitting next to me. Our row was basically all Cards fans, with a few Cubs fans sitting behind us. So with all that established the game started at high noon (12:20 to be exact) and it was hotter than hell. I saw three people taken away because of heat stroke. The beer was flowing, in fact I saw two dumpsters full of beer cans being carted off in the 5th inning (The odd thing about Busch is that they sell 24oz beers...not exactly great for a Cubs crowd). So basically, everyone was liquored up pretty well, combine that with the heat and you've got a rowdy crowd. Anyways, the first inning rolls along with the Cards grabbing three runs and I make a comment along the lines of "you guys better pack it in, you can't score more than two" to Alou who's pretty much standing right below us. We were giving Alou a hard time during a couple of innings, mostly about peeing on his hands/his inability to knock in the tying run during the game. No profainty or vulgar language was used at all and no one around us was upset with us or asked us to stop. It really wasn't enough heckling even to cite it as annoyance, we really didn't say all that much. The game keeps rolling, and as I predicted, the Cubs can't score more than two runs. Fast forward to the bottom of the eighth when the Cards score a coule insurance runs to make it 5-2. We were all cheering and the place was really rocking and finally the Cubs got the last out (Isringhausen). At this point I was getting tired and the father and son next to me had already left so there were two open seats next to me. So I put my arm up on the back of the seat, as most people do when they're relaxing in their seat. Now this may all seem like useless information up to this point, but this is when everything changed...after about a minute with my arm up a man behind me kicks the back of my arm off the chair with full force. I'm stunned. So I turn around to see who it is, and of course it's a Cubs fan...angry at the outcome of the game and me for some reason. The sad fact is that it's a father, who's with his son...kicking a college student in front of him. I'm not saying I can't defend myself, I'm twenty...however this guy had no clue who I was, nor how old I was (I defintely look younger than I am). And to do this in front of your kid is pretty awful in my mind. So I turn around and say "I'm really glad that violence is your way to take out your frustration. I mean that's a quality solution." This was obviously said with an immense amount of sarcasm, and the guy quit giving me a hardass look and sat quiet the rest of the game. However, no matter how small the incident I found this to be a despicable act for a man who is taking his kid to the ballgame. I didn't provoke him at all, yet he still decided to do this in front of his kid. Pretty bad example if you ask me. Combine this small experience with the loads of drunken Cub fans puking in the tunnels (I saw about 5 personally), along with the blind belief and ignorant comments that ensued after their team was downright beat makes me despise Cubs culture that much more. It's sad really that the rest of the country feels sympathetic towards these people because they haven't won a World Series in so long. The fact of the matter is that they probably are the last to deserve it when the act like the way they do. All in all, a quick summary for those that don't want to read the filler. I was kicked by a Cubs fan behind me who was attending the game with his son all because the Cubs were losing and I was the closest non-Cubs fan to him. Busch Stadium was overflowing with drunken/rowdy Cubs fans who won't believe their team isn't destined to win it all this year until they're mathmatically out of it. In the end, this all has just fueled my dislike of everything that is Cubs. May their fans get what they truly deserve: nothing.

Benson is quite the upgrade over SS, at least IMO. Schoney lacks the pure stuff that most good pitchers have, and the good pitchers that don't have that stuff have impeccible control. Schoney has neither. To me, Schoneweis is a 4th starter at best, but most likely the 5th starter or a long man on a good/great team. Benson on the other hand has some pretty damn good stuff when he wants to use it. This is all pure speculation, however I believe if Benson were actually motivated for once in his career (Pitt isn't that great a place to get hyped for games) that he'd show us a second gear he's capable of having. Everyone in baseball knows this guy possesses great talent, otherwise his name wouldn't come up in trades EVERY YEAR. Now do I think it's worth it to go out and grab him? That all depends, however I'd be a bit scared as to who KW would trade. I'd rather him just grab another player or two in seperate deals so he can't overpay like crazy in one huge blockbuster deal. Add in the fact that we've already traded olivo, reed, and morse, and you can completely mortage our future with one bad blockbuster deal. So in the end it all comes down to whether the price is right to acquire a guy who would be the best 5th starter in the AL. I think the team has more pressing needs right now (Bullpen Help, LH CF, Catcher) that it's better to use our chips on our bigger weaknesses. Simple right? Well let's hope so. However, to say Benson is not much better than SS...well that's an insult to Benson.

Very true moreCowbell. However, I love Brey as our coach. He's actually made a program out of basketball instead of succumbing to the "Football School" stereotype the Irish get from everyone. That's awesome you go there too, btw. What dorm are you in/used to live in? I'm from Keenan Hall.

If this were to happen this would suck for my school (ND). Mike Brey (ND Men's Basketball Coach) could easily become the next Duke coach. And I certainly don't want Brey leaving anytime soon.

Koskie capitalized on that mistake, first career homer off buerhle.

Rudy. For obvious reasons.

Damn Jose w/opposite field shot. 2-0 Sox!

Mauer also hasn't probably played all that many games against LHP. I wonder how many ABs in that AVG

Gordon is quality...I personally would have LOVED Livingston but the Bulls will never pick a high schooler outside of Lebron James Jr. Deng or Iggy will be available at 7. Hopefully it'll be Iggy, then the Bulls will probably have one of the best drafts.

I hate to say it, but situations like last inning is where this team REALLY misses Mags.

As I've been saying for most of the season, "Ozzieball" (defined as doing the little things to generate runs) may not be the type of play best suited for this ballclub. Today I stumbled across a couple things while reading Baseball Prospectus that I found interesting. For the sake of agrument, I'm going to focus simply on the sacrifice aspect of "Ozzieball" and disregard the whole agressive baserunning aspect. To begin, I'd like to point out this little tidbit I found on BP: As we all can probably remember we were a pretty decent hitting ballclub last year. By looking at this we're in the top five in the most improved offenses (slugging wise) with the Cubs being 3rd on the list . Combine that with the fact that we play in a great hitter's park and you've got one potent offense. But this was common knowledge to everyone already right? I mean it's pretty simple to see that we're hitting the ball well this year. However we continue to bunt too much. Take a look at this: What the above is basically stating as that we're most comparable to the Reds and Phillies in regards to the amount of times we sacrifice. As it also states, it's really not all that good for an American League team to be comparable to a National League team due to the fact that the AL has the DH. So basically we're sacrificing the same amount of times as two teams that have a PITCHER in their lineup. This simply does not compute to me, especially when you see something like the slugging increase. To me, there's a simply solution to this problem, STOP BUNTING W/NO OUTS EARLY IN THE GAME. It just doesn't make any sense to bunt in the bottom of the first, EVER. At least to me it doesn't. Don't get me wrong, I love the attitude and energy Ozzie brings to the club, however forcing a philosophy on a team better suited to just hit could cost us precious games in the long run. Combine that with his recent pitching decisions, and the "games we should have won but lost" start to pile up. I haven't checked in awhile, but the Sox are near the top in run differential...let's act like it and not play as "safe" as we do. Just my two cents. Take it for what it's worth.

Running out of time here, hopefully we see the Indians bullpen. Please?

Agreed, once Mags is back that'll be quite the combo for CF.

Rowand MURDERS lefties. Even good ones like Sabathia.

Did you guys give qwerty this hard of a time as well?

Konerko just got under that one...unfortunate really.

Sabathia is a stud...I wish we could rip him out of Cleveland's hands, but that's just wishful thinking.

But really...how important IS Mags? Granted, he's a huge upgrade over Timo...but it's not like he was tearing the cover off the ball when he went down. I understand his presence in the lineup and such is key, as well as his defense, but his hitting (at the time he went down) could be replaced or the "deficit" could be less noticable if his replacements actually played well. I'll tell you one thing I learned with him out, this team SHOULD NOT pay 14 million a year for him. End of story.