southsideirish71

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Dec 14, 2006 -> 04:08 PM) Juan was still flying open off the ball with his leg kick within a few weeks of adopting it as a technique. Greg Walker had the right idea with Uribe last year, it just didn't work. The leg kick is a bandaid on a gaping wound - it's trying to fix the poor design of Uribe's swing in 2005. Last year, Walker had Uribe spread his legs apart to shoot for better balance and better ability to see the ball, which is the right technique. It didn't work with Uribe, because he still kept his batting stance too closed and kept the tendency to pull off the ball, and because it sure seems like he is very, very stubborn about wanting to swing at everything. Juan was not opening up and flying off the ball after the technique was put into use at the end of 2005. It was ditched in ST by Greg who thought that a spread stance would have the same affect. However that experiment failed. The spread stance worked for Ozuna but it didnt work with Uribe. The spread didnt work for Uribe because he still kept moving his feet. Players have different timing generators, and moving his feet seems to be Uribe's. The uribe I saw last year was flying open and spinning just like before. Only 2 things seemd to keep Uribe focused since he has been a whitesox. One was open competition for his job. When he first got here, he was hungry and played with intensitiy and seemed to focus on having good ABs. Once he got the job though, he started getting a bit lazy at the plate(the same reason that the Rox traded him). The 2nd thing was the timing mechanism at the end of the 2005 season. Uribe has enough talent to hit with the best on the team. Its his wild mechanics and his lack of focus at times that gets him in trouble. I think his lack of focus is why some times he messes up easy plays or his throws like last year, but can make the most spectacular plays. The only one holding Uribe back is Uribe.

QUOTE(Balance @ Dec 14, 2006 -> 03:43 PM) Good post, I think you hit the nail on the head. 1. I don't know much about Stewart, but I know I don't want Alomar. I think KW will make a move before Spring Training for backup backstop. 2. Our bullpen is solid for innings 7, 8, & 9 (MacDougal, Thornton, Jenks). I guess the real issue is whether our starters will consistently make it through 5 or 6 innings themselves. I tend to think they will, more ofteh than not. I don't think a lack of middle relief justifies spending what this current market would require, however. 3. Personally, I'm comfortable with Brian in CF. I love his defense, and I'm hoping that he's going to improve at the plate. Unless we can acquire a Vernon Wells, I don't know who else is out there worth breaking the bank over. 4. Can Pods go anywhere but up after last year? He'll have had a lot more time to let the ol' groin heal. I'm being optimistic, perhaps foolishly, but optimistic. 5. Here's where I'm the most worried. If we can get 2005/playoff Juan back, then we're fine. If not, I'd like to see a change, too. But I don't know what the best move would be. Who can we get without having to break the bank? Or, if we do break the bank, it had better be someone worth the money. 1.) Hopefully KW targets Hall with a backup plan of trading for Miller. 2.) Our bullpen is fine. Ozzie makes his pitchers throw at least 5 if not 6. 3.) Brian needs to hit, if he doesnt then platoon him with Sweeney. 4.) If pods sucks, then use a platoon in LF with Ozuna and Mack. Have Gooch leadoff on days that Mack is in the lineup if need be. 5.) Hire Walt Hrniak as a special hitting instructor for problem cases. Bring him in for ST to work with Juan and Brian specifically. He wont want to work full time again. After ST, he can come out once in a great while when a player gets into a funk again to go over what they learned. Both hitters can be good if they keep their swings in check. Juan needs to get his leg kick back, it kept him centered and allowed him to close off and drive towards the pitchers plate. When he ditched it, he was flying open and he had a hard time centering the ball up. Walt can work with Brian on centering the ball up more.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Dec 14, 2006 -> 12:16 PM) I've been a subscriber for about a week and a half, so far it is leaps and bounds better than the times. We are screwed in Downers for this. I cant get the Daily Herald nor can I get the Southtown due to a local Downers paper that is terrible. So I have to deal with the trib or the times. This is just so dumb.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 14, 2006 -> 11:31 AM) That's why war sucks. Innocents suffer. It's always been that way, always will be that way. Part of the problem today is that people think that war is a video game. That there is no mistakes, that there should be no causalities. A house is next to a radar installation and the house gets hits by either the missle or rubble from the radar installation going down. Instead of asking why there are dumasses who live near an obvious military target, we get CNN and the rest posting how we are targetting civilians. We are dropping bombs from a plane that is high above moving at high speed avoiding sams and flak fire, and then while banking away, the same pilot is lazing a target, while trying not to get blown out of the sky. And then if they miss, we then want them brought up on charges. If you are too stupid to live near a military target during a war then if you die its darwins law. How about this then. Instead of locking these people up when we encounter them on the battlefield and then worrying about their civil rights, when you run into them and they are shooting at you. Kill them, dont arrest them, shoot them, bomb them and then the problem is solved. I am still shocked that they didnt kill Saddam when the found him in that hole.

QUOTE(retro1983hat @ Dec 14, 2006 -> 11:23 AM) Yes, after Sox games were over on Channel 44, you could get pay to get ONTV and if you were like my family you had a Black Box. Of course after 11pm you got a "special" treat. My friends used coat hangers and got the "treat" for free. The descrambler kit for ON-TV was known as a 7/11 kit back then. I built one for a science fair for grade school. The parts for the kit cost 60 bucks with the antenna. I never told my parents about the "special" treat that turned on after 11pm. I dont think they would of sanctioned the building of it.

QUOTE(fathom @ Dec 14, 2006 -> 10:52 AM) With the massive money deals we've been seeing, there will likely be more trades at the deadline than the previous few seasons. It's just too bad we weren't more interested in Abreu, as his contract seems below market value now and he'd be the perfect leadoff hitter for the Sox. Now this I will echo. Abreu would of been a nice OBP guy for our lineup. I dont know about leadoff, but he could of been a nice OBP guy to put in the 3 hole in front of the mashers.

QUOTE(ptatc @ Dec 14, 2006 -> 08:32 AM) I agree. Especially with the article from Phillie above. If Floyd's curveball has gone from 12-6 to 10-5 as stated, that is purely mechanical. What he is doing is dropping his arm angle to change the break on the ball. This reinforces the opinion that a mechanical alteration will benefit him. Sorry, I referenced the wrong statement. This was in reply to the idea that Floyd will be siting next to Cooper. He could be a nice addition to the pen. If he can throw strikes and get that 12-6 curve near the zone he could have a similiar effect that Justin Duchscherer has in the pen. I think Coop will help him throw more strikes and to trust his stuff. And also outside of mechanics messing up his curve a bit, it has an effect on velocity. If he could be 92-93 with that curve from the pen he could be just the bridge guy to the back end of our pen. You go from a starter to Floyd, to the velocity train at the end and that could be a nice bullpen. Its just a matter if they throw strikes. That is the key for our pen. Throw strikes and trust your stuff.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Dec 14, 2006 -> 09:59 AM) So why are you on a white sox board again? Yet its continually allowed to happen. Its the same MO. Rednwhite comes over here to tell us how everything that we do is overrated by our fans, or that it isn't quite as good as his beloved Red Cubs. Then everything that Theo does is annointed by the Lord God himself, because he is the chosen one. When one starts bashing any part of the Konerko signing, and then over rates Cora then the objective glasses are off, and they are drunk on Red Cub juice.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 14, 2006 -> 09:52 AM) The payroll went up. Pretty much its been a one to one relationship with how profits have turned and how the payroll has turned. As Mike has shown in years past, pretty much you can look at the Forbes report and say that whatever the profit has been, you can see payroll increase at the same step. Anyone who thinks that this organization is cheap with a 100 million dollar payroll is a moron. And for those using the Garland example, just stop. That is called getting the most for your trade. What will bring you more back, a pitcher in their walk year, or a pitcher with 2 years on the contract. KW thinks he can get an impact pitcher that can front line our rotation with Garland he will ship him off. Plain and simple. And for the love of God its Jon Garland, not Cy Young. He is a durable 200 innning pitcher. Batters hit .294 against him, so lets stop like if we trade him we will be a 5th place team for 10 years. We as fans need to stop falling in love with the names on the back. Because there is no loyalty for the most part either way. FA's want to make the money, and the clubs want to keep a product on the field that can make them money. Why is this so hard for everyone to see. We get silly threads about players being selfish, or the owners being selfish. They are all selfish. Its called human nature. If the cubs would pay me 126 million dollars, as much as I hate them, I would put the hat on right now and smile for the camera. And laugh all the way to the bank later as I bought my Island in the pacific.

I knew he needed an MRI. Thank God he kept pitching hurt for the most of the year, so we couldnt of stretched out Bmac. He could of taken a rest, got stronger.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 12, 2006 -> 09:47 PM) I get them all the time as well and thought I could spot them a mile away. Everything looked legit. They perfectly copied career builder except for the email addy. Looking now I was stupid. If I wasn't so damn arguing in the 'buster, I would have looked closer. Tex Unfortunately the bad guys are getting better at making their sites look more and more like the real site. Before they used to use copy the look of the site, now they are going as far as direct linking the images right from the website. The more and more we think we are getting in front of this, the more and more the bad guys are getting more innovative. Remember people are visual, and we process the look of the site before we process the meaning of it. That is what they count on. My company just setup Identity Theft insurance to help with our associates that fall for this.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 12, 2006 -> 09:19 PM) I have my resume on one of the resume sites and get regular notices when jobs match my field. I usually don't respond, but this one caught my eye and I followed the link and it look dead on for career builders. It wasn't until after I entered my social security number and moved to the next field that I started to get that s***ty feeling in my stomache. In the list of "hints" questions was "What is your favorite Internet password?". No way that was legit. I stopped at that point but those bastards have my name, address, and social. A email to career builders confirmed it was a scam. That sucks Tex. You need to start to be proactive, and not wait for the hammer to fall. Sites like the one that you hit are collectors, they collect this info and then forward it to a main site which ferrets through it and either sells this to illegals, or uses it to establish credit for free money. Of course start monitoring your credit. You don't want to wait until a bill collector is calling you on some mortgage you never had. Here is some other info. Here is a good site for some checklists after you have disclosed personal info. What to do after you have disclosed personal info Make sure you pay special attention to the If you have given out your personal identification information section. Here is a site on Identity theft. Identity Theft There is no reason that any site should ask for your passwords, or your SSN. Here is a good site to look at for examples of phishing emails. AntiPhishing QUOTE(RockRaines @ Dec 12, 2006 -> 09:35 PM) You put a fraud alert on the credit report sites. You also fill out a form online saying your social has been stolen. Its the same as if you lost your wallet. I get those fake paypal emails all the time that says, enter password and credit card info, I always enter something funny, and I never thought anyone actually got scammed. Guess not.... It could be worse, he could be in Nigeria right now trying to figure out where Prince Mintabu is to give him his millions.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Dec 12, 2006 -> 05:28 PM) I am also shopping for a 40 in LCD for my bedroom. If you are going HD, make sure you go 1080 P. The 720's are already behind in the HD market. Also brands, I would go with Samsung, Hitachi, Phillips as some of my fav's. Im a HUGE fan of Hitachi and Samsung, but I think im going with the Samsung LCD. It also depends what deal you get. I picked up a 1080i(720p) 37 inch for my bedroom for 499 on Black Friday. Its not 1080P, but for that price I can deal with it.

QUOTE(Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 12, 2006 -> 04:49 PM) So we had all these people in one room and all of our bombs were preoccupied? Shame. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236014,00.html David Duke should be down in camp Xray, getting water boarded right now.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 12, 2006 -> 02:39 PM) That's why I said 20 years till this becomes reality. I dont think they will chip people for this. They will more likely go down the biometric route, fingerprints, retina, facial recognition. Remember in the end, either now or in the future, chipping people would cost money for the readers and for the chips themselves. In the biometric arena, the cost would only be on the readers. Plus there has been so much work in this industry for years, that it is a lot more mature than the passive radio scanning.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 12, 2006 -> 02:15 PM) That's easy to say now. What if your livelihood depende on it? What if your retirement funds were dependant on it? What if your family would disown you due to social pressures? They need to seriously work on RFID security before they could ever convince the mass populous to go for it. I work in the manufacturing industry, and some of these RFID chips are programmable. We had a vendor tell us that we had to use it, so while they were testing the technology, I was altering the nature of the chip. When they scanned a pallet it said instead of the SKU number, Hi my name is Joshua, do you want to play a game. That killed that in our company, plus the cost is still rediculous.

RFIDing people is where I draw the line. I am pretty open to all sorts of survelliance, but having a device that can be passively scanned from under my skin is too far reaching. My dog sure, he is chipped. But again that is my dog.

Happy Birthday Mike!

QUOTE(Texsox @ Dec 12, 2006 -> 11:17 AM) http://www.computerworld.com/action/articl...;intsrc=hm_list December 11, 2006 (Computerworld) -- Longtime Windows development chief James Allchin wrote in a January 2004 e-mail to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and company co-founder Bill Gates that the software vendor had "lost sight" of customers' needs and said he would buy a Mac if he wasn't working for Microsoft. Posted just for FlaSoxxJim As a long time Unix guy I made the jump from Windows on a laptop, to Linux on a laptop, to now my intel macbook Core Duo. The best thing for Apple is when Steve left Apple, had the NeXT company, and then came back to apple with lessons learned. When they put BSD underneath the hood is when this became viable. When they converted the intel is when they became smart. My macbook outperforms other peoples new Dells, and my Parallels VM that runs an XP VM runs faster in the VM than on a Pentium 4 by itself. I just got my boss to get a MacPro workstation and he is doing Oracle testing underneath a VM. The only thing that Apple needs to do, and this is a religious war for Apple, is to allow the OS to run on other Intel hardware. That is the only real thing that is holding them back.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Dec 9, 2006 -> 10:17 AM) Jurgen Klinnsman wanted nothing to do with the US team. A tough European coach would have done the US team wonders. Sunil Gulati is the reason that Jurgen is not on the team. Jurgen wanted what real coaches get, a say over the development in the youth system and basicallly GM like powers over the US program. This is what real programs do, and this is why our team will be minnows once again. To develop a world class national team, you have to build it with one vision, and one goal. But the USSF wants its control, and they want a puppet. So Bruce Arena, I mean Bradley will coach. Bradley is a defensive minded coach that preaches ball control, and no risks. In other words he is Bruce Arena. We will qualify again for the WC, and then we will get destroyed by whatever decent talent is in the cup because we will sit back on our heals waiting for a shot. Oh and Bradleys kid will be on the team, book it. The teams will be more MLS based, and will be even worse. This is absolutely the worst decision they could make. This was a dumb move, and is based on Sunil's lack of vision and understanding of the world game. This quote is pretty much the mindset of Gulati. Gulati " Prospective coaches need to understand the "mindset of the American player." You mean the mindset that has Landon Donovan not showing up at big matches. Yeah we want to keep that up.

QUOTE(GoSox05 @ Dec 11, 2006 -> 12:07 PM) you never take chances on low risk over weight guys with bad attitudes. It just never works. not one time ever has it worked. oh except that one guy. JENKS. Jenks is a young guy blessed with a 101 mph fastball when we picked him up. That is a low risk reward. Does Hernandez have the same toolkit or upside as Jenks, that would be a negatory ghostrider, the pattern is full.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Dec 11, 2006 -> 12:00 PM) Hernandez gets released by the KC Royals. The same KC Royals who pay Gil Meche $55 million. He's a tub of goo. Pass. All that he did last year was use the Joe Mays blueprint on how to shutdown the sox post ASB. Locate a fastball low and away, and then throw some changes and breaking pitches out of the strikezone low and in the dirt. Many a bad pitcher has used this blueprint to shut down our freeswinging team. It was more of the approach of our hitters than the effectiveness of Hernandez. That being said, if you can sign him to a minor league deal he gives you some insurance at AAA.

QUOTE(CanOfCorn @ Dec 11, 2006 -> 10:13 AM) Here's a question...how much of this is AJ's pitch calling? Is AJ calling the wrong pitch or is Vaz not putting it in the right spot? I can't remember right now, but does Vaz shake off a lot of pitches? Does it even make a difference? And SinkingShip...I understand you were talking about McCarthy as #4 and someone else as #5, but again, we still need to trust our system and scouts at some point. Whether they saw something in Floyd or think Haeger or Phillips can do it, the Sox need to try. Just because you don't want to see it, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Vaz does shake off a lot of pitches. Sometimes he outthinks himself. However on some of the big dongs that Vaz gave up last year, like in Detroit, AJ called the pitch, however Vaz hung it. If a good pitch is hit, then you can blame the pitch calling. When a pitch is hung over the middle of the plate its entirely on the pitcher.

QUOTE(DonkeyKongerko @ Dec 2, 2006 -> 05:10 PM) I have a 60 priest on Zul'jin and had alot of fun getting there, but now the game feels repetitive. My new pastime is Xbox Live if anyone wants to play Gears of War. I am picking that game up in a few weeks, the game I am playing a lot lately is Rainbow 6: Las Vegas. That game is pretty good, the multiplayer on xbox live is awsome and it has some of the splinter cell tricks like fliping upside down when you repell down.

QUOTE(Hangar18 @ Dec 11, 2006 -> 09:43 AM) your like the 10th person I've heard say this, lets be like the braves, and we can win the division 10 years straight by rotating our pitching staff. Except remember that they pretty much kept theyre big3 together the whole time. Garland is YOUNG and relatively inexpensive right now, theres no reason to trade him at this point .......... So you advocate going to FA with our guys and getting draft picks and if you say pay them a kings ransom then sure whatever. Or do you want to trade them when they are in their walk year, and when their value is at their lowest. If you want an impact prospect, someone that can be a 1-2-3 then you need to either deal Vaz or Garland, Garland having the most value. What I get a kick out of, is that people have selective memory. They believe that our starting 5 is the bestest starting five in the history of baseball. We have a good starting 5 that all had great year(2005) at the same time. However when you break down the numbers, not too many of them are untradeable.