whitesoxfan101

Well the one thing I did get right was in June of 2003. I was sitting there on draft night, all excited we would get that "franchise guy" in Dwyane Wade. When the Heat out of nowhere took him at #5, I was pretty much in a state of irreversable depression for 3 days. Turns out I got that one right at least.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 11:11 PM) This is a horrible day, Walker, Williams and Payton all get rings. Disgusting. Bleh. Payton getting a ring sucks since he was one of the Jordan era failures, so that sucks, but there have been far bigger douches than Williams and Walker to get rings.

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 11:09 PM) That, officially, is the biggest f***ing choke in this town's history. And, one more thing. DIRK, you are NO superstar. Look at Mr. Wade for that status. Blame your coach. He lost control of his team, he let them stop playing late in game 3, he refused to force them to attack the basket, and he drew up the worst play of all time at the end of game 3. Avery will be a great coach, but he got pantsed by Riles in this series and it may have cost Dallas a ring. But the Mavs (unlike Miami), are young, will learn, and will be back.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 11:07 PM) Is it just me or has the NBA lost it's lore? Wade is a star, plain and simple, but the only reason I'm glad the Heat won is because of Alonzo Mourning. It lost it when Jordan retired, however this was one of the better playoffs I can remember seeing in terms of entertainment value.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 11:04 PM) A true basketball genius. The Mavs lost this series because Avery Johnson is not a smart coach and coached the worst series in Finals history, however I will eat my crow on this one. Congrats to the Heat, D Wade and Shaq are cool anyways....and it's great to see the Bulls gave the best such a tough series.

Thanks NL, you f***ing suck. I enjoy all these easy wins, keep it going tomorrow Mark. Great game everybody, 20 over feels good.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 10:14 PM) 5.5 and the thing is it's too early to worry about the wild card. Right now we're a whole two games behind the Tigers and our goal is to win the division. That being said if it comes down to us making the playoffs by winning the wild card, I don't think anyone is going to complain. My point is basically that I have little concern about the Tigers. We can't control them, and if we keep winning we'll be fine. The Tiger anguish is not needed unless we're playing like s***, which we aren't.

Put it this way: If imprisoned Al Qaeda members were made to drink Milwaukee's Best as torture to make them talk, we'd have caught and destroyed every sign of terrorism in the entire world.

We have like a 6 game lead in the Wild Card. I know everybody thinks we're "above" that since we won it all last year, but if we take care of buisness that playoff spot is a lock, regardless of what the Tigers do.

QUOTE(illinilaw08 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 03:23 PM) To clarify, I didnt say that it didnt go back to Jordan, I was just focusing on more recent events and IMO general consistency of officiating is the greatest hurdle for the league. Deferring to superstars for calls is laughable and the exact same reason many American sports fans claim to dislike soccer what with the diving and all. Agreed on all counts, and I wasn't really calling out your point, but rather pointing out that it has been going on forever for the simple point of clarification.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 05:34 PM) I'll settle for the Wild Card if we must, and then just destroy the Tigers in the postseason as we have so far this year. Agreed. If we keep winning, Detroit has no control of the fact we'd get the wild card in that senario (we already lead by 5 games). All I want is to make it back to the playoffs and have a chance to defend our title, I don't care if it's home field, as a wild card, takes 163 games, whatever.....just give me a shot in October and I'm happy, cuz you never know.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 02:53 PM) How does he resemble a lead off hitter? Even with PODs slumping he is getting on base with more frequency than Gooch. You can make up for not walking quite enough if you can hit for average, which Gooch does. On an ideal team, Gooch obviously does not hit leadoff, but this team has nobody that would even be a consideration to leadoff other than him. If Pods were to leave, we'd have to find somebody else on the open market to leadoff, which is the biggest problem here.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 01:55 PM) What are the chances we can get Rooney back for the 3-game set? The Cardinals have the best (Rooney) and 2nd worst (Shannon, only behind Santo) radio guys in the same booth. Quite a contrast there.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 02:39 PM) So far in this thread: Pods is overpriced Gooch is a good lead off hitter Pods is overpriced right now, even if he made the league minimum...and Gooch is the only thing on this team resembling an everyday leadoff guy besides Pods.

If he's going to start, it would be in left. Cintron and Uribe at SS is the best option, and there isn't room anywhere else. I don't want him to start right now, because I fear his weaknesses at the plate (and of course in the field) would be exposed while playing that much, but if Pods keeps up his current pace, I'd ease Pablo into it and play him more and more in left.

QUOTE(chitownsportsfan @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 01:29 PM) There is no reason for Pods to be back next year as a starter. Let him walk, don't even bother with offering him Arbitration--if that is even an option. I believe the team has a "club option" on his contract for 2007. There is no reason to pick that option up. I'd like to see a blockbuster trade for Cabrera in the offseason, although with the Marlins surprising again, I doubt they will be shopping him. On an aside note, anyone who says the Marlins aren't a well run organization is kidding themselves. 2 titles from an expansion team, then a firesale, in which they LOADED themselves up with talent (that is producing ALREADY) and plenty of options going forward. Their owner migh be clueless as to how to market the team or get a stadium built, but he has good baseball people in place. Their owner is a complete idiot (Loria), so is their marketing guy (Sampson I think is his name)......but their GM Larry Beinfest is a GENIUS, he's the guy that gets all the credit for what is going on right now. He loaded up during the "firesale", and it's paying off already.

QUOTE(LVSoxFan @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 11:27 AM) I would not count on them declining any time soon, if at all. These guys have been perpetual also-rans in the Central (sound familiar?) and now that they're having a breakout year, they're not about to give it up. I doubt they feel any "pressure" yet. Sure they probably wanted to pull away but this is the Central--the Sox aren't going away and neither are the Indians. Yeah, they're pretty far back but I certainly would NOT count them out. Look what they did last year. Things can change in a blink. Look at Oakland; they were sucking when we played them and now they're on a 10-game winning streak! In regards to the 2nd thing.....yeah things can change, the Twins have won 7 in a row....and gained ONE game on the Tigers and Sox as a result. That's the point, the Twins and Indians could get hot, but with as well as the Tigers and Sox are playing, it won't matter since it's too late and they fell too far behind. As for the Tigers.....they could continue to play well all year, but I don't know if they can play THIS well all year, whereas I think we can and win around the 99 number we finished with last year. Now is Detroit going to win 100 games? I doubt it.

If we were to led Pods go, the easy choice IMO to leadoff is Gooch. He's a career .281/.341 guy at the plate (not too bad) with adequate speed and has quality at bats. He strikes out too much for a leadoff hitter, but IMO he could make adjustments like he did last year (bunting, going to RF, less power) in order to walk and get on base more, in which case you could live with the k's. My issue there is though, who would hit 2nd in that case? No idea, maybe he's Sweeney or maybe he's not in our organization yet. All I know is between Pods D, his inconsistency at the plate, his suddendly slower speed, and his age.......along with the talk of moving Fields to left, it's clear a change may come next season.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 11:51 AM) To be honest, I think the turning point for his season will be the 3 run homer he hit against Cleveland when the Sox were down 10-2 on Sunday nite baseball. It might have seemed meaningless when he hit it, but that AB seemed to have awoken his bat. I think that 9th inning rally may have been the turning point of the season for the ENTIRE team. We had been finding ways to win due to talent alone before that, but since then we seem to be playing as a team and (for the most part) executing and playing like it's 2005 again. We could be the first team to ever have our turning point be a loss in June .

QUOTE(illinilaw08 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 10:29 AM) I dont honestly believe there is a fix, but the deference superstars in the NBA get is ridiculous. I do however think that officals easily can dictate a game. The stillshots show there was contact, but when the play is shown at full speed, the contact is minimal. The worse call in my mind was the non-backcourt call against Wade earlier in the possession. The real problem here is NBA officiating as a whole. Far too often they are able to dictate the way a game is played. Look no further than the Heat-Bulls series where the way officials handled Shaq had a major impact on games. NBA officals need a lot greater consistency throughout the game regardless of who has the ball and how convincing they can make contact appear. This goes back a LONG way. Nobody talks about it since he was on the Bulls, but some of the games the Bulls won because of Jordan getting the calls were as bad and worse than what you see now. I don't know how you'd fix this problem either, it's been happening for decades.

QUOTE(My Dixie Normus @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 11:03 AM) Who are the Cubs going to send to the All-Star game? Zambrano, easily. He's 5th in the NL in ERA at under 3 and 2nd in strikeouts with over 100.

Fields couldn't be any worse than Pods in left on defense, and Gooch would be a more than adequate leadoff man.....but this won't happen.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 10:09 AM) The absence of Koller really showed against Ghana. Their age is not that big of an issue. Age is extremely overrated in soccer. Especially here in the US. And for the US to advance, you have to worry about beating a tough Ghana team 1st. Yeah, Italy IMO will definitely beat the Czechs.....however I'm 50/50 at best on the U.S. beating Ghana. QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 10:12 AM) Help. If the US beats Ghana and the Czechs and Italy tie, won't the US and the Czechs each have 4 points?? Then what? Goal differential is the tiebreaker then, in which case the U.S. is screwed. Italy and the U.S. both have to win pretty much if the U.S. is to advance.

QUOTE(beautox @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 10:09 AM) the fish are only 5 games behind the Reds in the wild card standings. They're 17-6 in their last 23 (.739) Most Impressive. They are in the Wild Card race. They have 4 legitimate starters (Olsen, Willis, Nolasco, Johnson), a young but VERY talented and now executing bullpen, and already had a very solid offensive lineup. Combine that with them being in the NL, and you never know.

I've never seen anything remotely like what Papelbon is doing as a rookie, and maybe not from anybody. They wanted to put him in the rotation, but he's so damn good as a closer that even if he's a GOOD starter, he's more valuable as a closer. His only "blown save" came when he came into a game with 1st and 3rd 2 outs in the top of the 8th up 1, and gave up a bloop single (inherited runner scores) before getting out of it, and getting a win when Boston scored in the bottom of the 8th anyways.