Middle Buffalo

Don Mattingly needs to grow the mustache again. I can't get used to seeing him without it. I have a cousin who did the same thing. My cousin hasn't had a mustache for 25 years, and still every time I see him I think he looks odd without it. C'mon Donny Baseball, do the right thing.

QUOTE (Tex @ Mar 26, 2011 -> 03:30 AM) Some of the guys around here with 20+ years following the team have had some side chats about the expectations of the newer fans. Fans in their twenties have arguable witnessed the greatest streak in White Sox history since the 1910's. Fans under thirty rightfully expect this team to compete for a world series every year. Fans in their 40s and 50s have much different expectations. Winning a world series should be the goal of every mlb team. But as a fan to expect that from your team, you are setting yourself up for frustration year after year. The most successful franchise, the Yankees average winning a ws every four years. Eight franchises have never won a world series, five have never been to a world series. The second most successful team, the Cards, average a world series win every 10 years. The sixth most successful, the Reds or Pirates, a win every 22 years, and they may never win another one. Teams win ws when things go right. No one has amassed a team that couldn't be beat. No matter the level of talent, teams win the ws with a little luck, guys having career years, balls falling their way. Try to focus on what can go right for the team to win. There are hundreds of ways for the team to fail, hell only one team is going to win the ws, all the rest either won't get there or lose once they are there. Stuff will go wrong on every one of those teams. It isn't that hard, it doesn't prove your baseball acumen, to figure out what can go wrong. Guys are getting too old, guys don't have enough experience, guys never did it before, it just isn't that hard to find the weak spots. IMHO, to survive as a baseball fan to the ripe old age of BigEdWalsh, YASNY, or FlaSoxxJim you have to be a fan of the game. You have to enjoy a baseball game, win or lose. Be a fan for 30 years and your team will lose over 2,000 games. Attend a lot of games and your team will probably lose close to half of them. Find something to get excited about. Enjoy the sights, the sounds, the smell of the ball park. Baseball is an awesome game. If you can't watch a well played game where your team loses without throwing s*** and being upset, you're killing yourself for nothing. The old guys around here have sat through many a White Sox season where we knew the team had zero chance of making the playoffs. We came away with some great memories. People we met, things we did, great experiences at the games. We saw some great plays from terrible players, we watched some interesting characters. A good season was when a team was competitive until the Bears started playing. Relax and watch the season unfold. Be a fan, look for what could go right. Let your expectations rise, this team, if things go their way, will be in the hunt all summer. Get out of the gloomy shadows of negativity and spend some time in the sunshine thinking about all that is right with the 2011 Sox. If things go to hell, there will be plenty of time to wail and cry. But April is for optimism. Grandpa Tex and his wooden teeth have spoken.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Mar 10, 2011 -> 07:48 AM) Make sure to check out the Cheesecake Factory. This made me laugh.

I was actually thinking of starting a similar thread. Plantar fasciitis. I have it really bad in my right foot, and I think favoring led to it in the left - I have it there, too. I went to a foot doctor and he said that I broke my ankle - I think it happened about 20 years ago (I thought it was a sprain at the time), and it didn't heal correctly. That probably led to the plantar injuries. I've had inserts in both shoes for more than a year, but I don't see any improvement. I think those things are a scam because I had them years ago and never saw any improvement. And those things are expensive. Anyway, I stretch and massage my feet constantly. No improvement. I've been icing and heating them with a gel pack for the last few days, and I've noticed some improvement. I'd like to be able to exercise without pain, too. If anyone has a cure, or even if you want to take a shift massaging my feet....

Seinfeld. Great show in its time, but I can't make myself watch the reruns. It just seems so dated.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Mar 9, 2011 -> 10:29 PM) I mean Use Your Illusion did rock. Appetite for Destruction was way better. G&R - terrible in concert.

Led Zeppelin was pretty much a perfect band. Great vocalist, guitar, bass, and drummer. I don't even see how their greatness can be argued. U2 has made relevant music for 30 years. You might not like it, but it's popular, critically and commercially successful, and has evolved. Most bands their age are greatest hits acts. They might not be your thing, but dismissing them is silly. Pearl Jam > Nirvana.

One thing I don't miss about Chicago is the constant attendance debate between Cubs and Sox fans. If you talk to a Cubs fan, he'll say that the Sox don't matter to the Cubs, blah blah blah. The Cubs always sell out, and the Sox need the Cubs series to sell tickets. We've all heard some variation of this, I'm sure. Kind of funny that the Cubs are now making a big deal about the Cubs/Sox in Wrigleyville. Make the series a festival of sorts. http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_...sox-series.html I wonder if their fans know. See, not another attendance thread. Neatly tucked away in the catch-all.

Charles O. Finley really took care of his batboys.

Sox vs. Diamondbacks in AZ June 17-19 (with a promotion each game - fireworks, trucker hat, bbq set). I was shocked to see that the Sunday game is one of seven games that has premium pricing. The others are 2 against the Dodgers, and one each vs. Cubs, Giants, Reds, and Minnesota.

Spring Training Baseball - $$$, zero intensity, and you mostly only see AA and AAA players. The national perception that Wrigley Field has always been some kind of baseball Mecca. It's really not that long ago that they couldn't draw flies to the place - even with its signature urine smell.

Jimi Hendrix...I guess I can hear Jimi, but I don't hear Jimi. Doesn't really fit the "everyone loves it" aspect of this thread, but I don't love the idea that I occasionally hear that some people consider George Harrison to be the most talented of the Beatles. Nonsense. Hipster nonsense.

The Social Network - perfectly entertaining, but not extraordinary in any way. And the lead actor is just playing himself. No great acting feat.

Boers and Bernstein J Hood

The Godfather 30 Rock

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 24, 2011 -> 05:39 AM) This looks like the wave of the future instead of unloading for free agency, you will load up on picks. When NBA teams make trades for draft picks, why don't they stipulate that the year of the draft pick can be any year within a specific window? Eg. In the Nuggets trade with the Knicks, it's pretty likely that the Knicks will improve and the 2014 1st round pick will be meaningless. A pick in the 20s that's guaranteed money doesn't appeal to me. Wouldn't it make sense for the Nuggets to say that they get one Knicks first round pick any season between 2012 and 2020 and the Knicks have no right to block?

QUOTE (greg775 @ Feb 22, 2011 -> 09:27 PM) You know what ... baseball owners didn't have to do this, escalate salaries to this level. Their own greed and insatiable egos forced them to pay (most of) these players WAY TOO MUCH money. One of the causes of the escalation of salaries was PEDs. Owners looked the other way because fans "dig the long ball." But, ultimately, it created too many guys who put up stats they never would have without PEDs. Suddenly, everyone could hit 30 homeruns. With FA and arbitration, it gave the players/agents ammunition in a deal so salaries rose. In the long run, it's not the owners who foot the bill, though, it's the fans. Going to a baseball game now is a ridiculous expense. If Pujols is clean, and I've never been sure he is, he will not be productive for 10 years. History says so. He might be worth what he's asking for per year, but the length of the contract is a joke.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Feb 16, 2011 -> 08:49 PM) A cookbook I have says to put an egg in water, if it floats its either good or bad, I can't remember which. You would have been great at the Salem witch trials.

Favorite lyric (not the entire song - just one or two lines) from a song.

Just noticed that my coffee creamer expired January 5. I can no longer respect expiration dates, as I've suffered no ill effects.

Just came back from the grocery store. I saw a lady in the parking lot in pajamas and slippers coming out of the store. I don't care who's doing it. It's a bad look. Is that really the image you want to project?

Not sure I agree with MB here. While I don't condone what Vick did in the past, he served his time for the crime. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_leagu...?urn=mlb-319165

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 25, 2011 -> 10:30 PM) http://www.sportspickle.com/picture/4917/2...prove-his-image Wow. Just...wow. Well, Vick never raped any of the dogs, and Big Ben never killed any women.

Kind of funny that his critics (Dilfer, Hassleback, et al) constantly criticize his mechanics, but they want him to play through an injury that wouldn't have allowed him to plant when he threw.

Cutler has been sacked and beaten up for 2 years, yet I've never heard him say anything negative about his line's peformance. He has receivers (mainly Knox and Hester) who frequently give up on balls and don't break up poor throws, but he doesn't lash out at them like Marino, Rivers, and PManning have done. And, yet, he's got a rep as a bad teammate. I don't get it. He left the game today and stayed on the sideline injured. That doesn't mean his knee was stable enough to plant for throws. He wasn't pouting. When they showed him on the bike on the sidelines, it's not like he was doing his best Lance Armstrong impression. He was peddling slowly, and he problably didn't show enough strength and range of motion to go back into the game. When Taylor scored, they showed him smile and cheer. When Hainie was on the bench, Cutler was next to him going over plays. Is that being a bad teammate? All the guys who tweeted about him quitting are pathetic and they really should know better. MJD didn't play his last few games this year while his team was fighting for a playoff spot. Should his toughness be questioned? Lance Moore missed 9 games in '09 while his team was having their best season ever. This season, he's part of the team that was eliminated by the worst team in playoff history. Is his coomitment to winning up for debate? Deion Sanders never met a player on the football field that he wasn't afraid to hit. I guess there's no debate there. Once a loudmouth, always a loudmouth. Yet they question Cutler's toughness and commitment. This is kind of like the David Wells - Frank Thomas thing. What tools. Need attention much?