Princess Dye

I think we have these notions that everyone in Chicago is already a Cubs or Sox fan, and that things like "how interesting is the manager" "how likable are the players" seem to get dismissed. But I think there are swing voters out there. It'd be kind of presumptuous to just think everyone is already a fan. Some people need to be entertained by one of the two teams if they're going to go ahead and spend their entertainment dollar on baseball at all. It seems like in the past, that section of the public has been dominated by the Cubs..but I'm wondering if it will start swinging this way if their team keeps being such a boring, bad product.

Being 30, growing up you didn't hear tons about the White Sox during down time. We knew there were characters on the team, but it obviously was before the 24/7 sports media onslaught that we have today. Nowadays, Ozzie (and family) keep the Sox on the front pages, for better or worse. Does it lead to more revenue for Jerry? Maybe that's why he hasn't really cracked down on this issue. They fired Oney and that was about it. They made it clear that as a non-employee, he can tweet all he wants. And his dad will face no repercussions. Meanwhile, compared to this, the Cubs seem pulseless. And it sounds like ticket sales are hurting there, though obviously losing dictates that. You can still have a losing team with some personality...and that can drive interest for the following year. Which they don't have. I wonder if secretly JR likes aspects of TwitterGate (Pts. I-??)

Compared to the teams that get the air time, we just don't have enough fans. Networks need the viewership other teams provide, and we're just not first tier in that regard. Simple as that.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Feb 1, 2011 -> 01:52 PM) weird, but in Burbank, California I see quite a few Sox fans. There's even a guy a few streets over who has a Sox flag on a pole in his front yard. I hate to break it to you but this man is probably a gang member.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Jan 31, 2011 -> 02:15 PM) I've lived in St. Louis for about 7 years now and I've met about 5 Sox fans here. I've run into some people in that area that say the Sox are their AL team. And obviously there's the mutual rivalry with the Cubs..... but for some reason it seems like St Louis (and the Illinois side which I'm more familiar with) have this anti-Chicago thing that takes precedence over everything else. Before the Rams got there though they had tons of Bears fans in that area.

Slow day topic. I am just beginning to care about other states. It seems like I know more Wisconsin people (in their 20s-30s) that are Sox fans as opposed to Brewers. Is this a representative sample? Northwest Indiana of course has Sox leanings. Anything else I'm missing?

QUOTE (GREEDY @ Jan 22, 2011 -> 04:08 PM) Dude is a DH on a team with three already under contract. f***ing trade him. Doesn't he have a strong arm?

Must be something to be a team's best pitcher and see all these multiyear contracts get handed out left and right. Not at all saying that we aren't doing the right thing, just wondering how it's sitting with him. Player point of view is notoriously shortsighted of course.

Kinney looks like a good low risk acquisition. Bullpen is all about grabbing onto some good luck at low prices.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Jan 9, 2011 -> 03:27 PM) You know what, I'm going to take the high road here. Tex, my apologies if you didn't mean this as a bait thread. I'm just getting sick of not being able to express my opinion, good or bad, without being viewed as some evil demon. I'll admit I'm not the same always optimistic poster I was 3-4 years ago. But I'm almost 28 now and I view things differently than I did when I was 21-22. But anyway, again, my bad. Let this thread evolve into a positive one. 1)We're all entitled to our opinions. 2)we haven't played any games yet, be they wins or losses. we can project but there's no point in getting overheated in our projections. I think with this we may all go in peace.

http://projectprospect.com/article/2010/05...scouting-report Maybe it's been posted before, but this article goes into detail (with video clips) about Sale's throwing motion. It closes with the statement that physically he may be best suited for relief due to what his mechanics flaw might do to him over a huge workload Anyone have thoughts on this?

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Jan 8, 2011 -> 04:35 PM) I think it's about the other Jordan, used to play baseball for Chicago White Sox, and a little basketball for the Bulls i shoulda gone Green

Is Jordan4life a huge Jordan Danks fan?

QUOTE (Disco72 @ Jan 7, 2011 -> 12:11 PM) That's my problem with this trade - I really can't see the Cubs as anywhere near as good as some of the other NL Central teams. If I was a Cubs fan, I'd be pretty confused about what direction my team was headed. It's pretty clear to me what the Cubs are doing. They are gearing up for 2012 to be a spending year. So they get a not-old starter who will be under team control at that point and after that point. Also to say the Cubs are bereft of veteran talent is false. They can still do the win now model, albeit on a 13 month pause. The talent level currently is not enough for 2011, but if they keep some of what they have on board, it would be a fine complement to a spending spree a year from now.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Dec 30, 2010 -> 03:10 PM) I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that my boss would be fired on the spot. Depends what position your boss is in. My boss is the managing partner of a law firm. He would not be fired. Ozzie is the manager of a pro baseball team. Needless to say he's of great value to the organization on a national level. Different bosses face different consequences. In this situation, there are a lot of coaches with difficult personalities leaguewide. If they're successful or valuable they get all kinds of opportunities to keep going. There have been past situations where coaches' kids have had troublesome social networking material up (Tony Dungy's son?). Famous people now have all kinds of glory-seeking family members and friends posting all kinds of things.... so whether right or wrong, it isn't a brand new occurrence. It's the world we're in now.

If I tell my boss something private, it's on me to know that could tell his wife, he could tell his family in some moment. He could tell anyone in a drunken moment. Maybe an unfair parallel, but I guess I just have some trouble with the idea the manager has to be a mental health professional. Obviously he can be. But there are managers/coaches you just know not to approach with that stuff. Scott Skiles in the NBA comes to mind. Players aren't trusting him with deep personal things. He's an x's and o's guy exclusively. Maybe that holds Skiles back from being the idea NBA coach. I don't know. I'm sure there are many like him. Maybe Ozzie becomes that now, and maybe it's not some awful thing.

Kind of a standard player-leaving-the-org-while-upset moment. I'm not going to get too up in arms about whatever Jenks is saying. From all accounts, Ozzie can be difficult to deal with at times. It wouldn't shock anyone to think maybe the manager didn't need to say all this stuff about Jenks earning a closer role. Could've let it just naturally progress and end in his not being here. In my view neither side of this has done anything too horrible. If anything I'm a little irritated that we have now several instances (Frank/Swisher) where there has to be this response to an ex-player's comments. Not that the Sox or Ozzie have responded yet, but obviously it's on the way. I'd rather we remain above it. Future potential FAs dont need to see outgoing FAs having a war of words....every year......

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Dec 22, 2010 -> 07:38 PM) I am a fan of his awesome speed, awesome defense, awesome base-stealing ability, and awesome on-base skills. Pretty good reasons to want a 27-year-old CF if you ask me. Speed isn't as important as starting pitching. Not saying other things wouldn't go into such a deal, that's just not enough for me.

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Dec 17, 2010 -> 12:07 PM) I don't know how you guys can just capitalize the word "cubs" so carelessly. 7 years of talking baseball on the internet and I still can't do it. Makes me sick It's a proper noun. This point you make matters less to me than almost anything on earth.

Purely guessing here, but I'd bet that Wood got it in his head fairly early that he wanted to live in Chicago even if taking a discount. So the W.Sox probably put in their discounted offer by comparison to say Yankees or whoever. Then the Cubs decided to put in their mega lowball offer, and Wood probably figured if he's discounting his salary anyway, why not go to the familiar preferred location.

Gotta think Wood = revenue for the Cubs. More so than just any old reliever signing, at least.

If Kerry Wood refuses to play for the Sox due to his Cubs roots, I actually think that's kind of good. I wish more players cared about the rivalries a little more. Instead of being check cashers exclusively, etc. It's not the biggest deal to me one way or the other, but just kind of interesting. I also heard AJP say he would not play for the Cubs unless he was broke.

My wife saw Kerry Wood at the western/belmont toys r' us once.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 14, 2010 -> 06:12 PM) $27.5? WTF? lol. Man f*** Cliff Lee. And this is another reason I will NEVER get married. Apparently his wife was a major factor in his decision to go back to Philly. b**** STFU and realize you're pretty worthless and just happen to be married to a professional athlete. So some dumbass Yankee fans were mean to you once. Not saying I wanted him to go to NY. But GMAB. Michael Jordan should really stop posting here.

QUOTE (joeynach @ Dec 13, 2010 -> 10:51 PM) While we like Cliff Lee leaving our League so we dont have to deal with him, if the the Yanks lose out on him they will throw $$ at relievers left on the open market. That will all but end the likelihood that the White Sox are able to sign bullpen help this off season. So which is it exactly that we want. perhaps NYY will just get a high priced reliever (Soriano) and a good lefty...which is $$-wise probably not what we're going to be competing for. If we sign two relievers instead of acquire by trade....I'd see us ending up with a moderately priced decent righty and a shot-in-the-dark lefty.