Balta1701

QUOTE (BobDylan @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 08:41 PM) This would be a great point if not for the fact that a message board is already designed to promote the high discussion topics by pushing them to the top of the forum. The catch-all thread killed PHT. Let your userbase decide what they want to talk about and let the message board work how its supposed to work. PHT is dead?

QUOTE (bmags @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 11:50 AM) I think democrats need to realize there was a football game on last night. I highly doubt the clinton speech changes the election. I've seen a website or two where I can't tell if people realize that, but otherwise, do a lot of people pretend it will?

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 01:43 PM) Wonder what that chart would look like if you removed Ford sales, since they didn't take any of Uncle Sugar's money. Or does Obama get credit for 'fixing' them, too? Ford's sales basically parallel the other auto manufacturers, they plummet in 2008 after the economy was destroyed. And of course, if you want to ask whether Ford was helped by the bailouts, you could always go to the statements of its CEO: Ford shares too much of its supply chain with the other manufacturers. If the other manufacturers went down, even if Ford was in decent shape, it would wind up with the same catastrophe. If not, then Mulally made the worst decision in business history in supporting the bailouts, because Ford could have taken over the entire U.S. auto market by letting GM and Chrysler fall.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 03:04 PM) Why the hell aren't the people committing these crimes in juvenile facilities arrested and charged? Are these facilities being run by out of control animals? There are laws out there and if these facilities are all corrupt ... WTF is going on???? Get this problem fixed! Rape in prisons is ok. It's a joke, not a crime. See where my outrage comes from when people suggest that it's going to happen once someone gets sent to jail? It's really hard to get it fixed too...because virtually no one is willing to stand up for the rights of prisoners to not be raped...because that involves standing up for the rights of prisoners. Most politicians get elected calling for tougher treatment of prisoners, not sympathy for them.

QUOTE (Swingandalongonetoleft @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 10:55 AM) Spiegel sounds like he thinks he knows better but can't outright say it because MLB shot it down for the moment, so he's begrudgingly dismissing it. It's the same tone of voice he would use when Cowley regularly guested on his show and said something that he vehemently disagreed with, but didn't bother pursuing it because he felt like it was't worth the trouble, there was no convincing him otherwise. Huh? Is this something going on right now on radio or is there something in that last article/quote that you're reading but I don't get?

QUOTE (Brian @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 10:53 AM) No, but he's gonna hear from me. Give him an earful from me too...you're the one who really got me worried that this was more than an unfounded rumor.

QUOTE (Brian @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 10:39 AM) I say we blame Kaplan for starting the rumor. Hear anything from your sun-times friend today?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 10:20 AM) Is it at least possible, a 35 year old catcher who plays as much as AJ, in a summer that was extremely hot, with a young pitching staff that throws a lot of balls in the dirt, so he will take an extra beating, has a performance dip due to the tank being a little low? Of course, but that wasn't what fathom was referring to with his statement about "The stuff we've heard". "The stuff we've heard" were a few vague tossaway lines from Konerko and the guys on the radio that seemed to suggest AJ was a bit distracted recently (and heck, even people here have been frustrated with his hustle down the line lately).

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 10:01 AM) Considering the number of people that supposedly heard about AJ though, it seems hard to believe no one in the front office would have heard/been asked about it until yesterday if this was true. Depends on what we mean by "Supposedly heard". All we've got until the WSI post are a few vague statements that suggest a couple people thought AJ was distracted, and his performance falling off over the past week or two. There's a lot of things that could be. Maybe he's in the Adam Dunn boat of a sick kid. Maybe he's having other family troubles. Maybe he had an extra bad hangover and the team was annoyed with him for it.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 09:56 AM) I'm pretty sure Chrysler is a brand again right? Please explain to us how the auto industry was not fixed. Depends on how you define fixed. Sales haven't recovered to the pre-recession levels, but they have been steadily recovering overall. Blue bars mark recessions. (I do like how the manufactured debt ceiling crisis actually shows up in there)

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 09:52 AM) I don't know the process at all, and wanted to clarify it. Would the Sox even know if something was happening? It seems weird that they would call MLB to check, if they should already know. If he's believable, Brian Sabean says he found out about Melky ~ 24 hours before the suspension became public...I'd guess that means teams aren't informed during an appeal.

There's a whole page in the platform devoted to a discussion of "Faith" and the Republicans whipped up their usual media firestorm because it didn't use the word they chose, and then the convention had to pause to re-edit the platform to shut down a stupid Republican media firestorm. I'd have booed too.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 5, 2012 -> 11:43 PM) This comment by Balta should make me look even better in regards to this argument. Great. I am glad he will be fearing sitting in a room 23 hours a day with his only reprieve one hour of sunlight per day. That is just as horrifying a thing as prison rape. So great, if it's more humanitarian, I can state I hope Holmes currently is fearing the possibility of sitting in a cell 23 hours a day the rest of his life. He won't know what day it is, what week it is, what holiday is coming up. He gave up the right to have a life by taking the lives of so many others. Fear that, Mr. Holmes because YOU CHOSE THAT, Mr. Holmes. I am fully content with that as a punishment and would encourage you to in the future consider this as a good goal, while leaving "Rape" out of it.

I live 20 minutes from the Cubs' Southern League affiliate.

Can WSI get the "As featured in Sports Illustrated" tag line if this winds up false?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 09:05 AM) 2013 TY, my bad.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 09:13 AM) Of course, Marty will say we should have traded Matt Thornton and not re-signed John Danks. Actually, the trading Matt Thornton thing...well, he hasn't been lights out this season has he?

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 07:18 AM) Seems like there's reason to be optimistic...and reason to believe it's true. We hear that a guy says it's legit and there will be a press conference today, and we hear that MLB says it's false. Like someone else asked: If we hear nothing today, does this go away or does it still loom? If we hear nothing today, it might kinda loom, this thread will get bumped a few times, but I consider "Hearing nothing" to be tantamount to "AJ passed every test that he took this season". If he somehow got out on a technicality, that's passing unless we somehow get details on the technicality and it winds up being Ryan Braun style crap.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Sep 5, 2012 -> 11:35 PM) Worst post ever. You have no idea who is or isn't using steroids across the league, yet you want to punish 24 innocent (as far as we know) people for a bad decision made by one teammate. I've never quite understood your position on steroids. I don't want to have my own brain put an asterisk on the season. How many games have we won because of big plays by AJ (or for that matter, Rios, etc.) I find out one of them tested positive, and the Sox make the playoffs, my brain is going to spend the whole time adding up how many wins we got because of the suspended guy. I go out for drinks with yankee fan friend of mine tonight, I'm going to have to say "yeah, that sweep where AJ helped us win a game with 3 hits...was crap." I don't want to have to defend my team when they have success, I don't want to have to come up with excuses like "well your guys are probably doing it too", I want to be able to brag about my team when they win.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Sep 6, 2012 -> 08:52 AM) Never heard someone describe Ivan Rodriguez as power hitting but he was definitely a roider, also It is highly likely Mike Piazza was a roider. IRoid hit 311 home runs in his career. In his 1999 MVP year, he hit 35.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 5, 2012 -> 10:19 PM) This is a good year for me on here. People have been praising a lot of Sox I stood up for in the past on here: Quentin, D. Wise all have been getting plenty of love. How bout some love for Pods now? Marty's been pulling this schtick all year Greg.

Also worth noting that we got Liriano with 1 of the 2 returned pieces?

QUOTE (G&T @ Sep 5, 2012 -> 09:18 PM) Why, so some other roided team get make it? I really think we are seeing all the positive tests because these guys are juicing at as high a rate as ever and MLB is making a stand. At least some other team wouldn't have won a ton of games thanks to a suspended guy. Giants, As get that treatment already.

QUOTE (Jake @ Sep 5, 2012 -> 09:14 PM) If we do, I hope T-Flow goes ham all of September Huh?

Ok I'll say it. If this is true I don't want to make the playoffs this year.