Balta1701

Ok...now we just need the $15 million man.

Hill is the only batter left on the Cubs bench to PH.

BLAST

Can we send Floyd out for the 9th?

That. Inning. SUCKED.

Wise in for Dye.

Damnit JD.

Get. Him. In.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 18, 2009 -> 01:34 PM) Were the homers cheap or crushed? Oh, and it's a good thing we completely wasted Thome in the 8th. Ozzie's addiction to R/R and L/L match-ups is killing us today. Lee's was in the basket.

F*** you Linebrink.

F*** you Linebrink.

Damnit Linebrink.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jun 18, 2009 -> 01:18 PM) I don't mind Linebrink in this situation. Close game but not too close. The top of the Cubs order is either all righties or is terrible against righties, so I can live with Linebrink for now. It does seem like Ozzie's under-using Thor though doesn't it?

Really? Fields for Thome? Seriously?

I'd have left Floyd in.

They only gave Becks a single. Sad. I think Marmol needs a change of scenery.

The bottom of our lineup is feasting on these guys.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 18, 2009 -> 10:04 AM) Eh. I don't really think that's how it happened. FDR did everything he could to keep us out of the war. Yes we supplied the Allies with money, food, weapons and supplies, but I don't think he was itching for a fight. It did, however, seem inevitable that we'd be in the war at some point. Japan's tactic was to hit us hard before while we were getting ready. They just got lucky that our entire Atlantic fleet was unmanned and in one small location. 1. Pacific Fleet, not Atlantic Fleet. 2. There was a couple reasons why the Fleet was there, and they fit in to the larger picture. It was moved to Pearl from San Diego in 1940 IIRC because of the threat of Japan. And it was all sitting in port, except for the Carriers, because the support craft (Destroyers, tankers) had all been shipped to the Atlantic to aid in the battle of the Atlantic against the U-Boats. 3. FDR had a very difficult balancing act. He knew Britain falling would be terrible for America and it's pretty obvious he understood that America was going to be sucked in eventually (See; the defense buildup rapidly starting in 1940) but at the same time he couldn't push the population as far as he wanted and he didn't have Congress's support for a lot of things, so he went around them. The Atlantic Charter, for example, should have been something considered a treaty, and thus something that should have gone to the Senate for approval, but FDR never treated it as such and never got pushed on it as hard as he legally should have been before the war actually began.

QUOTE (BearSox @ Jun 18, 2009 -> 09:51 AM) Yeah, except until they bombed pearl harbor... however, when you look back at it, Japan had a legit reason to consider us an enemy. It is no secret that FDR wanted to enter the war and he was providing a ton of help to Britian. Japan figured we'd join sooner or later, so they decided to strike first. Japan was a complete surprise for the people at the top, especially how they did it. FDR wanted to help Britain in its war against Germany. The U.S. was almost neglecting Japan as an enemy, moving ships from the Pacific to the Atlantic, etc., in 1940-41. A lot of people sort of understood that war was coming, but it really didn't get its due until the 7th. The thing that really pushed Japan over the edge was that the U.S. began embargoing oil shipments from Indonesia to Japan in 1941 in protest of the Japanese invasion of China. Japan basically had to either come up with a supply of oil or run out of energy within 6 months. They chose to seize the supply they needed, and getting the people enforcing the embargo out of the way was a mandatory step.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jun 18, 2009 -> 09:39 AM) As you said, it's one of those situations where you'll never what would have/could have been. However, doesn't it say something about the Japanese when even after the first bomb dropped, it took a second to convince them to surrender? If they were even teetering towards the "let's surrender" option, wouldnt you think after the first bomb dropped it would have led to an almost immediate action by the Japanese? Who knows? But I think it does say a lot for the mentality they had at the time. Regardless, I think it's wrong to criticize that decision because it wasnt like Truman did it recklessly. From all accounts that decision bothered him to the day he died. The response to that is; we're too used to our modern age of communication. If an atomic weapon went off right now, we'd have the pictures on the news within a day, even if it wasn't safe to go in to the area. Put yourself in 1945 Japan. A city has just been completely obliterated out of no where. The country has been at war for years, its supplies are strained, virtually every city except for a handful, including the capitol, have been fire-bombed to pieces. There's no electronic communication. There's no email. There's phone and telegraph service and radio, but the bomb took all of those out. If you want to get pictures of the devastation, you literally have to be in the area, take the film, have it not destroyed by radiation, not die yourself, process them, and then ship them across a bombed-out country. And at the same time, the Russians attacked in Manchuria and overwhelmed the Japanese army, so the army itself was incredibly distracted. The 2nd bomb was being dropped before the Japanese had anything but the most basic of an understanding of what had happened in Hiroshima.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 18, 2009 -> 09:02 AM) To step back from this ridiculous argument a bit, would I be happy if the Sox won the division? Sure I would, if the Sox were addressing long term goals as well. Would I be happy with a division title at the expense of risking Quentin's health and not addressing the glut of dh's, the 3b problem, the CF problem? Absolutely not. Viciedo, Danks, Beckham, Getz, and Ramirez aren't enough to consider those goals addressed for the long-term as well as possible? There's certainly no guarantee that they'll all succeed, but they're all talented, under our control for a number of years, and several of them can fill those spots you worry about. And let's say 1 or 2 of them do bust...then we have the guy we just drafted this year, or maybe we have some luck from somewhere else in the draft...or finally, we have a good amount of financial flexibility because we have 3-4 cheap young guys in our lineup and so we can go out and buy a guy to fill in the spot. I think we're on fairly sound footing for the long-term...it's just a question of developing these guys we already have and seeing who sticks and who doesn't.

Have a day, G.

QUOTE (Cubano @ Jun 17, 2009 -> 08:26 PM) Would the Japanese surrender without a fight? After the war, a decade or so later, Truman as asked whether he regretted his decision to drop the bomb. His response was intriguing...knowing what he knew at the time he'd have done so, knowing what he learned after the war he would not. There were indications within the Japanese government that even without the bomb, the leadership was on the verge of being broken. They'd already had a hell of a fight, and if the Soviets had entered (they did after we dropped the bomb) that might have been enough. It's really a fascinating subject and there are absolutely no easy answers. Yes. The European was was over in May of 1945. The invasion of the first Japanese Home Island wouldn't have been until late 1945 or 1946 at the earliest. See answer #1. It's possible 1 million. It's possible zero. Not directly. Truman issued repeated statements threatening Japan with something big if they did not surrender, but did not explicity state what he meant. There were other alternatives considered...like testing the bomb on an island near Japan (i.e. the Aleutians or something like that) such that the Japanese could see the power of the weapon without having it deployed against them. The U.S. decided that their supply of the weapons was too limited and the Japanese weren't going to surrender without being hit by it. Again, without having actually seen the alternate decision play out, who knows?

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 17, 2009 -> 04:15 PM) interesting to note that Soriano will STILL be patrolling LF and hitting leadoff for the cubs in 2014 making 18 million dollars a year. You're assuming he isn't hurt.

Yippee.